Editorial: Sound and fury, but no change (2005)

Editorial from the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

War movies traditionally end with a wide-shot of a carnage-strewn battlefield, with the weary, tattered and bloodied victors staring glazedly across it, wondering about the pointlessness of it all. Was it really worth the valour, the bloodshed, the aches and the pains?

So too was the image of the newly re-elected Labour government, as its foot-soldiers clambered leadenly on to the summit of their high command’s chosen objective, Third Term Hill. Never before has the Labour Party succeeded in claiming this prize — all other attempts were wrecked by landmines and pit-falls like wages policies, unemployment, national debt, and the like.

Under Tony Blair’s leadership the Labourites realised that even presenting a minimal challenge to capitalist orthodoxy would fatally undermine their charge. Instead, they have stuck behind him as they marched single file up the straight and narrow path of capitalist politics, and thus their faction of the Capitalist Party has managed to scale the heights once more.

The voters rewarded their adherence to capitalism. The message of the election was — forget war, forget asylum, forget council tax, the British electorate overwhelmingly expressed their support for the wages system’s continuing existence. Certainly, these other issues caused a few Labour extras to die suitably dramatic deaths by the wayside, but the heroic brothers and sisters of New Labour are now definitively over the hill.  

From that vantage point, they can see the eternal struggles before them. Looming economic slow down, which will crush their ‘No return to boom and bust’ armour. Their shield of the NHS will get smashed by the increased need to build up private sector health facilities. Their troops will grow mutinous as Major Blunkett will order them to fire on their pensions — a desperate attack on workers’ pay and conditions to protect capital’s profits.

The Labour Party has been in office for eight years now. The old Tory governing elite are in tatters, yet nothing has changed. Labour accepts and applauds the need for profits. But the demands of the state for money are tempered by the fact that the only way to get it is by digging into the profits of the capitalists. 

In a social system geared towards making profits for the wealth owners any policy that cuts into profits will cause the sort of political turbulence that has wrecked previous Labour governments. To try and appease their base — to build the ‘public services’ they have put at the heart of their campaigns — they have had to increasingly turn to the private sector, to showing private capitalists how they can take a cut of the tax cake if they join the state in providing the services. 

This happy alliance has seen Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and Public  Finance Initiatives (PFI) meaning that the state has not had to increase its nominal size along with its real size. The wealth stays firmly in the hands of the private capitalists. That has been New Labour’s secret weapon. So long as the economic weather held, this alliance was good. If that weather changes — the unpredictable uncontrollable economic cycle turns nasty — then Labour will have to choose between eating into diminishing profits or turning their fire on the workers and voters who put them in office. Not that there’s any doubt about which option they will go for.

Their new found focus on unmeasurable things like ‘respect’ — which sounds remarkably like John Major’s ‘Back to Basics’ — means their devotion to sound and fury has increased. The hollow bugle calls of a desperate commander trying to sound in control.

That glorious leader, though, is now fatally wounded — a Nelson tenderly kissed by his hardy Lieutenant Brown. He will quit the field to retire to his millionaire lifestyle as reward for service tendered. While he limps on, though, voices from the Labour back will begin to murmur — what was the point? Why all the bluster, the fighting and battling just to take another forsaken hill in a pointless political war that makes a lot of noise about making very little change?

Until the banner of a consciously socialist movement, though, takes the field what looks like a war movie to some, will remain a horror flick for the rest of us.

UK General Election 2005: That was democracy, was it? (2005)

From the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is great to live in a democracy. Fantastic that we are so free that 22 percent of us can elect a government that will rule for up to five years — and if we disagree with its policies we can be told, “You had a choice, we were democratically elected, after all.” It isn’t as if these democratic rulers aren’t aware of the gaps in their theories. The famously defeated Foot led Labour Party of 1983 went into the election hoping for just such an outcome, to squeak into government on the back of a splintered national vote.

The gremlins of parliamentary party politics, though, simply refuse to go away. Politicians threaten and blackmail us — let us be bastards to you or find out just how much worse the other lot will be. The out parties can make great play of the high crimes and misdemeanours of the ins, and the great merry-go-round continues. They talk about resurgence, recovery, growth, and carve their faces into sombre masks to show just how seriously we should take them.

Of course, now we’ll hear witterings about introducing proportional representation — Labour’s trump card to keep the Tories out forever. Their manifesto hinted obliquely at the possibility — they promised a referendum on further constitutional change, without mentioning what that might be. That would not, though, make any real difference.

