SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Soviet State - Part 2 (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The Russian State is powerful. Russian workers would be the first to agree with this, for their dependence upon the State as their employer is the measure of the State’s power over them. Again, the Communists may not agree that there is anything undesirable in this, but what did Lenin write about it in his book State and Revolution? “While the State exists there is no freedom, when there will be freedom there will be no state.”

There cannot be much of Lenin’s sort of freedom in Russia today, when the State has its fingers in every pie. Consider, for example, the Twenty Year Plan, recently published (Moscow, 1961) amidst much clamour, which promised free housing, transport and food to the Russian workers sometime between now and 1980. When this programme (a better word for it than “Plan”) is stripped of the ballyhoo, there is no difficulty in seeing it for what it is—a familiar document of Capitalism.

In Management of the National Economy and Planning, the statement: “The sphere of material production is the main sphere in the life of society” is the key to the situation which is illustrated by the following quotations:

“The Party attaches prime importance to the more effective investment of capital, the choice of the most profitable and economical trends in capital construction, achievement everywhere of the maximum growth of output per invested rouble, and reduction of the time-lapse between investment and return. It is necessary continuously to improve the structure of capital investments and to expand that portion of them which is spent on equipment, machinery and machine tools.” (Page 71).

“It is necessary for enterprises to play a substantially greater part in introducing the latest machinery.” (Page 73).

These passages leave no doubt that the Soviet government is as much concerned as any of its counterparts with the need to accumulate capital. And capital accumulation, let us remember, means capitalism. It means Capitalism in Great Britain and the U.S.A.—and the U.S.S.R. How is the Russian worker to be persuaded to pull his weight in making “more effective use of capital investment” and the rest? Why, in just the same way as the British or American worker is sometimes persuaded :

“In the process of Communist construction economic management will make use of material and moral incentives for high production figures.” (Page 73).

And to do all this, there is the intricate machinery of checkers and chasers, money grubbers and ledger slaves, all being urged to work harder and better:

“There must be a continuous improvement in rate setting, the system of labour payments and bonuses, in the financial control over the quantity and quality of work, in the elimination of levelling, and the stimulation of collective forms of incentives raising the interest of each employee in the high efficiency of the enterprise as a whole. It is necessary in communist construction to make full use of commodity-money relations in keeping with their new meaning in the Socialist period. In this, such instruments of economic development as cost accounting, money, prices, production costs, profit, trade, credit and finance play a big part.” (Page 74).

The only reference to Communist society in this section is as follows:

“When the transition to one Communist form of peoples’ property and the Communist system of distribution is completed, commodity-money relations will become economically outdated and will wither away.”(Page 74).

This is not explained until the next section of the programme:

“The task will be effected by (a) raising the individual payments of working people according to the quantity and quality of their work, coupled with reduction of all retail prices and abolition of taxes paid by the people; (b) increase of the public funds distributed among members of society irrespective of the quantity and quality of their labour, that is, free of charge, (education, medical treatment, pensions, maintenance of children at children’s institutions, transition to cost-free use of public amenities, etc.) “(Page 75).

This list is amplified later to cover housing, public services, public transport, holiday homes, public catering (mid-day meals).

Taxes

The programme may be ponderously worded, but its implied promises to abolish taxes, reduce prices and make public amenities free, are the stuff which wins by-elections in countries like England. Apart from that, what are they worth? The “abolition of taxes paid by the people” is only possible where the State is the sole realiser of surplus value, so that it can utilise part of the surplus for the running of the public services. Talk of “free services” is misleading and meaningless, because either the State has to pay the workers in wages to cover these services, or provide them directly, which may be cheaper because it can centrally plan and allocate expenditure. The State can budget more or less exactly because it knows that its expenditure is to be taken from existing and known funds, and not from an unknown income, such as fares payments, gas and electricity consumption.

Every “free” State service is a cost to the State as a whole. The plan for public catering, connected as it is to the prices the Soviet State must pay to the collective farms (Kolkhozes), is obviously meant to be financed in part, at any rate, in this way:

“It is essential that the level of state purchasing prices encourages the Kolkhozes to raise labour productivity and reduce production expenses, since greater farm output and lower production costs are the basis of greater incomes for the Kolkhozes.” (Page 68).

Now the main part of production expenses is made up of wages, so that if this section means anything, it is that the Russian farm workers will be expected to produce more for the same pay. A finer example of capitalist sophistry would be hard to find. This applies, too, on the industrial field:

“Technical progress and better production organisation must be fully utilised to increase labour productivity and reduce production costs at every enterprise. This implies a higher rate of increase in labour productivity as compared with remuneration, better rate fixing, prevention of loss of working time, and operation on a profitable basis in all sectors of production.” (Page 62).

Anyway, prices are only to come down (if at all) under certain circumstances:

“Prices must, to a growing extent, reflect the socially-necessary outlays of labour, ensure return of production and circulation expenditures and a certain profit for each normally operating enterprise. Systematically, economically justified price reductions based on growth of labour productivity and reduction of production costs are the main trend of the price policy in the period of Communist construction.” (Page 75).

And the entire programme is summed up by a passage which would be applauded at any Lord Mayor’s banquet at the Mansion House:

“It is necessary to promote profitable operation of enterprises, to work for lower production costs and higher profitability.” (Page 74).

Commodity production

This would be approved in the City of London because in this country wealth is produced for profitable sale—that is, it takes the form of commodities. The Russian State is urging the “. . . profitable operation of enterprises . . .” because in the U.S.S.R. also, wealth is produced as commodities. Stalin, as we saw in part 1 of this article, admitted that the Soviet Union “. . . has not abolished commodity production . . .” and went on, as he had to. to hedge this statement round with qualifications. But Marx was quite clear on the matter. The opening words of Capital read: “The wealth of a community in which the Capitalist mode of production prevails, appears as an immense collection of commodities.”

Marx’s analysis is still valid. Commodity production means Capitalism, whether it is in this country or anywhere else, including Russia.

What can we conclude from the Twenty Year Plan and from the other evidence which seeps through the Iron Curtain? The Soviet Union seems to be trying to become an ever-bigger monolith of an intensely automated, super-efficient, high-powered production machine. Such a nation must generate something of a momentum and values of its own. The Russian workers are caught up in a system which dictates its own terms. The Russians believe that this is Communism and presumably will go on believing so until Capitalism itself wakes them up.

Then they will realise that all the talk about the “all-round, harmonious development of the individual” and a “truly rich spiritual culture” (page 97) is so much humbug. Such concepts cannot flourish in a society that glories in production norms, because it produces people with a production norm mentality.

Alienation

The culture of a people is inseparable from its work. But Capitalism, in Russia and elsewhere, separates work from culture; for most of its people, work is an expenditure of their labour power which they must go through to get their living wage. It has nothing to do with culture and this fact is one of the chief reasons for social illness in a highly industrialised society. The shortening of the working day and the intensification of labour go hand in hand. But the increasing mechanisation and automation of industry must create a void between the worker and the object of his work; and what sort of culture came out of a void? “What, then, constitutes the alienation of labour?” says Marx. “. . . the fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., that it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself.” (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844), Moscow, 1959, page 72.

