This Business of Antiques (1961)

From the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Antiques are a fascinating subject, but also a vast one, beyond the scope of this brief article. Here we can concern ourselves with such aspects as their collection by the élite of society, their haphazard donation or loaning to museums and, later, the production of “fake” antiques as a result of our commercial system.

Our story begins with the archeological efforts of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossos on the Mediterranean island of Crete, who revealed an early Grecian civilisation of a high order, until then unknown.

These excavations early in the 20th century prove that, nearly four thousand years ago and at least five hundred years before the pottery of Athens achieved its ceramic supremacy, the craftsmen of Crete were producing articles for ornament and use in gold, ivory and porcelain of excellent design and execution. This Cretan civilisation, together with its contemporary cultures in other parts of the world, represents mankind’s first steps from tribal society.

Two thousand years afterwards, the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 created a primitive museum for many fine examples of Man’s early works of art later to be unearthed by archeologists. These excavations revealed floors of mosaic, mural paintings, gold and silver ornaments and bronze busts, all of great beauty—whilst similar operations at Herculaneum were richer still in the artistic craftsmanship of the period.

During the period between the contemporary civilisation of Crete, Babylon, and Egypt, and the unearthing of the Pompeian treasures, Man’s cultural activity portrayed changes in his development as he reacted to his material environment—changing it and then changing himself. From the 7th century B.C. up to the 4th century A.D. the pottery of Athens was symbolical of the stage of ceramic achievement of this period, whilst Byzantine art, a combination of Greek, Persian and Román culture, was influenced by the rise of Christianity, with the symbol of the cross embodied in many designs. Indeed this motif is still with us, although religious items are not good sellers in the modern antique trade and probably the “cult of the cross” is on the wane.

Examples of Celtic art are provided by 8th century bronze shields of Ireland and the famous Tara brooch of Dublin from the 10th century. Craftsmen in Scandinavia also produced many beautiful designs in bronze and silver, their Viking ship incorporated a bronze dragon prow reflecting the early Icelandic sagas, recorded by William Morris in his epic poem—Sigurd the Volsung. It is also interesting to note that in the 12th century their pagan gods, Thor and Woden, overlapped in culture the rising Christian symbol, in a similar way that the Cretan culture influenced early Greek and Román art.

The 16th century witnessed the introduction into Europe of Chinese porcelain with its motif dragon patterns and the purity of the Ming dynasty productions. These early craftsmen of China, produced a hard paste porcelain which was the forerunner of what is known all over the world to-day as “china”.

Two hundred years later saw porcelain being produced in England at Bow, Bristol, Worcester, Derby and Longton Hall, while in 1775 Josiah Wedgwood introduced his famous Jasper ware at Etruria and of course this popular Wedgwood is still being produced to-day. Much could be written of the beauties of Dresden Candelabra, Meissen Figurine, Sevres vases, Chelsea groups etc. but enough has been said in this context, we hope, to explain the origin of antiques. We must now pass from the historical side of the subject to the economic for a continuation of our brief review.

Economics of Antiques

The commercial rule for determining whether an article qualifies for the description of “antique” is laid down by H.M. Customs and Excise Department in that it must be at least a hundred years of age to escape customs import duty.

Unlike new commodities, antiques have no exact price ticket range, but the post-war demand, mostly from America, has produced a pretty keen market for certain items, such as old Ruby glass ware, Staffordshire pottery figurine, early Wedgwood, pewter plates and tankards, Sheffield plate, Georgian silverware and jewellery, flint lock and percussion pistols.

There are those who patriotically lament this drain on stocks of antiques in Britain. They would do well to consider the reason, which is that, in a buying and selling world—with commodities “constantly in love with money” as Marx aptly put it—antiques represent a use-value to those American buyers wealthy enough to purchase an 18th century background for their 20th century mansions. In such a transaction antiques represent the usual be-all and end-all of commerce—a profit to the British seller, whose patriotism melts, “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face” at every chance of a profitable deal. In any event the denuding of Britain’s art stores is no more cause for shedding working-class tears, than the loss of a few colonies from the British Empire. Art treasures may certainly change their geographical position, but, like the colonies, they remain in the ownership of the capitalist class of the world. However, although antiques may vanish from the shores of Britain, it may also be relevent to enquire from where they came.

The collecting of antiques in England was largely initiated by the Earl of Arundel who in 1624 sent his agent, one William Petty, on an art-hunting expedition to Greece. Apparently Mr. Petty excelled himself in this task, sending to England, many consignments of Grecian statues, bronze busts etc., in a prodigious effort to denude Greece of its native art. Eventually, so numerous became the collection of nude statues in the Earl’s garden, that Sir Francis Bacon (so the story goes) coming upon them for the first time, stopped short and exclaimed— “The Resurrection!”.

Some 270 years later, we find a sort of sequel to this transplanting of antiques from one geographical area to another in a controversy in the British Parliament about the return to Ireland of some very valuable ancient Irish ornaments, found in Ireland by a “poor” man and purchased by trustees of the British Museum for a paltry £600. During the discussion a Mr. Leighton quite logically asked where this system of restitution was to end and if the British Museum would return the objects they had taken from Greece and Egypt? Apparently this question fell on deaf ears, but then—any reader visiting the British Museum will find the answer.

In addition to the existence of genuine antiques, there is the problem, thrown up by the cesspool of commerce, of “faked” antiques which originally graced the drawing rooms and china cabinets of bourgeois mansions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Fakes of old Chelsea porcelain are too numerous to mention. While Staffordshire pottery “Toby jugs” made last week and buried in the earth to produce signs of age, which may not deceive a connoisseur, are foisted on to many a dealer and eventually sold to the usual credulous “man in the street”. Items of furniture, appearing on the market as “Sheraton” or “Chippendale” mysteriously increase the production (not the profits!) of those early craftsmen.

Some years ago, the writer purchased a three-piece set of china figurine that appeared to be Chelsea, complete with the well known “gold anchor” mark. Actually they were produced by a ceramics manufacturer in France who specialises in faking the valuable early Chelsea art, no doubt at times with success! This counterfeit Chelsea was being produced in Paris as early as 1850, and in Belgium there is a factory producing counterfeit Sèvres and Dresden porcelains. The difficulty of detecting these spurious wares by amateur buyers is spotlighted by the fact that experts themselves are at times deceived. For instance, J. H. Yoxall, who was a member of the Select Committee of the House of Commons which investigated in 1898 some forgeries of antiques bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum, found that a platter of Palissy ware bought for the museum at £200 was a forgery from France, originally sold by the French makers at £10 each! This same Museum also paid several hundred of pounds for a Sedan chair supposed to be a genuine antique which had genuine panels only let into a brand new chair!

To give an up-to-date example, the Manchester Evening Chronicle recently reported on Indian artisans who have resorted to faking ancient statuettes by buying new sculptures and tarnishing them.

All this merely goes to show that so long as antiques are part of a buying and selling world, it is a branch of commerce that bristles with pitfalls for the unwary, as it is only an expert who can detect real age, for instance, by the Patina which is a result of the chemical action of light and air over the years.

Apart from the waste of energy and material in the production of fake antiques, most dealers, whether handling the spurious output to which the profit motive leads or the “real McCoy” are primarily concerned with the cash value represented thereby, and appreciation of their intrinsic artistic beauty is a secondary consideration.

Private collections of antiques are a bugbear peculiar to a class-divided society, because instead of being freely available for social enjoyment and cultural education, they are confined within the mansions of the wealthy in an ostentatious and snobbish display of opulence. As an illustration—at the recent exhibition of private collections of paintings (some 250) on view in Manchester City Art Gallery, one Reynolds had not been viewed by the public since 1884! Another very large beautiful painting by Stubbs of a grey mare and foals had been exhibited only once before. Just how much of the art heritage of the past remains hidden from society is anybody’s guess!

