"Socialism, one world, one people" says Harry Baldwin, the Socialist Party candidate for Hampstead (1966)

Reprinted below is the 1966 election address of Harry Baldwin, the SPGB's candidate for the Hampstead parliamentary constituency at that year's General Election. An election in which Harold Wilson's Labour Party won a landslide victory. 

This election address is also available as an audio file on YouTube. An important point of information about the audio file. It's not actually Harry Baldwin reading the election address himself, but is in fact a AI generated voice file where the uploader has used other recordings of Harry Baldwin speaking to provide the recording. Apparently, those who knew the late Harry Baldwin, say it's a faithful rendition of his voice and sounds uncannily similar. I'm not sure how I feel about such technological advanced practices. I have my worries and my doubts.

The SPGB received 211 votes (0.4%), and finished bottom of the poll.

Fellow Working Men and Women,

The message of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which I am representing in this General Election, is fundamentally the same as in every other election in the past. While capitalism lasts Socialists have only one task; to explain, and struggle for, Socialism.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904. Our object is the establishment of Socialism; a world-wide social system in which the means of wealth production and distribution (factories, mines, the land, railways, steamships, etc.) will be owned by the entire population of the world.

We are associated with our Companion Socialist parties in the U.S.A., Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. We have no connection whatever with any other political party or organisation.

We oppose every organisation which stands for capitalism, which includes the Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Communist, Independent Labour parties and many others. We oppose the wars which capitalism persistently throws up. We oppose political campaigns which appeal for votes on programmes of reforms (better housing, higher wages, etc.), which in fact do little or nothing to alleviate working class problems. We oppose Nationalisation, which is just another way of organising capitalism.

We support Socialism. Nothing less will do.

We work for Socialism. We spread among the working class the knowledge without which Socialism cannot be established. Our leader does not exist. Leaders are for the politically ignorant. The worker who has Socialist knowledge does not need a leader to interpret political affairs for him and to tell him what to do. There are, therefore, no leaders in the Socialist Party of Great Britain and we do not set out to become leaders of the working class.

We recruit Socialists and nobody else. We examine all applicants for membership to ensure that they understand what is entailed by being a Socialist.

We appeal to the working class to examine the case for Socialism and to vote for our candidate only if they understand, and want, Socialism.

We recognise that the road to Socialism lies through Parliament. At the moment, the number of Socialists is small and our resources are therefore limited; unfortunately, we can afford to run only a few candidates. But as the conscious desire for Socialism spreads among the working class we shall contest more and more constituencies, giving more and more workers the chance to vote for a world of abundance, peace and freedom.

THIS IS CAPITALISM

We live today in a social system which is called capitalism. The basis of this system is the ownership by a section of the population of the means of producingi and distributing wealth—of factories, mines, ships, and so on. It follows from this that all the wealth which we produce today is turned out with the intention of realising a profit for the owning class. It is from this basis that the problems of modern society spring.

The class which does not own the means of wealth production—the working class—are condemned to a life of degradation and dependence upon their wages. This poverty expresses itself in inferior housing, clothes, education, and the like. In the end, it expresses itself in the pathetic destitution of the old age pensioner—a fate which no elderly capitalist ever faces. Implicit in capitalism is the class struggle between capitalist and worker.

The basis of capitalism throws up the continual battle over wages and working conditions with attendant industrial disputes. It gives rise, with its international economic rivalries, to the wars which have disfigured man’s recent history.

Every other party in this election stands for capitalism, whatever they may cal! themselves. And whatever their protestations, they stand for a world of poverty, hunger, unrest and war. They stand for a world in which no human being is secure.

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

Socialism will be a social system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community. This definition was composed by the Socialist Party of Great Britain when it was formed in 1904. We have never altered it; not because we are stubborn and blind to changing conditions but because the word Socialism means the same today as it did in 1904—and as it will mean when Socialism becomes a reality.

Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution means that the things which are needed to make and distribute wealth will be owned by the whole human race. At present these things are the land, factories, mines, railways, steamships, etc. But common ownership does not mean that everybody in the world will own an equal share of every factory, mine, railway train and the rest.

What common ownership does mean, is that there is one way in which all human beings will be equal. Everybody will have an equal right to take however much wealth they need and to consume it as they require. Because the means of production will be commonly owned the things which are produced will go into a common pool from which all human1 beings will be able to satisfy their needs.

Now if there is unrestricted access to wealth for everybody it must follow that nobody, in a sense of an individual or a class, owns wealth. This means that wealth will not be exchanged under Socialism; it will not be bartered nor will it he bought and sold. As a rough parallel we can consider the air we breathe. Everybody has free access to the air and we can all take in as much of it as we need to live. In other words, nobody owns the air; nobody tries to exchange air for anything else, nobody tries to sell or buy it. Similarly there will he no buying and selling under Socialism; no need for the complicated and widespread organisations which deal in commerce and banking in capitalist society. Socialism will have no merchant houses, no banks, no stock exchanges, no tax inspectors, or any of the paraphernalia of capitalism.

In a Socialist society wealth will he produced solely to satisfy peoples' needs and not for sale as it is today. Because of this there will be no deliberate variations in quality of wealth. Socialism will have only one quality. Whatever is produced will he the best that human beings are capable of. Homes, for example, will be designed and built with the only motive of housing human beings in the best possible style. The materials of which they an made, their facilities and location will all conform to this. They will be the best homes that society knows how to build.