The whole system is set up to remove political power from the hands of the voters as much and for as long as they will put up with it. The Iraq war is an excellent case in point. We are always being told that elections are a time to hold governments to account. Yet, when the election came, Labour made it clear that voters would be cutting off their nose to spite their face if they voted Labour out and (the only likely alternative) the Tories in. Imagine if banks worked this way: you give us all your money, we spend it for you and you can sack us afterwards if you don’t like the way we spent it. No one would buy that deal, surely, yet they do, at every election.

The vote was too blunt an instrument to express any opinion on the war, all it could ask was which of the parties seen to be in contention did voters want to see in charge.

In the old Soviet Union people could vote. They faced a fixed choice, though, either for or against the sole Communist Party candidate. Cold warriors, correctly, condemned this is a sham of democracy. Yet in Britain, where three parties receive blanket media coverage year round, and even during the election campaign, we are told we have a genuine free choice.

The impression that everyone else is going to vote for one of  these parties means that people become unwilling to vote for a fringe party. Effectively, the mass media is a free co-ordinating mechanism, sending signals between voters letting them know how their neighbours will vote so they can think of how best – pragmatically – to use their vote. Those not voting for the top two candidates in any given constituency may as well spoil their ballot, for all it effects the outcome of the election.

Mistaken identity

There are, though, other short cuts to this sort of co-ordination. Instead of building a community of ideas, a party may find existing groups and try and use them as a basis for building their vote. Thus wise the ill-named RESPECT coalition, of the erstwhile Trotskyists of the SWP and litigious ex-Labour bully-boy and friend of dictators George Galloway has tried to harness the anti-war movement and Muslim workers to their ends. Instead of appealing to them as workers, they appeal to them according to their prejudices, assuaging their mis-identification of themselves with their ideas rather than with their way of life. Other parties have tried a similar tactic — the BNP claim to defend ‘White British Culture’ from the depredations of multi-culturalism. This in turn is a response to both Labour and Tories trying the same trick with a multi-cultural identity of Britishness. All of them, leaders looking for followers.

Behind the swirl, smoke and bluster of identity politics and electoral nose counting lies the issue that dare not speak its name: class.

Class requires people to examine how they live, not how they feel. It automatically implies conflict and division, something that someone who wants to harvest all votes they can, come what may, would not care to invoke. You don’t win friends by disagreeing with people. You don’t change their minds by agreeing with them. What this masks is that we live in a society where a tiny minority must protect its own interests from those of a vast majority. Democracy is anathema to the owners of property, because they want to retain the benefits of that property for themselves. No matter how little our say in government is, we have still less say over the use and allocation of wealth in our world – the real decisions that matter. Were the capitalist class to lose their tight rein on the state, it could become a threat to their position. Small elites and hierarchies are easier to manage than free flowing and open democracies.

Democracy is not about a constrained choice once every four years, in winner takes all elections. Democracy means having the opportunity to intervene in making proposals, amending them and finally deciding upon them – as well as in implementing them. The more people can exercise a say in those actions, the more democratic the process becomes.

Information must flow freely, so all can have an opportunity of reaching a decision, of judging the performance of delegates and appointees, of deciding to challenge the actions of one body in a higher authority; and in real democracy, the higher authorities are those bodies which contain more members of the community concerned. Everyday life must be the signalling system that lets people know what their fellows want, the way of co-ordinating votes and decisions.

A society of common ownership would have no need of constricting decision-making. We would share a common interest, and most people’s actions and decisions would be immediately related to their day-to-day outcomes. Democracy would be an everyday process, just as the management of workplaces is now for the appointees of the owners. Just as appointees now are accountable to and removable by the owners, when we own all the wealth in common we will have structures to ensure that we retain control of all decision-making levels where we feel we have need to intervene, not ritualistically handing that control over to rulers periodically.

As it is, though, we continue with Tony Blair blathering about building a society of, er, respect – because that’s all he can do, he has no control of the passing show in the hands of the property owners. This will last, though, only as long as the workers tolerate it. It’s up to us to keep disagreeing with them.

Pik Smeet

UK General Election 2005: Democracy as it is and as it could be (2005)

From the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people would argue that Britain is a democracy and that we all benefit from living in a democratic society. By this they would probably mean the regular holding of elections to parliament and local councils, the freedom to organise political parties, a press which is not beholden to the government, and the rule of law. If people object to the policies of the government or a particular MP, they can vote them out of office. If they oppose a specific action by a local council, they can set up a protest group and hold demonstrations, without the fear of being carted off to prison just for voicing their views.

In this, comparisons would be drawn with dictatorships, where elections may be non-existent or a sham, where independent parties and trade unions are outlawed, where the press just follow the government line, and arbitrary arrest and even torture are commonplace. Such comparisons are by no means valueless, and capitalist democracy is definitely useful to workers, yet the idea that elections and the other points listed above in themselves constitute democracy needs a great deal of reflection.