This state of affairs is, of course, the result of our class-divided society and will only be abolished through the establishment of a class-less Socialist society ending the buying and selling of the commercial system, thus opening up new vistas of social enjoyment of the artistry of mankind.

As it is, “Mine and Thine” is the ruling ethic in the art world of to-day, and along with a host of other privileges goes “an environment of objets d’art.” To have one’s walls adorned with a Reynolds, a Rembrandt, or a Millais, tables in antique silver with Sèvres porcelain, one must belong to the non-producing class in our present social system.

Inevitably, as a result of this class division, the shoddy goods of multiple stores provide a tasteless and cheap façade for the Pre-fab, semi-detached and tenement homes of the mass of humanity.

We see, therefore, that it ¡s the commodity nature of antiques that stands in the way of their social ownership and so long as they remain such they will be used as status symbols of false values in a snobbish world. But make no mistake; appreciation of the arts is no biological peculiarity of the minority rulers of society, neither has it anything to do with the colour of one’s blood. It is simply a matter of having time to devote, and access to artistic productions, in order to appreciate them.

This Socialism alone can provide and surely this is not an impossible task for modern man to achieve.

G. R. Russell

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day, 1958. Party activities in London, Glasgow and Nottingham had the best results for many years and it is most heartening. The weather was good, which is a helpful factor, but even with weather in our favour, it is essential that members should organise to get te best results. This they did, and although full details have not been collected, we do know that thirty-five members in Hyde Park sold at least 200 Socialist Standards and ten shillings' worth of pamphlets. An evening meeting at Denison House was also successful, but full details are not yet to hand. Nottingham. Members from London added to the efforts of the local members and held most successful meetings; literature sales amounted to nearly £3. Glasgow. Comrade D’Arcy, from London, joined forces with the Glasgow members, and outdoor meetings and one indoor meeting resulted in the sale of over £4 worth of literature, and collections amounted to £7 10s. 0d. At all the meetings the audiences were attentive and asked good questions.

Wickford. Branch reports that successful sales of the Socialist Standard have resulted from the Branch members canvassing in the Basildon New Town area of Essex.

Glasgow’s May Day Meeting. Glasgow City and Kelvingrove Branches turned up in full strength at Queens Park Recreation Grounds for their afternoon meeting. Twenty-one members sold nearly £4 worth of Socialist literature while Comrade James D'Arcy addressed an appreciative audience of two hundred, in opposition to the Glasgow Trades Council, whose representative, Mr. Hugh Gaitskell—addressing a somewhat thicker audience—explained how the Tory Party were to blame for the impoverished condition of the British working class.

The Party's May Day venture was well organised and the opening shots were fired when six members distributed 1,500 leaflets, from door to door, advertising the Sunday evening meeting. Later, in the wee small hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings, the streets of Glasgow received a face-lift of whitewash in the shape of adverts for the meetings. In the evening the finishing touches were put to the May Day campaign when Comrades Higgins, Richmond and D'Arcy put the Socialist case to seventy enthusiastic members of the working class assembled in the St Andrew's Halls.

The total collections and donations from both meetings more than covered all expenses. Full details of the literature sales are not yet to hand, but it is expected these will be better than they have been for many years.

During the afternoon, while our members were swarming over the Queens Park selling Standards, some members took the opportunity to expose to a small group of workers the anti-working class activities of the Communist Party. A few members of the Paisley Branch of the Communist Party were so incensed by the Socialist analysis that they rashly challenged the S.P.G.B. to debate and, needless to say, their challenge was accepted. We are writing to the Paisley Branch and can only hope that the “Foreign Office” of the U.S.S.R. will come out of their funk-holes long enough to be opposed by a Socialist speaker.

After the success of May Day members of both branches are looking forward to an excellent hearing during the summer months.

Comrade Russell, who lives in Manchester, is greatly assisting in the disposal of back numbers of the Socialist Standard. His work takes him travelling constantly over an area stretching from Yorkshire to London, and over to Wales. During these trips he takes the opportunity of leaving our journal in prominent places and has had many interesting discussions with fellow travellers on trains, buses, and in station waiting rooms. He travels over the same ground, mainly in a weekly cycle, and maintains his “distribution” constantly. As he so modestly says, perhaps the constant effort on these lines may bear some much-wanted fruit. Well said, indeed, and perhaps other members similarly placed might like to try their hands at this method of propaganda.

Bristol. Meetings will be held at Durdham Downs on Sundays at 3 p.m. Will members and sympathisers make every effort to attend and assist Comrade Flowers and other members of Bristol Group ?

Fulham and Chelsea Branch report that they are holding regular and interesting Branch meetings and discussions on the first and third Thursdays in each month.

As an experiment, the Branch Organiser has arranged a number of meetings and discussions with the aid of special L.P. records. The first record, “Shuttle and Cage,” which includes a very dramatic ballad about the Gresford mining disaster of 1934, and a number of English, Irish. Welsh and Scottish industrial folk songs, sung by Ewan MacColl, gave rise to much interesting discussion. Further recordings made by Alan Lomax deal with the life of the American negro.

Since the advertisement of these discussions, the Branch Organiser has received a number of letters (including one from Comrade Rab of America) enquiring about the records used; or making suggestions of other recordings that might benefit Party discussion Groups and Branches. A reader in Glasgow suggests that the recording “Old Man Atom,” by Guy Carawan, which deals with nuclear weapons, would be of interest to Socialists. He also mentions “Jack Elliott’s "Woody Guthrie’s Blues," which contains, along with four other titles, the ‘1913 Massacre’ and 'The Ludlow Massacre,’ both songs of the murders of early Trade Unionists in America.”

At Easter a number of members of the Branch went to Aldermaston, and helped with the distribution of the leaflet, “Nuclear War,” and sold Party literature on the march. On Sunday, April 13th, six members of the Branch, along with over forty other members of the Party, distributed “Nuclear War” leaflets, and sold Party literature (one member of the Branch sold 16 “Socialist Party and War” pamphlets!) at the Labour Party and T.U.C. meeting in Trafalgar Square.

On Thursday, May 1st, members of the Branch collaborated with Paddington Branch members in holding a meeting at Earls Court. And, during the summer months, Branch members will be collaborating with Paddington Branch in running outdoor meetings at Earls Court on Thursday and Friday evenings. All readers of the Socialist Standard are welcome to come. Meetings commence at 8 p.m.

The Overseas Secretary asks all members who have overseas' contacts to send the names and addresses of these contacts, together with any other information about contacts, to the Overseas Secretary, c/o H. O., 52, Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

The Overseas Secretary would also be pleased to hear from readers of the Socialist Standard abroad.

Comrade Ivy Groves. It is a sad duty to have to report the sudden death at the age of 50 years, of Ivy Groves, who had a heart attack on Sunday, May 4th. The not so very young members will well remember her as a loyal Comrade who. although not a writer or a speaker for the Party, was always ready with a smile and much energy, to help in any way. Until the last few years, when owing to domestic circumstances when it was not possible to be around so much, she regularly attended branch meetings and Head Office. It was 25 years ago when Comrade Ivy Groves joined the Chiswick Branch which via Wembley Branch became Ealing Branch. Latterly, when living in South London she transferred to Camberwell Branch. Many Comrades well know that her help and thoughtfulness greatly assisted Clifford Groves in his work for the Party as a propagandist, E. C. Member and General Secretary for many years.

Hackney Branch. Hackney Branch consider that the election campaign in the Bethnal Green division was extremely successful, in fact, far more successful than we had hoped.

The votes cast for the three candidates were 356, 333. and 306, indicating in some small degree, the growth of Socialist ideas within the constituency.