Nobody will be employed by another person—nobody will sell his labour-power or work for wages. Everybody, in fact, will work for the whole of society. Work will be a co operative effort, freely given because men will realise that wealth can only be produced by working unless wealth is produced society will die. Yet it will not only be a reluctance to commit social suicide Ibid will keep us working under Socialism. Men will be free — free from the fetters of wage slavery, free from the fears of unemployment. free from economic servitude and insecurity. Nobody will be found doing a job which he hates but tolerates because it pays him well. Healthy young men will not grow pigeon chested over fusty ledgers. Nobody will waste his time learning how to kill scientifically. We shall be free to do useful work, making things which will add to society's welfare, things which will make human life better and happier.

There will be no war — the cause of war will no longer exist. This means that there will be no armed forces with their dreadfully destructive weapons. It means that the people who arc in the armed forces, together with the rest of the enormous social effort which is channelled into them, will be able to serve useful, humane purposes instead of destroying and terrorising.

When production is only for human use we shall see a great development of society's productivity. First of all, an enormous number of jobs which are vital to capitalism will become redundant. Socialism will have no use for such jobs because its wealth will not be produced for sale, There will probably be statisticians to collect information about society's productive resources and to relate this to out needs. A lot of people will work at transporting wealth all over the world. These are useful occupations, just as all work will be.

Capitalism has veined the world with frontiers and has fostered patriotism and race hatred, none of which has any scientific basis. Frontiers are purely artificial and are often altered at international conferences. Many workers ate proud of their nationality although in logic they cannot take pride in something over which they had no control. Socialism will have none of this. No frontiers, no racial barriers or prejudices. The world will be one with only human beings working together for their mutual benefit.

Socialism will end the wasteful, fearsome, insecure world we know today. It will remove poverty and  replace it with plenty. It will abolish war and bring us a world of peace. It will end fear and hatred and give us security and brotherhood.

Now what about the other political parties?

PROMISES! PROMISES! PROMISES!

A few months ago, Mr Harold Wilson told us that nineteen-sixty-six was going to be “Make or Break" year.

This was nothing more than another way of making a promise which we have heard many times before; that if we all work harder, cut out restrictive practices, increase our productivity, go easy on wage claims, a Golden Future of prosperity will be ours.

Although this is a very old promise, it has never been fulfilled. However hard the working class work, they never get rid of their problems, they never get any nearer the Golden Future.

The reason for this is simple. Working class problems are caused by the capitalist social system and until that is abolished the problems will remain.

Mr. Wilson's government were not, however, concerned with solving the problems of the working class. They devoted a lot of effort to battling with their difficulties over the balance of payments, the international standing of sterling and so on. These are all matters which concern only the British capitalist class.

The difficulties which faced the Wilson government were not peculiar to this country. Take wages. In France, Germany. Sweden, Australia, the United States—to name only a few—unions are at logger- heads with governments and employers over wage claims.

Similarly, employers in these countries are trying to increase the productivity—in other words the intensity of exploitation—of their workers and to make their products more competitive on the world’s markets.

They, too, have been telling their workers that this is a time of “make or break".

What about the problems of those workers? They are not confined to any one country. All over the world millions of workers suffer bad housing, inadequate medical attention, poor food. They live sub-standard lives, catch diseases they could avoid, die before they need.

All their lives, in every land, workers face the strains of poverty—of struggling to live within the restrictions of their wage packet, of having always to leave a mass of needs and desires unfulfilled.

As much as poverty, war is a condition of our lives under capitalism. In between the massive World Wars, minor conflicts are raging, perhaps setting the scene for a greater clash. At present it is Vietnam, Not so long ago it was Kashmir, Algeria, Suez, Korea.

There seems to be no end to it—nor can there be, as long as capitalism lasts. For behind the military conflicts the economic rivalries of capitalism, which are the basic cause of modern war, are as acute as ever. The world is still divided into spheres of influence and "protection”, there are still great power blocs confronting each other, the nations of the world still hold mighty arsenals of frightening power.

Capitalism, in short, creates a mass of problems for its people. It restricts, represses, degrades and destroys them. For many people, life under capitalism is made tolerable only by their faith in the politicians' promises of a Golden Future.

Yet however much the politicians assure us that they have the solution to our problems, they never succeed in solving them. The future, as long as the workers are content to trust their leaders, and to keep capitalism in being, is grim.

The expansion of Socialist knowledge and action is the only hope for a sane world, a world which is safe and abundant and free.

WHAT THEY DO

Why do the various political parties keep breaking their election promises? The Labour Party and the Conservative Party accuse each other of incompetence and trickery and the Liberal Party blames them both. But these are all superficial explanations. The real reason is more basic; the Government is not the free agent when it comes to tackling social problems that the manifestos, slogans and promises of these parties suggest.

All these parties aim to take power within the framework of capitalism and through legislation to solve the many social problems of the day. The function of a government is to manage the day-to-day affairs of capitalism so that it is the needs of capitalism rather than election promises or abstract moral principles that determine how it acts. By its very nature capitalism cannot be made to work to the benefit of the immense majority of its people, those who work for a wage or salary. Any party, whatever its intentions, which takes on the task of running the governmental affairs of capitalism is sooner or later forced to act to the detriment of the working class. Time and time again this has been confirmed. The Labour government has been no exception as its record on wages and salaries, war and immigration shows.

When the Labour government took office its first problem was to deal with the financial mess that British capitalism had got itself into. This took priority. “We shall have to defer some of the desirable social reforms we had hoped to do in the immediate future,’ said Callaghan last July. The government did all it could to keep down wages and salaries so that more profits would be available for re-investment. In fact in this it has had little success. The economic forces of capitalism have made a mockery of the Prices and Incomes policy and the first year of the so-called National Plan.