For do the trappings of democracy, as we might call them, really guarantee a truly democratic way of life? Do they ensure ‘rule by the people’, which is the etymology of ‘democracy’? Socialists argue that the answer to these questions is a resounding ‘no!’, that real democracy — a social democracy, as it might be called — involves far more. The problem is that under a capitalist system there is a built-in lack of democracy, which cannot be overturned or compensated for by holding elections or permitting protest groups. Our objections are far more basic than suggestions that proportional representation is the best electoral system.

In the first place, capitalism involves an inevitable inequality, between on the one hand those who have to work for a living or who depend on a family member who does so, and on the other those who own enough land, shares or bonds that they have no need to work. This is a division between two classes, the working class and the capitalist class, between those who do the useful work but are paid a pittance and those who live a life of luxury in country houses, posh flats and expensive clubs and restaurants.

Those who have more money have more power and more control than those who have far, far less. This is partly a matter of mere wealth: if I have one hundred times as much money as you, then I have far more say over how I spend my time, where I live, what my children can experience, and so on. Workers have to struggle with a mortgage, fear of redundancy or a monotonous job, and have far less control over their lives. So poverty and inequality of wealth undermines any claims that capitalism can be democratic. But there is more to be said. The capitalist class have power not just over their own lives but over those of workers as well. They can order the closure of factories, as at Rover or Marconi, the building of a new motorway, the invasion of another country, all of which can affect the workers who will lose their jobs, suffer noise and disruption, or have to fight and die on behalf of their masters. The press may be  formally ‘free’, but in practice newspapers are owned by capitalists and so will naturally reflect  procapitalist views in their pages. The government, too, is there to administer the system on behalf of the capitalists, something they do irrespective of which party is occupying 10 Downing Street.

In fact, though, there is a sense in which the government does not run the system at all – rather, the capitalist system runs the government, by limiting the actions that can be taken. The capitalists and their governments can propose what they like, but it is the capitalist economy that disposes. Raising of interest rates, increased unemployment, devaluation – these may not be what governments want to do, but may well be what they are forced to do because capitalism leaves them no choice.

There are at least three reasons, then, why capitalist democracy does not mean that workers are in charge of their  own lives. They are too poor to be able to do what they want to do, being limited by the size of their wage packets. They are at the beck and call of their employers in particular and of the capitalist class in general. And they are at the mercy of an economic system that goes its own sweet way without being subject to the control of those who suffer under it.

In contrast, Socialists advocate a way or organising society that will result in real democracy, where people genuinely run their own lives and are not pushed around by bosses. Firstly, Socialism will do away with the inequality of capitalism. With free access to what has been produced, everybody (that’s absolutely everybody) will be able to decide on their own consumption, living conditions, and so on. There will no longer be a forced ‘choice’ between a new car and a summer holiday. Poverty will no longer limit people’s lives and experiences.

Secondly, there will be no employment, no employers and no capitalist class. Nobody will therefore be able to make decisions about the livelihoods (and, indeed, the very lives) of others. Nobody will have privileged access to the media and means of communication and so be in a special position to influence the views of other people.

And thirdly, the uncontrollability of the capitalist economy will be a thing of the past. Production will be for use, not for profit, and there will be no more gluts or ‘overproduction’. With all the paraphernalia of money, accounting, interest rates and the bottom line done away with, there will be no obstacles to people producing what is wanted.

More positively, Socialism will involve people making decisions about their own lives and those of families, friends and neighbours — decisions unencumbered by so many of the factors that have to be taken into account under capitalism. The means of production (land, factories, offices) will be owned in common, and everybody will help to determine how they will be used. This need not mean endless meetings, nor can we now give a blueprint of how democratic decision-making in Socialism will work. Quite likely there will be administrative structures at different levels, local, regional and so on. This will not just be the trappings of democracy but the real thing – people deciding about and running their own lives, within a system of equality and fellowship.

Paul Bennett

Red Snapper: Sound bites and unsound nibbles (2005)

The Red Snapper column from the May 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

” I don’t look like a millionaire, I don’t act like a millionaire, I am not a millionaire.”

George Galloway, RESPECT MP, ahead of addressing the Washington senators who have accused him of receiving vouchers for millions of barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein’s regime. Daily Mail, May 17th.

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” They chose me. Can’t you find it even within yourself even to congratulate me?”

George Galloway again on his election victory to Jeremy Paxman, from The Guardian, May 7th.

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” We expect the Revolution will create entirely new genres to expand the definition of video games,” he said to loud cheers in the hall.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, on a new console, BBC Technology, May 17

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“People remembered why they had lost trust in Tony Blair, but they couldn’t see any real difference between the Tories and Labour, so we lost out on that.”