It is the intention of the Soviet Union to outpace the United States in production; the only way to do this is to outpace them in the techniques of exploitation; but the result of this in America has been this very alienation—in an aggravated form—that Marx wrote about in 1844, and has been further commented upon by others since then.

The British constitution (what there is of it) does not say that the United Kingdom is a capitalist State, but we know that it is because the evidence says so. In the same way, whatever the Soviet: Constitution may say, the evidence says that Russia is a capitalist nation. As long as it remains so, the anomalies and problems of Capitalism will be visited upon its people.

We will not need a constitution to tell us when Socialism is established, because Socialism is a world in which “the Government of people is replaced by the administration of things,” where the whole object is to make men and women masters of themselves—for they have had masters too long.

Ian Jones

 

(Concluded.)

The Soviet State - Part 1 (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia is a mysterious country in many ways. Its internal power struggles are submerged, dramatic affairs in which we usually realise that one man has fallen and another taken his place only by their relative places on a rostrum or in the line up to greet Krushchev at an airport. What news comes out is carefully filtered.

Nevertheless, we know enough about Russia to be able to say that the social system which exists there is Capitalism. This means that it is basically the same system as in England and America, although it would obviously be foolish to say that it corresponds in every way. When feudalism was the recognisable social system in many parts of the globe it, too, took different forms in different countries, but basically it was the same social system in all of them.

The Russian Government claims—and its claim is supported by the Communist Parties of the World—that the Soviet Union is a Socialist country. The Soviet Constitution states, for example, in Article 1 that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics “is a Socialist State of workers and peasants.” And Article 4 adds that:

“the economic foundations of the U.S.S.R. consist in the Socialist ownership of the implements and means of production, firmly established as a result of the liquidation of the Capitalist system of economy, the abolition of private property of the instruments and means of production, and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.”

But it is not constitutions that determine social systems. Capitalism in Russia does not rest on a legal constitution, but on the social and economic relationships which operate there. The evidence that has come from Russia in the past and is still coming now, shows clearly that certain basic features of Soviet society correspond to what we recognise as Capitalism. In fact, the so-called “evidence” for the existence of Socialism there is mainly a listing of the superficial differences between Russian Capitalism and some of the other Capitalist powers. These differences mean a lot to the ardent supporter of Russia; a critical analysis puts them in a less convincing light.

To begin with, we have to chop away some of the confusion which Communist party leaders have so assiduously spread over the years. Writing in Economic problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin said:

“absolutely mistaken . . . are those comrades who allege that, since Socialist society has not abolished commodity production, we are bound to have the reappearance of all the economic categories characteristic of capitalism: labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit, etc. “(Page 21).

He went on to justify these apparent contradictions by claiming that in Russia commodities, money, banks, and so on, “. . . while they lose their old functions and acquire new ones, preserve their old form, which is utilised by the Socialist system” (page 59), and that “. . . it is chiefly the form, the outward appearance, of the old categories of Capitalism that have remained in our country, but . . . their essence has radically changed in adaption to the requirements of the Socialist economy” (page 60).

This sort of argument is dishonest enough to explain away anything. Stalin, of course, had the last word—any comrades who remained “absolutely mistaken” long enough probably went under in one of the purges which were so often necessary to protect what we were told was Socialism in Russia.

What are the fundamental criteria by which we recognise the capitalist social system ? They are: wage labour and commodity production; and capital investment and accumulation.

Do these things exist in Russia? The Soviet state is the centralised monopoliser of the means of wealth production, to which the workers in Russia have to sell their energies for money. It therefore employs the Russian workers and pays them wages just like other employers in other countries. Thus the relationship between the Soviet state and its workers is one of capital and labour. Members of the Communist Party may not think that this fact in itself proves that Capitalism exists in Russia, but Karl Marx, to whose theories they pay lip service, would certainly have thought so. In his Wage Labour and Capital, he summed up his argument with “wage labour presupposes capital—capital presupposes wage labour.”

Capital is accumulated in Russia by the State and invested in state enterprise. Now the State can only do this if it is appropriating the surplus-value, or the results of unpaid labour time, of the workers it employs. This surplus value may not be distributed in dividends in the same way as in other Capitalist countries, but this makes no difference to the basic situation. In this country the State take a sizeable portion of surplus value by way of taxation upon the Capitalist class; in Russia, it also takes it directly from the workers it employs. The Soviet State does impose some taxes—capital can thus be accumulated in either way.

Raising productivity

In his book Industry in the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, 1949), E. Lokshin wrote:

“Socialist industry has incomparably greater possibilities than Capitalist industry of raising the productivity of labour, of constantly lowering production costs and thus increasing accumulations.” (Page 100.)

But before making this statement, he was careful to prepare the way for it by quoting Stalin:

“History up till now,” said Comrade Stalin, “has known three paths of the formation and development of powerful industrial states. The first path is the path of grabbing and pillaging colonies . . . The second path is the path of military conquest and the exaction of large indemnities from one country by another . . . The third path is the path of usurious concessions and usurious loans from capitalistically developed countries to a capitalistically backward country . . . All these paths were inacceptable to the Soviet Union . . . The Communist Party and the Soviet Government led the Land of Soviets along a different course, of industrialising the country by drawing on its interior sources of accumulation” (our emphasis).

These statements of Stalin’s may be true in themselves, but Lokshin’s defence of the Soviet Union is typical in that he uses them to give a completely false comparison between what he calls “capitalist methods of accumulation” and the method which is used in Russia—”interior sources of accumulation.” Capital can only be accumulated from the exploitation of labour. So what else can Lokshin’s “interior sources” be other than the unpaid labour of Soviet workers?

No one can deny the dissimilarities between Capitalism in this country and Capitalism in Russia. The capitalist class in Russia is not as distinct as in this country and “Western style” private property is largely non-existent in the Soviet Union. But it does not follow from this that Capitalism has gone from Russia, and with it the exploitation of man by man. It does mean that in Russia the state is the biggest property owner and exploiter of all.

For exploitation has nothing to do with conditions of work, nor with the value of wages. Exploitation is an integral part of the relationship between employer and employee, whereby the employer can appropriate surplus value for the accumulation of capital, by paying the worker less than the value of what he has produced or assisted in producing. Thus it is possible for a worker with a relatively high wage to be exploited at a higher rate than a worker with a lower wage.

It may be argued that the State uses some surplus value for the creation of things like roads, schools and hospitals. But this is only the accepted function of the State in a highly organised society. The capitalist class in this country needs a centralised authority to do these things because it could not possibly do them without such an authority. In Russia, the State has the same functions, but with a difference. It has the field to itself.