During the campaign 24,000 election manifestoes were distributed (one to each home in the constituency), together with several thousand leaflets advertising meetings some “Introducing the S.P.G.B.” and a number of free copies of the Socialist Standard. Apart from this canvassing of the Socialist Standard continued, and about 24 dozen copies were sold.

The support given by other branches was extremely encouraging, a number of members attending from Islington, Wood Green, Paddington, Lewisham, Woolwich and West Ham branches. Branches also assisted with financial support.

Attempts were made to hold a number of outdoor meetings, but these were not successful due to the very bad weather. The three school meetings were also poorly attended, probably for the same reason.

We do not claim to have made the best possible use of the election, but we have acquired considerable experience in the campaign which will be an invaluable help on future occasions. We hope that the result of the campaign will encourage other branches to contest local elections in their own area. A good opportunity will arise next year when London Borough Councils are due to be elected.

Phyllis Howard

Blogger's Notes:

• The obituary for Ivy Groves has appeared elsewhere on the blog.
• Despite my best efforts I can't find out the identity of the three Hackney Branch members who were the local election candidates in 1958. They are never mentioned by name in the Standard. I could make an educated guess  . . . but I won't. Hackney Branch actually contested the Bethnal Green parliamentary constituency the following year at the General Election. Jack Read was the party candidate on that occasion. Anecdotes about that campaign are aplenty in Barltrop's 'The Monument'. 
• Unfortunately, there were quite a few typos in the Fulham and Chelsea Branch report. Musician names misspelt all other the place. I did try to provide YouTube links for the songs mentioned in the report, but I can't guarantee that they are the actual versions referred to. Ramblin' Jack Elliott singing Woody Guthrie's songs is especially recommended.

Under the Hammer (1961)

From the April 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Few towns are without their local auction rooms. The writer can well remember as a child standing in a bare room in a house in New Brunswick as the collection of shabby goods and chattels representing his parents’ years of toil, quickly vanished ’’under the hammer”. Later, we set sail for new horizons, also to find the same old wage slavery elsewhere.

But, such auctions of working class “property" never hit the headlines. Why should they? They have no sensational news value for journalists to scoop. They prefer such stories as the recent Franz Hals write-up—the Cavalier painting with the £182,000 touch. So—ignoring the ”small fry” auctions—let us take a look at the “Big Boys". Messrs Christie. Manson and Woods, and Sotheby.

The 1958/1959 auction season turnover at Sotheby's was £5,756,742. In June 1959, the famous Rubens painting Adoration of the Magi from the late Duke of Westminster’s collection, realised £275,000. The following day’s sale saw bidding on the Westminster Diamond Tiara begin at £40,000 and close on the selling price of £110,000. Then early in December 1960, Messrs Sotheby’s hammer descended with a shower of golden sparks (in the form of commission) on the £182.000 sale of the Franz Hals.

The 1959 turnover at Messrs Christie's was £2,783.490. In June of that year a 23 carat diamond ring belonging to Mrs. Michael Wilding went for £56,000. A collection of porcelain belonging to the Marquess of Exeter, was sold in July for a total of £21,250, a 45 piece Swansea dessert service from the above collection, realizing 4,800 guineas. Again on November 6th a collection of paintings. 29 in all. including 15 by Constable belonging to the late Mr. H. L. Fison, fetched £85,900.

Christie's 1959/60 season turnover was £3,500,000. a substantial increase on the previous year. A Matisse oil painting sold for £21,000, and a diamond and sapphire necklet belonging to the Earl of Harcwood was knocked down for a mere £28,000. So here lies an opportunity for all those who "have never had it so good" to invest some of their surplus wages instead of frittering it away on the pools!

As Messrs Christie's have been providing opportunities since 1766, their records must show the handling of a sizeable proportion of the wealth of the ruling class. Amongst their "exclusive" clientele were Madame du Barry (1795), Queen Charlotte (1819), and the Empress Eugenie (1872). In 1927 they handled the Russian, and in 1931 the Bavarian, crown jewels.

So, as the vast majority of workers go about their daily routine in office. mine or factory, the habitués of Christie's tirelessly raise a linger or nod a head as the descending hammer of the auctioneer "raises the wind" for his "exclusive" clientele. One nod of the head at these sales can often equal 5 or 10 weeks' wages of a member of the working class. The assumption that those who collect, can afford to pay the piper, is never in doubt and runs through most of the sales literature of these firms. In Christie's Review of the Year 1957 we read the following: —

The jewel sales continue to show that there is a constant demand for fine diamonds and coloured stones and that early Victoriana and, above all, samples of 17th and 18th century jewellery are collected more than ever by those who appreciate design and craftsmanship as well as intrinsic values of stones.

But this does not apply to society as a whole, because of course there arc many human beings who appreciate design and craftsmanship "but certainly do not collect items from Christie's sales, simply because they could not even afford Christie's 10% commission.

Christie's literature is of course written for the "haves“ in society. The vast majority, the "have-nots," require a world in which auction sales and all other commercial paraphernalia will be thrown overboard and the means of life made accessible for all.

G. R. Russell

Capitalism — the gambling society ! (1973)

From the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under Roman Law, a loser at the ancient and popular gambling game of “knucklebones”, could sue and was entitled to have his losses returned. Certainly a case of “the good old days” so far as modern punters are concerned; but even the thought of such a law today is enough to make the bet-shop tycoons turn deathly pale.

However, the costermongers of London’s 1850’s could put to shame our modern bookmakers when it came to showing some humanity in the betting jungle. The Victorian journalist Mayhew told of an established custom among them of making a “present of four or five shillings to those whose losses were heavy”. He also reported that the street Piemen of that period, finding competition severe from the increasing number of pie shops, used to cry . . . “Toss or buy! Up and win ’em”, handing over a pie if their customer won, and receiving one penny without parting with a pie, if their customer lost the toss.

But the business of gambling today, far from being alien to the gambling of business, actually complements it and proof of this is to be found in the Stock Exchange quotes of various bookmaking firms “on ’change” who blossomed forth from the squalor and the illegality of the old back-street betting dens of Britain. So that, since the “hungry thirties”, gambling has developed into a large-scale social habit with crowded bet-shops, bingo halls, dog tracks, casinos and last but not least, horse racing, boosted by T.V., with half the female population joining in. All this human activity, animated by the sordid incentive of money-grubbing, merely mirrors that of the stock exchanges and marketplaces of capitalism and is quite natural to the prevailing mode of production, despite hypocritical and illogical protests from the hired Men of God who bolster King Capital’s Establishment.

Those who, like the pre-Victorian writer and reformer, Sydney Smith, wish to suppress what they term “vice” in the form of gambling, should take a long hard look at the real vice — capitalism itself, instead of wasting their time tinkering with society. But even Smith, in his long essay on “The Society for the Suppression of Vice” in the Edinburgh Review jibbed at the prevailing social hypocrisy:

The gambling houses of St. James remain untouched. The peer ruins himself and his family with impunity . . . It is not true, as urged by the Society, that the vices of the poor are carried on in houses of public resort, and those of the rich in their own houses. The Society cannot be ignorant of the innumerable gambling houses resorted to by men of fashion. Is there one they have suppressed, or even attempted to suppress ? Can anything be more despicable than distinctions such as these? 

Nor, may we add, was it logical of Smith to make a distinction between gambling and business as though one was alien to the other! And whether the rich gambled in St. James, their own private apartments, Monte Carlo, or anywhere else makes no iota of difference to the working class. While the “opium of the people” — which Sydney Smith helped to perpetuate, did them far more damage than any game of Pitch & Toss! Failing to “see the wood for the trees” he believed that the ugly face of capitalism could be improved, that “God was in his heaven and the world was all right”.

