SPGB Meetings (1994)

Party News from the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism at the polls (1987)

Party News from the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In view of the current general election in which we are fielding a candidate in the Islington South and Finsbury constituency in London, and to give an idea of our approach to election campaigning generally, we publish below the speech given by our candidate in Swansea in last month's local elections to an open forum which was also addressed by the local Alliance and Green Party candidates.

We realise that in elections there is usually a strong emphasis on the candidate and his personality. However, our campaign has not followed that trend. Our concern is not to put across our candidate — myself — as somehow better than the other candidates. I'm not.

Our concern is to put forward our view of the society we live in and of how we can all peacefully work together to change that society for the better. We do not believe that it is particular politicians that are to blame for the problems that face us. but rather an unjust and irrational way of organising our society. So what we put forward is not a new set of leaders (there are already too many of those) but instead an alternative way of organising our community.

Local issues in their context

We also realise that, this being a local election. the other parties will be fighting it on local issues. Again our way is to go beyond this, because local issues when looked at closely are always part of wider issues and of wider causes. Swansea is not an island but part of a far wider society and the solutions of local issues are to be found in alternative ways of organising that wider society.

The stark reality of life today is that human needs and environmental needs come a poor second to the demands of money. The main motive for work activity today is primarily to make money and profits. The things we need are not produced, in the first instance, to satisfy our needs. They are produced for someone else's profit. And that is the only way that goods and services can be produced, for the means of producing wealth — the factories and the farms — are owned by a small minority of the population. Production can only take place in their interests. The factor which the owning minority will inevitably use in deciding whether production takes place is "how much will it cost?"

If they can afford to make something — if they will make money instead of losing money — then production will go ahead. But if profits are not made then production is stopped, regardless of human need for goods and services and regardless of the obvious consequence of higher unemployment.

The services in this area — health, housing and transport — can only be run to the extent that the amount of money available will permit them to run. Local provisions for care of the environment and for curbing pollution are only enacted as far as the profit system will allow.

The cut-back in the emergency unit of Singleton Hospital demonstrates this. There is clearly a vast human demand for this service. Yet it has been reduced in the ceaseless attempt to save money. A second, more recent example is the case of the Parc Beck allotments on the edge of the Uplands Ward. A recent letter in the Evening Post sums up the situation better than I can. G. Carr of Glanmor Road talks of the pleasure he has experienced growing food and making friends on his allotment. He also notes the variety of bird life on the allotments. Despite all this the allotments are to be sold off for development. The title to his letter — "Really Sick as Money Wins Again" — sums it up very well.

The solution: common ownership and free access

So what then is the solution? Well, we've nothing against the individual members of the owning minority. Most of them are in their positions through birth and they only remain in their wealthy positions because the majority — us — allow them to stay there. So what we're asking for is a new outlook from the majority, an outlook that challenges the assumptions we are brought up on: that those with power and wealth deserve what they have. That those without a lot of money should have to work either for those that have or for a coercive state bureaucracy that seeks to dominate our behaviour in all aspects of life. That we owe obedience to a nation that doesn't belong to us. That it is somehow fair and just, rational and natural, that the world is divided into employers and employees, those who buy people's labour power and those who have to sell it. We wish to challenge all these assumptions.

Instead of having a divided society — between those who possess and those who don't possess — why not organise society so that the whole idea of ownership, private or state, is redundant; where the means of producing our wealth are treated as objects and devices to be used for the common good and not for the interests of an owning minority or for the state; where the products of the factories and farms are treated as the common store of the whole community. A community where the aim is not the profit of a company or the state but the satisfaction of people's needs.

What this would mean in effect is a society without money or any other form of exchange, for in a society of common ownership how can you exchange money for something that already belongs to you? Remember that money itself is of no use. It is only pieces of paper and bits of metal. You can't fill up your petrol tank with money, or build houses with it. or make a meal out of it.

It is only in a property society where there is buying and selling — trading between owners that money has any use. As soon as we decide to treat the wealth of our society as belonging to a common store then money completely loses its purpose and becomes redundant. We instead have a system of free access where we all take freely from the common store according to our self-determined needs.

This also means that instead of being compelled to work for wages for an employer in activities that are sometimes anti-social, often boring and rarely satisfying, we rather choose work according to what suits ourselves best and what the community needs — not what some boss tells us to do to make a profit.

What I'm putting forward is a society that is based on co-operation and not, as it is at present, on competition. Where you have a system of property and buying and selling, you have an atmosphere of aggression. People compete with each other over jobs, wage levels, housing; there is a constant haggling over what is being bought and sold with each side trying to improve their own position.

At a higher level companies compete with each other for markets and profits. And at a still higher level states and nations compete — and often go to war — with each other to decide basically which country owns what, which country has access to important raw materials and which country can exploit an untapped market for goods or a cheap source of human labour. By taking away property and establishing communal ownership of the world's resources we can take away the source of all this conflict.