Ian Jones

                                                                           (To be concluded)

SPGB Meetings (1961)

Party News from the February 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

There was a report of the April 'Demonstration for Socialism' rally in the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard. Harry Young and Cyril May were the speakers at the meeting, and they spoke to an audience of 400 people.

SPGB Meetings (1961)

Party News from the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do we have democracy? (1991)

From the September 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is hardly necessary to stress the virtues of democracy, when we have the example before us of what goes on around the world in countries with Mafia-type set-ups. An absence of democracy tells us more than just that a particular country is ruled by despots. It indicates the absence of a stable class structure, with all the necessary institutions for running a modern industrial state. The system of democracy, or rather of democratic institutions (the right to form trade unions, of assembly and free speech), is essential to working class politics. It would, however, be wrong to assume that the democracy we have is in any sense complete, that the potential of democracy has been realised.

The question has to be considered within the context of capitalist society which, while it needs a certain level of democracy to function, places limits upon democracy. Within capitalist society there are many conflicting interests and, to arbitrate and regulate these, various democratic decision-making institutions have to be created. But because property has more power than people, and the demands of the economic system more power than either, the effectiveness of any popular or majority will is diluted, so that on balance it is the will or demands of capitalism that prevail, while keeping up a pretence of majority rule.

Pretence of majority rule

In terms of political power, our democratic freedom is limited to deciding who shall constitute the executive bodies of local and central government.These bodies make decisions that affect our lives but, once they are elected, we have little or no control over them.There are occasions when determined action does have an effect, but if we do not like these decisions, in the main the only recourse we have is to vote in another lot the next time we are given permission; who will eventually turn out to be as unsatisfactory as the others. The vital thing to remember, though, is that it is through this system that we may achieve socialism.

Although the means of selecting governing bodies by majority vote is democratic as far as it goes, the way these bodies function is not. This is because they are subject to pressures which have nothing to do with the reasons for their election and which force them into actions contrary to the interests and wishes of the electors.

These pressures which restrict democracy are those that allow commercial and industrial enterprises to compete freely with each other for profits. Because this adversely affects working class interests, workers in turn exert pressure upon the government. The government cannot resolve this conflict. so to absorb the mounting pressure of dissatisfaction the political system has a safety valve of ins and outs which temporarily allays the problem. The governing party goes to the country, as the saying has it. Another party assumes power. Society breathes again. Old men with new faces and old ideas in new suits appear on the scene; only to soon look shabby and familiar.

The inability of limited democracy within the framework of capitalism to solve problems sometimes goads people into taking matters into their own hands. This too has been foreseen. The law is there to counter such action, to protect the institutions of the elected from the depredations of the electorate. It is important, however, to remember that any action that could ultimately weaken or destroy democratic rights is not in the interest of the working class. For the limited democracy we have is not only necessary for us here and now, but essential for the creation of the socialist commonwealth and, with it, true democracy.

True democracy

Democracy under capitalism is not there to enable us to decide how our lives should be run. but to enable our rulers to escape responsibility for their actions and to put the blame on us for their inevitable failure to run capitalism in our interests. This, as will now be realised, is not the fault of democracy as a sound principle for running affairs, but the fraudulent way it is organised and the nefarious purposes to which it is put under capitalism.

Governments frequently claim to be omnipotent, to be able to do what they want to do. and as frequently are forced to find excuses for why they are not and can not. How often have we been given phrases to explain why the elected have reneged on the electors: “necessary unpopular measures", "in the national interest”? The commonly accepted definition of democracy as the will of the majority is used to limit its scope to what is convenient to the ruling class, to what is required to maintain workable executive powers on a stable political foundation in its interests.

Democracy today is certainly not there to enable us to decide how our lives should be run, but it could be if we used its present institutions to vote out capitalism. With the abolition of the institution of property and of class power, with its overriding commercial and financial interests, all the potential of democracy would be realised.

Socialism is a society in which the interests of people as such are the only criteria. Not people divided by irreconcilable class interests, with workers always coming off worst; not people driven by what is called “economic necessity", the obligation to make profits rather than to satisfy needs; but people who would make real democratic decisions and partake in those decisions from a position of equality, secure in the knowledge that they were their own masters, in control of their own destiny.

Ian Jones

SPGB Meetings (1991)

Party News from the September 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ringing the changes (1953)

From the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following quotation has a familiar ring about it.

"Their (the workers) output . . . was not enough to warrant the continuance of the high wages they were getting. The workers . . . wanted to get everything and give as little as possible in exchange. There were too many missed shifts, too many people who pretended to be ill, too many fines, too much movement of labour from one factory to another, too much stealing, too much carelessness in handling machinery." (Economist, 27 Sept. 1952.)

How often have we seen phrases like this? The familiarity of its tone, bred of constant repetition, rings in our ears like a cracked bell. We in this island are by no means the only ones to suffer its infliction. It also applies to the so-called “peoples democracies" on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

In fact, the quotation is from a report of a speech made by Mr. Zapotocky, the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Old history? Perhaps! But Mr. Zapotocky, like all other devout worshippers of capitalism, is never tired of ringing the changes (though needless to say we’re tired to death) or as the Economist has it: “Comrade Zapotocky has been saying the same thing at intervals ever since." No doubt he will continue.

Why he has been saying it, will make more apparent the fact that Czechoslovakia, like all other countries has a class divided society. The working class there is distressingly stubborn about accepting the fairy tales of their rulers; are exasperating in their refusal to believe that everything is for their benefit in a land that they are told is “building Socialism.” So much so, that the Trades Unions are again being “ re-organised."

After the Communists came to power in February, 1948, the Unions underwent purification.

“At that moment, which coincided with the nationalisation of nearly all industrial undertakings, the workers had, theoretically, won their victory against capitalism and the original raison d’etre of the unions— the protection of the workers against capitalist exploitation—came abruptly to an end. But instead of dissolving the unions, the Communist Party skilfully incorporated them into the state organisation and gave them the new task of 'educating' the workers into being worthy of the hire meted out to them by the politicians who have taken over from the dispossessed private capitalists."

Of course, the Communists were not likely to dissolve the unions. Well trained in the methods of State Capitalism, with the ever watchful eye of their mentor the Soviet Union guiding them, the Communists, with a copious supply of bogus Socialist theory, were able to re-organise the unions and turn them to their own advantage, under the pretence that now the “Socialist Revolution" had been accomplished, the original function of the unions had become redundant. Quite true. The nature of State Capitalism (which is the form Czech Capitalism has taken on the model of the Soviet Union) is such, that, under it, all the aspects of capitalist society are drawn into a unified whole; brought to a head. Control is centralised and complete.

Trade unionism is an aspect of Capitalist Society; Capitalism is a class Society and the interests of the ruling class predominate. Therefore, when all the aspects of capitalism are drawn into a Central organisation—the State—the Trades Unions automatically come under the control of the ruling class. They are then transformed from a protective, working class, organisation, into instruments for driving the workers to greater and more efficient production.

