Classic Reprint: Gus has a shock (1985)

A Classic Reprint from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

The lies, distortions and omissions which characterise the bosses' press are hallmarks of a system which can only survive by ensuring the political slumber of the majority class. Anyone who thinks that capitalism is a genuinely democratic social system has only to look at the minority ownership and control of the means of communication to understand just how unfree present-day society is. In a socialist society the technology of social communication will be at the disposal of all members of society, and there will be neither owners (private or state) nor advertisers to determine what may be published. Indeed, any opponents of socialism will have free access to the press and other media, for the socialist majority will have nothing to fear from the open expression of the ridiculous case for capitalism. (Indeed, party political broadcasts might be shown on television as comedy entertainment.) 

The following classic reprint was written by F. C. Watts, one of the finest writers of the early years of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and was published in the Socialist Standard in January 1907.

GUS: You socialists ought to be grateful for the glorious institution of the free press instead of criticising the great newspapers as you do.

WILL: Grateful to whom? The so-called freedom of the press is, in reality, painfully limited; but such as it is, it was granted because absolutely necessary to commercial development. Material interests dictated it; not any love of the people. The capitalist class give us nothing but what it is to their interest to give, either to increase their profits or stave off their defeat, and we know from bitter experience that we have most to fear when our enemies profess a regard for us. 

GUS: But can you deny that the great daily newspapers are glorious and beneficient institutions, fearlessly standing out for truth and purity in public life? 

WILL: I emphatically and entirely deny every word of it!

GUS: Do you mean to say that the modern press is not free, or that it suppresses or perverts the truth?

WILL: I mean to say that the modern newspaper, by its very nature as a commercial venture, cannot exist except by perverting the truth; and that it is absolutely the slave of capitalist interests.

GUS: You surprise me. Explain yourself.

WILL: With pleasure. Now, newspapers are run by limited liability companies to obtain a profit, are they not?

GUS: That is so.

WILL: To get a profit they must sell; to sell they must please, to please they must suit themselves to the prejudices, ignorance or interests of their supporters.

     (Gus opens his eyes)

WILL: They cannot, then, afford to continue any line of policy when it does not pay, or when it is unpopular with the public or with that section of which they have constituted themselves the mouthpiece. To get the largest circulation and the greatest percentage of profit they must say what their readers or supporters want them to say, or else go under.

     (Gus looks startled)

WILL: Nor is that all; they have an even more important person to cater for — the advertiser. He is partly satisfied if the journal panders successfully to a large number of the public; but as a manufacturer he has important capitalist interests, and therefore would not support, by his advertisement, any journal that, through a love of truth, attacked his interests in any way.

    (Gus looks frightened)

WILL: Further, the various sections of the capitalist party have enormous campaign funds, and the newspapers, being run for profit, must slavishly support their capitalist party interest or forgo their reward. And the journalists who run the papers are the wage-slaves of the proprietors, compelled to utter, not what they think, but what their employers consider will sell best, and will please most the capitalist interest.

   (Gus tries to hide himself, Will holds him back)

WILL: Don’t run away, I’ve not done yet. The modern newspaper is thus, in the main, the reflection of the commonest, most superficial and most servile opinions of the public, and at the same time the advocate of the interests of its capitalist owners and advertisers. It is, therefore, against the financial policy of the modern newspaper to enlighten the working class; particularly in any direction that runs counter to capitalist interests. To satisfy its principal clients, the great advertisers and the political leaders, it must expound the views of the ruling class (or of a section thereof) and so doctor these views that the people may easily swallow them. It must, whenever the workers show a tendency to think clearly, carefully draw the wool over their eyes in order to keep them at the tail of the capitalist party and ignorant of the things that should concern them. For the rest, in order to earn its profits, the newspaper must batten on the ignorance and folly of its public.

GUS (who feels that the scales have fallen from his eyes): Well, but how can we alter it?

WILL: Only by abolishing the profit system. But we can help this on by doing all in our power to spread enlightenment among the workers and so show them the utter worthlessness of capitalist journalism; we can help by organising the workers for the overthrow of capitalist domination, and by pointing out that it is their duty to support a press of their own, not run by an individual or company (or profit, but owned and controlled by a genuine working-class organisation for the propagation of definite working-class principles. Thus alone can the education and emancipation of the working class be accomplished, and the freedom of the press from the curse of profit and capitalist domination become a fact.

F. C. Watts

What the papers say — and what they don’t (1978)

From the March 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many readers will be aware of a regular B.B.C. radio feature called What The Papers Say. It is a digest of the most important articles in the day’s press. For those of us who can’t afford/can’t stomach to read every daily newspaper it provides a useful summary of what they are saying. It has often seemed that a rather more enlightening feature would be What the Papers Don’t Say or, even better, Why the Papers Said What They Did. The idea implied by calling a newspaper The Daily Mirror is that the press works on a reflective basis, i.e. the publication in written form of the facts as they really happened. This is far from the case. In fact, the press works on the principle of selecting what events are suitable for public consumption, deciding how the ‘story’ is to be told in accordance with ‘editorial policy’ (which is a journalistic term for political bias) and making sure that the ‘facts’ are not likely to contradict illusions created by the advertisements. The role of the press is more to do with implanting views than spreading news. Indeed, when a news event interferes with the image that the editor wants perpetuated, then it must either be not referred to or else distorted, in such a way so as to back up rather than contradict the political line of the newspaper.

Editorial Selectivity

Workers in Britain are brought up to believe that we live in a free country. We are told that Britain is democratic because there is a ‘free press’. It is an illusion to believe that the press in a capitalist society can be anything but the propaganda tool of the minority class whose social survival depends on the political ignorance of the masses. That is not to say that newspapers are part of some kind of capitalist conspiracy to brainwash the working class. An important distinction must be made between conscious political indoctrination and more subtle editorial selectivity. Indoctrination requires a captive audience, i.e. one which has only one source of news which is controlled totally by the State. The press in countries where capitalism takes a more liberal form of work on the basis of giving support to the status quo, but criticising the leaders of capitalism on matters not likely to lead to fundamental social change. A clear comparison between the two methods of capitalist propaganda can be seen by looking at the press in Russia and in this country.

Undemocratic

Russia, despite its claim to be socialist, is one of the most brutal and undemocratic capitalist regimes in existence. The press has been developed by the ruling Communist Party as an elaborate and complex apparatus designed to shape the thinking of the Soviet working class. Krushchev, in 1956, said to a gathering of writers and artists

The press is our chief ideological weapon. It is called upon to rout the enemies of the working class, the enemies of the toilers (sic). Just as an army cannot fight without weapons, so the Party cannot successfully carry on its ideological work without such a sharp and militant weapon as the press. (Printed in Kommunist, no. 12, August 1957)

To ensure that the Soviet media carry out their task of indoctrination there exists a Department of Propaganda and Agitation, a Ministry of Culture, a Ministry of the Radio-Technical industry as well as a Press Commission. There are over 7,000 Soviet newspapers reaching over 100 million readers. All newspapers are controlled centrally—editorials are written by Communist Party officials and circulated for publication. All newspaper editors are appointed by the State and are subject to strict contiol from Moscow: each Soviet periodical must have the mark of authorisation from Glavslit, the government censorship agency.