A co-operative society could work

A lot of people will initially claim that such a view of the future is utopian and impractical. That perhaps we don't take account of human nature which is of course lazy, greedy and uncaring.

Our answer to this point of concern is that we should be careful not to confuse human behaviour with human nature. It is surely not surprising that with our competitive society people sometimes do act in a selfish and anti-social manner. In a society that values everything by its monetary value — people included — it is not likely that you will achieve a harmonious society. The mentality created by the profit system creates people isolated from each other, people who regard other human beings as a means to satisfy their own ends. This. I think, is not a genuine example of human nature, but a perverted one. It is human nature responding to an economic system that thrives on greed and aggression. We do not ask people to change for the better. What we say is that instead of letting society control us and our behaviour, let us take control of our society and make it work for our benefit.

Some of the most perverse crimes in the world do not happen through human choice but because of the demands of the profit system. By United Nations figures 40,000 people die of starvation or of diseases related to malnutrition every day. At the same time many tons of foodstuffs are stored or even destroyed if they can't be sold. The people who desperately need the food don't receive it because they have no money in their pockets — they don't constitute a market for food.

Moving nearer home, there are many thousands of people in Swansea who are living in sub-standard accommodation — some are even homeless — yet if we look around the city you'll see lots of houses, sometimes newly built, that stand empty because people who require accommodation cannot afford to buy the property. And despite the fact that there is socially useful work that needs to be done in Swansea, much is left undone because it costs too much or because there is no profit in it for anyone. And the people who could work to improve things in the city don't get the chance to do so they are forced instead to struggle to live on state unemployment benefit.

This is not merely an irrational way of organising things but wholly unjust. The cooperative society that we argue is within our grasp is something that we call socialism. But it is clearly not to be confused with what the Labour Party advocates, which is merely a reformed version of our present society with the main emphasis on state ownership rather than private ownership. Likewise we regard the Soviet Union and its empire as being quite alien to the free access and common ownership that we stand for.

Act now to reject the profit system

The alternative of the co-operative society cannot be brought about by leaders, even elected ones. It can only be established when a majority of people refuse to give their consent to the present state of affairs and act to end it. And that refusal to give consent to the profit system starts at grass roots level.

One of the best ways of showing your disapproval for the present system of society is to stop voting for political parties that support it. And to start voting for a political party that advocates a complete change in the way we organise our affairs. In this election — in the Uplands Ward — you have that opportunity.

The Socialist Party is standing for people to say no to a society of private and state ownership and production for profit — and yes to a society of common ownership and production for people not profit. You have your chance. Don't waste it.

Gareth Thomas

For the record the result was: Dilley (Con) 2125, Richards (Lab) 1431, Ford (Alliance) 963, Howells (Green) 241, Thomas (Soc) 50.

Vote for yourself for a change . . . a real change (1987)

Party News from the May 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Election Address of The Socialist Party candidate in the local election in Uplands Ward, Swansea.

Promises, promises

On May 7 you have a choice to make. You can vote Labour. Tory, Alliance. Plaid Cymru ... or Socialist. The first four parties will all be making promises. They’ll be promising to fight for Singleton Hospital. They'll be promising to keep rates down. They'll be promising to provide better local services, like pavements. schools and rubbish collection. And they'll all be blaming the other parties for the things that aren't right. Labour will blame the Tories because the Tories are in power nationally; the Tories will blame Labour because Labour are in power locally; the Alliance will blame Labour and the Tories because they aren't in power anywhere; and Plaid Cymru will blame all the "English-based" parties for not having the interests of Wales at heart.

What about The Socialist Party? The Socialist Party won't be making promises and won't be blaming anyone. No promises, because we think that if you want something done you've got to do it yourself, and not leave it to others. No blame, because if you put others in charge of your lives, you can't blame them for not doing things the way you want them to be done.

But wouldn't voting for The Socialist Party candidate be the same as voting for the others? We say it wouldn't, because in voting for Gareth Thomas you'll be taking a step towards a society in which we will be our own leaders. Rather than the vast majority of people being led by a small minority, we'll all be constantly taking our own democratic decisions about the things that concern us.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

At present, although we're supposed to live in a democratic society, the machinery for decision making is not in our hands. Singleton Hospital is a case in point. Decisions of the kind that have been made over Singleton are taken over our heads, against our will and without our being able to do anything about them. The only power we have is to decide every so often by a cross on a ballot paper who is going to have power and take the decisions for us. And every time we vote in a local or national election, we give our consent to this state of affairs — if we vote, that is, for the parties who wish to perpetuate it and who compete with one another on how best to run it.

In fact their choices about how to run it are very limited. That's why whichever party is in power, it's like Tweedledum and Tweedledee — what they do is strikingly similar and changes very little in our daily lives. This probably accounts for the uncertainty a lot of people feel about which party to vote for — they know it isn't going to make much difference.

