Halo, Halo! (2025)

The Halo Halo Column from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Which, in the long term, is going to damage a child’s mind more – the Brothers Grimm fairy tales or the fairy tales implanted from the various so-called holy books of various religions? Ignatius Loyola, said, give me a child for the first seven years of their life and I’ll give you the adult. Why? – to imbue the nonsense that is religion into susceptible minds so that when children become adults they will continue to unquestionably mindlessly spout ‘religion good, atheism bad’.

The imposition upon young minds of the indoctrination from propaganda sources which use colourful pictures redolent of those used in their media by jehovah witlesses pales into insignificance when compared to the actual physical abuse forced upon the very young by some religions.

In May the Washington Jewish Week was outraged against Belgium that it should be apparently mounting a ‘vicious attack’ upon ‘religious freedom’. The report says that Belgium police raided two mohels. A mohel is an individual practised in the religious ‘art’ of cutting of a male infant’s foreskin at the age of eight days.

‘There is no benign interpretation of these events. Armed officers descending upon religious leaders’ homes under the pretence of legal inquiry is the stuff of authoritarian regimes, not democratic Europe. The confiscation of ritual instruments used for one of the oldest and most central commandments in Judaism — brit milah, the covenant of circumcision — is to desecrate more than property. It is to trample upon the millennia-old continuity of Jewish life and identity. The demand that mohels surrender the names of children they have circumcised is especially alarming. It represents not only a grotesque invasion of privacy but a potential threat to those families’ security. Why do the authorities need those names? What database will they enter? What precedent does this set for religious communities across Europe? When religious practice is policed under suspicion, it is not law enforcement — it is persecution.’

The article then moves on to attack Belgium for its stance on animal welfare. Belgium has banned kosher and halal slaughter because the methods used inflict unnecessary suffering.

More article shocked outrage voice: ‘Now, it has targeted brit milah — a core Jewish ritual dating back to Abraham. Such orchestrated anti-religion action by the state is wholly unacceptable’

One can hear them channelling GretaThunberg, how dare you!

In the UK two men, from the other religion that does this have been convicted of ‘serious crimes related to non-therapeutic male circumcision (NTMC) of children…NTMC is an irreversible surgical procedure, which is medically unnecessary by definition, believed to be performed on thousands of UK children annually.’

Let us not forget the thousands of girls who undergo FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).

Meanwhile In Pakistan the Council of Islamic Ideology is peeved because a federal territory passed a bill outlawing marriage to anyone under eighteen. The peevishness is demonstrated by the Council’s response which said that ‘the legislation’s provision to define underage marriage as rape and impose punishments contradicted Islamic teachings.’ and is ‘contrary to Sharia.’

DC

Slings and Arrows: The Wages of Philanthropy (1953)

The Slings and Arrows column from the June 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Wages of Philanthropy

A poet of the eighteenth century commented that “Virtue is its own reward.” That thought is often quoted and applied, especially when workers want a rise in pay. It is nice to know, however; that occasionally virtue brings other and more tangible rewards than the mere satisfaction of knowing one has been virtuous.

When, in 1892, Lord Rowton built the first of his enormous lodging-houses, he did so because he believed (Daily Express, 30/4/53) “every man should have a room to himself—with a door—for 6d. a night.” Five such lodging houses were established and although every man was entitled to pay his sixpence and get his room—with a door—only the poor turned up. The rich, either ignorant of these facilities, or not wishing to stop the poor using them, continued to reside at the Ritz or Claridges. But time has a habit of evening things out and in due course the rich were duly rewarded for their consideration, as we shall see.

It is a far cry from the nineties of the last century to the present time but Rowton Houses still go on and although the price has increased to 2s. 3d. per night nevertheless there is a constant demand for accommodation. So much so that the dividends on the capital of Rowton Houses Ltd. has recently been increased. Its properties are reputed to be worth £2,000,000, and the shares, if the firm were sold, would have a break-up value of £10 each. The City Editor of the Daily Express tells us that although the share and property dealers are envious and would like to do a deal in Rowton House shares their chances are slender, for the shares are held by people “who put service to the not-so-wealthy before profit.” It is perhaps a coincidence that the shares of Rowton Houses are regarded as gilt-edged and that that institution of putting “service before profit,” the Britannic Assurance Co. hold 11,000 shares. When “service to the not-so-wealthy” is accompanied by an increased dividend then virtue gets more than its “own reward,” and when Ecclesiastes wrote “Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall return after many days ” he little dreamed that it would return buttered.