An early attempt to introduce government sponsored gambling in the form of Premium Bonds was made in 1917. In that year Sir Ellis Hume-Williams formed a Premium Bond Committee in the House of Commons, which was debated and defeated a few years later. As he remarked in his autobiography.

Of course my chief opponent was Sir Robert Kindersley who quite honestly — and I think rightly — feared that Premium Bonds would injure the flow of money to his War Savings Certificates. It so happened that we had never met, but in the winter after it was all over we found ourselves seated opposite each other at the very mild Chemin-de-fer tables at the Cannes Casino and a battle royal between us ensued.

(The World, the House and the Bar) 

Note that there is no mention here of any police harassment of these two members of the élite for their gambling activities, such as the Black Maria raids on the back-street gambling dens of Britain where members of the working class dared to indulge in the Sport of Kings, until the siege was finally lifted and betting for the wage-enslaved majority became “respectable”.

With football pools’ dividends reaching ever-new highs, gambling continues to boom like the quack remedies described by Marx and Engels:

Just as medical miracle workers and miraculous cures are made possible by ignorance of the laws of the natural world, social miracle workers and miraculous social cures thrive upon ignorance of the laws of the social world. 

Speculation in stocks and shares is a characteristic of a gambling society like capitalism, and bankruptcies are another ! Even men like Pascal, who formulated a theory of probability (and who was known as . . . “the gamblers friend”), or Carl Frederick Gauss, nineteenth century German mathematician who “loved to calculate as a Soprano loves to hold high C” would be helpless to remove the gambling element from the anarchy of production for profit.

So, let us take a tip from Marx, and ignoring those miraculous social cures get wise to the laws of the social world within the ranks of the World Socialist Movement.

G. R. Russell

From the Cradle to the Grave (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Evening News of May 25, 1944, publishes an article by a staff reporter under the heading, “Control of Funerals, Unlikely.”

We are not here concerned with the question of price control, whether for ingress to or egress from “this sorry scherne of things entire”—that we can safely leave to those “financial wizards” and “price ceiling experts” whose job it is to “navigate” the “good ship Capitalism.”

The footnote to the above mentioned article is much more interesting and informative, and we quote it as follows :

“Prices at Southern Cemetery for Graves range from £3 4s. 6d. to £72 15s. More than 50 per cent. are buried in £3 4s. 6d. graves. Those at £72 15s. are double spaces in prominent positions on main drives. Single space in same position costs £30 1s. (Our italics.)

Human beings born into the working class are rocked in “shoddy” cradles, dressed in “shoddy” clothes, fed on “shoddy” food, housed in “jerry” buildings, and when their days of toil are over buried in “shoddy” graves. Worn out by a lifetime of toil and poverty midst plenty, the worker “giving up the ghost'” reaches his goal—a “£3 4s. 6d. grave.”

Not for him the prominent main drive; a back row will suffice, but he may console himself with the thought that the worms are probably fatter where the potentates are laid !

”Prominent graves for ‘prominent’ men” is a fitting slogan for supporters of capitalism, whilst the stone mason, exercising all his skill on magnificent monuments for “great” men and marble memorials for millionaires, vaguely wonders if he will manage a “wooden” cross!

The art of the stone mason adorns the pillars of plutocracy, but the stone mason—lies fertilising in the “back row.”

This is capitalism, from the cradle to the grave. Workers, unite for Socialism !

G. R. Russell

Figuratively speaking (1952)

From the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

A report of wage cuts by the John Lewis multiple stores is given by the " Liverpool Post ” of 30th June in a quotation from the house magazine of that 60 store concern, and Mr. John Spedan Lewis is quoted as follows

"Our sales this year are at the rate of 20 per cent. below last year. Obviously you cannot go on like that without making some adjustment . . .

“The shareholders in our group get only moderate fixed dividends. The average rate is under 4½ per cent. Everything beyond that goes to our workers.

“ Over the last 23 years since I introduced the scheme they have had more than £2,750,000 additional to what they would otherwise have got. In other words, they have had the amount which would have been my income less taxation and I have worked gratis for them ever since it started."

(Our Italics.)

On perusing this literary bombshell, the 10,000 wage slaves of Messrs. Lewis’ may consider themselves rather fortunate in having a boss like Mr. Lewis and accept the reduced price of their labour power pacifically, whilst no doubt, vaguely wondering why they have not noticed Mr. Lewis working so hard for them ! If, however, they carefully consider the figures quoted, as we shall show below, they may then realize the deception served on them as a “ softening up ” process for wage cuts.

The shareholders “only” got a “ moderate ” 4½ per cent. from this 60 store, £14,000,000 organisation, but the 10,000 greedy workers have grabbed £2,750,000 over and above their wages during the last 23 years. This represents, roughly, about 5s. each per week. At the present cost of living, of course it would pay for the cat’s milk.

As a single salary, the amount would be, again roughly speaking, about £5,000 per annum, a “useful addition’’ to Mr. Lewis’ present income. Obviously he must have a “present income” otherwise he could not have existed working so hard for his workers. Here we see why these figures mean so much to Mr. Lewis and so little to his wage slaves.

In passing we wonder what the high pressure salesmen have been doing, to “allow” that 20 per cent. drop in sales ? Shades of Henry Ford, Bedaux and the rest, this won’t do, Mr. Lewis, bad for “morale” and all that. But we shed no tears over the drop in sales, that is Mr. Lewis’ concern and whilst he advocates wage cuts to offset the reduction in sales, we advocate Socialism to cut the wages system out of existence, thereby dropping sales (not an alarming 20 per cent. Mr. Lewis), but altogether. No selling, no buying of labour power or any other commodity. Just plain simple production for use.

Get the idea, Buddies ? What about it

G. R. Russell.

Fifty Years Ago (1987)

From the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty years ago, in 1937, I had managed to survive three years of life on the dole and, more importantly, had discovered the Socialist Party of Great Britain, offering the only practical alternative to such a life.

The 1929 Wall Street Crash had signalled that capitalism was in for one of its periodic slumps, but despite that in 1931 I landed a so-called permanent job as an LM&S Railway staff joiner. However as Marx said "the only permanence is change" and in 1934 the LM&S reduced its staff, pitching our gang of joiners, plumbers, painters and labourers on to the scrap heap of the unemployed. I found myself signing on at the Albion Street labour exchange in Salford (where Walter Greenwood. author of Love On The Dole had also signed on). My weekly allowance for myself, wife and two children was thirty four shillings out of which I had to pay ten shillings rent. (£1.70 and 50p respectively). The rent was for a bug infested attic flat in Higher Broughton. Many houses in the Broughton area were infested with bugs. Indeed on one occasion I had obtained the keys of another flat from a Mr Lever who then lived in Northumberland Street, Higher Broughton. I had decided to take the flat and had deposited two suitcases there when I noticed something moving on one of the cupboard shelves and to my horror found colonies of bed bugs all over the flat and behind the wallpaper. I quickly removed my suitcases and returned the keys to Mr Lever, declining his offer to have his property fumigated for me.

In an attempt to escape those bed bugs. I fled from Higher Broughton into a house in Lower Broughton as no bugs were to be seen there. I had only been there one night when larger colonies of bugs than ever attacked us. They had been hiding behind the skirting boards. An old man with the longest beard I ever saw sat next door on his doorstep and politely enquired of me . . . "Vell, how you like your house, eh?" . . . I told him how much I disliked it and he waved a hand airily, remarking complacently "Vell, a few bugs".

The gambling "solution"?