In Aden and Malaysia the Labour government is involved in wars to protect the oil, tin, and rubber supplies of the owning class of Britain. In Vietnam it has given its support to the American government’s policy of killing and destruction there. Again, as any government in capitalism must, it has had a ‘defence” policy based on the latest weapons of destruction, including nuclear weapons. It has even appointed an arms super-salesman.

The Labour Party has always talked of standing for human brotherhood. Yet the present government has pursued a thinly-disguised policy of colour discrimination. In August last year immigration controls were tightened and vague talk of “illegal immigrants” by the then Home Secretary has no doubt helped to fan racial prejudice.

Once again the Labour Party has failed to tame capitalism. Indeed over the years the opposite has happened: Capitalism has tamed the Labour Party. It is now openly and obviously little different, in words as well as actions, from the Conservative and Liberal parties which don’t claim to be against capitalism.

Governments of all parties fail not through incompetence or insincerity or sabotage. They fail because they cannot do what they claim. They are elected by cruelly exploiting people’s hopes of a better world and then find they can’t deliver the goods.

Now we come to the important point—what about you, the voter?

HOW YOU LIVE TODAY

Capitalism is essentially a system of inequality; it can be nothing else, and all the claptrap of its Lab/ Lib/Cons politicians cannot alter that unpleasant fact. The Board of Inland Revenue has recently issued its annual report for the financial year 1963-64, showing that over ten million people earned £500 or less, before tax, while at the other end of the scale, 110 enjoyed a pre-tax income of £100,000 or more. An interpretation of the Board’s report by “The Economist” for February 26 says that “two thirds of British people in 1964 had no wealth worth recording at all, while eighty per cent. of all personal wealth, including property, was owned by some five million individuals, nine per cent. of the population. ’

It is this division of wealth—this glaring inequality —which is a constant feature of capitalism. It is moreover a fundamental fact of capitalist life and colours the whole of your existence, so that by comparison the promises of the Heaths and Wilsons amount to so much trivia. Not that Wilson or Heath will tell you that, of course. All their attention will be directed to securing your vote for the continuation of a world where your life and that of many others, will be devoted to keeping the nine per cent. minority in the ease and comfort of their eighty per cent. stake.

If you think that’s a bit far-fetched, take a look at some of the issues which will be tossed back and forth this time. Have the politicians made yet another promise to solve the housing problem? Yes, we thought they had—the same promise they make in all elections. But just who is it who will be queueing for council “dwellings” or worried about mortgage rates? For whom, in fact, is housing a problem? Certainly not the nine per cent.

The question of education has threatened to become a major issue and “grammar versus comprehensive” has been debated angrily by worried working class parents. Understandably enough, but whatever emerges from the melting pot, real education for your children will not be part of it. There will be a training of some sort or other for the jobs which will be going in the capitalist world of the 1970s', and that in general is what the kids will get—except for the lucky few whose parents belong to the nine per-cent. and can afford something very much better.

And do the nine per cent. have to worry about high prices, lagging wages and pensions? Of course not, but you do, and it’s because you don’t look further into the background of these problems that politicians can keep you stocked with promises, and that’s about all. Your vote can be used to do something really positive about all this, but only when it is backed with determination which stems from knowledge of the world in which you live.

THINK FOR YOURSELF

Apart from the Socialist Party, all other parties will be seeking support for a political leader. The fact that the Socialist Party emphatically rejects the cult of leadership is another basic difference between ourselves and all other parties. To us, political leadership symbolises immaturity; it is inherently corrupt. By supporting political leadership in this election, the working class will relinquish yet again the power they can have to act in their own interests.

Over the years, politics has given us a procession of various leaders and a great deal of attention has been given to their various personal qualities, but the electorate has a fickle appetite for the men it consumes. The magic Macwonder image can easily give way to something outworn and flabby. It is convenient under Capitalism to associate individual personalities with various phases of its administration. It is convenient to be able to associate failure with a man instead of a system. It is convenient to be able to swap the man but keep the system, to create the illusion of fresh opportunities by introducing a new personality. Political leaders come and go, but the institutions they administer remain. We do not attack one leader as against another. We argue that no man, or for that matter no team of men, can administer Capitalism in the interests of the whole community.

The political leaders in this election claim that they can work on behalf of the majority. By now the cheap electoral promises that crumble in the hard test of actual policies and subsequent experience is more than familiar. As ever, this process will repeat itself in this election. Regardless of the endless auctioneering that takes place between parties seeking to form a government, the stark tacts of Capitalist society must assert themselves, We live in class divided society that operates in the interests of a privileged minority. Regardless of intentions. Capitalism can only be run in their interests. There can be no choice. The defence of interests that are hostile to the working population must go with the job of government.

The administration of a society that is based on privileged interests requires the cull of political leadership. Workers who accept economic exploitation will abdicate their political interests by supporting a leader. Socialists have a knowledge of Capitalism that enables them to know where their interests lie. For us leadership is an irrelevance. We combine in a democratic way with the object of realising our mutual interests through the establishment of Socialism. Action for fundamental social change is beyond individuals. This must be the act of a majority who assert demociatic control over their social affairs through knowledge and understanding. For us leadership and the confused support that it rests upon walks a political path fraught with disaster.

In this election, the Socialist Party of Great Britain does not seek your blind support on the basis of empty promises which are easy to mouth and cheap to print but, which, having no prospect of success, are in reality deceptive lies We do not offer you a leader with an allegedly magic touch. We do not ask for your vole unless you understand our case.