The Rest is Silence

Dr. Dalton, bright star in the Labour firmament, has published the first instalment of his three volume autobiography. Apart from a few admissions and statements, the book has no merit either as a work of literature or a study of political events. In the normal course of events this book would not be mentioned in these columns as it would be a waste of space to do so. But some of the disclosures are worthy of comment because they throw a significant light on the present Labour leaders who pretend to be more prescient, and more faithful to the cause than the idols of yesteryear.

Dr. Dalton tells us in 1953, that he knew in 1924 or 1925 that Ramsay MacDonald was vain, conceited, snobbish and untrustworthy. But between those years and 1931 Dalton was his supporter and indeed served under him in the second Labour Government. Never, until after the debacle of 1931, did Dalton and the rest of the gang who pretend to have known all along, say one word which would lead either the electorate or rank and file Labourites to believe that all was not well with the Party leadership. On the contrary their mouths dripped honeyed words of admiration.

Dalton quotes Tom Johnston as saying “If the party meeting only got to know of a few things like this, they’d all be climbing up the walls, not just the I.L.P. but the soberest trade unionists in the Party.” But if Dalton knew and Johnston knew how was it that the Party meeting did not know? The truth was concealed.

We are left then with two conclusions. If MacDonald betrayed the Labour Party and was suspect all the time then those who suspected him were culpable. If on the other hand, they did not know, but pretend to do so in order to appear wise, then what reliance can be placed on them? Here they were, working day by day with men whom they now call traitors and they remained blithely innocent of the fact. Are these the leaders who ask for support because of their qualifications?

We are also indebted to Dalton for telling us something of the quality of the Labour leadership. He tells us that when the Labour Government was being formed in 1929, would-be Ministers besieged MacDonald and some of them wept and fainted in their anxiety. What a disgusting spectacle.

That is the sort of thing that goes on when Leaders take refuge in secrecy and when they rely for support as they must do (or they wouldn’t be leaders), on the political ignorance of their followers.

Who knows but that in another twenty-five years we may be reading some future Dalton on some present day traitor or betrayer of the Labour Party. For judging on past experience we don’t know.what goes on in the hierarchical section of the Labour Party; the Party meeting does not know and the rank and file do not know. We can only guess. And we are on reasonably safe ground if we venture to predict that the present day Labour Leaders are as anxious as those of the past to remain leaders, and to take power in order to run capitalism.

Whose Mother isn’t using Persil?

Among the American prisoners released by the Koreans are a small group, who according to the Authorities have been infected with Communist propaganda. And, since the United States is a land of freedom, and the right to think as one pleases is upheld by the American Constitution, this small group has been sent to a hospital for treatment. The treatment will consist of reading books and seeing newsreels approved by the authorities, so that they may be cured of their infection. The State Department announces: “The privations, and dangers suffered by prisoners of the Communists, may have made them susceptible to the Communist brain-washing techniques.”

Here is some peculiar reasoning. Are we to understand that the way to make people agree with and become permeated by one’s ideas is to make them suffer privations and dangers? If it is true, as we have been told by sundry journalists, that American prisoners of war were badly treated by the Chinese and Koreans then how could a “small group” become infected with their oppressors ideas? No one has heard of any Jew who suffered in concentration camps at the hands of Hitler, having to be "brainwashed” because he had become convinced that the Germans were a "Master race.” How then could prisoners subjected to "privations and dangers ” by their captors become convinced of the benefits to be derived from their ideas?

If it is because of the ill-treatment, are these returned prisoners to be even worse-treated so that they may become imbued with the benefits and joys of the "American way of life ”?

As if these unfortunate prisoners have not had enough, psychiatrists have been turned loose on them in order to "brainwash” them back to a belief in free enterprise, democracy, and Americanism. It has not yet occurred to these psychiatrists and “brainwash” experts that men who have been held prisoners for many years and whose subsequent release is dependent upon their change of attitude, will "brainwash” themselves so fast as to outdo any claim made by the makers of Persil soap.

If it were not so tragic this whole episode would make a good subject for an Aldwych farce!

S.A.

Blogger's Note:

The February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard carries an interesting article by 'Ivan' on Rowton Houses.

Whose thoughts are you thinking? (2006)

From the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Richard Dawkins, the biologist, has become something of a celebrity through his outspoken advocacy of atheism as in his new book “The God Delusion”. But his approach to religion is still an idealist one.

The Dawkins approach to the question of religion is, like religion itself, an idealist one: religion is false, rationally unsustainable; morally enfeebling and a basis for hatred and division. Presumably Dawkins sees the death or meaningful diminution of religion by means of secularist persuasion just as religion hopes to resist secularisation by what it sees as ethical persuasion.