The plain fact is that all these parties are committed to running a system where the single most important factor in decision making at all levels is, and must be, "how much does it cost?" — profit takes priority and human needs come a poor second. And they're committed to running this system — because it can't be run in any other way — for the benefit of the small minority of people (about 10 per cent) who own most of the wealth of society and to whom the profit from the labour of the majority goes.

The Socialist Party has nothing against the individuals who make up the owning minority. After all, they are only there by the consent of the majority — the wage and salary earners. What the Socialist Party asks for instead is a new outlook from the majority.

No money, no wages

In the world today we have the resources, the technology, the skills and the knowledge to satisfy everyone's needs — in food, clothing. shelter and everything else several times over; no informed person would deny it. But we cannot fully use those assets in a society where the fundamental aim of production is profit. We can only use them in a society where the fundamental aim of production is human needs.

This means establishing a society without money — where we don't use bits of metal and pieces of paper to needlessly ration ourselves, and don't all walk around with a cash register in our heads.

This means a society without wages — where we aren't forced to work for an employer just to get by, but where we can choose the work we want to do for our own satisfaction and for the benefit of the community as a whole.

This means a society without frontiers and nations — where the world's resources and knowledge are used rationally and not in the crazy, haphazard way determined by "market forces" or governments, causing millions to die of starvation or go short while food and other essentials are stockpiled in huge quantities.

This means a society without wars or the threat of wars — because wars in the modern world are caused by economic and trade rivalries between nations, and in a world that is united there won't be such rivalries to fight over.

“You can’t change human nature"

A lot of people will say that this sounds nice but it's impossible because human beings are naturally lazy, greedy and aggressive, and "you can't change human nature".

We'd reply to this that human beings can certainly be lazy, greedy and aggressive. But that they can also be (and they usually are in their day-to-day relations) co-operative, generous and caring. They are what their situation makes them. We are not, for example, usually greedy or aggressive about the thing that is most essential above all else to our survival — water. We don't fight for it, refuse a glass of it to a thirsty stranger, or hoard it in our baths or in buckets under our beds. Nor do we needlessly waste it. Why not? Because we know that every time we turn on the tap. it's there. And if we organise society — and we can do it easily — so that everything we need to live comfortably is there when we turn on the tap (in other words we have free access to all goods and services), then we are more likely, in these circumstances, to behave in a generous and co-operative way. We will also be providing for ourselves the secure material framework within which we can attend to all the inner, non-material needs we may have.

The real alternative

So we're not asking people to be "good" or "idealistic". We're simply asking them to see that a fundamental change in the way society is organised — which we call socialism — is in their individual interests, in their children's interests, and in the interest of society as a whole.

But the Socialist Party doesn't exist to bring about this state of affairs for you. We exist to spread the ideas we've outlined and to be used, if people want to use us, to vote out the present system of buying and selling and production for profit and vote in a new system of common ownership, production for use and free access to all goods and services. And just as it must be voted in democratically, this new system can only be run democratically — by everyone — with all having equal access to everything it produces.

Voting for Gareth Thomas in this election won't in itself bring this about. But it will help to make the idea more widely known and, if Gareth Thomas wins the most votes, it will give the idea a chance to make itself heard on an important public platform.

We would ask you therefore, if you agree with our case for socialism (but only if you agree with it), to put your cross next to the name Gareth Thomas on your ballot paper on Thursday May 7 and vote for yourself for a change — a real change.

Swansea election campaign (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the year Swansea Branch has felt strong enough to contest its first election. Since a number of the branch members are concentrated in one particular ward of the city — Uplands — we decided, at the end of 1986, to field a candidate in the May 1987 local elections. The branch elected Gareth Thomas as candidate and I was elected to act as his agent.

In early February, with the aid of the new Print facility at Head Office, we produced 5.000 copies of a preliminary leaflet and put this through every letter-box in the ward. The leaflet, which is reproduced below, outlined the Party's ideas in a way that we hoped would be clear to people hearing them for the first time. We wanted to give it some local interest as well so we mentioned the Singleton Hospital issue — the transfer of the local hospital's casualty service to a hospital many miles away and the protest and outrage this has provoked throughout the community. The leaflet related this to the lack of real everyday democracy in present-day society.

Leafleting was harder work and took longer than we thought. But in the end we covered the lot down to the last multiple occupation and all 10½ thousand voters in Uplands Ward would have had the chance to read what we're about.

We'd already approached the local paper and they'd shown an interest. Brian Walters, one of their reporters, interviewed Gareth and was very cooperative. He did a pretty fair write-up a couple of days later together with a photo of Gareth he'd insisted on taking. Gareth had made the point to him that we didn't go in for personalities; it was the ideas that counted and we only wanted people to vote for us if they understood and agreed with the socialist case. He seemed to get the message and did mention it in his report but he still included a fair amount about Gareth himself. Like any journalist, he was anxious for a bit of what's supposed to make newspapers sell — "human interest". He told Gareth to keep in touch with him and suggested to him that the Labour Party wouldn't be too pleased to have its "socialist" thunder stolen in the ward.