Lynton Crosby, Tory Party campaign director, Independent, May 20

” A student who misbehaves gets two verbal warnings, then detention for one hour and finally a day in the isolation unit. It is very rare that a student gets sent there for three days.”

Sir Dexter Hutt, executive headmaster of three schools in Birmingham, where he has introduced isolation rooms, Sunday Times, May 15

Editorial: What about the real issue? (2005)

Editorial from the May 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

By now you will perhaps have heard a fair bit from the mainstream candidates in this  month’s General Election. They will have waffled on about services, jobs, crime, and how things will improve, if only they are put in power.

They all talk about money – spend more, spend less, tax it, borrow it, lend it, find it – but they never talk about where it comes from. They never talk about the basic rules by which it is used. They just assume that money is being made, and that they can adapt their policies to the rules of the money-making game. That is, they assume capitalism.

They defend a society in which the majority of the population must sell their capacity to work to the tiny handful who own most of the wealth. They defend a society in which things can only happen if there is a profit to be made. In short, they subscribe to the law of no profit, no production.

One thing is certain, and perhaps you’ll already be of this opinion. Whichever candidate or party will win brings about no significant changes to the way things are. And in between elections we have little or no say in the important decisions, the ‘real issues’ that concern us. 

Politicians are fond of telling us that we must take responsibility for our own actions and that we must see to it that our world is a fit place for our children to grow up in. But how can we seriously do anything about it when the real decisions are not in our hands? Because of the way things are organised at present, none of us are allowed to take part in the really important decisions that effect us – the ones about our schools, about health and housing, peace and pollution, and the distribution of wealth.

What the Socialist Party urges as the alternative to this insane set-up is a truly democratic society in which people take all of the decisions that effect them. This means a society without rich and poor, without  owners  and workers, without governments and governed, a society without leaders or the led.

In such a society, people could cooperate voluntarily to run all of the world’s natural and industrial resources in their own interests, freeing production from the artificial constraints of profit and establishing a system of society in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. Socialist society would consequently mean the ending of buying, selling and exchange, an end to borders and frontiers, an end to force and coercion, waste and want and war.

Today we have the technology, the resources and the know-how to satisfy everyone’s needs. That fact is well established. However, we cannot utilise society’s assets sensibly because of the profit-driven requirements of the market-system. In a society in which the fundamental need of production is profit, our needs will always come a poor second. The profit system exerts such an  influence in society that it impinges upon every aspect of our lives, and you’d really be hard pressed to think of some service or product that is not balanced against cost – something to muse on when you’re waiting for the bus, the police or visiting the local shops.

You may consider that the society we urge sounds nice, but that we are demanding the impossible. In truth all we are asking is that you, as members of the waged and  salaried class, think for yourselves, value yourselves and your fellows higher, expect more for your children and grandchildren. Is it not the case that our world would be a better place to live in if we had a real democratic say in the decision-making process and real democratic control over the means and instruments for producing and distributing the things we need to live in comfort? Is it not high time that we took back control of our destiny from the profit-mongers and the masters of war?

2005 General Election: Vote Effective – Vote Alternative (2005)

From the May 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In May 2005, this is the most important general election ever. Or was that in 2001? Or in 1997? Or 1987? The big political parties want to convince us about this because we may then be persuaded to vote for one or other of them, under the impression that by choosing between them we are making a difference to this social system. Vote for this party and our future is secure; vote for the other party and we put everything at risk. Here, for example, is Neil Kinnock in 1987:

  “Every election is a time of decision. But this General Election … faces the British people with choices more sharp than at any time in the past fifty years”. 

To which the “British people” sharply responded by emphatically rejecting Kinnock and his party.

Here is John Major in 1997: 

  “British people now have the opportunity of a prosperous future. But that prosperity cannot be taken for granted…  If we relax for one moment, our hard won success will slip away again”. 

By “relaxing” Major meant voting for the Labour Party, which was what the “British people” did, ensuring that Major himself slipped away into well-merited obscurity. Finally, here is Blair in 2001:

  “This general election is in many ways even more important than the last…Now is the chance to build the future properly…”

Blair did not say why, after four years of Labour government, the future had still not been built “properly” but he obviously did not need to elaborate in that way because the electorate returned his party to power by a hefty margin. So how are things now, after the threats and the promises? Whether in gratitude or fear, the workers will vote for capitalism again with the only uncertainty the pattern of their voting.

Blair and Howard

One factor which is likely to affect that pattern is the developing awareness that there is no significant difference between the Labour Party and the Tories. Because of this, solid Labour supporters who helped elect Blair in 1997 and 2001 now feel themselves disfranchised. Another factor is that, like so many of his predecessors, Blair has been exposed as a trickster and a liar, so that he is no longer the easeful vote harvester he once was.