Mr. Zapotocky in a speech on July 18th. 1952, gave the following, as the three principal functions of trades unions in a “Peoples Democracy.” They are: “To reduce production costs.” (Wages?)

“To consolidate working discipline and develop Socialist competition.” “At present,” he added, “the unions definitely are not fulfilling their tasks. That is why they must be reorganised’.”

So far the “Stick” method has been in operation for goading the workers into production marathons. This has not proved as successful as was at first hoped. So now the more “scientific,” “carrot” technique is being employed. The Czechs are now to be “persuaded ” to produce more.

The trades union leaders have been sent on special courses of “political education ,” with the object of bringing the Czech workers into a state of mind that will make them “produce more than yesterday.”

“The workers, in short, must be ’persuaded' by hook, crook, whips or scorpions to give up the old eight hour day in favour of a system under which they must on working with no extra pay until their ’Norm' been fulfilled. They must be 'persuaded' to welcome the introduction of arbitrary and often unpaid extra weekend shifts and to give up their ‘Bolshevists Saturday* which the miners won in 1921, at the whim of the Government . . .

“When they do not close the gap between output and wages, the real wages are cut by raising either norms or prices or both alternately: in addition, the hardly-won privileges the workers fought for against private capitalism are taken away or transformed into a machine for keeping their noses well down to the nationalised grindstone. (Ibid).

The mixture as before, but more highly concentrated and with a nastier taste. Administered with a very large and efficient spoon.

Ian Jones

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1964)

Party News from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News from the March 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paddington Branch has had a full programme for the past few months. Now, once every month, an evening is devoted to critical discussion on the current Socialist Standard. At a prior meeting individual members choose a particular article which they will closely study in the meantime. Then, on the appointed evening both the effectiveness and shortcomings of the chosen article are gone into thoroughly. Paddington Branch hope that in this way they will be contributing to the improvements of our journal which so richly deserves a wider readership.

With the dual aim of making the Party's point of view known and improving their own knowledge, the Branch have invited several representatives of significant non-Socialist organisations to visit the Branch. Mr. E. S. (Solly) Sachs, the former General Secretary of the South African Workers Union, whose opposition to the division of the South African Trade Union movement on racial lines was one of the reasons for his virtual exile from that country, spoke on the history of the South African working class. On another occasion a local Communist came to face the Branch's passionate condemnation of his Party's record.

The Branch will certainly continue their efforts to stress the world-wide nature of Socialism when a Movement of Colonial Freedom representative visits the Branch to be followed soon after by someone from Argentina. Members are themselves encouraged to address the Branch, giving a Socialist slant on the fields in which they have especial interest. Two notable occasions were Comrade Warlow’s talk on automation and Ian Jones's on the social significance of the plays of Bertold Brecht.

Chelsea and Fulham Branch. Owing to the illness of two or three members of the Branch and the transfer of another, and the difficulties of others to attend Branch meetings, all activity was suspended for the latter part of last year and the first weeks of this year. The Branch is now meeting again on the first and third Thursdays in the month at 8 p.m. at 34, St. George's Square (Com. Wilcox, top flat), S.W.l. The Branch Secretary is Comrade Newell, to whom all correspondence should be addressed at Head Office, 52, Clapham High Street, S.W.4.

Lectures and discussions are being arranged and the Branch hopes to commence outdoor meetings at Gloucester Road and Earls Court in the beginning of April. Members, sympathisers and readers of the Socialist Standard will be welcomed to all the indoor and outdoor meetings.

Obituary. We regret to learn of the death on 28th December last, of Comrade Donald Fincham at the age of 79. He was a member for many years and staunchly put the Party case on every possible occasion to his workmates. We extend to his family our sincere sympathy and condolences.

Meeting. At the Peace Pledge Union, 6, Endsleigh Street, W.C.l, on Thursday, 7th March, at 8 p.m. Here our Comrade Read will talk on "War, its Causes and Remedy.” Admission free, Questions and Discussion.

Phyllis Howard

Myth of the leisure society (1991)

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

From the August 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are all obsessed with technology, from the Walkman on our heads to the trainers on our feet. “State of the Art". “High-Tech”, bits of glossy phrases; pieces of intellectual titillation. Technology is also presented as the cornucopia of unbounded plenty; the key to onward and upward progress, leading to a society in which work will get less and less, leisure more and more. This, of course, is no concern to the leisured class; they know not work and to them leisure is not news.

But the working class can be fair game. We it was who created the legend of Cockaigne; the imaginary land of idleness and luxury, so different from our life experience; who are only too ready to note any hint of leisure, in preference to working as employees. People believe what they take as their interest to believe. If you are given euphemisms for the otherwise unpalatable, you will come to accept the sugar-coating for the pill.

The essence of the growing emphasis on leisure is to be found in the greatly increased and increasing capacity of the productive forces, resulting from the now extensive use of sophisticated equipment. All. we may add, from the hands and brains of the working class. When Henry Ford said “History is Bunk”, he was expressing the naked capitalist principle that only tomorrow's production and profits have any meaning, and that what you told people yesterday only subverts what you are going to tell them tomorrow.

Job losses
Once upon a time, as all fairy tales begin, the working class was considered so lazy and indolent that they could only be made to work through threats of unemployment and starvation; a piece of moral turpitude given a suitable ironic twist when they were laid off: for working hard and swamping the market. Now we are even better at it; so much so, that we’re told the virtues of idleness. There is nothing new in capitalism using and constantly developing its technology of production; but it too is getting better at it.The Sunday Telegraph in 1979 (20 March) had a director of ICI stating:

   No matter what the growth rate is in this country there is no way we are going to employ more people. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful business strategy in the modern world is the rate at which numbers of people come down.

Competition between capitalists for a bigger share of the market is the driving power to seek advantage in lower costs of production and distribution, through the use of machinery, or more effective machinery, and less labour. It is the nature of competition to allow no-one an advantage permanently, because in the race to keep the competitive edge, one capitalist organisation leap-frogs another. And so on, ad infinitum.There is nothing new to the working class in leisure. Traditionally though, it has been known as unemployment.

With what sort of logic, one wonders, can people look in wide-eyed admiration on something (made by their own hands!) that reduces their opportunity for access to the necessities of life.

Work-sharing
To take one example of a "solution", let us look at “work-sharing” proposed by Roger Clarke in Work in Crisis:

  The general aim of work sharing as a social instrument is to so organise the volume of work available within the economy that all those wishing to work can at least find partial employment.
  Work sharing can be achieved through some of those currently employed giving up their jobs to other groups of individuals or through a new arrangement of working time which allows the existing work to be shared by more workers (e.g. twinning and trebling arrangements).