He turned out to be right. After we'd written round for debates to the other parties in the ward (Labour. Tory. Liberal. SDP, Plaid Cymru), we heard through a reliable inside source that our letter had been discussed at a meeting of the Uplands ward Labour Party and that an angry Militant member had suggested that they take up our challenge to debate and "expose" us. Our source, who knows our case well, replied that they couldn't expose the Socialist Party as we had nothing to hide. Apparently his counsel prevailed since we've heard nothing. But there were, so it seems, further mutterings about trying to get us for breaking election law by spending too much money on our campaign (that's a joke) or starting it too early. If they've taken the trouble to look into it. they'll have found out by now that we did our homework before we started.

So far. the only written reply we've had from our opponents has been a letter from the Conservatives (they usually win the seat) who were lukewarm about a debate but said we should ask them again nearer the time. But even if none of them take up the challenge. we're still going to hold our own election meetings in a local school and a community centre in the days leading up to the election.

We've had a certain amount of feedback from our first drop of leaflets, part good and part bad. A few phone and letter requests asking for information and literature, a woman enquiring what our attitude is to homosexual men living together as married couples and one of our leaflets sent back with unpleasant things written on it.

Our next task is to deliver to houses 5,000 free back copies of the Socialist Standard with a handbill stapled to the front of each. The handbill reminds people of the previous leaflet and invites them to read the magazine. In bold black letters it's headed TO READ OR NOT TO READ? THAT IS THE QUESTION and it ends with the slogan we've adopted for the whole of our election campaign "Vote For Yourself For a Change - For a Real Change". A group of members from Bristol Branch are coming over to help us give out the Standards since their bulk and weight will make it a bigger job than the leaflets. We're also hoping for help from other branches for the doorstep canvassing we'll be doing and for the final drop of literature — our election manifestos. We'll be putting out the manifestos in the last week to remind people — if they didn't know already — that a Socialist Party candidate is standing, that he's arguing for something quite different from the other candidates and that they should vote for themselves for a change — for a real change.

Howard Moss

Vote For Yourself For A Change (1987)

Election Statement from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Real Change

In Uplands Ward in the Swansea Council Elections (May 7). there will be a candidate representing the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Our candidate, Gareth Thomas, will be putting forward the case for a society of free access, a society without buying and selling, money and wages, employers and employees. This is what Socialism really means. Over the years it has been changed and distorted in many different ways so that in most people's minds Socialism now means either the kind of dictatorial society that exists in Russia, or state intervention in industry and housing, or the promises of social reform, full employment, higher wages, etc. that come from the Labour Party.

But Socialism means none of these things. It means a society in which everything is owned in common and in which people democratically take all the decisions that affect their lives. The situation at present is that these decisions are left to a government which, whether right or left wing, can only act in the interests of the profit system and of that small minority of the population (about 10 per cent according to official statistics) who own most of the wealth and who, through the profits they make, don't need to work for a wage or salary in order to live.

Local issues and wider issues

We realise of course that this is a local election and that the other parties will be fighting it on "local issues" or on the "personality" of their candidates. But this is not our way. Our candidate is solely there to represent our ideas. He will not be kissing babies or making vain promises. He will be pointing out that "local issues", when looked at closely, are invariably wider ones. The Singleton Hospital issue, for example, may seem local but it is really an issue about whether people shall make their own decisions on matters that concern them or whether those decisions shall be made for them from on high for political or money-saving reasons.

Gareth Thomas will also be pointing out that most of the problems, whether local or wider, which most of us experience (poor public services, not enough money, dissatisfaction at work, anxiety and stress, etc.) derive from the fact that we have extremely little control over our own lives. We are made unable to exercise control both because our personal resources are limited (lack of money) and because important social decisions are out of our hands (lack of democracy).

Do you trust leaders?

The Socialist answer to this is for people not to put their trust in leaders but to take steps themselves, peacefully and democratically, to bring about a free access society without the use of money or any such thing where we all take freely what we need from the abundance of goods and services which with modern technology we are capable of producing. A society where we organise things for the benefit of all not in the interests of a wealthy few.

This is an entirely practical proposition once the majority of people want it. The Socialist Party exists to help spread the idea and to encourage people to establish a society which will put it into practice.

Our election campaign

Between now and May 7 you will be receiving further material from us through your letter box. In the near future we will deliver a free back copy of our monthly magazine, the Socialist Standard. We hope you will read it. And if you find you agree with our ideas (but only if you agree), we will be asking you to vote for Gareth Thomas on May 7. We also hope you will come to the public debates we shall be trying to arrange with the other political parties nearer the time of the election. We will keep you informed.