Despite such attempts by the Soviet dictatorship to control the media, they have learnt that running a system of indoctrination presents problems:

there are serious chinks in the Soviet propaganda armour. The agitators, for example, are caught between the direct pressures and hostilities of the population from below, and the constant pressure of the Party from above demanding that they exhort and goad on the population to still greater efforts and sacrifice. As a result thousands each year abandon their work as agitators. Editors must constantly be reprimanded for ideological ‘deviations’ in their newspapers . . . And the regime is in many respects a prisoner of its own system. For, insofar as it wishes to judge the state of popular thinking, it must rely either on the secret police or on the reports of the agitators and the newspaper editors. (Developments in Soviet Mass Communications in Social Change in Soviet Russia, A. Inkeles, 1968)

The evolution of the British press has been along different lines because of the historical circumstances in which it emerged. It was created by the rising British capitalist class in the Eighteenth Century as a weapon in their struggle against the feudal State. The battle to publish parliamentary debates, to criticise the government and even to criticise the King, in the case of John Wilkes, was won by the capitalist class. Freedom to criticise is a tradition of the press which grew out of the division within the ruling class. Until the last two decades of the Nineteenth Century the press in Britain was independently owned, often by family concerns relying primarily on classified advertisements and regular sales. It was not possible for any one section of the ruling class to control the press as no one section owned it. It was the so-called Northcliffe revolution of the 1880’s which transformed the role of the press, for it was then that the previously independently owned newspapers were taken over by corporate press houses which were dependent on expensive, block display advertising. From then on newspapers became the province of large, capital intensive corporations, such as Beaverbrook, which endeavoured to direct editorial policy towards winning support for their class interest. The press in Britain is, therefore, free in that peculiar sense that freedom exists under capitalism: they are free to lie, distort, slander, publish trivia and exclude serious issues. Nevertheless, there does exist the freedom to publish alternative ideas, which is vital to the growth of the Socialist Party.

But the press under capitalism is not free in the Socialist sense, for to be so anyone would have access to the control of newspapers instead of a small group of businessmen or bureaucrats more committed to self-preservation than to providing useful information. How, then, can the aim of a free press be realised? One argument is that those who produce newspapers — editors, journalists, office staff, printers — should democratically participate in running them. The attempted ‘workers control’ of the Scottish Daily Express showed the unpractically of such reform within a society which places advertising revenue above democratic principles. Another argument, often advocated by the “Left”, is for the nationalisation of the print industry. As can be seen from the Russian example, State control of the means of communication, while politically benefiting those parties which are politically in agreement with the government of the day, can lead to discrimination against those seeking changes which are unwelcome to the State.

In fact, there is no way within capitalist society that the press can be made fully democratic. Capitalists will always provide newspapers with money for two reasons: to buy space to advertise their commodities to the workers who read the newspapers and to ensure the perpetration of capitalist ideology in a popular form — just as their great grandfathers supported the pulpit; they rely on huge sales to members of the working class. It is in the interest of all members of that class, whether they read The Times or The Sun to reject the lies and illusions of the capitalist press and support a journal which stands for their emancipation from the unfree society.

Steve Coleman

Voice From The Back: Worldwide genocide (2001)

The Voice From The Back Column from the October 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Worldwide genocide

Under the headline “Scientists to probe worldwide genocide” The Observer gives yet more proof about how awful modern capitalism is. “The world’s first centre for the investigation of genocide is to be set up by British scientists with experience of working with some of the most appaling war crimes of modern times. The International Forensic Centre of Excellence for the Investigation of Genocide (Inforce) will use expertise gained in excavating mass graves in the Balkan conflict to provide independent evidence of war crimes and state-sponsored killing from across the world … The new centre, which could be up and running by the end of next year, plans to investigate atrocities in Sierra Leone, Central Africa and Indonesia. It is estimated that about 170 million people have been murdered by their own governments in the past century.” A hundred years of political reformism, thousands of “peace” conferences and this is what capitalism produces. Inside a socialist system we will have no need for an organisation called The International Forensic Centre of Excellence for the Investigation of Genocide. Who knows? We may even have one called The Global Centre for the Understanding of Diverse Cultures.

Sour notes

Rupert Murdoch’s Times has been sponsoring a long running campaign against the British government adopting the Euro currency. Now it seems they have another reason to be anti-Euro – it offends their aesthetic sense. “The euro banknotes are stark, bland and dead. With no recognisable building and no friendly humanity, they look as though they have been designed by committee, as they have … The design principle could not differ more from those of the pound. On the £20 note an imposing portrait of the Queen dominates. Flip it over and there is Sir Edward Elgar, with Worcester Cathedral in the background. There is nothing so bold on the euro notes.” The Times, 31 August. But all those lovers of bits of paper depicting parasites and monuments to outmoded institutions should not despair. Inside socialism you would still be able to see them in the Museum of Ancient Artifacts alongside such displays as the flint axe and the suit of armour. Who knows, it may even be housed in Worcester Cathedral.

Freedom of the press

Shock, Horror, Probe, Startling Revelations and all the other stupid cliches of the media. The Guardian of 6 September astonished us all with its findings. “Rupert Murdoch’s influence over editorial policy at his most prestigious British title, the Times, is so great that journalists are censored by executives frightened of offending their proprietor, according to a former member of the paper’s foreign staff. In a stinging attack in the London Evening Standard Mr Kiley wrote that Mr Murdoch’s friendship with Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister, and Mr Murdoch’s extensive Israeli investments led executives to extensively rewrite copy.” Of course, the proprietors of The Guardian never interfere in the dissemination of truth. That is why you often see articles in that journal attacking private property and advocating World Socialism. Don’t you?

Another brilliant ‘Marxist’

The Socialist Party has always insisted that China and Russia were never socialist, had nothing to do with Marxism and were in fact examples of state capitalism. The recent antics of the Chinese leadership show how correct we were. This piece of nonsense was reported in The Guardian (13 September) under the heading “China’s leader tries to wed Marx and Blair”. “President Jiang Zemin of China has stolen the mantle from the late Mao Zedong in a new press campaign that suggests he is a brilliant Marxist as well as a great leader. Mr. Jiang has made a “new contribution” to Marxist theory which should be studied throughout the country, the Communist party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, said this week. And according to Hong Kong reports of a recent top level conference, Mr. Jiang and his supporters now wish to study the experience of European social democracy: “Many in our party believe that the Third Way is not such a bad idea,” a party theorist, Yan Shuhan, told Asiaweek magazine, referring to the credo with which Tony Blair is most identified.”

A mad, mad world

Amidst the millions of words pumped out by the media on the hijacked aircraft carnage in the USA, the following short letter in the Guardian (13 September) contained probably the wisest. “Shortly after 3pm British time, as the events in the US were unfolding, BBC News began analysing how the situation would affect share prices – surely yet more proof, as if any were needed, of what a sick world we live in.”

Editorial: Disillusionment in India (1951)

Editorial from the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

In addition to being members of the working class exploited by Capitalism, the Indian workers under Nehru and the British workers under Attlee have in common the experience of being presented with much-praised gifts that they are now discovering to be valueless. In Britain the workers celebrated nationalisation only to find that it leaves them in just the same exploited condition as before. In India the workers celebrated independence but are now sadly waking up to find that Capitalism and its politicians are just the same though the flag has changed.

Here are a few recent incidents in India to show just how little difference it has made.

Under British rule Indian Nationalists complained bitterly of British interference with the liberty of the Press. Now Nehru, who used to voice the protests, has got the Indian Parliament to pass an Act which gives the Government power to suppress newspapers in certain circumstances. The All-India newspaper editors' conference at Bombay has passed a resolution in favour of taking their protests to the United Nations and decided that every issue of their papers will carry the following inscription above the editorial: “Freedom of expression is our birthright, and we shall not rest until it is fully guaranteed by the Constitution.” (Daily Mail, 25/6/51.) One of the defenders of the Indian Government's action was the son of the late Mahatma Gandhi, who, father and son, used to protest against the British Government for denying freedom of the Press in India.