There is no easy way out. We ask you to put in socialist perspective the realities of everyday life. We seek to spread knowledge of Socialism and secure your understanding. When we have that, we shall ask you for more than your vote; we shall ask for your comradely help in establishing Socialism.

I urge you seriously to consider our case, for the issues before you at this Election are vital. Upon your knowledge, and your action, depends the hope for the future.

Yours for Socialism ..

Harry Baldwin

Published by M. Davies, 245 Finchley Road, N.W.3. Printed by R. E. Taylor & Son Ltd (TU) 55 Banner Street, EC1.

Socialist Party of Gt. Britain

OBJECT

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

The SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN holds:

1. That Society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.
3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.
4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.
5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.
7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working- class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour of avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

Manchester Evening News and an oddment (1966)

Party News from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the war the Socialist Party of Great Britain has contested the 1945 (1 candidate), 1950 (2), 1959 (1), 1964 (2) and 1966 (2) General Elections as well as four by-elections. We feel that this justifies our claim to be a serious political party and to be treated as such. For a time the papers used to describe our candidates as “Independents" when reporting results. After our protests this practice has now died, out as far as the national dailies are concerned but it still appears to exist in some provincial backwaters.

In reporting the results of the last election the Manchester Evening News described our candidate in Hampstead as an "Independent". A member living in Manchester immediately wrote to the editor pointing out this mistake only to get the reply that "we classify all sorts of ‘oddments' under the general title of "Ind." Our comrade wrote again. This time the reply suggested that a news agency was responsible. The matter was then taken up by our Executive Committee.

As it appeared that the news agency had in fact ’referred to us not as “Ind" but as "SPGB" a letter was sent to the editor of the Manchester Evening News demanding a correction. The letter for publication read:

"When publishing the General Election results on 1st April you stated that H. Baldwin was an Independent in the London Constituency of Hampstead. This, of course, was not correct. Mr. Baldwin stood as a candidate for the Socialist Party of Great Britain (the SPGB), an old established political Party, founded in 1904 and is, in fact, the only Socialist Party in this country”.

The letter was published on 8 June minus the “of course” and the last eleven words.

How do you like your leaders? (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

If there was one thing the General Election was supposed to be about it was leadership. Not just any leadership, but leadership of the tough, courageous, forthright variety which any politician worth his salt always exudes as he looks the television camera straight in the lens.

The Labour Party won the election to some extent on this issue. Their message, repeated again and again, was simple. In thirteen years the Conservatives had not provided leadership. In seventeen months Labour had given us firm government. Perhaps we didn’t agree with everything they had done but at least they had done it. We had had a taste of government with guts—and this had taught us that Labour Government Worked.(Did any Labour voter remember that this was the party which once claimed to stand for Socialism?) It was all summed up in the manifesto Time For Decision:

This is a Government that governs: it does not flop along from crisis to crisis as the Tories did, for so much of their thirteen years.

In face of this propaganda, what choice had Mr. Heath but to try to appear even firmer, even more pugnacious, than Mr. Wilson? He chose to make a frontal attack. Labour, he said, had talked about our problems but this was not enough. We needed to deal with the balance of payments, the Common Market, the burden of poverty among the old and the sick. What was needed was Action not Words. The theme was taken up eagerly by many a Tory candidate who later found that a preoccupation with Action can have some disastrous results at the polls.

It was taken up, too, in the press, which was also looking for determined leadership. In one of the unlikeliest partnerships of the election, the Daily Mirror dressed down its readers by reprinting an editorial from The Times which gave a number of reasons for the weakness of the £, among them “. . . because no government has the courage to face the British people with the truth.”

From all sides, then, there was a demand for leaders with courage, determination, vigour. It would have been surprising if this had not been reflected in the votes; when they were counted it turned out that over 13 million people had voted for firm government from the Labour Party; almost 11⅜ million had plumped for action from the Conservatives.

What is the reason for this general acceptance that firm government is essential and beneficial? The vast majority of the voters believe that we shall always need leaders who are supposed to be cleverer than the rest of us to take control of our affairs, to tell us how much we should earn, how hard we should work, when we should go to war, who we should love and who we should hate—and of course for whom we should vote.

Having accepted this notion, it follows dial the workers should want their leaders to be cast in a certain mould. Toughness is not always essential; Stanley Baldwin once won a famous election victory on the promise of Tranquility. The tough image becomes a vote catcher when the conditions of British capitalism require a special effort from the working class; in wartime or when a government is appealing, as it is now, for restraint in wage claims and for harder work.

It does not follow from this that tough, courageous leaders are always approved of. Let us go back for a moment to The Times, complaining that

. . . the world sees Mr. George Brown’s union—the largest in the country—defying the system on which the Government’s economic policy rests;

Now it is clearly an act of some courage, and considerable resolution for the Transport and General Workers’ Union to defy the government over the Incomes Policy. But The Times and the Daily Mirror are not applauding. We are accustomed to the attacks which are made upon unions firm enough to press home a wage claim. And the greater the determination which is applied in the claim—if a strike is called and is carried out with what the Labour Party calls, in another context, guts—the more furious are the attacks and the greater the impatience which many other workers express against the strikers.

A political leader who does his job with what the press judges to be resolution is headlined as a public hero. A trade union official who does his job in the same way is lampooned as a national enemy.

Clearly there is more to this leadership business than The Times is eager to reveal. The British press, and the British working class, like to see their leaders throwing their weight around in the world and consider that it is part of a natural order of things that they should do so. But what is their attitude to foreign leaders who do the same?