Socialist Party to stand five candidates (1997)

Party News from the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the coming General Election the Socialist Party will be putting up five candidates, the highest number yet in a parliamentary election. Two will be standing in Scotland, two in the North East and one in London.

The seats and candidates are:

Glasgow Kelvin: Vic Vanni
Livingston: Matt Culbert
Jarrow: John Bissett
Easington: Steve Colborn
London Vauxhall: Richard Headicar

Around 40,000 election addresses will be distributed by the Post Office in each of the five constituencies, but this will only be during the election which must take place sometime before May next year.

In the meantime preparatory work has started, with meetings, literature stalls and leaflet distribution in the constituencies. If you want to help with this, or want further information about the socialist campaign, the contact persons for the constituencies are:

Glasgow: Vic Vanni, Flat A, 26 Baker Street, Glasgow G41 3YE. Phone: 0141-649 9338.
Livingston: Matt Culbert, 53 Falcon Brae, Ladywell, West Lothian, EH54 6UW. Phone: 01506-162 359.
Jarrow: John Bissett, 10 Scarborough Parade, Hebburn.Tync & Wear NE31 2AL. Phone: 0191-189 0253.
Easington: Harland Wear, Phone 0191 5170470
London: Gareth Thomas, 185c Northcote Road, London SW11 6QF. Phone:0171-585 1856.

If you are not living in any of these areas you can make a contribution to the Election Fund. The amount in the fund at the moment is £6,292, not much compared to what the pro-capitalist parties will have to spend. The more money we have the more effectively can we make the voice of socialism heard. Cheques (made payable to‘The Socialist Party of Great Britain*) should be sent to: Election Fund. 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.

Fair game? (1983)

From the October 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The current football season got off to its traditional start with rampaging "fans” whose activities attracted almost as much space in the press as the actual events on the field. The Observer (28 August 1983) reported one early clash: "The Birmingham fans were staking an early claim for the annual first-day-mindlessness-over- matter award”.

The beginnings were rather different. Football has developed from an informal, local, mass team game in feudal times to a nationally organised sport, with a sophisticated bureaucracy and a financial structure of its own. with armies of officials, players and spectators. In its organised form the game emerged as an acceptable type of violence. From being considered disorderly, even subversive, it came to be thought of as encouraging manliness and gentlemanly virtues. The game's purpose became the formation of character — preparation for the game of life. Many clergymen, influenced by their own public school education, introduced football to the young men in their parishes. They hoped that such a team game would influence working people into becoming “decent”, law-abiding citizens — a satisfactory result for the master class. Along with better physical health, footballers would develop the vagaries of character necessary to the protestant work ethic.

This season could well be make or break for many league clubs. Wage bills have been reduced by drastically cutting playing staffs, forcing many footballers onto the dole and bringing home to them that their type of work is not as glamorous as it might once, in the days when they dreamed of being a First Division hero, have seemed. The struggle for survival is worsened by a conflict between the Football Association, the administration of the game which still clings to the ideals of amateurism, and the owners of the football clubs who have rather different priorities. The FA have always been reluctant to allow club directors to be paid a wage, or to allow players to wear advertising matter on their shirts. The owners argue that sponsorship is part of the more "businesslike" approach the game needs if it is to survive.

Since the sixties both Labour and Conservative governments have encouraged firms to put their money (and, of course, their advertised names) into football and this growth in commercial sponsorship is the latest challenge to amateur attitudes; the Football League has now become the Canon League. Honest and sporting values have to be sacrificed by team managers and players for the sake of commercial values. Directors demand not only prestigious clubs but also prosperous ones. This puts the managers in a difficult spot. They know that to make the paying spectators come through the turnstiles their sides must play exciting, which means attacking, football but they also know that this policy is likely to concede goals. Every manager knows about job insecurity, as a succession of them are thrown out by directors who, like the supporters, are interested first in success.

Unscrupulous methods are used by managers conscious of the axe which hangs over them and which will fall if they fail to please the board. On the field defenders, aware that they will be dropped if they are responsible for too many goals against their team, use cynical fouls on opposing strikers. Players are transferred on a market as managers try desperately to reconcile fielding a winning side with the confines of a limited budget. Spectators join in thinking that they are watching "their" team and that their interests arc bound up with it winning. They jeer and harass opposing players who, if they happen to be black, are followed with loud imitations of ape noises.

Why do such large numbers of workers take so passionate an interest in something which has no real effect on their lives? Football is a fantastic escape from the reality of exploitation; it gives spectators a sense of order and continuity which they cannot find in their workplace. If the team is doing well, a supporter may feel that capitalism is not so bad after all; whatever the pressures during the working week there is always Saturday to look forward to. In his book The Sociology of Sport Harry Edwards claims that watching sport serves to: "Reaffirm the established values and beliefs, defining acceptable means and solutions to central problems in the secular realm of everyday societal life".