On the other side, Michael Howard is looking more and more like a man who is desperately trying to throw off his past; for example wearing his customary oily smirk he urged us on TV to “Let the sunshine break through the clouds of disappointment we all feel”. The problem for Howard is that his time as a Tory minister is not remembered for being at all sunny.  As Home Secretary he was in the habit of using his time at the rostrum in Tory conferences to excite the ugliest of prejudices – and not just about crime. In this election, as Tory leader he has tried to exploit racist neuroses about immigration by promising to establish a Border Control Police, forgetting the time in the 1990s when, according to the Public and Commercial Services Union, he actually hampered immigration controls by slapping on a recruitment freeze. Howard has told a heart-wrenching story about his mother-in-law dying of an infection she picked up as a hospital patient but during the last Conservative governments all was not well with hospitals for there was a shortage of nurses and doctors and waiting lists – for anyone unable to afford anything better – were a problem then as they are now. Schools also suffered, being cut back on their teachers, books and other equipment. The last Tory government, under John Major, descended into such chaos that  when they were defeated in 1997 it was almost an act of mercy by the voters.

The economy

However those who voted in the Blair governments have no more cause for satisfaction. There have been Labour Home Secretaries who have exceeded Howard in their punitive response to those crimes which capitalism places outside the law. A succession of Criminal Justice Acts has tightened the screw on offenders while nourishing the ambition of those Home Secretaries to become party leader.

Detention – imprisonment – without trial, or even being told the reasons for being in prison, has become established. Blair’s sound bite about being tough on crime and on the causes of crime has been discredited as the causes of crime – poverty, stress, alienation, social disability – remain. Blair’s claims that under his government the British economy has been in controlled health have been exposed by the collapse of the Rover car company. The company was losing millions of pounds and cars are not manufactured in order to provide the workers with a wage stable enough for them to make assumptions about their future. The bottom line – to use an irritating, although apposite, phrase – is that if there is no profit there is no employment, even if that mean thousands of workers being transferred from a just tolerable level of poverty to one of abject degradation. That is the basis on which capitalism organises its wealth production and no government can affect it.

Alternative

Blair’s popularity has been seriously eroded by the exposure of his lies over the causes of the war in Iraq. But this was by no means the only example of a politician lying because none of them could readily admit to their impotence to control the events of capitalism. For them the only way out is through deception, at times to the extent that they begin to believe their own lies – as, it is rumoured, is the case with Blair. What this amounts to is that there is a basic unity among the parties which stand for the continuance of capitalism, which can only be solidified by every vote for those parties. But there is no need to waste the vote in that way for we have the means of basically changing society so as to eliminate the problems which now disfigure it.

The Socialist Party is standing alone as a party which aims at the capture of political power by the  working class, to abolish capitalism and replace it with a society based on common ownership of wealth production and distribution and making that wealth freely available to everyone. That is Socialism – the only alternative to capitalism and its political parties.

Ivan

2005 General Election: Our Candidate’s Manifesto (2005)

Party News from the May 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

As is our usual policy, we are standing one token candidate in the general election, in the Vauxhall constituency in South London, to challenge all the pro-capitalist parties and ensure that the voice of socialism is not entirely lost amidst the recriminations of the professional politicians about how to run capitalism.

The Socialist Party is contesting this election as a part of our campaign to establish a new system of society: one based on 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.

That is our sole object. By common ownership we don’t mean that everyone should have to share a toothbrush, but that in a society built upon our mutual effort, we should all benefit and have a say in how it is run.

We currently live in a system of society based on a tiny number of people owning the productive wealth of our world, organised and run by a handful of bosses for their benefit. Their profits come first, our needs come second.

In Vauxhall nearly half of all workers are employed in  administering business as compared with only a quarter in social services and looking after ourselves (derived from 2001 Census).

It seems we’re so busy taking care of business that we don’t have time to take care of ourselves.

Because of this we have endless problems of poverty, poor services and all the issues politicians love to

spend time telling you they can solve, if only given the chance.

We don’t believe any politician can solve these problems, as long as the flawed basis of our society remains intact. In fact, we believe only you and your fellow workers can solve these problems.

We believe that it will take a revolution in how we organise our lives, a fundamental change. We want to see a society based on the fact that you know how to run your lives, know your needs and have the skills and capacity to organise with your fellows to satisfy them.

You know yourselves and your lives better than a handful of bosses ever can. With democratic control of production we can ensure that looking after our communities becomes a priority, rather than something we do in our spare time.

We all share fundamental needs, for food, clothing, housing and culture, and we have the capacity to ensure access to these for all, without exception.