Then, on 11th July, the President of the Indian Republic "promulgated an ordinance . . . enabling the Government to take prompt steps to prevent strikes in the essential services.” (Manchester Guardian, 12th July, 1951.) It is directed especially against a threatened railway strike and those found guilty of instigating strikes will be liable to terms of imprisonment

Even the fraudulent facade erected by the Government to disguise the naked brutality of Indian Capitalism has been borrowed from the British Labour Government, for we read that in his report to the Congress Party Prime Minister Nehru “laid stress on the need for building up a Welfare State by combining private enterprise with the essential features of Socialism.” (Observer, 8/7/51.)

The prophet of Indian Nationalism, Gandhi, preached pacifism and his attitude was largely shared by Nehru. In line with this reputation a number of British writers, including supporters of the Labour Party, recently sent him a message thanking him for his “efforts for world peace.” (Manchester Guardian, 17/3/51.) It is the same Nehru who belligerently threatens war against the equally belligerent Government of Pakistan over possession of the disputed State of Kashmir.

Of course the stresses and strains of Indian politics have led to movements to form breakaway political parties in opposition to the Congress Party. One of them is led by Mr. Kripalani, whose speech at the inaugural convention is reported as follows by The Times (16/6/51):—

"Mr. Kripalani, who was voted to the chair, said that he had nothing to offer his follower but hard work. Food, clothing, and the housing position had deteriorated since independence. Their enemy to-day was sloth, indifference, superstition, and power politics. Power was necessary for the conduct of human affairs, but became despicable when used for sectional and selfish ends. He had worked under Gandhi’s leadership for India’s freedom, but had lived to hear people saying that things had been better under foreign rule. What could be more degrading for self-respecting Indians? ”

The new party proclaims its aim to be the establishment “of a free, democratic, casteless and classless society” (Manchester Guardian, 18/6/51), but, like Nehru and the Congress Party, they too are going to combine State Capitalism and private Capitalism, but with less emphasis on nationalisation.

The so-called India Socialist Party, which has no better claim to the name Socialist than has the British Labour Party, has a new programme which includes abolition of the rural landlord system without compensation, the “nationalisation of insurance and banking companies,” etc., a capital levy, and no incomes above £900 a year. (Manchester Guardian, 6/7/51.) Being an opportunist, reformist and vote-catching organisation, it has had talks with Mr. Kripalani's party about possible combined electoral action against the Congress Party. The Congress Party used to catch votes with the plea that independence would solve the problems of the Indian workers, though, having made India a Republic within the British Commonwealth, Nehru now defends the policy of remaining inside. So the “India Socialist Party” is trying to collect the votes of workers disgusted with Nehru's government by promising to take India out of the Commonwealth and by forming a new grouping of Powers “from Indonesia to Egypt,” in opposition to both the American-British group and the Russian group.

The significant thing about all these groups in the Indian political world is that every single item of all their programmes has been lifted from the British capitalist-reformist parties. They have taken with them on their departure from the rule of British Capitalism all the trashy political nostrums, everything in fact except the one thing British experience could have taught them—the uselessness to the workers of reforming Capitalism, and the necessity of establishing Socialism.

Can there be Freedom of the Press? (1941)

From the April 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The suppression of the Daily Worker by the Home Secretary has led to lively arguments about the whole question of the freedom of the Press, freedom of meetings and freedom of discussion, and it is something on which the S.P.G.B. has a unique contribution to make. The attitude taken up by the various persons concerned can be briefly summarised as follows. The Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert Morrison, says that while he wishes to interfere as little as possible with the freedom of the Press, a line has to be drawn when there is “systematic publication of matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue.” The Liberal Manchester Guardian, while recalling John Stuart Mill’s famous defence of freedom of the Press, nevertheless finds itself in agreement with the suppression. To the extent that there is criticism of the Home Secretary it has, in the main, turned only on the method, not the suppression itself. These critics would have preferred that the Daily Worker, instead of being suppressed by order of the Home Secretary, should have been charged with some specific offence and brought before the Courts, where it could have defended itself. The News Chronicle went so far as to say that “if it had been any other paper …. suppression without proceedings would have raised a storm of protest” (News Chronicle, January 29th, 1941). The Daily Worker itself, through its editor, Mr. W. Rust, retorted that though quite prepared to face a Court of Law, “for our part we object to the assassination of liberty whatever the method employed” (News Chronicle, January 28th, 1941).

Since there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Home Secretary, the Manchester Guardian and the News Chronicle, when they say that they have not wanted a policy of suppression but have been led by circumstances to support it in a particular case, it is at once apparent that they find it in practice impossible to apply their professed principle of freedom. Is it the principle that is wrong or must the circumstances be changed? In other words, is the S.P.G.B. right in its claim that there is not and never can be unfettered freedom of expression until Socialism has been established?

John Stuart Mill on Liberty

John Stuart Mill, in his essay “On Liberty,” written in 1849, stated the classic case for freedom of discussion, etc. He considered all the arguments for and against suppression and firmly declared his conclusion that “There ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” (See Everyman edition—”Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government.” Page 78.)

“We can never be sure,” he wrote, “that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still” (p. 79).

His argument was not concerned primarily with the right of the individual, but with the loss to society, for, he said, it is in the interest of mankind that every view should be freely stated and every criticism of accepted opinions heard and considered. Only by such a clash of views can the truth be established. Among many interesting points in his essay is his demonstration of the falsity of the sentimental opinion that “truth always triumphs over persecution” (p. 89). With many examples, he shows that history “teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries.”

He did not forget to stress the obligation of minorities to state their unpopular views temperately and with restraint if they wish them to make their way against prejudice and inertia.

Communists always against Freedom of Speech

When the editor of the Daily Worker stated that the Communists’ “object to the assassination of liberty, whatever the method employed,” he must have been counting on the ignorance of those who read his statement. It is utterly untrue. From first to last, and in every place where they have had the opportunity, the Communists have sought to prevent their opponents, of whatever kind, from expressing their views. In the early days Lenin was frankly contemptuous of the facilities that exist under capitalist democracy for workers’ organisations to exist and to express their views. In a document presented to the First Congress of the Communist International at Moscow, March 6th, 1919, Lenin describes “freedom of meeting” as “an empty phrase,” “Liberty of the Press” as “a delusion,” and roundly declared that “even in the most democratic republics there reigns in practice the terrorism and dictatorship ol the bourgeoisie.” (“The Bolshevik Theory,” Postgate, 1920, pages 205-207). He was able to reach these conclusions by taking the handicaps that actually do exist for workers’ organisations under capitalist democracy and exaggerating and distorting them to the degree necessary to fit his description. It all helped to justify his and Trotsky’s defence of terrorism and dictatorship in Russia. It was only in later years that the Communists in Great Britain quietly shelved their talk of dictatorship, civil war, etc., and posed as defenders of the workers’ “democratic rights.” In 1920, however, when the Communist, Mr. R. Palme Dutt, wrote his “The Two Internationals,” he had no hesitation in saying that the Communist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat meant the exclusion of any conceptions of ‘liberty’ which militate against it and therefore capitalist interests.”

He went on to say: —

“Against the “ideologies” of “liberty,” “democracy,” individual rights,” etc., which have always formed the historical cover of capitalist activity . . . must be set the concrete principle of the proletarian state . . .” (Page 32.)

The Communists nowadays talk a different language and do not openly avow their preference for dictatorship and suppression and contempt for democratic methods and tolerance. Posing as democrats and as representatives of working-class interests, they put forward a more cautiously phrased policy. To start with, they are in favour of suppressing Fascist papers and organisations on the ground that the Fascists are “enemies of the people”; but, as Mr. Frank Owen records, when Mr. Rust, editor of the Daily Worker was asked to be more explicit about this, he replied “that he regarded all capitalist newspapers as enemies of the people, too ” (Evening Standard, January 28th, 1941). So, it appears, as Mr. Frank Owen puts it, “my colleagues and I are due for a short, sharp ride if ever Comrade Rust comes to sit in Home Secretary Morrison’s seat.”