Dawkins looks into the biological evolution of homo sapiens for the origin and growth of the multiplicity of religious faiths. He is speculative rather than dogmatic on the issue but much more convincing when showing how the stringency of faith-based social morality has been softened over time by an intellectual response to the social development of society. He recognises this but, unlike Marx and Engels on the question of religion, simply reports it as a phenomenon under the label of moral Zeitgeist.

Unlike Dawkins, the pioneers of scientific socialism sought to show religion as a reflex of the social organisation of society. Marx, in the Introduction to his Critique of Hegel’s of Philosophy of Right, wrote:

“This state, this society, produces religion, a reversed world consciousness, because they are a reversed world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritualistic point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction. The struggle against religion is therefore immediately the fight against the other world of which religion is the spiritual aroma. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.” (original italics)

It wasn’t simply a question of religion being false, or brutal or divisive; it was a weapon of the ruling class, a bulwark in the way of the emancipation of the working class, a hurdle to be overcome in the progress to socialism nor could it be overcome while the conditions that nourished it continued to exist. Thus, the socialist sees religion as an integral part of the class struggle while the secularist sees it simply as a harmful, false premise on which to base a system of moral rectitude. As far as capitalism’s subject class is concerned, whether those who govern it or those who exploit it reject or accept faith is irrelevant; the morality of capitalism is not governed either by humanistic or religious considerations but by the constraints and compulsions of the marketplace.

Inculcating religion

Dawkins deals well, even poignantly, with the religious indoctrination of children pointing, for example, to the absurd practice of labelling young children with the faith identity of their parents or guardians. Even very young children, as young as three or four are referred to as, for example, ‘Catholic’, ‘Protestant’ or ‘Muslim’ children because society accepts the legitimacy of parents or guardians or clerics or teachers hijacking the innocence of children for the inculcation of beliefs more likely to be resisted if they were offered initially to an older person. Dawkins rightly calls it child abuse with ramifications sometimes even more devastating than the sexual abuse of children.

Obviously socialists agree that the indoctrination of children is a contemptible invasion of the rights of a child but, grave as it is, it is less socially heinous than the ruthless inculcation of the appalling precepts and values of capitalism – accompanied usually by the notion of a ubiquitous Divine Policeman – to which both children and adults of all ages are remorselessly exposed.

Science and the system

Indoctrination makes a nonsense of the claim that we live in a democracy. Democracy is about choice and choice is based on information and knowledge. But nowhere in the world of capitalism are the people offered the slightest hint that there could be a way of running our society that might free us from the appalling problems that are built-in, inevitable aspects of global capitalism. Instead we have intense conditioning and thought control to the extent were we look on the utterly absurd, like war and world hunger, as natural and as inevitable as the seasons.

Capitalism and its institutions rape our consciousness and rob us of the ability to think independently. Every situation must be reasoned within the paradigm of a world in which we are beholden to a class of owners not only for our daily bread but for every aspect of our life-functions from the cradle to the grave and unless our needs are consistent with the profit needs of the owning class they will not be met.

Richard Dawkins sings the praises of science and in a general sense socialists join in the chorus. But science, possibly more than most other disciplines, is a prisoner of capitalism. The scientists have to beg at the table of the system for funding to pursue their projects; their sponsors are usually largely mammoth capitalist enterprises bent on discerning means of further enriching their directors and shareholders or capitalist governments dedicated to the overall concerns of national capitalism.

Just like the rest of us, the scientist is a prisoner of the crazy logic of the system and just  like the rest of us if his or her dedicated function does not hold promise of profit for those who directly or indirectly employ them, irrespective of the potential social benefits of their work, it will be denied funding.

The first phase in the struggle to end the political and economic exploitation of our class is to learn to question the thoughts we inherit from well-intentioned parents and teachers; to challenge the strictures of the priests, parsons, rabbis and mullahs and to question why in a world of potential abundance, where a parasite class of non-productive money shufflers and profit-takers are rich beyond measure, and the working class that produces all real wealth endure mere want or dire poverty.

Richard Montague

50 Years Ago: Conscription (1962)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The question as to whether or not conscription will, in the near future, become a necessity, appears to be once again very much “in the air." Lord Roberts, in the course of a recent speech, during which he implied the failure, and foreshadowed the disintegration, of the Territorial force, advocated more strenuously than ever his pet notion of universal military service. In this advocacy he is, of course, acting quite logically —more logically, indeed, than those “lovers of peace” (chiefly to be found among the Liberals and Labourists) who, while upholding and using all their efforts to maintain the present capitalist social system, at the same time deprecate what is, in reality, quite in accordance, morally and politically, with the development of capitalism.