This squares with the concept of football as a quasi-religion. The game not only provides hooligans with an outlet for their pent-up feelings; it also gives other followers a sense of identity. After willingly handing over the fruits of their labour to the capitalist class during the week, or being a nobody on the dole, the football spectators, like churchgoers, can have a sense of belonging somewhere. They are not simply one of 25,000 people but a City or a West Ham fan. To label the hooligans as "not real fans", who "give the game a bad name", is to misunderstand; if football is in the place of a religion of modern capitalism then they are its priesthood.

In a profit-dominated society the appreciation of sporting skills is overridden by the desire for the dominance of one side, often at whatever cost is necessary, over the other. After their weekly dose of exploitation workers trek along to their holy shrines to give homage to the teams, hoping they will put their opponents to the sword without mercy. Strong words are spouted about violence on the terraces and about unruly youth, with calls for greater punishment but anti-social behaviour has its roots in the basis of capitalism. Sports goods firms cash in on the market with their pennants and scarves which create artificial bonds between the fans and their chosen team. The football priests robe themselves in the colours of their denomination and, if their side wins, can go back to their exploitation with an easier mind.

And that, for capitalism, is justification enough. For this is a social system which weighs everything, including such concepts as sporting behaviour, in the balance sheet and leaves the fans to walk on, walk on, with only hope in their hearts.

Gareth Thomas

Oxfam — hungry for change? (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was a rainswept Swansea night as we made our way to the Quaker meeting room. We were going to listen — the two of us — to a talk given by the South Wales campaign organiser for Oxfam. The meeting was being organised by the local Humanists and the subject was Poverty, Famine and Population. We'd been to Humanist meetings before and the regulars recognised us. 'Good'', said the Chairman, "the SPGB. That means a good discussion."

He introduced the speaker, an imposing man of about 50 with thick greying hair, a full beard and a pleasing, intimate manner. He was also, as the chairman informed us, a local Labour councillor. He spoke without notes and a Welsh eloquence. Oxfam, he told us, was a rapidly expanding organisation. It needed to be because the problem it was facing was getting worse not better. It had changed its approach from being a mere money-collector and now, with the slogan "Hungry for Change", was putting a lot more effort and resources into trying to explain to people the causes of world hunger. It was showing, he pointed out. that there was no natural barrier to the world's population being fed. There was evidence, in fact, that the earth could already feed nine times its present population. The idea about the world being overpopulated was not based on the true facts.

Such talk surprised and delighted us both. Oxfam publicity had always seemed calculated to give the impression that there just couldn't be enough to go round, but that nevertheless we had to help the starving as best we could. It had also harped on the "population explosion" and said how essential it was to keep population down. Now it had changed tack and was arguing the same thing that socialists, with little support from anyone, had argued for a long time.

The speaker went on to point out the absurd contradictions of social arrangements by which many millions of the world's people starve each year in the world while large amounts of food are locked away or destroyed because of "overproduction". He told us that a number of EEC food storage warehouses existed in the Swansea area itself but that information about them was hard to come by as the authorities would not give details readily. Even the local press was reluctant to write about them for fear of losing potential advertisers in the food business. He did however have some statistics of stocks of butter and dried milk held locally and they seemed staggering, especially when they were multiplied thousands of times over to get the picture for the whole EEC. He added that other foods such as meat, fruit and vegetables couldn't be readily stored so that thousands of people had the full-time task of destroying such food. They did this every working hour of every day of the year.

Powerful stuff. But the conclusion that followed was less so. The speaker said that we in the "rich countries" had to learn to accept less to help those in the "poor countries". This brought some questions to both our minds. Didn't this contradict what he'd said earlier about the world being potentially self-sufficient many times over? If we could produce a lot more than we needed, why should we have to accept less? And could Britain's three million-odd unemployed and Europe's 30 million living below the poverty line be expected to "accept less"? And what about the majority of us who lived on a wage or salary? We weren't exactly rolling in it either.

The questions came thick and fast. An elderly woman suggested that you couldn't really talk about "overproduction" when millions were starving. This seemed to make sense but the speaker rejected it and said there definitely was overproduction. Another woman asked what concerned people could do to help. He said she could sign the Oxfam petition on the table at the back of the room which was to be presented to Margaret Thatcher when it had a million signatures. Someone else said he was glad that the overpopulation scare had been shown to be false. But then came an unexpected challenge to the speaker. An elderly but energetic-looking man at the front "declared an interest". He introduced himself as a semi-retired academic who was a specialist in population matters. He spent some considerable time listing his qualifications and the various official bodies he'd served and was serving on. Such credentials brought a hush to the audience. The speaker, he said, had drastically underestimated the population problem. It was very serious indeed. He knew this from his own professional work in the field. Oxfam was wrong to quote hopeful statistics about potential food production as they were based not on the reality of things but on the notion that people could somehow be brought to share things out, not to be greedy, and to work for the common good. And people were not like that, were they? The old "human nature" myth again, both us SPGBers were thinking, only this time in academic guise.