Further on in his book, Roger Clarke notes that “work sharing does involve costs”. In other words, where is the money coming from to make up for the unworked, or “leisure”, time? His solution is that:

   Those parties who are fortunate enough to have high earnings and security of employment . . . must expect to have to bear a considerably higher level of taxation which . . may be used to subsidise . work sharing . . .

It is not the fact (income tax is a book-keeping ruse to create the illusion that we have, as the saying goes, a stake in the country), but the thought behind this statement that is so outrageous. That the working class should always suffer in order to provide palliatives, protection and assistance for those who are responsible for our predicament in the first place.

So much for the cornucopia of unbounded plenty and progress. not forgetting “leisure”, of course.

The introduction of new technology will always create problems for those who produce the wealth of society until the means for producing wealth are owned in common and used to satisfy needs not make profits for capitalists. An impossible dream? Consider the following quotation which, with a nice touch of irony, Roger Clarke took from a book entitled God on Monday by Simon Phipps:

  Politics may be the art of the possible, but what is possible greatly depends upon what people want. Small minorities with conviction and a good understanding of the way power operates, can create a new public opinion. When a new public opinion comes to want a change, the range of what is ‘possible’ changes too.

That is precisely what we Socialists are engaged in doing.

Ian Jones

Letter: Technology to blame? (1990)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Technology to blame?

Dear Editors.

In his book advocating Green Party politics It Doesn't Have To Be Like This reviewed in last month's Socialist Standard David Icke writes:

   "It is technology that took people off the land into the mills and the mass production factories. It is technology that has ravaged the countryside by creating the new farming methods. Technology has dictated how people live, where they live, where they work, whether they work, what they produce, how they produce it. and almost everything we do and buy . . . We must tame this technological monster and not just sit there passively allowing it to control us” (p. 36).

Replace, in the above quotation, the word technology with capitalism and it begins to make some sense. No, the system is not shaped by the techniques of production, but by the relationships of production, by how society is organised to produce wealth. The society that used the scythe in the 19th century and the one that uses the combine harvester today only differ in the techniques, not in the relationships, of production. The existence of destructive technology is no more the cause of environmental destruction than the existence of the weapons of war is the cause of war.

The system is much more than “a form of economic thinking that sees the profit figure at the bottom of the balance sheet every year as the only measurement of success. Keeping the shareholders happy by increasing profits by the biggest margin possible is its only aim in life" (p. 15)— though that is certainly part of it.

"Keeping the shareholders happy" is not simply "a form of economic thinking", but an economic fact of life today: as legal owners of property, of the means of production in the form of capital, the shareholders are also the possessors of economic and social power—class power

It is of the utmost importance to the cause of saving our world that people are made aware of the issues facing them and of what they have to do: to wrest power from all those who own and control the industries responsible for all the devastation. This demands a political will and understanding that goes far beyond simply voting for a political party, however dedicated. Political power not supported by a majority determined that the means of production become common property would be impotent. If the means of wealth production were common property the impetus, the driving force, towards destroying the planet would have been destroyed.

Ian Jones

Wallington, 

Surrey

The Market-Worshippers (1991)

From the July 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

In early, primitive societies, people believed that their lives were ruled by spirits or gods.

Given the extent of their knowledge, they reasoned that things that were vital to life, such as the sun and rain, were in the giving of their gods, and they assumed that if you kept on good terms with these gods, things would go well; and if they did not, you had failed in some way—incurred some god's displeasure.

Today, from the heights of accumulated learning we look down upon these poor savages and say, well, they did not know any better.

But in some ways they were wiser than us, because they reasoned logically (false premise accepted) and acted according to the conclusion of that logic.

Believe it or not—we don't.

We let our lives be ruled by a god of whose existence we are unaware, and whose displeasure is unwittingly taken to be the necessary price of progress.

Let us not talk of primitive people.

We let this god rule our lives, accept all the evils it can throw at us—and do nothing.

There is a touch of irony in the way we really believe we control our destiny, because, for example, we have made the computer. Yet at the same time it is not uncommon to come across people who think computers are taking over that control.

Let us not talk of primitive people.

They would look further; they would look for the god in the computer.

As socialists, we know what this is. We know that computers, or any other machine or tool, have no volition of their own. Pushed to the point, neither does anyone else; it is just part of twentieth century mythology. But so befuddled have people become by the overwhelming dominion of finance, the market, capital, however you see it, that they cannot comprehend their own power, except in terms of the very thing that is their own master. There is hardly any aspect of life which is not free from the touch of Midas; so that the more universal the system becomes, the more difficult it is to comprehend, the more it becomes inseparable from, and part of everything. This is why, to most people, capitalism does not exist.

To primitive people, the sun and the sun god were two things. To the sophisticated of today, the machine and the machine god are one. If we are to substantiate our claim to be intelligent, sophisticated and scientific, then we have to break the circle; to start to use our capacity for rational analytical thought to some purpose. No-one suggests this is easy—it involves starting to think differently. Yet, not so differently. One of the great powers of the human mind is the power of abstraction. This is how primitive people created their gods; from the sun, the sun god; from the rain, the rain god.

From the productive process, let us abstract the act of production, and its god—its financial incubus. For this is the problem.

Consider: what would it be like if the only issue in making something was its making? There is the workshop, the machines, the tools, the materials, the transport; and somewhere the people who are waiting for your product.

What else do you need?

What else have we got?

We have our greatest problem— capitalism and the property system.

The fact is that our work is dominated by the demands of the financial noose around its proverbial neck.The fact is that all work and all production is hobbled by the financial network of the market—the god we created as a distorted reflection of our own productive powers and without whom we believe production cannot take place. How and why this is so is a matter of the past. Why and how we do away with it is a question for the future, which we need to address today.

Ian Jones

Self-Service (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The self-service store, with which most of us are now familiar, has developed of recent years in response to the needs of Capitalism to reduce costs and increase sales. More people can gel into the shop and out again, and at the same time buy more goods with less staff assistance than before. At the same time the high-powered retailing methods of modern Capitalism are used to the full. Everything is laid out to extract the maximum purchases from each buyer who enters the shop, right down to the little “likely to be forgotten extras" that are hung round the all-essential cash register as you pay your way out.

The purgative effect of sweet canned music on the pocket is used to release that loose change. If your memory is not so good, the psychologically timed repetition of a tape-recorded voice will remind you that whatever it is you are in dire need of, may be had at the toss of a coin. And so off.

What has this to do with Socialism? Let us get back to that cash register. Next time you walk into your local self-service store, imagine that Socialism is here. You walk in, take up one of the little wire baskets provided and put into it the things you want. Nothing could be easier or more logical. Now try to walk out. Not so easy. The check-out counter is guarded by the owners’ protection machine—the cash register.

This is where our little game ceases: no us: imagining it is Socialism now. The act of paying for the things you have collected round the store, is the all-important factor that brings us back to reality, and makes the difference between Socialism and Capitalism.

The means for organising “free access” are here. All you've to do is remove that formality at the check-out.