Then Mr. Harry Pollitt has on occasion amplified the scope of “enemies of the people.” In his election address, when he stood as Parliamentary candidate at Whitechapel a few years ago, he lumped the Labour Party along with Liberals, Tories and Fascists. His cry was: “Away with these enemies of the workers !”

And in the Daily Worker of January 29th, 1930, Mr. Pollitt issued a stirring call to action He urged the workers to smash up meetings of the Labour Party.

“. . . The mere passing uf resolutions is not enough. There should not be a Labour meeting held anywhere but what the revolutionary workers in that district attend such meetings and fight against the speakers whoever they are, so-called “left,”‘ “right,” or “centre.”

They should never be allowed to address the workers. This will bring us into conflict with the authorities, but this must be done. The fight can no longer be conducted in a passive manner.”

Needless to say, Communists have often told us that if they got power the Socialist Standard would naturally be “dealt with.”

In short, the Communist idea of freedom of the Press is the suppression of every journal except those approved by themselves, all on the model of the Soviet dictatorship.

The Socialist Point of View

While accepting broadly the arguments of John Stuart Mill, Socialists point out how impossible it is to expect his case to be accepted under capitalism. The S.P.G.B. has always taken its stand on the method of argument and persuasion to gain acceptance of the Socialist case. Knowing that there can be no Socialism except through the use of democratic methods, we need to win over the majority to our side. The Socialist case is true and can be shown to be true. It is in line with the discernible facts of the modern world, and what has convinced us will in due time convince the majority of the workers. It is for this reason that the S.P.G.B. allows and invites opposition and discussion on our platform and at our meetings. We do not believe, as do the Communists, that Socialism can be attained by a minority who do understand Socialism acting as guides and leaders to a majority who do not understand. We reject as dangerous and impracticable the Communist policy enunciated in 1920 by Mr. Palme Dutt: —

“The workers as a whole rebel against a regime of which they feel the pricks, without any pre-conceived doctrinaire theory. It is the business of the communist to guide their movement into its realisation in the dictatorship of the proletariat.”—(“Two Internationals,” page 32.)

For the Communist, the idea of suppression and controlling the ideas of the workers fits in naturally with the idea of the “intelligent minority” who lead the non-Socialist masses. Rejecting the latter policy, the Socialist likewise rejects the doctrine of suppression and control of ideas.

But what chance have Mill’s principles of being applied under capitalism ? Obviously no Government at war (and no Government which holds Communist views of political struggle being of the nature of “heavy civil war”) will ever consent to completely unfettered freedom of the Press in wartime. To do so would be to risk endangering war effort. Even in peace-time it is unthinkable that all the various restrictions on publication and utterance in the shape of laws against libel, blasphemy, publication of official secrets, etc., could be removed ; if only for the reason that the libel laws are based on property rights, and capitalism is a system in which property rights are of supreme importance. Moreover, no amendment of laws directly affecting the Press can serve to redress the inequality that must exist between the propertied class, who can go to any expenditure to finance the publication of journals representing their interests and point of view, and the propertyless working-class, who must make do with publishing organs of opinion within the limit of their meagre resources.

Socialism alone will bring about conditions in which all will enjoy the rights and obligations of free utterance and discussion, and the human race will gain to the full the benefits of such freedom.

Edgar Hardcastle

Quotes. (1923)

From the October 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Might is Right. 

  “Between equal rights force decides. Hence it is that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working day presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working class.”

Karl Marx.

  “The rich will not move without ‘capital’ ; a goad—I have and hold—you shall hunger and covet—until you are strong enough to force my hand.”

George Meredith.

 

A rebuke for those who cannot think.

  “Science gives us the conscious domination over things and unconditional security in handling them.”

Joseph Dietzgen.

 

The Freedom of the Press!

  

  “Journalists are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks. They pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, our lives, are the property of other men.”

Jerome K. Jerome. (The New Witness. 9/2/23.) 

Not in front of the workers (1984)

Illustration by George Meddemmen.

From the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism can never be an open society. Trade rivalries, international competition and battling class interests necessitate secrecy on the part of those who hold power. There is not a single government in the world which does not keep secrets from those it claims to represent. Even the most liberal of so-called constitutional democracies have elaborate mechanisms of secrecy and deception. The minority class which monopolises the means of wealth production and distribution also dominates the means of information. Class-controlled channels of information transform knowledge about society, full and free access to which is vital to democracy, into propaganda which gives a false sense of what is going on around them to those being "informed”.

According to the liberal illusion, which is much cherished by Western political commentators, there exists a fundamental division between totalitarian and "free” states. Under totalitarian governments, it is argued, the state is virtually free from accountability to the working class and the ruling class run the country as they please. "Free states”, on the other hand, are supposed to have rulers who are accountable to “the people". In fact, the supposed division is far less clear. Even the most ruthless dictatorship does not survive long if it fails to spend huge fortunes indoctrinating workers and responding (through violent repression or reform) to workers’ discontent. The “free state” is also a constitutional hallucination: the defence of class privilege and the existence of real democratic freedom are incompatible and, however sincerely governments may adhere to liberal ideology, the state is always a weapon of class rule. Indeed, the very existence of the state which is ultimately the executive committee of the ruling class precludes the possibility of real freedom. This is not to deny that significant differences exist between the position of workers in different parts of capitalism: there are degrees of democracy and we would be foolish not to concede that workers in Britain enjoy more than those in Poland — that a Dutch worker who can join a trade union and vote in an election is in a more politically advantageous position than their counterpart in Chile or China or Turkey. The point is not that workers have no power whatsoever but that as long as the state exists, whatever its form, effective political power, including the right to use violent force, belongs to the capitalist minority in whose interests the state functions.

Consider the activities of the state in Britain in 1984. A “democratic state”, we are told. Police erect road-blocks at county boundaries to stop workers moving from one part of the country to another in order to engage in industrial action. Mine workers are stopped by police and asked how they voted in the last election and how they propose to vote in the next one. The Home Secretary refuses to answer questions in parliament about how many telephones are being tapped. Thousands of workers’ names are filed on police computers. An organisation called The Economic League compiles blacklists of trade union activists which are passed on to employers. The government bans trade unions at its spy centre, telling workers that they must accept a bribe of £1,000 or get out. The next election for the Greater London Council is abolished and unelected councillors are to be appointed to sit on the GLC. A worker in the civil service is sentenced to six months in prison for telling the press about the date of the arrival of weapons which we are told are being installed to defend, among other things, the freedom of the press. A "democratic state”?

The state has always kept secrets from the workers. This is particularly so in relation to its military activities, in which workers are permitted the liberty to slaughter and be slaughtered, but not the right to know what the bosses are negotiating and why. At the Tehran Conference in November 1943 Winston Churchill (addressing his comment to his war-time ally, Stalin) summed up the capitalist attitude to freedom of information when he remarked that “In wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies". Stalin seems to have learnt the lesson, and it does not seem to have been lost on Michael Heseltine and his fellow residents at the Ministry of Truth.

The Official Secrets Act was passed in 1889, largely as a result of the activities of a Foreign Office employee called Charles Marvin who leaked information to the press about the secret negotiations which had surrounded the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Lord Halsbury, who moved it, stated:

  The Bill provides for the punishment of those persons who either give information to the enemies of the country, or who act as spies, or make or communicate plans or sketches of fortresses and like places, or disclose official secrets.