Trying to beat the depression with various money making schemes. I finally got hooked on horse racing, although 1 had never gambled in my life before. In those days, the only legal way to gamble off course was to send one's bets by post to Scottish bookmakers and I chose to deal with McLauchlan's of Glasgow and Edinburgh who accepted bets so long as they were time postmarked prior to time of races concerned. To my delight my very first two commissions won me £40 and I decided to study the game from all angles, even sending over to Dublin for a copy of The Irish Horse (an excellent book on breeding) and burned the midnight oil studying systems by the dozen, many of them my own invention. Some of those were successful for a season, but the next season something would inevitably go haywire.

Incidentally, the racing programmes in the daily press in public libraries in the mid-thirties were erased by black ink so that the unemployed, who could ill afford the price of the Sporting Life were denied something so readily available to those frequenting Ascot's Lawns. Also the Black Maria police vans used to prowl around Britain's back street betting dens before 1962 when betting became, for working class punters, a respectable activity. After a period of successful bets with McLauchlans. they placed a restriction on my bets by writing to tell me. that. . . "In future your bets must be in our office before racing" . . . I was torpedoed because that meant posting my bets the day before actual racing which was really restricting me to ante post betting, which was useless to me. So I joined the back street "tapes on the wall" dens from then on, moving from one area to another to evade the Black Marias.

Non-union exploitation

The official union rate for joiners when I joined the ASW (Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers) in 1929 was 1/7½d an hour (about 8p) but the railway rate, when I joined the NUR was l/4d. But there were other benefits such as a guaranteed week with no loss of time for being rained off or foggy weather plus quarter fare travelling facilities anywhere on the railway. After a year of the dole queues I decided to try a non-union firm of cabinet makers situated in the old Ford Auto works in First Avenue, Trafford Park. I was offered 10d an hour which of course I refused and after haggling with them I agreed to start at one shilling an hour. In that factory, many men were doing the same job for different rates. My mate on the other side of the bench was getting 10d; I was getting a shilling - considered a top rate there. We worked from 8am until 8pm with two half hour breaks for tea snacks and they charged us ½d for hot water to brew up. On my first day there a foreman came over to me and shouted in my ear above the din of the machinery: "Any more talking and you're outside". So we became silent automatons, trying to meet the target rate of twenty minutes to fit five drawers in a cabinet by planing off a quarter inch of American oak from each drawer, an impossible task set by management and none of us did better than a half hour minimum. It was of course planing by hand with one's own tools, not machine planing. I got home at 9pm and sank into a chair too tired to wash until later. After six months of that the firm laid us off for a temporary period which I decided to make permanent, so I said goodbye to Trafford Park and its hateful environment of wage slavery which I've no desire to re-visit.

But we've come a long way since those days haven't we? Today there is Social Security. acid rain, nuclear bombs and three million on the dole. Berlin Walls, Belfast ghettos and apartheid . . .

G R Russell

Letter: Juvenile Delinquents (1958)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Greenford, Middlesex.

30/7/58.

Dear Sir,

The article by G. R. Russell on the above subject will do little to further the cause of Socialism as both Sir Hartley Shawcross and Mr. Ewen Montague spoke the truth.

I live on a Council Estate which is really well laid out, grass plots and verges, tree lined roads, and good gardens and there is a Park less than five minutes away where the children can play any game they like. The houses are well built, have parquet floors, central heating, half tiled kitchens, lavatories and bathrooms. The tenants include teachers, store managers, civil servants, etc., etc. Hardly a house (except my own) has less than £15 per week coming in.

One would think that under such circumstances the children would play in the Park and other open spaces provided, but do they? Oh no, its the streets, sitting in the gutters and on the grass plots under the shadow of notices prohibiting such action.

Not long ago three of the boys watched a family go out and promptly broke in, stealing money and articles. Opposite me, a house was being built privately; a work hut with glass along one side, was erected and within five minutes of the owner leaving not a pane was left intact. Later bricks, neatly stacked, were scattered to the four winds and later still, the entire glass in the windows had to be renewed three times. They even broke in and knocked holes in the dividing walls.

Was all this due to “environment” of either parents or children? Was it hell. It was due to lack of parental control and failure in home and school to teach the difference between “Mine” and “Thine.”

Yours faithfully,

B. S. Anderson.

Reply.

The article to which our correspondent refers (“Juvenile Delinquents Again.” July S.S.) commented on the question posed in the Yorkshire Post as to whether the current “light regard for morals or a weakening sense of responsibility” may be encouraged by “something in the nature of the society we have built up.” Our contributor, in his article, answered the question with a yes! and dismissed as superficial Sir Hartley Shawcross’s and Mr. Ewen Montague’s attitude of laying the blame on parents without mention of “ environment and conditions of poverty.”

It is true that our contributor illustrated his case against the capitalist environment in which we live by examples of bad housing and sunless streets, etc., but the case is not against merely the worst conditions but against capitalism itself.

Our correspondent’s examples taken from an area where the workers are more highly paid and better housed does not meet the Socialist case.

To start with, we would want to know much more about the problems of the parents who live there than the bare statement that most of the homes are believed to have £15 a week coming in (not exactly a princely sum to meet the cost of a family anyway). How many wage earners are there to a household; how many of the wives have to go out to work; what are the outgoings on rent and mortgages. A recent article on the similar troubles of the new town of Stevenage may give us a clue. It is a brand new town, with brand new houses, but, says the local Catholic priest. “Families are up to the neck in debt and their big worry is only whether they can keep the HP. going on the telly” (Empire News, 10th August, 1958). The same article instances a family of six with an income of £13 18s., but after paying for rent, food and other outgoings (including 57s. for rent and 17s. 6d. HP. repayments on T.V. and carpets) all they have left to buy clothes “and daily titbits,” etc., is 31s. 3d. a week.

But these are only a small part of the “environment” with which we, as Socialists, are concerned. The children of rich and poor live in different kinds of houses and neighbourhoods, but they all, and their parents too, live in a world given over to wholesale waste, personal and governmental, and to destruction, instability and the ever present threat of war.

Our correspondent wants the parents and teachers to shoulder their responsibility of teaching the difference between “mine” and “thine”; but how will this solve the problem? He asks them to hold with conviction and pass on to the young, the faith that respect for property is of paramount importance for their happiness. But how can the adults or the young find this a sufficient doctrine against the background of capitalism which constitutes the environment in which they live.

Editorial Committee.

Communist Party tactics exposed (1958)

From the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are often told by members of the so-called “Communist” Party, in their endeavours to excuse the strange somersaults of a Party professing working class interests that such behaviour is merely “tactical manoeuvres” on the political front.

The latest sample of—“Tactics, Comrade” comes from the upheaval in France among the ruling clique over their difficulties in Algeria. It shows just what anti-working class actions this tactic can lead to.

We take the following extracts from their own beloved organ—that fighter for working class CONFUSION—the Daily Worker of May 17th: —

“The special powers asked for by the Premier Pflimlin— which would automatically lapse if the Government fell— gave the authorities the right to close any public buildings, to impose a curfew, the right of search, the censorship and control of the Press, Radio and other means of communication, the right to order house arrest, to forbid movement of traffic or people.

“The group of 150 Communist M.P.s decided before the National Assembly Meeting this morning to vote for the powers under the present circumstances. Jacques Duclos, leader of the group, told the National Assembly! . . .

“The danger is great—the government of the Republic must present a solid front. The Communist Party will take part with all its forces in the defence of the Republican institutions. Considering the circumstances, the Communist group will vote for those special powers." (Daily Worker, 17th May, 1958.)

If voting for such powers of coercion as outlined in the Daily Worker report has anything to do with the struggle of the working class for Socialism—then the moon certainly must be made of “green cheese! ”

One more indictment of the Communists is contained in the following telegram sent by the British Communist Party to the Communist Party of France:—

"In this hour of grave menace of the renewed offensive of Fascist and Militarist reaction in France, we express to you, dear Comrades of the French Communist Party, our solidarity with you and with all people in the fight for the defence of democracy.