Ian Jones

Racing For Markets (1952)

From the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Behind the thrill and excitement of motor racing, lies yet another example of the means used to satisfy the ever growing necessity to maintain and increase export markets. The constant stream of vehicles pouring out of motor factories must be disposed of, and what better advertisement is there for a firm in pursuance of this purpose than to show prowess on the race track. This year’s Le Mans, the 24-hour race for production cars, ended in a triumph for the German Mercedes-Benz Company, and Mr. Robert Raymond, writing in the Picture Post (28th June) has this to say on the matter:

   "The result of the Le Mans 24-hour race comes, unfortunately, not as a shock, but as a confirmation of an uneasiness many thoughtful people feel about the British attitude to motor racing.
   “One can make out a case for the casual and truly amateur British attitude to most sports, but motor racing is more than a sport, it is a business—a big and serious business.
   “And success or failure in an international race has far-reaching effects on one of our biggest export industries.
  “Remembering this, one cannot shrug off Le Mans . . .  After the B.R.M. fiasco this débâcle has done untold damage to our prestige and exports abroad.”

Mr. Raymond has obviously no illusions as to which aspect of motor racing is the most important. The race track, besides being the scene of first-class driving, is also a battle-ground of commerce, where the friendly rivalry of sportsmen is overcast by the dark shadow of the profit motive, producing rivalry of a very different kind, which often ends in disaster, and sometimes—greatest disaster of all—war.

Behind the careering chariot of Capitalism in its race for markets comes the working class, chained by their ignorance to a system which does not and cannot run in their interests, but is only the cause of their troubles. It is time you broke the chain, took the wheel yourselves, and drove all out for Socialism.

It is up to you.

Ian Jones

South Africa: Make Crime Pay (1953)

From the January 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The above is the title of an article by the Johannesburg correspondent of the Economist, which in its issue of September 6th, presents us with an interesting sidelight on labour relations in South African agriculture. It appears that in the Kroonstad district of the Orange Free State, 

  “the new goldfields nearby are drawing labour away from the farms; and in any case the Africans are showing an increasing aversion to farm work. Under the masters and servants act, a farmer can still pursue a runaway worker, and have him first fined, and then forced back to work. But the Africans, it seems, now resent this."

Obviously the good farmers of Kroonstad had got to find a solution to this distressing dilemma. They might raise wages, and thus make farm work more attractive. (They might, but not if they could avoid it.) There must (they reasoned) be some way out of the difficulty. And there was.

During the last year or two, the article continues, the South African Government

     “has pursued a deliberate policy of building ‘outpost’ prisons in rural areas, and allowing farmers to hire convict labour from them.’ There are now 12 such outpost Jails in South Africa, but until recently there were none in the Free State. “The farmers of Kroonstad district therefore applied to the government for a prison in their area. As there was apparently some difficulty in finding the money for it, the farmers hit on an ingenious expedient.”

Any private enterprise enthusiasts who may be reading this should follow the next bit carefully.

  “A leading Kroonstad farmer, Mr. George Verster, organised 22 other farmers into a private company, on a normal shareholding basis. The farmers subscribed £12,000 in £1 shares and elected Mr. Verster their chairman. Mr. Verster then approached the government with the proposition that the company build and equip a prison, if the government would stock it with convicts.”
   “The government was enthusiastic about the proposal, and it was arranged that when the new prison was built the government would supply 350 African convicts whom the Kroonstad farmers company could hire by paying the state 1s. 9d. per head per day” (the convicts, of course, get nothing).

It’s amazing. Crime has now donned the mantle of virtue, ascended to the Elysian fields of commercial respectability, to be sanctified in the name of profit. But hold hard—of course only the “best type” of convicts are employed, this is those who are serving sentences “of from six to fifteen years for slaying or wounding fellow Zulus in tribal fights. Thus they are not ordinary criminals, and by working for Mr. Verster and his friends they will be removed from contamination by hardened, habitual criminals.” Presumably by this is meant those revolting specimens of abysmal depravity the perpetrators of theft.

The only snag that the farmers of Kroonstad had to overcome was the fact that the cost of building and equipping the desired penal residence, was just over double the amount subscribed. What did they do about it? Use convict labour to build it! In this way you can build a £25,000 jail for £12,000. This we may presume is what in bourgeois circles is known as thrift. The name of the new prison is Geneva “perhaps in grateful recognition of the fact that the South African Government does not subscribe to the I.L.O. Convention against the hiring out of Convict labour for private profit.”

We note that one of the many merits of this scheme is that it is “ thoroughly democratic.”

   “By this is meant that under the rules of the company, the farmers will be treated in exactly the same way as far as getting convicts is concerned, whatever the differences in the size of their contributions to the scheme." 

When opening a new—civic building—if we may be permitted the phrase, it is customary to enliven the proceedings with a little ceremony. So the new jail was formally opened by Mr. Swart the Minister of Justice, accompanied by the Director of Prisons who, strange as it may seem, is Mr. George Verster’s uncle, Mr. Victor Verster.

Mr. Swart made a long speech (there were doubtless other long speeches) in which he:

  “Stoutly defended the jail farm system . . . praised Mr. Verster and his fellow farmers for their excellent idea (which he frankly confessed would save the state a lot of money), remarked laughingly that the convicts were lucky fellows who would get plenty of fine fresh air, and finally promised that, as Minister of Justice, he would see to it that 'many more’ farm jails were built in the shortest possible space of time."

The jollifications were concluded by the unveiling of a commemorative tablet and the consumption of numerous cups of coffee and plates of cake. We are not a little puzzled by the fact that the principal participants in the scheme were not invited to this “tea party.” But perhaps they would have been embarrassed. As it happened, the press in the person of the Johannesburg Star, took a rather poor view of this business, regarding it as “morally reprehensible” and as an “investment in Crime,” since it is now in the interests of farmers to build prisons and the state to keep them filled. But it appears that both the farmers and the Minister of Justice are impervious to criticism, and are firmly convinced that they are helping the convicts by what is called “rehabilitating them” and “helping the country” (time-honoured phrase) by providing cheap labour. “What other country, they may well demand, can point to such achievements? When was there ever such a magnificent example of philanthropy and five-per cent?”

Ian Jones

Socialism and Perfection (1958)

From the October 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The aim of the Socialist is to achieve perfection, and perfection is unattainable—so goes the argument. The assumption is that somehow human beings are to be transformed into supermen and women, all virtue and no vice, once the millenium has been reached. This approach to the problem is the wrong one and very misleading.