If you agree with this aim, then we ask you to get in touch with us, get involved and join in our campaign to bring about this change in society.

Together, we have the capacity to run our world for ourselves. We need to build a movement to effect that change, by organising deliberately to take control of the political offices which rule our lives, and bring them into our collective democratic control.

Our candidate makes no promises, offers no pat solutions, only to be the means by which you can remake society for the common good.

Danny Lambert

The Socialist Party Candidate

The Game (2005)

Editorial from the April 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politics today is a game of Ins and Outs in which gangs of professional politicians compete with each other to attract votes, the gang securing a majority of seats in parliament assuming responsibility for running the political side of the profit system.

 

To win votes they have to promise – and be believed – to improve things both for the population in general, as by managing the economy so as to avoid slumps and crises, and for particular groups within the population. When the economy is expanding or even just ticking over the Ins have the advantage. They can claim that this is due to their wise statesmanship and prudent management. Such claims are false as the economy goes its own way – expanding or contracting as the prospect of profits rises or falls – irrespective of which gang of politicians is in office. But making such claims can backfire as, when the economy falters, the Outs can blame this on the incompetence and mismanagement of the Ins. But that’s not true either since politicians don’t control the way the economy works.

 

The Labour politicians who took over from the Tories as the Ins in 1997 have been lucky in this respect. In the past, Labour periods in office had happened to coincide with the downturn phase of the economic cycle, but the last election in 2001 and the coming election this year have happened to coincide with the economy ticking over. So, instead of having to live up to their previous reputation of being the party of austerity, they have been in the position of being able to offer a few crumbs to voters.

But throwing crumbs to the people (or to carefully targeted sections of the people whose votes could swing things) is not the main purpose of government. Marx once wrote that the government is “but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”. And it’s still true. The function of any government is to manage the common affairs of the capitalist class as a whole. This involves a number of things. Sustaining a context in which profit-making can continue. Spending the money raised from taxes (that are ultimately a burden on the capitalist class) in a prudent way on things that will benefit the capitalist class as a whole, such as providing them with an educated, relatively healthy and so productive workforce. Maintaining – and if need be using – armed forces to protect sources of raw materials, trade routes, investment outlets and markets abroad.

That’s what most government spending goes on, and balancing this against income from taxes is what budgets are essentially about. It is only because wage and salary workers, active or retired, have the vote that, occasionally if there’s a small margin of money spare, a few crumbs are offered to some section or other of the electorate.

No doubt, the pensioners, the home buyers and the families offered a few hundred extra pounds a year will accept these crumbs cast before them by Gordon Brown in his pre-election budget. Hopefully, they won’t accept them as bribes to vote for his particular gang of politicians, but simply because it would be stupid not to.

Nowadays most people have learned by experience and are rightly just as cynical about the politicians and their promises – and crumbs – as are politicians about how they get people to vote for them. But  cynicism is not enough. This should be turned into rejection. The game of Ins and Outs, to decide which gang of professional politicians should manage the common affairs of the capitalist class, only continues because most of us agree to take part in it.

But by voting for them we in effect give them the power to keep the capitalist system going. And that, not which particular gang of politicians happens to be in office, is the cause of today’s problems since built-in to capitalism is putting making profits before satisfying people’s needs.

 

Socialists are only too well aware that most people put up with capitalism, and go along with its political game of Ins and Outs in the hope of getting a few crumbs out of it, because they see no practicable alternative. But there is an alternative, as we explain in the articles in this issue.

Politics should be more than individuals deciding which politicians to trust to deliver some crumbs that they think will benefit them individually. It should be about collective action to change society. About taking over the whole bakery.

Election News (2005)

Party News from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

By the time you read this the general election campaign might be officially under way. As announced, the Socialist Party is standing a candidate in the Vauxhall constituency in South London. Our Head Office, which is in the constituency, is serving as the campaign rooms. If you want to help get the socialist message across against the Gang of Three (Labour, Liberal, Tory: Same Old Futile Story) and their apprentices in the Green Party (and other would-be managers of capitalism such as RESPECT and VANITAS), phone 0207 622 3811 or call in at 52 Clapham High St, SW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North).

If you are connected to the internet you can also follow the campaign on a daily basis by visiting the site of our campaign blog "Vaux Populi" at http://spgb.blogspot.com

Greasy Pole: The Outsider (2005)

The Greasy Pole column from the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

The bookies would not have been overjoyed at the result of the election, seeing as the favourite came in with a clear lead over the rest of the field. The likes of William Hill had hardly had time to tot up their losses after Labour’s “historic” (as they keep reminding us) third successive victory than they had to get on with calculating the odds for the leadership contests of both the big parties. In the case of the Tories the outlook for the bookies is not so gloomy because there is likely to be quite a large field of runners, even if Territorial Army ex-SAS hero David Davis will probably be a narrow favourite. But the race for the Labour leadership promises to be more menacing, with Gordon Brown another odds-on favourite who will cost the bookies some money if he finally, after all those years of manoeuvring, in-fighting and hostile briefing, gets to stand smiling on the doorstep at Number Ten.