“The shameful attempted coup of the same reactionary militarist elements who betrayed France to Nazism and who torture Algerian Patriots, has aroused universal anger and disgust in Britain.

“The immediate response and leadership of the French Communist Party has won Universal admiration. The interests of the French and British peoples are indissolubly united in the fight against Fascism.

“Signed by—John Gollan, Harry Pollitt and R. Palme Dutt.” (Daily Worker, 17th May, 1958.)

Little remains to be said. From the above it will be seen by all workers understanding Socialism that the signatures to this telegram could just as easily have been —Winston Churchill, D. Eisenhower and Earl Attlee! Indeed, the phraseology is remniscent of the Churchillian exhortations in the days when “Comrade” Stalin was his ally.

G. R. Russell

Old Age Pensions (1959)

From the July 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are all familiar with music-hall melodies which conjure up visions of a best of all possible worlds, where the capricious weather is the only cause for complaint. Certainly, a nice sunny day under the palms of say, the Bahamas, sipping iced drinks and carelessly tossing filthy lucre around to fawning waiters, hoteliers and the like is guaranteed to make life tolerable; if at times a bore.

However, the gay lines of the song are themselves a reflection of their gloomy opposite—the smog-ridden back streets of Britain's industrial areas and the dull lives of the propertyless wage slaves who from cradle to grave, inhabit them. Who rise by their alarm clocks, spend their days producing surplus value and look forward, at the end, to scraping along on an old age pension. The question is—should we aim to abolish a social system that breeds such contrasts or should we tinker at reforming it?

Progress

Certainly, the reform-mongers have had a good innings—there has been no dearth of “improvers of the condition of the working class" since Marx tabulated them. Whether Tory, Liberal, Labour of Communist Parties, they have all had a go at “improving" the wages system, until those who work for wages may wonder why there is anything left to be improved.

Further, whilst the labour and inventive genius of the working class has showered luxury after luxury on their employers, their own lives are marked by monotonous insecurity, with the ultimate goal of a weekly pension of about 50s. Cold comfort for them to read boastful headlines of progress in aeronautics and so on, whilst life in their own orbit involves wintering, not on Palm Beach or the shores of the Mediterranean, but anchored to their obscure slum allies, shivering over oil stoves. Is this progress?

Pensioners are the forgotten men and women of capitalism, who are of no further use in the production of surplus value. Here is the real reason for pensions and pensioners, for the production of surplus value is the mainspring of capitalism, which enables those who by labour power to live in luxury and idleness.

Wistful Eyes

Certainly, our pensioners may view distant sunny lands in glorious technicolor—from a cinema seat whilst the damp, foggy air of the industrial areas awaits them at the end of the show. Only within the glossy pages of coloured cruise brochures may they wander with wistful eyes along gleaming promenade decks, dining saloons, lounges, ban and staterooms of the Queens of the Southern Seas. These enjoyments are for sale—at hundreds of pounds—and so are out of reach of Britain's sun-starved old age pensioners.

Such is the class nature of progress in a class divided society; always the greatest benefits of improvement in transport and so on accrue to the ruling class. Until the workers decide to end this monopoly of the good things of life, participation on their part will be limited to a mere shadow of the real thing.

During last winter, whilst old age pensioners and the like tried to combat the cold with stoves run on paraffin oil at 2s. per gallon instead of coal at 9s. per bag, Sir Winston Churchill flew to sunny Morocco in a 70-seater plane with only 17 passengers. Here was room for 50 of Britain's sun-starved pensioners. After all, are they not part of Britain's one big happy family which the politicians are fond of orating about? Or could it be that the wealthy shipping potentate Aristotle Onassis, whose guest Churchill was, preferred the empty seats to the pensioners' company?

No Pensions

The answer is that there can be no participation in this type of progress for the great mass of humanity, so long as they are shackled to the wages system. Wages, which generally are only just sufficient to maintain and reproduce the worker, are the chain which pegs him down to his native heath. The Socialist Standard of October 1956 pointed out that “only 8 per cent. of the population of Britain went abroad for holidays in 1955 and that 77 per cent, have never been outside Britain."

As long as the worker has abilities to sell and can produce surplus value he is an asset to the capitalist class, but once the golden juice of labour power dries up with his advancing years, his days of exploitation are numbered. Finally, he is retired and becomes a liability to those who, having exploited him during the best years of his life grant him a tiny pension to continue his existence, if he can.

Under Socialism, of course, there will be no pensions, even large ones, because once humanity is freed from the necessity of selling their energies and social ownership of the means of life is a reality, every human being, regardless of age, will have free and welcome access to the good things of life. When their hair is turning greyer—by weight of years alone—their place in society will be one of dignity and respect in a free and harmonious community.

G. R. Russell.

Homes and hovels (1957)

From the March 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children may be an admirable institution in the eyes of those who fail to realize its limitations: namely, that it is powerless to prevent the poverty stricken unhappy home conditions arising from a social system whose “mainspring" is profit, and where the amount of rent paid determines the quality and quantity of the shelter that is sold. Pay eight guineas a week and you can live in comfort; pay eight shillings a week and you can live in misery.

There’s the rub—the quantity of wages determines the quality of shelter and there is no escape from this state of affairs, so long as shelter and the workers’ labour power both exist as commodities.

Slums always with us

Without tiresome reminders of the slums that are still with us, despite their “abolition" on paper over the years by Governments of the day, surely it must be obvious that if Capitalism produces them, through the inability of its wage slaves to afford decent homes, the only solution is to abolish the wages system, which is the real stumbling block to the so-called housing problem. Despite the foregoing, we constantly read statements, such as the following, culled from the Liverpool Echo of 30th November:—

 “Lady Celia Noble, wife of Sir Humphrey Noble. High Sheriff of Northumberland and mother of two sons and a daughter, told the annual meeting of Blackpool branch of the N.S.P.C.. yesterday that a happy home life was the surest way of preventing misery and delinquincy in children.

 

“ ‘The child who is secure and has affection is not the child who goes into the juvenile court,' she said.” (Our italics.)

This statement is illuminating merely because of what it does not tell us, namely, about the child who is not “secure” and whose quota of comfort and affection is on a diminishing ratio in relation to the degree of misery and degradation of the particular slum environment he or she inhabits.

Can Lady Noble, who has been fortunate enough to bestow on her offspring the degree of comfort in her home which she deems necessary to prevent the misery she mentions, inform us how to provide all children with similar desirable home conditions in a class divided, buying and selling world? Socialists continually point out that the abolition of the wages system is the only possible solution for the miseries which spring from production for profit.

Our Mansion and Hovel World

In passing, the following quotations have some bearing on the subject:—

 “In a society in which there is war and its consequences the conditions do not exist for active life mellowing into old age. In cities built haphazardly, the mansion and the slum are corollaries. Where the horror of street upon street of back-to-back hovels is tolerated, there is unlikely to be any appreciation of the need for parks and open fields. As long as the individual worker is the most cheaply replaced component of industrial stock, his welfare is not likely to he the first consideration in production: factories will continue to be built and mines sunk to satisfy other reasons than the dictates of life and health. The production of goods and food geared to any other motive than their consumption by the producers must lead to the insanity of food being burnt and production restricted when there is widespread malnutrition and want with all their consequences on health. Morbidity and mortality directly arising from poverty and social mismanagement in a society that has technologically solved the needs of production, present to medicine not a problem, but an outrage.” (Arnold Sorsby's “ Medicine and Mankind.” (Our italics.)

The illusion that the vast mass of the working class can somehow “hoist" themselves out of their poverty and degradation by such means as “home buying" on a mortgage system is a popular fantasy held by those who fail to comprehend the underlying cause of slums and poverty which is that the working class have to sell their labour-power on the market.