What, for example, did they think about Stalin when he was showing them all what ruthlessness and determination really meant? Was Castro a universal hero, when he displayed courage and single-mindedness in Cuba’s dispute with the United States? At another time and place the leader of a small country standing up to a large one can be good for a load of congratulation from the British press. Then what about de Gaulle who, although he is a politician of proven physical bravery and obvious determination, is popularly regarded in Britain as a stubborn, power-silly old man?

The truth of the matter is that it all depends on the interests of a country’s ruling class. This is what determines the propaganda which is pumped out, day after day, at the working class all over the world and which contributes to their delusions about leaders and many other issues. The British working class like their leaders to appear strong. So do the Cubans. And the French. And the rest of the working class in other countries.

This can be extended beyond the working class. Sir Paul Chambers, the Chairman of ICI. complained bitterly at his company’s Annual General Meeting last month about the competition which they are meeting from rival firms abroad. First he referred to what he called the “running sore" of competition from American-produced polymers which, he said, are “dumped” on the British market with the assistance of a relaxed tariff policy. Then he expanded his field to cover all the ‘science based ’ industries.

The danger is that the vigorous export policies adopted by American companies, with the full support of their Government. together with the very great advantages of their large internal market, will result, in a progressive transfer of manufacture in such industries to the United Stales. There is clear evidence of this already in industries such as aircraft manufacture and computers . . .

Sir Paul is the man who once claimed that ICI’s salesmen fought “like tigers” all over the world. Yet he complains when a foreign industry shows its claws. His words contribute to the idea that all strength, all commercial enterprise, can be confined to one country and that if rivals abroad show the same tendencies they must be resisted by adjusting import duties, or by ganging up with other countries. (Later in his speech Sir Paul was advocating making . . . the whole of EEC and EFTA a single market free of internal barriers for these industries.”)

ICI’s chairman knows perhaps better than most people that capitalism is not a gentle business. It is a system in which savage tigers survive more than sensitive fawns. Every capitalist nation wants its leaders to be firm and strong and clever, but if they were in fact all like that there would be a massive international stalemate in which they all outfoxed each other and so revealed their mutual futility. And that is something which ICI, for one, would not like.

In any case, what is a strong leader worth? First of all, how strong is he? Sir Paul Chambers is one of industry’s tough guys but he can do little more than complain about the jungle which he sends his tigers out to fight in. American chemical firms, he says, have a large enough home market to give them an incentive to invest in a massive plant. To get at a comparable market, the British industry must have access to Europe. But standing in the way are what he called “. . . all the other issues of the enlargement of the Common Market to include Britain . . ." Sir Paul did not think that these issues were insurmountable, yet up to now they have beaten the strongest of British industrialists.

Let us return now to the politicians. Mr. Wilson has promised firm action to defeat one of his government's biggest problems—inflation. Yet despite all the assurances inflation continues: according to the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury (House of Commons, 23/2/66) the £ of October 1964, when Labour came into power, was worth about 18s. 11d. in January 1966. What can strong government do about this? The Labour Party finds itself running British capitalism with a substantial problem of labour shortage, particularly in certain key industries. (In the election campaign Mr. Wilson actually claimed the credit for this!) In this situation Labour are acting in exactly the same way as (he Tories—they are appealing to the working class not to exploit their strength, they are threateningly brandishing legal penalties, they are promising firm and decisive action but in the end they are puffing up an already inflated currency. This is not necessarily weak government but neither is it strong government. It is simply running capitalism as the system says it must be run.

This leaves us with the final question. What benefits do leaders bring to the people who put them there? The workers vote for leadership in millions yet after centuries of it the problems of capitalism remain. Indeed, every election is an opportunity for leaders to claim that they are the men we have been waiting for; they can solve our problems—which in itself shows that the problems are still there, and that the previous “solutions” to them have failed.

It is not enough to discard one set of leaders for another; we must prepare ourselves with the knowledge that leaders are irrelevant to the advance of society. At the moment thirteen million people in this country have said that they know Labour Government Works. Which is nothing less than thirteen million people saying that they are not yet prepared to think for themselves.

Ivan.

The Passing Show: May Day, May Day (1966)

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

May Day, May Day

Definitions: (1) A radio distress signal, repeated at rapid intervals, for ships at sea. (2) A working class distress signal, repeated at yearly intervals. It's the second definition which concerns us. You want me to justify it? Of course it’s not the way that Labourites and other left wingers will look at it when they assemble once again this year for their processions. To them it will be a fine opportunity to make the usual protestations of “solidarity’’, “peace”, “progress" and so on, with workers abroad which, for all the fire and eloquence with which they may be delivered, will be vague, empty, and not worth the ink that's used to print them in the next day’s newspapers.

May Day demonstrations began with the passing of a resolution by the Second International Working Men’s Association in 1889 to set aside the First of May as a workers holiday, so that mass demonstrations could be made to affirm the international solidarity of labour. But solidarity for what? Workers may have avowed such solidarity in 1889, but there was precious little of it in 1914, except perhaps in the only place where nationality didn’t count—in the grave. It has been the same story many times since then to some extent or another, yet down the years the farce of the May Day ritual has been observed.