So if, when you are next on a fortnight’s package tour to sunny Bulgaria and the bouncer in the disco asks you casual questions about where your missile bases are or how many scientists are employed by the British government on developing germ warfare, beware. As a worker, however, you need have no fear, because you are likely to be just as excluded from knowledge about “our” secrets as workers in other countries are left ignorant of "theirs”. National secrets are secrets from the majority of people who live within the nation: the state has an interest in keeping secrets from both the national enemy and the class enemy. That is why the arrival of American nuclear missiles at Greenham Common was supposed to be kept secret from the British workers whose “democratic way of life” the Cruise weapons are alleged to be defending. It is because she tried to tell other people about a matter which she thought concerned us that Sarah Tisdall is now sitting in a “democratic" prison cell. Under capitalism it is often a crime to tell the truth.

In Nazi Germany reports of the atrocities being committed inside the concentration camps were illegal. It is against the law for South African police to speak to the press about the mysterious deaths of political prisoners. The greater the ugliness of the state’s actions in defence of class privilege, the greater is the secrecy surrounding such activities and the more severe is the penalty to be paid by those who commit the crime of telling forbidden tales.

What about the incarceration of Sarah Tisdall? Unlike certain deluded liberals, we do not throw up our hands in horror that so vicious a sentence has been handed out in so democratic a country as Britain. What’s new about British capitalism turning democratic behaviour into a crime? The British ruling class is the oldest in the world and, in its time, has committed some of the dirtiest tricks and enacted some of the most repressive measures. The modern state has tended to maintain a liberal facade, but those of us who know what the state exists for can hardly be shocked when it comes out into the open and exhibits the power of undemocratic oppression. Unlike reformists, socialists will not be pleading with the government to do the decent thing and let the poor girl free. When the prison gates are opened it will not be as a result of the oppressors bowing to the moral pleas of the oppressed. but will be a consequence of the class which is robbed and deceived (all quite legally, of course) realising that the real robbers and frauds are not the inhabitants of the prison cells. Workers have nothing to gain by holding processions to place pressure on the exploiting class to behave with goodwill. Our task is to rip off their democratic masks and to expose the disgusting fraudulence which enables power to belong to a minority in the name of democracy. Socialists could not but admire the courage of Ms Tisdall and those like her, throughout the world, who have defied the assertion that telling the truth is an act of criminality. We may sympathise, but that will not change society — indeed, it will not in itself make any difference if there were a thousand or ten thousand workers with access to secret information who were willing to reveal it unless the working class start to make real use of the knowledge which is available.

Will there be secrets in a socialist society? Without doubt socialism, because of its feature of democratic control, will allow no possibility for secret information to exist in relation to matters of collective social significance. Whatever information society has will be available to everyone, without any administrators or bureaucrats being allowed to keep certain knowledge for their own privileged use. On the assumption that knowledge is power, socialism will not allow social groups to exist whose access to information is greater than that available to all other members of society. Modern communication technology, which is currently used for the perverse purpose of storing secrets, can be used in socialism to make realistic the democratic aim of having the widest dissemination of information which is technologically feasible. Free access to information, which can only happen when there is free access to all goods and services. is a far more realisable and democratic change than the modest demand for limited access to state information which is advocated by the reformist proponents of a Freedom of Information Act.

One of the greatest examples of capitalist hypocrisy is its claim that capitalism provides freedom for the individual, whereas social equality would eradicate such liberty. Those who now dwell in prison cells because they took the pretence of capitalist liberty at its face value would not agree. Those who claim that socialism, with its feature of social equality, will destroy liberty, would do well to read what Marx had to say on the matter:

  We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic work-house. There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony. But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced . . . that in no social order will personal freedom be so assured as in a society based upon communal ownership. (Marx, Communist Journal, September 1847)

For a society without secrets, states, elites and prisoners of truth, workers must unite consciously, democratically and without compromise.

Steve Coleman

Freedom not for us (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freedom is one of those words which nobody can be against. The trouble is that it means different things to different people. To socialists freedom means that we should no longer be forced by economic necessity to go out onto the labour market and sell our working abilities for a wage or salary to those who own the means of life. In other words, freedom for us means emancipation from wage slavery.

To the capitalist, however, freedom means the freedom to exploit wage labour and to buy and sell without government interference. Unfortunately, but in a sense understandably (as Marx pointed out a long time ago. the ruling ideas in class society are those of the ruling class), it is this second sense of freedom that is the most prevalent today — a fact which allows capitalists to disguise their sordid money-making as an application of the noble ideal of freedom.

The present controversy over Sunday opening is a case in point. The government and other supporters of this proposal present it as an extension of the area of freedom. In this particular case, however, they have some difficulty in disguising the purely commercial aspect of this proposal to allow supermarkets and other shops to trade on the one day of the week when their moneymaking activities have been restricted up till now.

Of course socialists don't take sides in this controversy, and even less support the Bible-quoting opponents of the measure, but we can't help pointing out that Sunday opening would represent a further victory for the logic of capitalism, a further invasion of our lives by the rampant commercialism that is an inherent feature of the system. But we are under no illusions that this is how it has to be under capitalism and how it will be, as capitalism continues its course. America is there to show us Europe's future when all the barriers to "free" capitalist trading inherited from a non-capitalist past (which actually never existed in America) have finally been swept away.

Another example is the much-vaunted "freedom of the press''. If you ever bother to read the editorials of the mass circulation daily press (most people don't, and rightly) you will find that they have an extremely high opinion of themselves: according to them a "free" press is a bulwark against tyranny and dictatorship. But if you scratch the surface a bit. you quickly realise that by "freedom" they mean freedom for the capitalist enterprises (not to say the millionaire press magnates) who own the daily papers to print in them anything — be it lies, pornographic, violent or obtained by unscrupulous methods — that they consider will sell more copies of the newspaper-commodity they produce.

If from time to time they expose some corrupt practice by a politician or government official it is to the benefit of the capitalist class, not us. All government spending is in the end a charge on profits and politicians and officials are there to carry out certain administrative functions on behalf of the capitalist class — not to help themselves to a share of the profits wrung from the wage and salary working class.

Then there is advertising. The dailies today are in fact more advertising sheets than newspapers in the sense that the sensationalised "news" items they publish are essentially bait to get people to buy the paper with a view to their reading the ads. So much is this the case that Eddie Shah, owner of the latest addition to the daily gutter press, has gone on record as looking forward to the day when newspapers will be given away free, financed entirely from their revenue from advertisements. To call such commercial rags a "free" press is a travesty of the word freedom.

Having said this however, a free press does exist in countries like Britain and America but it is not represented by the mass circulation commercial dailies. Rather is it represented by journals of opinion, published by committed groups wanting to put their point of view across — such as the Socialist Standard and of course other such publications that put a different view from ours. In other words, in the end the genuinely free press in the West is not much more extensive than its counterpart — the samizdat press — in the East, even if its conditions of publication are much less difficult.

Another example of the abuse of the term freedom to make it mean the absence of legal restrictions on money-making was over commercial radio. In Britain these were most appropriately called "pirate radios" (in fact, this is what they should continue to be called), but in France they called themselves "free radios". Some of them were indeed genuinely free in the same sense that the Socialist Standard and other non-commercial journals of opinion constitute the free press — they were run by people with a desire to communicate ideas or to simply amuse themselves and others without any ulterior money-making motive. But most were set up as profit-seeking enterprises.

In the end. the government agreed to legalise the private commercial radios, presenting this as an extension of "freedom" whereas, once again, it was really just another invasion of commercialism into our daily lives. If having the opportunity to listen to inane and insulting jingles urging us to buy this or that piece of rubbish is an extension of the domain of freedom, then the difference between the socialist and capitalist conceptions of freedom can be fully appreciated.