The Snare of Home Ownership

Whilst on the subject of home ownership—Lewis Mumford, in his work, Culture of Cities, has this to say— 

  “The failure of decent housing to obtain capital through competition in the market has led to widespread attempts to foster home-ownerships among the workers: under the guise of offering security, those who have fostered this movement, including Government agencies, have sought to burden the worker with the risks: risks whose returns are not sufficient to attract the necessary capital from the more wary. This diversion of the worker's meagre budget to housing not merely undermines his standard of life: it lessens his freedom of movement and, during a financial crisis or a local shutdown often results in the complete loss of his entire investment—and the roof over his head as well.” (Our italics.) 

The problem facing the world wide working class is one of poverty caused through wage slavery—the solution lies in abolishing the wages system and establishing Socialism. So long as these facts are ignored by the majority we shall continue to read in the Daily Press the empty speeches of the defenders of King Capital, whether well meaning or hypocritical.

G. R. Russell.

Pseudo-Democracy and Dictatorship (1939)

From the September 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The lot of the Conscientious Objector is, as usual, no “Bed of Roses.” Witness the bitter facts of the first Birmingham Tribunal. One young wage slave who had the “Downright Impudence” to state his refusal to participate in any of the Government’s ALTERNATIVES was immediately entered for service with the Militia ! What a strange way of Administering Democracy?

All wage slaves are called upon to “Fight for Democracy” in order to preserve their Liberties, yet this self-same “Democracy” forces them into occupations which best serve the interests of the Capitalist “War Machine.” Farewell, Liberties !

Where then is the difference between Dictator­ship and Pseudo-Democracy?

The mistake made by the wage slaves at Birmingham was in Objecting to War only. . . . The REAL Objection should have been AGAINST THE SYSTEM OF SOCIETY which produces Wars and not merely against ONE of the MANY evils of Capitalism.

Russell.

Vegetarianism, Capitalism and Socialism (1945)

From the May 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vegetarians may rightly claim that Diet is an important factor in maintaining a healthy organism, but— many other factors, such as Air, Clothing, Housing, Rest, Mental Serenity, etc., all play their part as contributary factors in causing Health or Disease.

Health, therefore (even as a relative term), does not merely depend upon the question as to whether one derives sustenance from the Vegetable or Animal Kingdoms, but also upon many other complex conditions.

Even were Diet the determining factor in Social Health (and we do not belittle the part it plays) and an Agricultural policy was universally adopted, would the vegetarian products of such a policy be available to All? Would workers and their families receive an adequate supply of fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts according to their needs? Or would they merely receive the quantity which the cash equivalent of their “Butcher's Meat" would buy? From the viewpoint of the working class there would still remain the problem of “making ends meet.” whether on a vegetarian or flesh diet.

The November issue of the "Vegetarian Messenger” (official organ of the Vegetarian Society), publishes an article relative to war time food production, showing the economic advantages of an agricultural policy, and the Ministry of Agriculture's statistics are quoted. Chief among these is the figure for total increase in arable land over 1939 figures, which is given as 63.3 per cent. It has taken a war to prove the economic Advantages of Vegetarianism ! Further on in the same article we read that . . . “These large decreases in livestock indicate that the exigencies of war do not permit of the extravagant policy of rearing large numbers of animals for food consumption.” (our italics). Exactly! The cost of production is ever the determining factor as to what will be produced in Capitalistic Society and what is food, but fuel used in the production of that other commodity, Labour-Power? So that, in weighing up the advantages that may accrue from an agricultural policy, we are of the opinion that the scales would turn in favour of those who BUY Labour Power, not those who SELL it and a cheaper worker would be doubly welcome if also a healthier one!

Whilst we may agree that a balanced diet which contains all the natural vital elements and vitamins is preferable to the “fleshpots,” we realise that until such a diet is available to the majority of mankind according to their needs and not according to their income as at present, small benefit can accrue for those who “live to work.”

Another factor to be taken into consideration relative to a flesh diet is the danger of contamination by foot and mouth disease. During a debate in the House of Commons on the subject, Mr. Turton (M.P. for Thirsk and Malton), stated there has been 126 reported outbreaks of this disease during the first ten months of 1944. (Hansard, November 17th, 1944). (our italics). Comparing above figures with those for the last war. Major York (member for Ripon), gave the number of outbreaks for the years 1916/1920 as 170. He went on to say . . . ,"There must have been nearly that number during the present year. That comparison alone, shows that there is a very serious situation.” Unlike Mr. Snadden (The Hon. member for West Perth, whose statement that “Foot and Mouth disease is a dagger pointing at the heart of our post war agricultural policy.” Hansard, November 17th, 1944, we are not concerned in alleviating the problems of our master's system, but are very much concerned in putting an end to the system which produces such problems.. Foot and Mouth disease is aggravated by war, which is inherent in the capitalist regime. The health of the working class, who hold no share in livestock or any other industry, will in the long run, depend upon their conscious knowledge of their slave position in society and their attainment of Socialism. Until then, their health will remain as it is, in jeopardy, despite any meagre benefits as a resultant of dietetic reform, restricted as it is by income.

What most Vegetarians fail to realise is that diet and health are determined by the Method whereby ALL wealth is produced.

At present we live in an era of private ownership of the means of life. Goods are produced for sale and only with a view to profit. Those who produce everything, own nothing (comparatively), and those who own everything, produce nothing. The worker sells his physical and mental energies and receives in return sufficient to allow hint to replenish his lost energy and reproduce his kind. This process goes on, “from the Cradle to the Grave," there is no escape. Neither by adopting a vegetarian diet, nor by concerning ourselves in the administration of their master’s system, will the workers emancipate themselves from ill health, poverty, war and unemployment. There is a far bigger problem than diet to solve, that is, the struggle for Social ownership of the wealth that is socially produced. So we see that the road to health is also the road to Socialism.

Workers! Get busy, start filing your chains by joining the Socialist Movement.

G. R. Russell

A Degrading Relationship (1967)

From the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The man with a black brief case and an aura of the National Assistance Board stood in the doorway . . . “I am looking for a Mr. So & So”, he began, and added . . . ‘I am from the Ministry of Social Security”. . .

The new era of capitalistic '‘Social Justice” had arrived, grandiloquent title and all.

I directed him up the Edwardian staircase to a proletarian attic, and brusquely swinging his case of “social security” he mounted the stairs to dispense it. But behind the new title and the suave officials, it may be timely to enquire whether the old relationship that existed between the National Assistance Board and its applicants has been abolished along with the title?

What was that relationship anyway?

The following incidents, witnessed by the writer in 1965, may serve as an illustration . . .

A long queue of the destitute moved slowly over a wooden bench as their surnames were lustily echoed to the rafters by an NAB. official whose voice would have done justice to a court crier.

The dejected queue moves one by one before a tough looking receptionist who demands of each . . . “Name & Address” . . . which he busily scribbles down. Then . . . “Have you signed on for work”?. . . “Yes”. . . “Then come and see us again in three days”. . . “But I am destitute”. . . “Well, try and hang on for another day or so, we don't pay out any money here before the three days rule”. . . Crestfallen, the majority shuffle out and count the weary days that must elapse for each fresh applicant.

One, however, an immigrant from the Emerald Isle threatens to break all the NAB windows if he does not get immediate aid. Significantly, he is given preferential treatment. This is the set up of bullying and degradation that existed under the NAB. On one side, the power of. the capitalist state machine, on the other, worn out hulks of those who spend their lives on the wages treadmill until they finally reach a bench at the NAB.