But a “distress signal” I called it. Well, take a look at some of the things they will be talking about this time. Vietnam? Wages? The Bomb? Pensions? Housing? A superficial conclusion might be that the scope of May Day has broadened since the early days, yet really all these issues can be put under the headings of War and The Poverty of Labour, both inseparable from capitalism and very distressing indeed. Taken collectively they represent a massive S.O.S., a cry for help from a working class floundering in a sea of bewilderment. But the orators who thump the tubs in Hyde Park and elsewhere are just as ignorant as the listening crowds of the way to answer the cry. There is a lifeline which is there for the grasping, but it cannot be thrown by such as the Labour and Communist Parties; it is the lifeline of Socialist knowledge. When the working class have reached out for that, in no time at all they can haul themselves high, dry and safe, to a new world.

Sing, Bing

The wheel has turned a full cycle and Mr. Geoffrey Bing, Q.C. is back in Britain again. This is the man who was once Labour MP for Hornchurch and who climbed aboard the Ghanaian bandwagon when it began to roll some years ago, becoming Dr. Nkrumah’s principal legal adviser. He wasn't the only one to support that vicious and repressive regime of course, but although the two press interviews he gave at the end of March were noteworthy for the evasiveness of his replies to questions, at least he did say something. The other individuals and organisations in this country who hailed the new state, and incidentally sneered at us for refusing it our blessing, have all been conspicuously silent.

Now, what did our ex-Labour hero have lo say when he got back home? If we accept his version at its face value, whoever was to blame for the disturbing things that went on during Nkrumah's reign, it was certainly not Mr. Bing. He was “not there” when the notorious Preventive Detention Bill was announced in the Ghana Parliament. He was “ill” at the time of Nkrumah’s removal of the Chief Justice, and so on . . . He didn’t say what he was doing in November 1963, when the Preventive Detention Act was amended to increase considerably the government’s already harsh powers. He does seem to have learned, though, how unpleasant prison can be (“the actual physical conditions of prisons in Ghana are deplorable”), and how nasty it is to be “manhandled by soldiers” (his wife had that experience). Perhaps some of the five-year detainees could have told him all about those sorts of things if they’d been let out in time. However, that’s the snag with supporting dictatorships; the boomerang sometimes hits you before you have time to get out of the way.

“I have supported ideas and not individuals,” said Mr. Bing on March 28 in a final disclaimer. Ah, yes. Thats the crux of the whole matter, and if Mr. Bing had not said it, we would have had to say it for him. indeed he has supported ideas, and always the wrong ones just like every other Labour MP. True, not every member of his former party would be a deliberate supporter of dictatorships just like that, but so long as capitalism lasts, there is always the threat of it sometime, somewhere. And no capitalist politician can ever be entirely above suspicion in that respect. Even the best of intentions are derided and destroyed in the capitalist jungle, so that the democrat of today (perhaps without realising it at the time) is often a trainee for the dictatorship of tomorrow.

This is where we came in

Take heart, Lord Robens and others Who supported nationalisation of the mines in 1947. You think you have problems with falling coal demand and competition from oil? Well, so have others: this time it’s the West German coal owners who are running into trouble and are actually being paid by their government to take pits out of production. On March 17th, The Guardian described the Bonn government’s actions as “. . . measures . . . designed to help the coal industry to adjust itself to the realities of industrial life.” Which is a nice way of saying “no profit—no production”, no matter if some people do go short of warmth this winter. Incidentally, it does illustrate one point contrary to Tory claims; and that is that the profitability of an industry is not realty affected by whether it’s nationalised. It’s the current market conditions that count.

But don’t get too shocked or surprised at the news from Germany, will you. Governments often act in this way. A few years back, the British textile industry got the treatment, and before that American agriculture. Yet there are plenty of ill clothed and ill fed people around, aren’t there? Profit is the raison d'etre as far as capitalism is concerned, not human need.

Gaspers

“Just because you caught me polishing my Rolls-Royce doesn’t mean I’m a Tory. I'll vote Labour.” (Man at Morden Hill. Guardian report 16.3.66.)

‘‘While we act to suppress the ugly activities, if anyone dies we shall not be bothered." (Indian Premier Mrs. Gandhi. 16.3.66.)

"He (the Tory) must persuade a substantial mass of the voters . . . to identify the defence of their own interests and values with the defence of privileges which are—and are likely to remain—beyond their reach." (Why I am voting Tory, by Henry Fairlie. Observer 20.3.66.)

"A Conservative speculative builder in Cambourne this weekend described Mr. Wilson as "the nearest thing we’ve had to Churchill." (Peter Jenkins, Guardian 21.3.66.)

"I have a feeling that . . . voters are getting much more shrewd.' (Leonard Beaton. Guardian 30.3.66.)

50 Years Ago: The Election – What is at Stake? (2016)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 31st the electorate will once again go to the polls and perform the act which Socialists consider is of crucial importance to the way in which society is organised ― they will vote. Like other elections in the past, this one will generate its own groundless optimism. Once again, the illusion will be fostered that here is a fresh opportunity at last to solve the problems which have been a burden for so long. In spite of the enduring failure of all varieties of political parties to overcome such problems as war, poverty and the general chaos that is a constant feature of Capitalism, the Labour and Tory parties will go blandly into this election as if the experiences of the past had never occurred.

Once again, there will be the cheap traffic in promises. Once again, there will be the contrived differences between parties who are united in their defence of Capitalism. Once again, there will be the complete failure to face up to the realities of life in 1966. Once again, the politics of personalities, gimmickry and opportunism will take precedence over a serious understanding of the difficulties besetting society.

The records of both the Labour and Tory parties make a mockery of their claim to be the instruments of social improvement. The past policies of both these parties are an indictment which no amount of hollow phrase-mongering can overcome. For all their talk of progress and modernisation, their ideas and actions are imprisoned by the limitations of the status quo ― that is ― Capitalist society.