Adam Buick

When the truth hurts (2006)

From the January 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under a section headed ‘Open Government’, the Labour Party election manifesto of 1997 declared how “Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in government and defective policy decisions”. It made reference to the Scott Report on weapons sales to Iraq under the Conservative Party and pledged that Labour would fight for a Freedom of Information Act and more open government. Many voters were highly impressed with New Labour’s alleged crusade for accountability and gave them their full support at the election.

In December of that year Tony Blair proudly revealed the White Paper Your Right to Know: The Government’s Proposals for a Freedom of Information Act. The document advocated “establishing a general right of access to official records and information”, and stated this would lead to more open and accountable government.

The much awaited Freedom of Information Act received Royal Assent on 30 November 2000 and was brought fully into force in January 2005. In June a report by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which assessed the first three months of the new Act, found that Ministers and Whitehall bureaucrats were failing to open up the government and disclose information punctually to the public as previously pledged. The report showed that Whitehall departments had not revealed all the information asked for by the public in half of all cases and that there had been hold-ups in a third of all requests.

Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said in the Guardian (24 June) that some departments had been so bad that “in any other field, the government would be sending in a hit squad to take the functions over from them because they couldn’t do the job”. Pointing particularly at the Home Office, he continued: “The legislation seems to have passed them by. They are living in a time warp.”

In July, with Blair gearing up for his G8 meeting in Gleneagles, the government decided to release more than 500 documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act – previously blocked documents produced by the Strategy Unit under Lord Birt, a Blair adviser. However, the government chose to release them on the Friday evening of the Live 8 events around the country, in the full knowledge that the weekend press would focus so much on the Live 8 concerts they’d have little concern for anything else.

On 22 November the Daily Mirror printed a report, headed “Bush plot to bomb his Arab ally”, which referred to a leaked 5-page government memo contending that US President George Bush considered bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar and was talked out of it by Blair. Readers eagerly awaited further revelations and wondered how the government would react to the disclosure. But did the Blair government greet the openness that such an enquiry could bring and comply with requests for further information on the matter? Not on your nelly! The government rather had the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, threaten the Mirror and other newspapers with the Official Secrets Act, elevating the disclosure of any further information to a treasonable offence.

It is somewhat ironic that a government, which had blatantly and dramatically lied to the British public over Iraq’s WMDs in an attempt to get them to support a war in Iraq, a war which was presented as being very much in our interests, should now be saying that disclosure of the memo was not in the national interest. After all, such an attack on Al Jazeera’s Qatar base could have resulted in retaliation against the British public at home and abroad.

And it was not as if the USA had not already set a precedent in attacking Al Jazeera offices. During the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, a US ‘smart bomb’ hit their Kabul offices. Two years later, in April 2003, the war in Iraq in full swing, their Baghdad office was hit by a missile. In the latter incident not only had Al Jazeera provided the Pentagon with its co-ordinates, fearing another ‘mistaken’ attack, but witnesses in the area saw the plane fly twice over the building before it was hit. That same day the Baghdad office of Abu Dhabi TV was also hit.

What possible motive could the US have had for wishing to bomb Al Jazeera? Well, Al Jazeera is based in Qatar, a country considered a US ally and its staff are gleaned from all around the world, even Britain, so there can be little question of the TV station being considered an enemy. Al Jazeera’s only agenda is to report the news to an audience of 50 million and in a difficult climate. When the TV station first began broadcasting it won much acclaim in the US. The New York Times eulogized it as a “beacon of freedom” and White House officials saw it as living testimony that the Arab world wanted democracy and freedom of speech. But then the US top brass realised that Al Jazeera has a ‘tell it like it is’ method of reporting; that it was not going to bury the truth like so many western TV stations. It began reporting in gruesome detail what it saw, so much so that it has a nifty sideline in selling footage to foreign TV companies. Moreover, it aired the alleged Osama bin Laden video tapes to the Arab world. Clearly the TV station was becoming something of a “turbulent priest” that the kings of oil wanted rid of.

When, in 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary claimed Al Jazeera was “endangering the lives of US troops”, it was Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense who upped hostility to the TV station by falsely claiming it was collaborating with Iraqi insurgents. At the behest of their US puppet-masters, the newly elected Iraqi government had Al Jazeera temporarily thrown out of the country.

Back in June of 2005, Donald Rumsfeld further complained about Al Jazeera tarnishing the good old US image “day after day”. When US forces launched a massive and merciless assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, stopping all men of military age from leaving the city before the attack and with many hundreds of civilians dying in the consequent napalm bombardment, Rumsfeld commented on Al Jazeerah’s coverage of the atrocity: “I can definitely say that what Al Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.”

George Orwell once said: “during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Well, events before and since the invasion of Iraq have revealed we certainly live in times of universal deceit, so maybe Bush wanted Al Jazeera knocked out for its revolutionary act of telling the truth about the occupation of Iraq.

In prosecuting the former Cabinet Official David Keogh along with Leo O’Connor, a researcher to the former Labour MP, Tony Clarke, over the leaked memo, and in threatening the media with the Official Secrets Act, the government is guilty of the same crime that the story focused on – namely that of attempting to strangle the truth. Blair, on the one hand, allegedly advises Bush that it would not be wise to bomb Al Jazeera, who would have been bombed because they reveal the truth which the US finds harmful. Yet Blair clamps down on all attempts to bring the circumstances surrounding the memo to public attention, because to do so would likewise harm Bush.

George Orwell left us with another memorable quote: “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” This is exactly what New Labour, indeed the Bush-Blair bandwagon, is all about – controlling the future via their control of the present and what information is available to us and in the interests of their own backers. The Labour government ceases to be “open to scrutiny” and accountable to the people and instead becomes the puppet of US foreign policy its detractors always claimed it to be, losing what trust supporters might have had in it.

Of course none of the above should come as a surprise to the well informed, who are highly attuned to the Machiavellian goings-on of the executive of big business, namely governments. Few governments rule by force nowadays; most rule by consent, a consent granted by a misinformed and constantly lied-to public. Were governments really open with the truth, they would live as long as it would take the masses to tie their metaphorical nooses. Indeed, it was George Bush Snr who once said: “If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.”

One thing that the Socialist Party can pride itself on is its openness. We have no secrets; nothing we say or do is said or done behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny. Our EC meetings, Conferences and Delegate Meetings are always open to the public and there is nothing stopping members of the public speaking at the same. Moreover, all of the reports of these meetings are available for scrutiny, even posted on the Web. And there are reasons for this – not only do we believe in accountability and feel it important to win the trust and respect of our fellow workers, we further envisage socialist society to be free, open and democratic, with all delegates wholly accountable to the people who elect them, so it makes sense that an organisation advocating such a society should hold its own democratic procedures up as a model.

And as advocates of democracy, free speech and accountability, we will be closely watching the trial of David Keogh and Leo O’Connor at Bow Street Magistrates Court on 10 January, though without much hope that this case will result in a triumph in the cause of government accountability. For Blair and Bush there is just too much at stake – the truth.

John Bissett

A Rival For "The Beano"? (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

A prize for ingenuousness is due to Lord Bruce of Donington. In a letter to The Times of 23rd August he wrote about the Government’s anti-inflation policies getting insufficient support from the press, who are controlled by wealthy barons without sympathy for a Labour government. Therefore, said Lord Bruce, the need is for a government-controlled newspaper “on lines similar to the BBC” which would give “a fair presentation of the whole panorama of domestic and foreign affairs, of life as it is unsensationally lived”, etc.