The speaker looked distinctly uncomfortable as he listened to the academic. In his reply he struggled a bit, then didn't seem to be doing too badly. But finally, when the questioner came back at him and asked why, if population wasn't a problem, all Third World governments were pursuing policies of population control, he was well and truly stumped.

At this point the chairman pointed to one of us who had his hand up. He was clearly hoping for succour for his speaker, and to a certain extent he got it. The first socialist point made was that academic specialists usually have a stake in their speciality and this can lead them to make exaggerated claims for its importance. So perhaps we should view with at least a little scepticism what the man at the front had said. Whatever he said, however, he could not dispute that the world could feed us all. The speaker had been right about this and the most recent figures produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation showed it beyond doubt. But such abundance was only possible on one condition — that of producing food not to be sold on the market for profit but to be eaten. And the same principle applied to all other goods and services. The reason people didn't have food was not that they didn't need it or that it couldn't be produced but that they didn't have money to buy it. The first woman had been right to say there wasn't overproduction — in fact there was probably underproduction in terms of what people really needed. "Greed" wasn't a barrier to production for need either but was simply a symptom of the insecurity provoked in people by the production for profit society existing in all countries of the world. Greed wasn't inevitable. It was a response to conditions and would have no place in a society of abundance where people would have free access to everything that was produced. And if Third World governments were trying to get their populations down, it wasn't because their first priority was to help people but because a slowdown in population growth was necessary to allow production for profit in those countries to develop as smoothly and efficiently as possible. At another moment those governments might adopt different population policies as others (France and Germany for example) had done in the past when it seemed to the advantage of the profit system there to have more people.

The other socialist pointed out that people would not get a clear view of the problem as long as they thought in "national" terms. We had to think in a planetary way and in terms of using the resources of the whole planet sanely and rationally and in the interests of all its inhabitants. But this needed political change which could only come from a consciousness by the majority of people that it was in their interest to organise things differently — on the basis of a frontierless, classless, worldwide society which produced solely for human need not profit.

All this gave the speaker a breathing space and his response seemed to be that he agreed with the socialist arguments. But then, in answer to other questions, he showed that he didn't agree, or at least hadn't fully grasped the implications. He continued to talk about people in Britain having to make do with less and about the need to help and encourage other nations to improve their lot. He appeared not to have taken the point that all the countries of the world were organised on a production for profit basis — and were therefore capitalist — for he insisted on distinguishing between capitalist and "socialist" countries (like Russia). Here, no doubt, we were seeing the lifetime reflexes of a left-wing Labourite coming into play.

We made one final intervention to say that Oxfam. for all its sincere and determined efforts, was still only scraping the surface of the problem and would not begin to solve it unless it started to alert people to the fundamental causes of world hunger. The Chairman said we should not be blaming Oxfam for failing to do what wasn't in its brief. It wasn't in business, he declared, to spread the idea of world social revolution. In a sense he was right of course, but if Oxfam was serious in its concern for causes, then, at the end of the day, it would have to draw political conclusions.

The speaker conceded that there might be something in what we said but then proceeded to show that he was still firmly entrenched in the idea of trying to solve the problem of world hunger within the framework of production for profit. Not for more than a brief moment was he going to allow himself to move outside that framework, and this was why he was such an easy prey to "specialists" like the "academic" whose arguments, if you accepted the logic of production for profit on which they were based, were difficult to fault.

As the two of us walked out into the wet, we talked about the meeting and agreed that even if the speaker hadn't seemed to move very far in our direction, it was an encouraging sign that "respectable" charities such as Oxfam were now coming to see that problems do have a cause. And even if Oxfam still wasn't looking far enough for the cause or wasn't drawing the obvious conclusions from what it found, at least some of the ideas it was now spreading could only be of help to the socialist movement. The world could feed us all, it was saying, and population wasn't outstripping resources. It was good that now not only socialists were saying these things. What would be even better would be if there were more socialists to take them to their logical conclusion.

Howard Moss

Gareth Thomas

Labour's logic (1985)

Book Review from the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Breaking the Nation A Guide to Thatcher's Britain Edited by Tony Manwaring and Nick Sigler. Pluto Press and New Socialist.

This book has been researched and written by fifteen members of the Labour Party Research Department. and its title sums up its purpose — to blame what has happened in Britain since 1979 on the Tories, and in particular Margaret Thatcher. As such it is not a serious political analysis but a 240-page political tract that could provide material for numerous Labour Party political broadcasts.

The authors' approach and their whole attitude to politics can be seriously questioned. They seem to have started with a pre-conceived notion and then only sought information to support it, disregarding other material. The argument is that Thatcher = Tory = Uncaring of social problems; therefore Thatcher is the cause of our problems. This idea that the fault lies with certain personalities in the government can only harm the attempt of socialists to turn workers' minds away from petty party squabbles and to look instead at how society functions regardless of who governs.