What is at stake in this election? What is it that the electorate by voting Labour, Tory or Liberal will endorse?

Whatever spurious disagreements will engage the Heaths and the Wilsons during this election, in fact they have a great deal in common. Socialists talk about the means of production and by this we mean all the instruments and technical know-how that man has developed for the purpose of producing wealth, from hand tools to nuclear power stations. All reformist politicians agree that these means of production should continue to be monopolised by a small privileged section of the population.

(From Socialist Standard, March 1966)

Another stretch of Labour rule (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

He has it all now; even the place in history which he is said to pine for. Mr. Harold Wilson will be remembered as the first Labour Prime Minister to lead his party back to Westminster with an increased majority.

It has never happened before; but then never before has there been a government like this one, and never before has there been a Labour Premier like Mr. Wilson. Never before has the so-called left wing, with its nostalgia for the days when Labour dabbled in theories of what it called Socialism, been so thoroughly tamed. The Labour government has made a public pride of the fact that it would have none of theories or principles; its first concern has been to run British capitalism as its day to day affairs demanded.

This is what is meant by a word which was often used to describe the Wilson government during the election: pragmatic. The Economist said on February 26th: "Mr. Wilson has been a socialist in small things and a pragmatist in big ones.” William Davis, the Financial Editor of The Guardian, wrote on 28th February: ‘‘I do not believe . . . that . . . Wilson the pragmatist would go easy with the trade unions and aim nasty blows at business men.” And Mr. Wilson himself claimed, when he was being interviewed in television's Election Forum on March 10th, “We have been a pragmatic government.”

It is also what was meant by the slogan on which the Labour Party fought the election: You Know Labour Government Works. Not, we should notice, You Know Labour Government Is Socialism, nor even You Know Labour Government Is Good For You. Only the claim that Labour government works. And now that they are back again stronger than before it is time for those who voted for a return of Labour government to ask themselves what is meant by the word “works”.

What was the record of the last Labour government? To begin with, they did take off the prescription charges and they did increase pensions, as they said they would in their 1964 manifesto to The New Britain. These are the usual sort of sops which new governments dish out, giving them the chance to pose as benefactors of the working class. The sops are also an excuse for a government to claim that they stick to their principles—that, in other words, they are not pragmatists. It is, of course, convenient for governments to make such claims occasionally, at other times it is convenient for them to make the opposite claim.

The Wilson government did not bring in any measure concerned with what was once thought to be a basic principle of the Labour Party. They did not introduce any nationalisation measures. They talked about steel; indeed the nationalisation of this industry has been the cause of so well-publicised an argument that it would have been difficult for a Labour government to drop the idea entirely. It was a typical piece of Wilson manipulating that his government kept saying that steel was about to be taken over but never actually got around to it.

Nationalisation is not, and never has been, anything to do with Socialism. The point is that the Labour Party always claimed that it was Socialism in itself; it is no coincidence that they have changed their mind, as they have come out openly as an alternative administration of British capitalism which the voters can try when they get tired for a while with the Conservatives.

Nationalisation was not the only matter on which Labour government “worked”. The days when Hugh Gaitskell raged against the barely concealed colour bar in the Commonwealth Immigration Act were quietly put out of mind and the Labour government were seen in practice to impose harsher restrictions on coloured immigrants than the Tories had done. This was all part of a sordid, dangerous auction in which both sides were bidding for the racialist vote, in an effort to win certain constituencies where racial feeling runs high. On this issue alone the Labour Party were revealed as a vote-grabbing, expedient conscious, unprincipled political rabble. Did Labour government “work” for the coloured immigrant, as it made his life even harder than it need be under capitalism by pandering to the racist prejudices of the frustrated workers around him?

It seems a long time ago, now, that the Labour Party were deceiving supporters of nuclear disarmament that they would get rid of the independent British Bomb. In the 1964 election they made great play of what they called the “myth of the independent British nuclear deterrent,” and claimed that anyone who supported this myth did so only because of a nostalgia for the days when Britannia very nearly ruled the entire world.

But myth or no, the fact is that there has been no change in the British nuclear weaponry. True, the Labour government said that they were opposed to the Multilateral Force and would prefer something which was for all practical purposes the same—something called the Atlantic Nuclear Force. That was about the only change they went out for. Certainly they never wanted to abolish the British Bomb, let alone all Bombs, let alone war itself. The greatest contribution the Labour government made to the field of so-called Defence was that they introduced, under the guidance of Denis Healey (a man who was once regarded as an extreme Communist)—the policy of what they called cost-effectiveness. This was another way of saying that they were determined the British capitalist class should get full value for the immense amounts of money they spend on weapons.

On many other matters the Labour government, in proving that they worked, upset many of their supporters. These supporters thought that their government would judge an issue like the war in Vietnam on humane grounds. Had they known anything about the workings of capitalist parties they would not have been so disappointed when Mr. Wilson so wholeheartedly supported the Americans in their actions there. While Mr. Wilson did so, of course, the bombings went on and the Vietnamese villagers and their children perished wholesale beneath the napalm.

On wages there was less excuse for disappointment; the Labour Party have always made plain their intention to try to control them. But even solid Labour trade unionists were upset when their government actually introduced the Prices and Incomes Bill, which was the sort of measure no Conservative government had dared to bring in. In their battles in this field, the Labour government were openly standing for the interests of the British capitalist class against the wage claims of the workers—many of whom worked so hard for Labour’s return.