The improvement in human behaviour which we envisage is not an abstract conception of how people might behave in a better world, but is based on our observation and knowledge of how people actually do behave. It can be seen that sometimes people react in a truly human way to each other, and sometimes the reverse. An objection here may be: “What do we mean by truly human, surely all the actions of human beings must by definition be human? ” If we can agree that men are primarily social beings, that everything they do and think is connected in diverse ways with, and affected by, what others do and think (even in matters of sex), that what we recognise as human as opposed to merely animal is the result of thousands of years of social evolution; of living together in mutual dependence, then the act of, for example, saving life is more human than destroying it

We may ascribe changes in our behaviour to each other to quite arbitrary vagaries of human nature, but once an analysis has been made of the conditions and circumstances in which our actions occur, we will see that a definite causal connection can be traced. A man who is worried about his relations with his employers and fears the sack, is possibly not going to be easy to live with as when he is relatively safe. (Assuming for the sake of argument no other disruptions.) Meeting such a person for the first time we might say: "What an unpleasant man Smith is.” Or if we heard he had been beating his children; “What a brute that man Smith is.” We would have implied by our remarks that the trouble was entirely with Smith, and not, as in this case, the result of a conflict between Smith and the owner of the means of his existence. Though it is interesting to note that if we knew him, we would probably say: “I wonder what has got into old Smith? ” Here the implication is the reverse, we have recognised a contributory factor. Once this point has been agreed upon, it is not a far step to realising that if the conditions of society were changed the circumstances (e.g., labour and capital relationship) producing undesirable human behaviour would disappear. If asked what proof we have of this apart from the logic of the argument, it would suffice to say that if mankind is capable of behaviour conducive to social well-being some of the time, it is capable of it all of the time and in all spheres of human activity.

This is no perfectionist myth which implies the singular development of man along the road of constant progress. The perfectionist idea implies also that man is now inferior to what the would-be perfectionists might make him. In some cases it takes a mechanistic form, too; that is, it conceives men as living together by agreement or contract, that society is a man-made utopia rather than a social growth. That Socialism would be a distinct form of society and unconnected with Capitalism, a Minerva springing complete from the heads of the idealists rather than being born of the society existing prior to it and bearing the marks of its origins. All this is a fallacy. What we as Socialists aim to do is to organise society in such a way that there will be no fetters and restrictions on the desire for peaceful and purposeful co-operation, the desire of millions of people caught in the maelstrom of Capitalism, who as yet see no way out. It is on the basis of our knowledge of what man is that we want to change the world, not from some abstract concept of what we imagine would be nice: simply extending our own preferences on to society at large.

The important question now arises: at what point does the change in human behaviour take place; before the revolution in the social structure in order to change it (in which case it would then seem unnecessary), or afterwards, which would be an impossible absurdity, like a baby begetting its parents in order to be born. To quote Marx (Capital, Vol. I, page 157.): “By action on the external world and changing it. he (man) changes his own nature.” It is in the union in time and place of the desire and the action of its fulfilment that man will become truly human in the complete sense. It follows from this that mankind as a whole must make the effort. There are no means by which the Socialist Party of Great Britain alone can do this, nor are there any verifiable laws of nature, society or history to help, or for that matter to hinder the attainment of Socialism. The only laws are the exigencies of the immediate social condition, the state in which we find ourselves and the power of social consciousness.

Man makes his own history, albeit according to the conditions of the time. Conditions which have today raised problems not only of the fundamental relationships of simply living together, but of even the very survival of the human race. Problems which have got to be solved.

Ian Jones

Science v Religion (1960)

Theatre Review from the June 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July, 1925, at the town of Dayton, Tennessee, a school-teacher was charged under a State law with teaching the Darwinian theory of the origin of man instead of the story in Genesis, as the law demanded.

The case was defended by the great liberal lawyer Clarence Seward Darrow, who was famous for defending many workers in cases that had arisen through their Trade Union struggles; a man who was by many derisively regarded as the friend of criminals, because he considered that society was to blame for their actions, being responsible for not only making men into criminals but also for defining at any time what was criminal and what was not, according to its own interests and prejudices.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee have taken the case of the Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes, and made it the basis of their play Inherit the Wind, which had a regrettably short run at the St, Martins Theatre. The play is not an actual report of the trial and the authors have changes the names of the participants, so that what we have are the essentials of the case and its conflict. This conflict is between the cant and superstition of unsophisticated religion and the enlightenment of “atheistic” science and is played  against the background of the American Middle West with its particular pioneer traditions of suspicion, intolerance and isolation, which looked upon science not only as an encroachment on its religion and a device of the Devil, but as a threat to its way of life. 

The Legislature of the State of Tennessee had laid down that it was unlawful for any public teacher “to teach the theory which denies the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower form of animals.”* It is also of interest to note that similarly, the State Legislature of Florida had declared it “improper and subversive of the best interests of the state for any public teacher to teach as true Darwinian or any other hypothesis that links man in blood relationship to any other form of life."*

It was against thinking of this kind and every obstacle that could be put in his way, including the refusal to allow the testimony of eminent biologists, and the prosecution’s able lawyer, William Jennings Bryan, that Darrow had to fight in his defence of John Scopes. Bryan was a man who held “firmly with childlike faith to a literal interpretation of the Bible,” who was “hostile to the teachings of biological science which he had never had the inclination to study.”* 

Darrow was moved by his abiding interest in science and his deep commitment to freedom of thought to volunteer to defend Scopes. He was in fact “of an astonishing variety of intellectual and social currents: skepticism in philosophy and religion, determinism in psychology, evolution in science, realism in literature, a farrago of socialism and anarchism in politics.”*

The outcome of the trial was a farcical compromise to save the face of the community, forced by Darrow's brilliant defence and the weight of American public opinion. The teacher John Scopes was simply fined a nominal sum.

So far as Bryan was concerned, says the American Dictionary of National Biography, “the trial only revealed the naivete of his religious faith and his want of familiarity with the trend of biological science." Already an old man, the strain of the trial brought him to his death five days later.

Inherit the Wind conveys with a fair degree of authenticity the setting and atmosphere the trial, though the ending of the play is spoilt by anti-climax. The authors have conceded a point to the prevailing public morality, giving the impression that it is not religion itself that is questionable but merely fundamentalist religion; which is false not only to Darrow and to science, but to the spirit of the play also. Nevertheless, the play is not only good theatre, but a refreshing reminder of the gradual retreat of religion (and other fetishes), which makes our Socialist task that much easier.

Ian Jones

* American Dictionary of National Biography.

Eugène Ionesco and the Defeatist Dilemma (1958)

Eugène Ionesco

From the October 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The whole history of the world has been governed by . . . nostalgias and anxieties, which political action does no more than reflect and interpret, very imperfectly. No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death; it is the human condition that directs the social condition not vice versa.”

This in essence is the subjective theory of history; it is also the philosophy of the French playwright Eugène Ionesco.

Eugène Ionesco, who is of Rumanian origin, has in the last ten years become one of the leading dramatists of the French avant-garde. Like all such writers his plays were first acted in the tiny left-bank theatres in Paris. He has now acquired a world-wide reputation and his plays are being performed in many languages.