There is no doubt that recently the working class in Britain have been suffering cruelly. But this observation can be made of nearly all countries in the world. These other countries do not have Thatchers or Tories and some even have governments that carry out policies identical to those which a future Labour government would apply in Britain. The world economy as a whole has been going through a depression and Britain has been seriously affected because it is more dependent on selling goods on the world market than most other countries.

The book examines many aspects of the Thatcher government and the result is very embarrassing for any Tory. Official government statistics are used to show how the Conservatives have failed miserably in a whole range of the aims and goals published in their election manifestos. Claims to create "real" jobs, to wipe out inflation, reduce taxes, reduce crime, and to decrease centralised bureaucracy by giving people more control over their own lives, are all past promises that hang heavy around the necks of the Thatcher crew. Sadly, the impression is given that these policy aims could have been achieved if only the government was made up of Labour and not Tory politicians.

Because the authors do not envisage a society free from the restrictions of the market their thinking is trapped in the logic of capitalism. To them, what is wrong with society is not the market system but rather a particular version of it — the free market version. In particular, the book shows that the Labour Party embraces the nationalist ideology of most workers:

British industry needs to invest in modem technologies if it is to have any chance of competing in world markets (page 96).
It (the 1984 budget) made manufacturing investment less profitable (page 83)
Tory monetarism has made British industry less competitive than ever before (page 91).
For the first time ever in our industrial history Britain now buys more manufactured goods from abroad than it can sell overseas (page 89)

The Labour Party solution — to rebuild Britain's manufacturing base and sell more goods on the world market, thus stimulating job growth in Britain at the expense of workers abroad — is one that could come from any other capitalist party. Much is also made of the decision of the Tory government to abolish exchange controls, which facilitates British capital investment overseas rather than in Britain. Even more is made of the fact that British goods are about 20 per cent less price-competitive against foreign currencies (other than the dollar) since 1979. Such blatant nationalist propaganda is in direct opposition to the socialist case, which requires the abandonment of workers' nationalist prejudices and an acknowledgement of the interests of their class worldwide. If you accept the logic of the profit system then the Tories seem to have the most logical policies: free movement of capital and labour appears to suit the needs of capital accumulation.

The authors, then, are not against the profit system — they simply attack its inefficient operation in Britain. They barely mention socialism, which, to them, is capitalism with full employment. Britain outselling commercial rivals, plus Labour leaders in power to administer the system on behalf of the "British people". In other words, it is the claim that Labour can make capitalism do what the Tories cannot.

Gareth Thomas

Music Review: Capitalism on vinyl (1986)

Album Review from the January 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Favourite Shop (The Style Council)

The latest long player from the Style Council is of interest because of its political lyrics and poignant social comment. Themes on the album include the break-up of pit communities, the rise of new towns, the coercive force of the state, and youth training schemes. It is Paul Weller, the chief lyricist, who is responsible for placing some of the tragedies of capitalism on vinyl.

The political stance of the album is foreshadowed in the opening track Homebreakers, which describes the power of capital to break up human relationships. It tells the story of a family whose father is made redundant and whose sons are forced to move away to look for work. The next song, All Gone Away, tells of the situation in many mining communities after the strike. Businesses shut down and move out, leaving unemployment in their wake. For the owning class, however, the situation is different:

But somewhere the party never ends,

And greedy hands rub together again,

Shipping out the profits they've stolen.

In Come to Milton Keynes Weller attacks the idea of creating a rootless new town in the countryside and then trying to sell it to businessmen and employers. In the next track Internationalists, Weller puts down nationalism, racism, and the so called need for leaders, ending with a powerful verse:

If you see the mistake in having bosses at all,

You will also see how they all must fall,

For under this system there is no such thing

As democracy, our leaders would have us sing,

No time for lies now as only truth must persist,

Rise up now and declare yourself - an internationalist! 

My personal favourite on the album is The Lodgers which is a resounding attack on the idea that the top can be reached by hard graft:

There's only room for those the same,

Those who play the leeches' game

It's all thrown on end, the lies come free,

And you can be all that they want you to be

There's room on top - if you dig in low,

And the idea is what they reap you sow.  

 Appropriately, Weller ends the album with a call to working class unity:

When are you going to get to realise,

The class war's real and not mythologised?

 The misguidedness of Weller's personal political activity should not be overlooked however. Instead of working for the abolition of capitalism he in practice campaigns for the Labour Party and its programme of reforming capitalism. The Style Council have appeared at concerts with other singers, such as Billy Bragg, to raise money for reformist causes and to try to popularise the Labour Party among young people. Labour governments have always failed to solve problems such as unemployment, war, poor housing, racialism and pollution. Time after time their promises at elections have been shown to be hollow slogans to get their politicians into power. By supporting the Labour Party Weller actually damages the socialist cause. It is not the people at the top of the structure that need to be get rid of, but rather the structure itself.

Gareth Thomas