Nor can it be said that relations were any better under a previous state department —the Unemployment Assistance k Board . . . that notorious UAB of the Hungry Thirties which incorporated the Household Means Test in its obnoxious administration and under which the present writer received 34/- weekly for himself, wife and two children after the Inquisition had been well and truly applied.

Thirty years later, the NAB scale of 76/- plus rent allowance for each person has to be viewed against the rise in the cost of living that has occurred in the interval. This makes it clear that the share of the destitute in the “affluent” society is, to say the least, nothing to write home about.

However, we are not here concerned with the degree of relief from destitution authorised by successive Governments, but with the degrading social relationship between the haves and have nots arising from the class division inherent in a profit based economy. This subjection of the vast majority by a small ruling class, and the indignities following from this state of affairs, is what Socialists the world over are dedicated to destroy. When property society is finished, that eternal plaint of capitalism . . . “Brother, can you spare a dime?”. . . will go down in history as the scene of disease which plagued humanity far too long.

G. R. Russell

Sound Currency or No Currency (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The above title might read a bit “haywire” to the stockbrokers of Throgmorton or Wall Streets, but if such is the case, this is merely because their vision is limited to that of a buying and selling, production for profit system of society. A world of banks and bombs, courts and prisons, parsons and prostitutes, “Official Receivers' and un-official “receivers,” Merchant-Brokers and broke “merchants”; flood-lit palaces and gas-lit bad alleys, nuclear “progress” on one hand and National Assistance Boards on the other, plus all the rest of the paraphernalia of this “sorry scheme of things.” 

Anything outside this crazy world of Capitalism is —to the upholders of that social system—a “flight of fancy.”

A recent account by Tom Stacey (Daily Express) describes a fund formed in America, with donations of the “Almighty Dollar” already flowing in, to complete a sum to present to—Guess Who ?—“Our first visitor from outside space.” This is a classical example of bourgeois mentality. For them it is a foregone conclusion that “filthy lucre" could not fail to be held in esteem by any possible inhabitants of the whole vast Cosmos!

Such reasoning is of course fallacious. Social systems change in relation to changes in the mode of production and distribution. There can be no eternal Capitalism any more than there could have been an eternal Feudalism. The “Embryo” of Socialism has long existed within the aging Capitalism in the form of social production and distribution by the working class in the complicated arrangements required by world markets. It needs but the "midwife" of Socialist knowledge on the part of the working class to complete the “delivery" of the new society. A society wherein the beloved “currency” of the stockbrokers and their ilk will find its historic place as an exhibit in the museums.

This is an historic possibility overlooked by such writers as Frederick Ellis, Daily Express financial columnist, who, having his own ideas on what is “good for us all ” offers the following advice in his contribution towards the (doubtful) benefit of suffering humanity:—

   “A strong £ is essential to the welfare of the nation—as, a whole. Monkey about with the £ and you monkey about with Britain’s living standards. The bold and politically courageous moves of the Government, unpopular as they may be, are essential for a sound currency, and a sound currency is good for us all."—(Sunday Express, 3/10/57.)

This statement is typical of the general “run" of these writers who speak for King Capital. In their view, society is made up of nations within whose boundaries exists a total population with identical interests— “happy family” wherein strikes official or unofficial are “bad for us all”; for ever and anon, more work and higher production are “good for us all” with the “Almighty Dollar" as an eternal basis for their financial juggling.

In the first place we take it for granted that Mr. Ellis includes the working class when he talks about the “nation as a whole.” After all where would the “Nation” be without them ! As regards ”monkeying about with the £ and Britain’s living standards”—this advice is rather belated in view of the fact that various Governments since the turn of the Century have been performing tricks in this field, otherwise how explain the vast reduction in volume of commodities bought by the 1957 £ as against its 1900 counterpart? Then again what is Mr. Ellis' basis for a “living standard”? Is it the “Plimsol line” of the old age pensioners “ standard” or perhaps the “standard" of the habitues of the Dorchester. We have to quote these two extremes because Mr. Ellis is himself continually concerned about what is “good for us all.”

The standard of living of the working class in Britain as elsewhere, is determined by the fact that they are a wage-slave class, dependent on the sale of their bodily energy (labour-power), which precludes their participation in the luxury standard of their masters— the Capitalist ruling class. So long as the working class support politically this state of affairs, their living standard will remain what it is today—A MEAN AND SHODDY EXISTENCE IN RELATION TO THE WEALTH THEY SOCIALLY PRODUCE BUT DO NOT OWN.

To sum up—in a class-divided society like Capitalism, wherein the Capitalist owning class buy the labour-power of the working class at its market value, whether they pay for it with a “strong” £ or a “weak one” (to use their own lingo) makes no difference to the working class.

Furthermore, the Capitalist Class buy this labour power of the working class, not from any benevolent motives, but because of its potentiality for producing a value over and above its cost in wages, i.e., for profit The relationship therefore in this transaction is that of exploiter and exploited; rather an unsound basis, to say file least for Mr. Ellis' “sound currency” social theories.

Fortunately we are not depending on the confused theories "of financial “experts” to get us out of the social morass of Capitalism. As Socialists we stand for the abolition of the wages system with its “currency madhouse” or “Sound Pounds,” “Almighty Dollars," State Roubles, Widows' Mites and Pensioners Pittances.

To replace it—something that will be good for us all—Socialism

G. R. Russell.

Speed and commerce at Le Mans (1955)

From the July 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The tragedy at Le Mans, French automobile racing venue, on 13th June during the 24-hour “endurance” test in which one of the drivers crashed to death among the spectators, 85 of whom were killed and others injured, is a grim reflection of the price men pay in the quest for speed—or so it appears on the surface.

The question arises, why all this speed? Why should men risk their lives in order that a German “Mercedes” shall “lick” an Italian “Ferrari,” or an English “Jaguar” prove faster than both? Surely speed for speed’s sake is not the only reason for ignoring a death roll of 85 and risking a repetition? Let Mr. Charles Faroux, Le Mans director, answer our queries. According to the Bristol Evening World, of 13th June, he says:

   “In an interview with the Paris newspaper Figaro: ‘Immediately after the accident I was asked to stop the race. In spite of the horror of the situation. I did not think the sporting trial should be stopped. The British set the example three years ago at Farnhorough. Even when a disaster of such frightful proportions occurs, the rough law of sport dictates that the race shall go on.’ "

After excusing himself on the grounds of a precedent set by the British and claiming what he describes as the dictates of the “rough law of sport"—Mr. Faroux finally comes to the point and lets the proverbial cat out of the bag.

  “M. Faroux said that if the race had been stopped . . . ‘Firms could have sued us for hundreds of millions of francs, arguing that we had made them lose terrific advantages obtained by a victor in the 24-hour Le Mans Race.’ ’’ (Bristol Evening World, 13th June.)

Apparently it’s the dictates of the “rough” law of commerce that worries Mr. Faroux. but in the trying circumstances he can be excused a little confusion of words. And so on with the race, despite the dead and dying, for what is at stake here is big business—national prestige and the sales that go with it for firms with a stake in the winning car. Be it engines, fuel, or sparking plugs, tyres, or even brake linings—there’s nothing like a win at Le Mans for pulling in the orders, human flesh and blood notwithstanding. Like all other commodities, cars are produced for sale only, and fast cars sell faster than slow ones in the same price range. Thus, rival firms compete against one another in the seething, constant struggle for trade which is expressed in incidents like Le Mans, with safety margins cut to beyond the limit. This is only one of the many facets of Capitalist trading conditions, which as we said earlier on, appears to be a question of speed—in actual fact it is a problem along with wars, poverty, slums and the H-Bomb. One cannot be solved without each other. Capitalism produces these problems; Socialism alone can bring an overdue end to them. Through the abolition of his wage- slave system, man will finally master his domestic affairs.

G. R. Russell