The Times seems to let its letter-writers get away with anything, but most newspapers would think about their reputations before publishing wild stuff like this. When did the BBC go in for “a fair representation” of things? Political minorities occasionally get their existence and views made known in the “biased”, “untruthful”, “misleading” press Lord Bruce complains of; but not on the BBC. It is as difficult to get even a letter published on the radio as in a national newspaper, unless you are in the House of Lords. Does he really claim that the BBC does not suppress and trivialize under the editorship of smug individuals, as he says (quite rightly) happens with the press?

Lord Bruce is the former Labour MP Donald Bruce. He should be old enough to remember a pre-war incident when a trade-unionist was to broadcast. At the microphone he announced that cuts had been made in his script, by the BBC; he would therefore not read it, but would send it to the press. Moreover, a government-run publication is as susceptible to pressure groups as privately-owned ones are to commercial interests. Before the last general election Mrs. Whitehouse asked the party leaders for their views on the moral and political content of broadcasting. Presumably, if her association were strong enough, it would make the answers it wanted the condition of electoral support.

This newspaper, he says, would be produced in competition with the existing ones. As he knows quite well, in modern times a pro-Labour propagandist newspaper has never held its own in such competition for any length of time — the reason for the position he objects to. What Lord Bruce apparently wants is a Labour newspaper supported by the government. He is entitled to argue for such a project — but not to humbug his readers that the BBC provides a model for journalistic high-mindedness.

Robert Barltrop

50 Years Ago: War-Time Restrictions on Publication (1992)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

As far as the S. P. G. B. is concerned our attitude is the one we have always adopted. We are in favour of complete freedom of speech and publication for every point of view, that of our opponents as well as ourselves, but we cannot profess to be surprised that under war conditions the earlier restrictions should be greatly increased. It is a process inseparable from war and will probably result in still more restriction before the war is ended. (We notice in passing that quite a number of supporters of war do appear to be surprised: having apparently made the childish assumption that it is possible to wage war without having these necessary accompaniments of it.) While regretting that under these conditions it is not possible to publish all that we would wish to do on the war, we do not forget that the S. P. G. B. is not merely an anti-war organisation but a Socialist organisation. It is our duty as Socialists to state the case for socialism and while it is possible to continue to do useful work we shall continue, notwithstanding our enforced inability to state all that we would like to state.

(From the Socialist Standard, April 1942.)

Editorial: Newspaper Monopoly and the Freedom of the Press (1946)

Editorial from the September 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Herbert Morrison faced with a Conservative demand for inquiry into the Government monopoly over wireless broadcasting, parried with an attack on the newspaper monopolies and with the suggestion of an inquiry into newspaper ownership and the influence of advertisers over newspaper policy. There were also vague hints of doing something to stop misrepresentation in the reporting of news.

About the trend towards monopoly in newspaper ownership there is no lack of information. While the circulation of newspapers increases, the number of separate journals decreases, and more and more of the existing local papers come under centralised ownership and control. An official inquiry in U.S.A. discloses the same trend there. "In 1909 there were about 2,600 daily newspapers with a total circulation of 24,200,000. In 1945 there were only 1,750 papers, but their circulation was 48,400,000” (Manchester Guardian, 20/7/46). The same report comments on the fact that very few towns in U.S.A. now have competing papers, and news gathering is virtually monopolised by three press services.

This development is paralleled in both countries by the growth of monopoly in all fields of industry. It is helped by the great and growing cost of launching new journals and by the fact that no national newspaper can possibly pay its way without a huge income from advertisers. The centralisation of newspaper ownership in the hands of a diminishing number of concerns is inevitable and it is idle to talk of governmental action to turn back the clock and protect the little concerns against the big ones. While there is capitalism, that is while the accumulated wealth .of society is in the hands of a small minority, nothing can prevent the owners of small capital from being more or less at the mercy of big business, and still more, nothing can lessen the disadvantage of a small and poor working-class organisation in its efforts to make its views known.

The question of misrepresentation or of the “conspiracy of silence” in the capitalist Press about the case for Socialism is governed by the same basic facts of capitalism. A Labour Government may think it would be useful to the Labour Party if something could be done to secure more and more truthful presentation of that Party’s case in Conservative newspapers, but the Labour Press is no more concerned with giving publicity to the case for Socialism than are the Conservative or Liberal newspapers. Socialist propaganda gets no better show in the Daily Herald, or on the B.B.C. under Labour government, than in the Daily Express or on the B.B.C. under Conservative government. We have, however, always been well aware of the difficulties we are up against and are not discouraged. Capitalism, despite its newspaper chorus of propaganda, cannot forever disguise its evils from the workers who suffer from them.

Mr. Morrison’s statements provoked discussion about the desirability of legislation to interfere with the freedom of the Press. No matter what may be the motive of such suggestions, we, as Socialists, are not in favour of them. Completely unrestricted expression of opinion and discussion of differences is the way to enlightenment. Restriction, even on the plea of preventing misrepresentation, would not help the workers on the road to Socialism. We are no more enamoured of Labour Government restrictions on their opponents than of a similar policy applied by Conservatives. The end of that road is one-party Press dictatorship, as in Russia.

One hopeful feature in recent years has been the evidence, provided by elections, in this country and U.S.A., that the electors sufficiently mistrust newspaper and wireless propaganda to be less influenced by it than they used to be.

The Freedom of the Press (1923)

Quote from the October 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Journalists are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks. They pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, our lives, are the property of other men."

Jerome K. Jerome.

(The New Witness, 9/2/23.)

Gus has a shock. (1907)

A Short Story from the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

GUS: You socialists ought to be grateful for the glorious institution of the free press instead of criticising the great newspapers as you do.

WILL: Grateful to whom? The so-called Freedom of the Press is, in reality, painfully limited; but such as it is, it was granted because absolutely necessary to commercial development. Material interests dictated it; not any love of the people. The capitalist class give us nothing but what it is to their interest to give, either to increase their profits or stave off their defeat, and we know from bitter experience that we have most to fear when our enemies profess a regard for us. 

GUS: But can you deny that the great daily newspapers are glorious and beneficient institutions, fearlessly standing out for truth and purity in public life? 

WILL: I emphatically and entirely deny every word of it!

GUS: Do you mean to say that the modern press is not free, or that it suppresses or perverts the truth?

WILL: I mean to say that the modern newspaper, by its very nature as a commercial venture, cannot exist except by perverting the truth; and that it is absolutely the slave of capitalist interests.

GUS: You surprise me. Explain yourself.

WILL: With pleasure. Now, newspapers are run by limited liability companies to obtain a profit, are they not?

GUS: That is so.

WILL: To get a profit they must sell; to sell they must please, to please they must suit themselves to the prejudices, ignorance or interests of their supporters.

     (Gus opens his eyes)

WILL: They cannot, then, afford to continue any line of policy when it does not pay, or when it is unpopular with the public or with that section of which they have constituted themselves the mouthpiece. To get the largest circulation and the greatest percentage of profit they must say what their readers or supporters want them to say, or else go under.

     (Gus looks startled)

WILL: Nor is that all; they have an even more important person to cater for — the advertiser. He is partly satisfied if the journal panders successfully to a large number of the public; but as a manufacturer he has important capitalist interests, and therefore would not support, by his advertisement, any journal that, through a love of truth, attacked his interests in any way.

    (Gus looks frightened)

WILL: Further, the various sections of the capitalist party have enormous campaign funds, and the newspapers, being run for profit, must slavishly support their capitalist party interest or forgo their reward. And the journalists who run the papers are the wage-slaves of the proprietors, compelled to utter, not what they think, but what their employers consider will sell best, and will please most the capitalist interest.