There is no reason to suppose that this next Labour government will be any different. They have made it clear that their first pre-occupation will be with the problems of the British capitalist class; the very first specific object stated in their manifesto in the last election was: “It is our aim to achieve balance in our international payments by the end of this year.” Plainly, more disappointments are in store for the friends of Labour rule.

This, then, is what is meant by a Labour government which works. It means a few minor reforms, most of which are of no benefit to the working class. It means the abandonment of principle and its replacement by mealy-mouthed expediency. It means a disregard for human problems and welfare, and a pandering to the bleakest of prejudices. It means a continuation of the social system which terrorises and degrades human beings all over the world. 

There need be no surprise that little interest was shown in the alternative to capitalism at the election. The biggest change of opinion is called a landslide; it would need a veritable earthquake in social awareness to change society from one of despair into one of hope. The earthquake did not, of course, happen and the foundations of capitalism—the self deception, the prejudice, the apathy and the plain ignorance with which the working class blight their own lives—are unshaken.

Ivan

The Election: What is at Stake? (1966)

From the March 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 31st the electorate will once again go to the polls and perform the act which Socialists consider is of crucial importance to the way in which society is organised — they will vote. Like other elections in the past, this one will generate its own groundless optimism. Once again, the illusion will be fostered that here is a fresh opportunity at last to solve the problems which have been a burden for so long. In spite of the enduring failure of all varieties of political parties to overcome such problems as war, poverty and the general chaos that is a constant feature of Capitalism, the Labour and Tory parties will go blandly into this election as if the experiences of the past had never occurred.

Once again, there will be the cheap traffic in promises. Once again, there will be the contrived differences between parties who are united in their defence of Capitalism. Once again, there will be the complete failure to face up to the realities of life in 1966. Once again, the politics of personalities, gimmickry and opportunism will take precedence over a serious understanding of the difficulties besetting society.

The records of both the Labour and Tory parties make a mockery of their claim to be the instruments of social improvement. The past policies of both these parties are an indictment which no amount of hollow phrase-mongering can overcome. For all their talk of progress and modernisation, their ideas and actions are imprisoned by the limitations of the status quo—that is—Capitalist society.

What is at stake in this election? What is it that the electorate by voting Labour, Tory or Liberal will endorse?

Whatever spurious disagreements will engage the Heaths and the Wilsons during this election, in fact they have a great deal in common. Socialists talk about the means of production and by this we mean all the instruments and technical know-how that man has developed for the purpose of producing wealth, from hand tools to nuclear power stations. All reformist politicians agree that these means of production should continue to be monopolised by a small privileged section of the population.

Although the life of the whole community depends on the way in which these means of production are utilised, all reformist politicians agree that they should be geared to the profit motive. They agree that the under-privileged working mass of the population should continue to live only by selling their labour to the owners of industry.

They are agreed on preserving the root cause of the problems facing man. This applies to the wars that so-called statesmen cannot prevent, to the frustration and poverty that arises directly from the workers’ wage employment status. So far as preserving the fundamental features of Capitalist society are concerned, the Labour and Tory parties are of one accord. At stake in this election is whether or not the majority of the population will continue to acquiesce in a society of which they are victims. By voting either Labour or Tory, the working class will endorse their own exploited economic position. This is the basic conditioning factor of modern life. The trivial controversy between the large parties will avoid this fundamental issue.

Although theoretically the working class holds political power through the vote, they have yet to use it in their own interests. It is a power that can only be fully realised when the working class have the knowledge and determination to end Capitalist society.

The Socialist Party does not play at politics. It does not pander to prejudice; it does not flatter ignorance; it does not dilute its case in the pursuit of cheap popularity. The Socialist Party does not offer the corrupt relationship of the leader and the led; it offers an understanding of society and the fraternal association of men and women who are equipped by knowledge, and who know what they want and how to get it. We know that compromise will defeat the sane and rational ends to which we are committed.

The talk in this election about the balance of trade, gold reserves, prices and income policies is an aspect of the commerce and trade in which workers have no stake.

There will be promises to solve the problems of housing, urban chaos, poverty, rising prices and international conflict by men who have failed in the past and who cannot but fail in the future.

The message of the Socialist Party at this election time is a positive one. In addressing ourselves to working men and women, we embrace all those who make a contribution to the wealth and well being of society, be they factory operatives, doctors, technicians, labourers or tradesmen. Only they can rebuild the world to make it a fit place to live in, but not by electing a government to administer Capitalism.

For loo long have their skills and talents been used by a privileged minority to create profit and private luxury. For too long has human labour been subject to the crippling limitations of production for sale.

It is not enough to struggle to defend living standards under Capitalism. These workers must join the Socialist movement to take over industry itself and convert all the means that society has developed for producing wealth to the property of the whole community. Thus commonly owned and democratically controlled, the means of production can serve the needs of the whole community. This action must presuppose any attempt to deal in a practical way with the problems of our time.

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CORRECTION in the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard
We regret that the article "What is at stake? in the March Socialist Standard contained some phrases liable to misunderstanding. "Labour" in paragraph 6 should, of course, have read "Labour power", and "to take over industry itself" in the last paragraph should read "to capture political power".

Editorial Committee

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The SPGB and the 1966 General Election

The Socialist Party of Gt. Britain will be contesting two constituencies in the coming election—Hampstead (London) and Woodside (Glasgow).

In Hampstead the candidate is H. Baldwin and the election agent is M. Davis. Prior to arrangement of Committee Rooms all members and supporters please contact Head Office where up-to-date information will be available.

In Woodside the candidate is R. Vallar and the election agent is M. Donnelly and up-to-date information on the arrangements is available at the Glasgow Branch rooms.