Except that, as Brown himself – and the bookies – know all too well, it is not that simple. In organisations like the Labour Party there are very, very few MPs who do not regard themselves as likely candidates for the leadership. To illustrate this point: when Tony Blair announced he would eventually hand over the reins the Guardian columnist Simon Hoggart played a cruel joke to expose the vanity lurking in the unlikeliest of breasts. He asked a low-ranking Labour minister, who does not have a shred of realistic hope of becoming his party’s leader, whether he should consider making himself available for nomination. At first the minister demurred but a little more flattery from Hoggart awakened his atrophied ambitions. He murmured that now he came to think of it he had recently been approached by quite a few MPs. Hoggart did not tell us what has happened to that hapless man in the reshuffle.

Reid

He may have found some consolation in history. When Anthony Eden resigned the Tory leadership in 1957 the front runner to take over was R A Butler and little attention was given to the chances of Harold Macmillan. But in the event all the energy Macmillan had expended over the years in seeing off his rivals brought him success. When Macmillan in his turn resigned in 1964 Butler was again a favourite for the succession, with Hailsham not so well fancied. But Alec Douglas-Home came from the back of the field to take the job. The Labour Party in the 1930s was led by George Lansbury , who at the party conference in 1935 won a standing ovation for his speech in a debate on the sanctions against Italy for the attack on Ethiopia. Lansbury’s speech was flavoured by phrases like “I am ready to stand as early christians did and say ‘This is our faith’” but he was emphatically defeated in the vote, which left him little choice but to resign. The main contenders for the job – the favourites – were Herbert Morrison and Arthur Greenwood but they were beaten by Clement Attlee who, as the outsider, was rated as mousy and colourless but who turned out to be nothing like that when it came to doing the job of Prime Minister.

So who are the outside chances now, in the contest to replace Blair? Prominent among them is Dr. John Reid, MP for Airdrie and Shotts where, as the saying goes, they weigh the Labour votes rather than count them. What is Reid’s form as a leadership contender? By the standards of the Labour Party, it is pretty strong. In 1973 he joined the Communist Party and later CND but then went over to the Labour Party and a job as one of their research officers, followed by a stint as political adviser to Neil Kinnock – which, in view of Kinnock’s well-earned reputation for political blunders and electoral disasters, Reid would do well to gloss over. He got into Parliament in 1987, for Motherwell North which, through various changes of name, has been held by him ever since with never less than 61 per cent of the vote. His resignation from CND provoked approval from Julian Lewis, the famously combative right-wing Tory MP for New Forest East, who wrote to the Sunday Express in August 1999:

  “It is true that Dr. Reid was previously a nuclear disarmer, but it is also true that he was one of the first to recognise his mistake, and genuinely campaign for a sensible nuclear deterrent policy.
  “As a former professional anti-CND campaigner, I am ready enough to criticise  unsuitable Labour appointees, but Dr. Reid does not fall into that category: he would be as good a Defence Secretary as any Labour government could provide.”

There is no record of whether Reid was embarrassed by back-slapping from such a quarter but he has developed a skin tough enough to survive in the notoriously ruthless relationships among the warring comrades of the Scottish Labour Party, where a popular slogan is “a long memory is much better than a good memory”. This was the setting for Reid’s burning antipathy towards Gordon Brown, dating from the early 1990s when Brown was chairman of Scottish Labour. It is that passion which is likely to drive him to oppose Brown in a leadership contest, winning votes as the “stop Brown” candidate.

Defence

When Labour won the 1997 election Reid’s talents (if that is the right word) were recognised in his appointment to a succession of high profile ministerial jobs until, in the reshuffle in May, he was placed as Defence Secretary. It was rumoured that he coveted Jack Straw’s job as Foreign Secretary but perhaps his notorious difficulty with the silkily diplomatic touch counted against him; or perhaps Straw sulked and simply refused to go. Another rumour had it that Defence is the job he always prized since it fitted his bellicose personality and anyway, in spite of his much-trumpeted humble origins, he loves taking the salute at military march pasts. A probable reason for his multiplicity of government jobs is that he is what is known as “a safe pair of hands”, which is a diplomat’s way of saying that he can be relied on unblinkingly to justify – in Parliament, the press, on TV – whatever the Blair government does, no matter how indefensible it is. His voting record is tediously obedient, including on cuts in funding benefits for lone parents and students, on means-tested Incapacity Benefit, on air strikes against Afghanistan and on the war against Iraq. That is how he earned a reputation as “Reid the Rottweiler” and “Teflon John”. Attentive fans of Jeremy Paxman will know that the TV interrogator weighed in by describing Reid as Blair’s “attack dog”, to which Reid responded, as would be expected from one of Her Majesty’s Secretaries of State, Privy Counsellor and trusted lieutenant of the Prime Minister, by calling Paxman “a West London wanker”.