The constant theme of his plays (for example: Armedée. Victims of Duty, etc.) is the personal predicament of the individual in the modem world, expressed in a highly original and unusual style of dramatic writing. In an article on “ The Playwrights Roll ” (Observer, June 29th, 1958), from which the opening quotation is taken, he says: "What is called the 'social' plane (of reality) . . .  seems to me to be the most external, in other words, the most superficial."

It is a characteristic of our times for many people to deny the efficacy of political action and to turn to the sad futility of attempting to solve the inner, personal problem; simply because heretofore, all political action has left us still with each his own personal predicament in an impersonal and anti-social world.

Ionesco says elsewhere in his article: "I believe that what separates us all from one another is simply society itself . . . This is what raises barriers between men, this is what creates misunderstanding.” And again: “To discover the fundamental problem common to all mankind, I must ask myself what my fundamental problem is, what my most ineradicable fear is. I am certain, then, to find the problems and fears of literally everyone.” 

True, society does separate us one from another, but the question, why? is not asked. True, my problems are those of literally everyone, in other words, they are common problems, therefore may they not be social in origin? Society and human beings cannot be considered in abstraction, as separate entities, we have no existence apart from one another and the whole which constitutes society. Our individual condition is determined on all counts by our common (social) condition. Neither is there an eternal paradox whereby the nature of our existence should, or must be, the barrier to perfect communication and harmonious living. If this were true, it would mean that at no time and in no place have men lived without the problems Ionesco poses, and this we cannot countenance. Personal problems are only the manifestations on the individual plane of the social malaise; for all problems can be seen on analysis no matter what their nature, to stem from the wider circle of causality—society. To describe social reality as therefore merely “external” and “superficial,” is to assume à priori that we have an existence which is “extra-social” and in some way superior to the social. Obviously, Ionesco has something in mind as to what this might be and he describes it as “a wider, deeper society, that which is revealed by our common anxieties, our desires, our secret nostalgias.” It is not that these things are not real enough, or for that matter of vital importance, but the emphasis is misplaced; that in some way they are more real, more potent, than the social existence. (There are no realities which can be conceived as being more, or less, real than others; there are only factors of varying powers of determinancy within reality.) This is not to question that our emotions, or rather, say our subjective impulses, do not have their influence on the course of human history, or on life in general (that would be silly), men make their own history and emotions are part of our human composition, but to say that (see opening quotation) what Ionesco calls the human condition, the psychological totality, directs the social condition, is an untenable assumption. Who could possibly give a cogent, convincing explanation of human history by way of such an hypothesis? I cavil at the thought of even putting rhetorical questions on the subject; the result would be so ludicrous, that I can only assume Ionesco does not mean precisely what he says. Perhaps I am wrong in my interpretation of what he means by the human condition, perhaps it is our unique human consciousness; our ability to experience the subjective, to be aware of ourselves, to have powers of abstraction, to be able to plan ahead; but these things are in fact historically the result of the very social reality that to Ionesco is mere external superficiality, as well as being a necessary factor for the existence of society anyway and can only exist itself and have meaning, within the social context. It is important to realise also that each human emotion only becomes overt as a response, and thus never without a reason, and that reason can only emanate from the environment, which is to all intents and purposes—society. Therefore, if our subjective impulses give rise to any problems on the psychological plane, they must be ascribed in origin to the social one. Ionesco rightly says of the “saviours of the world ”; “the founders of religions”; “the moralists” and “the politicians,” that “they make a pretty poor job of it” Yet at the same time he wrongly lays the responsibility for the business of directing human affairs, upon the very people whom he denigrates; contentedly leaving the destiny of the human race in the hands of professional bunglers, thus absolving himself from any responsibility, either as an artist or (one must presume) as a human being for the whole lamentable situation; which being social in origin—the completely insane, inherently unstable organisation of human life—must be tackled on that level, for to put it bluntly: there is no other.

As stated earlier, the question why? as Ionesco rightly contends (though for the wrong reason), that society raises barriers between men was not asked. I do not intend to state at length an answer which should be patently obvious to any one who reads this journal, except to say that in this case, as in many others, if we try to understand human beings in isolation, we find that we have to invent causes to replace those we choose in our ignorance to ignore. In this case the nature of society.

The flagrant contradictions, the class structure, the thoroughly warped relationships and hollow values that characterise the very mode of our human existence, it is well understood can easily lead to Ionesco’s position.

The utter boredom, futility and terror of our world which is fast becoming more and more “the air-conditioned nightmare” (to use Henry Miller’s phrase) of Huxleyan prophecy; which throws people back on themselves. to seek inwardly for peace and security, to escape from the vast, infinite, impersonal, oppressive world beyond, over which they feel they have no power to control. Our social nature pines and withers, for it has nowhere to flourish, for which the penalty has to be paid in full. The case-books of the psychologists attest to this.

In “The Starting Point” an essay which has been prefaced to the first volume of his plays in English (published by John Calder), Ionesco says: “. . . the world oppresses, the universe is crushing me. A curtain, an impassable wall stands between me and the world, . . . the horizon closes in and the world becomes a stifling dungeon . . . I feel I am invaded by heavy forces, against which I can only fight a losing battle.”

It is this highly personal expression of the predicament of the individual, from which he has evolved his theory of Dramatic art. It is from this point of view that he has written his creed as a playwright.

As the “human condition” is to him more important than the “social” condition,” it follows that in Ionesco’s opinion those who write on the wider social aspect of life, commit a host of artistic fallacies, since: “such writers . . . offer nothing that one does not know already through books and political speeches.” On this account he cites Sartre, Osborne, Miller and Brecht.

It is in no way to condone the conclusions of the aforementioned writers (though we may find much to agree with) to defend their dramatic approach, for in their works we are always aware of the world outside the immediate action, so that what the characters say, do and experience, has meaning for us. They are engaged in living; and acting on their environment, not merely thumb-sucking their complexes in a vacuum.

If and when the development of a Socialist theatre is possible, giving voice to Socialist ideas, aspirations and criticism, it can only be through the medium of “social” theatre that this can be accomplished. Apart from this, the pernicious fallacies of Ionesco’s theatre concerning the nature of man and society are opposed to the whole Socialist philosophy, and it is on this score that I draw issue with him and make my criticism.

If, as Ionesco says: “. . .  every work of art is outside ideology,” we are reduced to a conception of art that takes no account of the artist, who as a creative individual, is himself created in turn by the living, vital forces of society which he transforms into artistic terms. 

Ionesco is himself, no more and no less than his particular anathema Bertholt Brecht, a product of some aspect of Capitalism.

"Human kind cannot bear very much reality," wrote T. S. Eliot, but when that reality is inimical to use, we tend, like Ionesco, to hope that by refusing to look at it, it will somehow cease to be; or perhaps—simply go away.

Man’s greatest need is man, that is why we are Socialists and go the Socialist way. "Fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death—but we may choose.

Ian Jones