   (Gus tries to hide himself, Will holds him back)

WILL: Don’t run away, I’ve not done yet. The modern newspaper is thus, in the main, the reflection of the commonest, most superficial and most servile opinions of the public, and at the same time the advocate of the interests of its capitalist owners and advertisers. It is, therefore, against the financial policy of the modern newspaper to enlighten the working class; particularly in any direction that runs counter to capitalist interests. To satisfy its principal clients, the great advertisers and the political leaders, it must expound the views of the ruling class (or of a section thereof) and so doctor these views that the people may easily swallow them. It must, whenever the workers show a tendency to think clearly, carefully draw the wool over their eyes in order to keep them at the tail of the capitalist party and ignorant of the things that should concern them. For the rest, in order to earn its profits, the newspaper must batten on the ignorance and folly of its public.

GUS (who feels that the scales have fallen from his eyes): Well, but how can we alter it?

WILL: Only by abolishing the profit system. But we can help this on by doing all in our power to spread enlightenment among the workers and so show them the utter worthlessness of capitalist journalism; we can help by organising the workers for the overthrow of capitalist domination, and by pointing out that it is their duty to support a press of their own, not run by an individual or company (or profit, but owned and controlled by a genuine working-class organisation for the propagation of definite working-class principles. Thus alone can the education and emancipation of the working class be accomplished, and the freedom of the press from the curse of profit and capitalist domination become a fact.

F. C. Watts

The Guardian of our Free Press (1975)

From the February 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is as well to start by resolving the deliberate ambivalence of the title of this article. The Guardian might have been in italics as we will be dealing largely with the role of its editor, Mr. Hetherington, as the leader of the Editors’ Union (or words to that effect) in the war between them and the combined might of the National Union of Journalists and the government (in the person of Michael Foot) over the proposed law to enforce the closed shop in Fleet Street — including editors. And in this context, Hetherington has adopted the role of the guardian of the freedom of the press. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard The Guardian, as Max Beloff punned in a recent issue of Encounter magazine? And if one word might have been in italics, the last phrase could equally have been in inverted commas. For the freedom of the press is to a large extent an optical illusion, whether Hetherington realizes it or not, even before the government puts its Foot in it. (The Guardian having decided to afflict us all with a plague of puns of sickening puerility, no apology is required either from a Tory Professor or a Socialist propagandist.)

First, let us be clear that freedom of the press is regarded by Socialists as very much a good thing. Democracy is the reverse side of the Socialist coin, and freedom of the press is an integral part of democracy. Socialist society will not be one where all you can read is state-controlled propaganda masquerading as news compiled by the trained monkeys on typewriters of Pravda and Izvestia. We can at once concede that the kind of capitalist democracy we have here which gives us a choice of rags ranging from The Guardian to The Sun, is preferable to dictatorship.

And there is something more important which we readily concede — because it is obvious, some people affect not to see it. The very fact that you are reading this journal; and are doing so without the slightest fear that a copper will nab you; and that unheroic specimens like the present writer can churn this stuff out with never so much as a tremor — all this shows that we have at least a modicum of freedom of the press. Socialist propaganda can hardly begin to breathe in the “communist” dictatorships until that amount of freedom is won. They have, of course, in their samizdat, the underground press, the embryo of a free press (though by no means necessarily a Socialist one). But by its very nature, this can only hope to reach the tiniest minority of the working class.

Censors Possible

The row between the editors (and with them the managements) and the NUJ is based upon the fact that if, or rather when, the closed-shop law comes into effect, all journalists, including editors, are to be compelled to belong to the NUJ. This, unsurprisingly, is something the editors regard with horror. Up to now, the editor has either been the actual boss of the paper (as in the case of Hetherington’s predecessor C. P. Scott); or he has been the boss’s representative, rather like the Pope being the Vicar of Christ (except that the Pope is reasonably secure from interference from his boss, while the editor is not always so comfortable. But more of this anon). And of course it becomes pretty difficult for the boss when he has to join the same union as his underlings.

The idea of having to attend a meeting of the NUJ chapel (union branch) is anathema to editors. They fear (not without cause, it must be said) that this will make the editor subservient to the majority vote in the chapel meeting. And, say the Hetheringtons, this will mean that the usual vocal minority of agitators and “Marxists” (but the editors don’t use inverted commas; a Hetherington wouldn’t recognise a true Marxist if he tripped over Karl’s beard) would use their power to control the paper. And bang goes the freedom of the press.

There is something in what they say. How much freedom of the press we enjoy, we will deal with shortly. But, though the Socialist Party has always supported the cause of unionism as an essential protection for the working class (while making it clear that the real job of a Socialist is to agitate and educate for the ending of class society) there can be no doubt that, in many cases, a closed shop could lead to a clique using its power to dictate what goes in the paper — and what doesn’t. The implicit and explicit power of censorship which now resides with the editor and his proprietor could pass to a group of IS types or Communists.

— and Actual

One inkling of the sort of anti-free speech attitude that could lead to was shown a few years ago over the visit of a white South African cricket team to these shores. During the winter in which the Hain campaign was being built up there was a cricket Test series going on in Apartheidland between the Springboks and the Aussies — fully reported of course in Hetherington’s Guardian which was at the same time running the Hainites for all it was worth. But The Observer didn’t print anything, not even the scores. Why not? Had the paper decided it was improper to report racialist sport — and after all the Aussies were in some ways as bad as the Boers for their racialism?

No. The Observer chapel had decided to indulge in some censorship off its own bat — if you’ll excuse the phrase. Observer readers were not permitted to decide whether or not they wanted to read the stuff. Some ignorant little commissars had decided for them. Little Big Brothers are watching you; and that is no good at all for the freedom of the press. Censorship is an evil no matter who wields the blue pencil — even fully paid-up members of the NUJ. Who should have been thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Censorship is traditionally the weapon of the rulers against workers; it is dangerous and deplorable when the latter use it themselves. This foretaste serves to justify the fears of the Hetheringtons of how a clique could take advantage of closed-shop conditions.

But having said all that, it remains true that the freedom of the press which the rulers of Fleet Street have boasted about has been severely circumscribed. If these editors and managements really cared about freedom, they would have opened their columns to their opponents and thus showed that they believed in it. In practice, they have almost totally denied freedom to Socialists to print even a letter putting their views. Like the BBC, the press has done its best to keep a blanket over Socialist views. So whose freedom are you worried about, Mr. Hetherington? Are you really afraid of censorship in principle? Are you not the censor yourself? (To be scrupulously fair, The Guardian did print a quite decent notice of the SPGB’S 70th birthday: the only paper that did. One tiny swallow. And summer nowhere in sight.)

Independence?

It is worth referring before concluding to a contribution in the Lords’ debate on the matter from Lord Devlin, former Chairman of the Press Council (that sham tribunal if ever there was one). He said: “The man who had the power to let in or keep out must be free and independent and professionally pledged to make his choice primarily in the public interest  . . . That is the editor  . . . The freedom of the press depends on the . . . tradition that he is independent. He can be dismissed but he cannot be told what to do.” Only a top judge with an IQ of a million can possibly pack so much twaddle in so small a space. Only a Devlin could emit such crass poppycock as to say that an editor cannot be told what to do by a Beaverbrook and in the same breath admit he can be told: Put your hat and coat on and eff off out of your fine job with its fat salary. In other words, the press is just another part of the business of capitalism and exists primarily not “in the public interest”, but in the interest of the owners. Who are, indeed must be, concerned with circulation and profits. So that “independent” editors can be hired and fired by those who own the show just like less exalted members of the working class.

Whether the editors will be able to wring concessions in the Foot bill is not clear at the time of writing. What is always clear is that there is no happy solution to the problem of freedom of the press under capitalism, however much the Hetheringtons on the one hand and the NUJ chapels on the other delude themselves.

L. E. Weidberg