Reid has consistently shown a readiness to reshape what he still, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, calls his principles in order to solidify his standing in the Labour Party. Of course he may change; there have been countless examples of leaders who have won power on one set of promises and have then outraged their supporters by performing a dramatic u-turn.  We know that with Reid anything is possible; there are practically no bounds to what he will say or do, within the confines of support for the capitalist system and its government. Without that ability he would not survive in the hurly-burly of politics. Anyone looking for a promising outsider for the Labour leadership race could do worse than lay a shrewd bet on the Rottweiler — soon, while the odds on him are so attractive.     

Ivan

Talk about Socialism (2005)

From the July 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party News

Our recent general election campaign in Vauxhall gave us the chance to talk to more people than usual.  There was a well-attended hustings meeting at which our candidate and five of the others put their party’s case and answered questions from the audience.  On most days we had a literature stall outside our Head Office where we handed out leaflets and spoke to passers-by. We also went to other busy spots such as Brixton and outside tube stations. Sixty thousand copies of the candidate’s election address were distributed free by Royal Mail.

If we can be said to have had a slogan for our campaign it was “Vote for yourself – for a change!”  Of course it takes more than a slogan to persuade people to change their minds.  Capitalism teaches consumers to buy brands of political parties like they buy soap powder.  So our refreshing message was that our candidate wasn’t going to do anything for them.  If they wanted to have their problems solved they would have to do it for themselves.

We had less than two thousand pounds to finance our attempt to increase support for socialism.  The supporters of capitalism have countless millions to convince us that theirs is the only game in town.  You don’t have to be an active supporter of capitalism – or even know what it is – to allow it to go on.  Passive, resigned, unthinking acceptance will do nicely. 

Anti-capitalism may be a start, but it’s certainly not a finish.  Real change means we have to be consciously working for something, not simply against something.  So we talk to people about socialism and invite them to tell us whether they think it would mean a better life and society than we have now.

Today things are produced only if someone can see a profit in doing so – no profit, no product.  Today there are labour markets:  we have to find a job to get money or rely on a meagre state handout – or starve.  We are told we must support a hugely wasteful and destructive war industry (“defence”) to kill or maim men, women and children in other countries with whom we have no quarrel.

What we said in one of our leaflets applies not just at elections but also between elections.  We need a new way of running society based on:

1. The common ownership of all resources by the whole community, not just a rich minority.
2. Democratic control of the community by everyone, without distinction of age, race or sex, instead of rule by unelected company directors or state bureaucrats.
3. Production purely to meet people’s needs, not profit.
4. Free and equal access to all goods and services – an end to the market and to money.

No one we spoke to thought that what we were proposing is undesirable, not a good idea, worse than what we have now.  Instead we were told it had been tried and didn’t work, or that for some reason it would never work.  That reason usually turned out to be some variant of our old friend “human nature”.  People are “naturally” lazy – if they can get away with not working they will do so.  People are “naturally” greedy – if they can have things without paying for them they will grab the lot.  People are “naturally” aggressive – without the punitive sanctions of law and order there will be chaos.

Funny how all these nasty features of a supposedly unalterable human nature always apply to other people.  When challenged, the amateur experts on human nature never admit to showing those features themselves.

Most work in capitalism is unpleasant or boring because it is in the service of making money rather than something useful.  Despite being pitted against each other for jobs generously “provided” by employers, workers do co-operate – nothing would be produced if they didn’t.  It isn’t that the world’s poor are greedy – considering the plenty that technology and human ingenuity are capable of producing, they aren’t greedy enough!

There is a saying that talk is cheap, and in a sense it is.  It costs nothing to talk yourself out of supporting capitalism and into helping to build a practical socialist alternative.  And it costs nothing to talk others into following your excellent example.

The result of the election in Vauxhall was: Hoey (Lab) 19,744; Anglin (LD) 9,767; Heckels (Con) 5,405; Summers (Green) 1,705; McWhirter (UKIP) 271; Lambert (Socialist) 240; Polenceus (English Democrat) 221.

We also stood a candidate in the county council elections held the same day, in the Deneside ward in Durham, where the result was: Nugent (Lab) 1921; Nicholson (Con) 361; Colborn (Socialist) 288.