*

To a man such as Lord Roberts, who has managed to make a fortune and win a title through professional soldiering, military service will, of course, seem all that is desirable. But what the devil is the poor drudge of capitalism, the wage slave, to get out of it? A fortune and a title? Hardly! At what should be the best portion of his life — his early manhood — he would be taken, numbered like a convict or a beast of burden at a cattle show, herded with his fellow beasts in compounds, trained and drilled and bullied and brow-beaten, taught to walk upright and to handle a rifle, taught to shoot sufficiently straight to kill and maim certain of his fellows (whom he has never seen before and with whom he has no quarrel), coming out of the Army at the end of his term with all the virtues of an efficient, non-thinking, non-questioning wage-slave, with all the initiative and all the self-confidence knocked out of him. Truly a delightful prospect!

[From the Socialist Standard, December 1912.]

What’s happening in China (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The so-called communist rulers of China are in trouble. They are trying to achieve two impossible feats; to make exploitation popular with the Chinese workers and to kid them along that the form of capitalism which is developing there is socialism.

The latest campaign to accomplish this is called the “Socialist Education Campaign”, now in full swing, which was recently commended by the Chinese premier as being “of great revolutionary and historical significance”. Such campaigns are no novelty in “communist” China, where the workers seem to need a lot of convincing.

Previous campaigns have been passed off as methods of getting rid of the remains of capitalism or as part of the building-up of a “communist” system of society, or as the eradication of specific errors and failings of the Old China. They were represented as a necessary process of cleaning up and modernising the social structure and they dealt largely with problems that were laid at the door of the old era.

But this time it is different, in that the government leaders have to deal with problems which, they frankly proclaim arise directly from the present system of society. The “Socialist Education Campaign” is teaching workers, both in industry and the civil service, to deal with the new problems caused by the creation of a modern, technically developed state from a recently backward country. It is this which enables Premier Chou-En-lai to assign “historical significance” to the current campaign.

To enable them to reconcile awkward facts with an incorrect interpretation of society, the Chinese have to be dosed with plenty of “communist” education.

One problem with which they have to deal is that of the new “managerial class”. Mao-Tze-tung, Chou-En-lai and the rest of the old die-hards of the Communist Party, were tough, unscrupulous but courageous labour leaders tested in battle and called upon for great personal sacrifices in prompting the Communist Party to the leadership of what they may have once believed was a different system of society.

But the old guard are getting older, and they are finding it difficult to select their successors from the ranks of the new business bureaucracy who seem to be taking their place. These young people are slick, well educated executive types who are rising to the top in the nationalised concerns and government departments. They have little understanding of political theory, little desire to make personal sacrifices, but, like business executives the world over, are ambitious to rise in the hierarchy and enjoy the luxuries which only the possession of money makes possible. Such is a thumb-nail sketch of one of the groups that the die-hards are trying to impregnate with so-called communist ideology. But the die-hards are as horrified at this developing class, as the swan was when it found it had hatched a duckling. Capitalist society develops along its own lines, irrespective of the muddled thinking of its apologists.

An Tzu-wen, Director of the Organisation Department of the Party’s Central Committee, considered the nature of some of these groups in some detail in an article which appeared in the Party journal Red Flag on 22/9/64 and which was reported in the China Quarterly April/June 1965. An is primarily concerned with the campaign to train successors to the present leadership. He distinguishes between the older cadres of pre-liberation vintage who have failed to adapt themselves to the technical and organisational development going on, and the younger ones who have not the political benefit of those who went through the Civil War.

It is from An’s article that it is possible to build up a picture of the various groups he sees developing around him. His criticisms have been publicised to the greatest extent possible in the Chinese national press and on the radio. He said that the gravest dilemma for the Chinese leaders may be the conflict between their own background and the need for modernisation in economic planning.

Chou-En-lai made it clear in his report last December that one of the main motives behind the “Socialist Education Movement’’ was the need to prepare the country for economic expansion. He speaks of the need for a “scientific and realistic approach”. An calls on the older cadres to adapt themselves and he describes the movement as “a mass movement for studying Marxist-Leninist and Mao Tse-tung ideology with emphasis in its flexible interpretation and application”.

The Chinese Government are training the new managerial class to a degree which must involve contact with the thinking of the outside world and they are at the same time inducing the old die-hards to work efficiently in the fervent atmosphere of industrial capitalism, misnamed “socialist expansion”.

Another section being “educated” are the Chinese followers of the Russian communist party. Since it now seems that many of the interests of the Chinese ruling class are opposed to those of .the Russian, Chinese supporters must be “re-educated” to enable them to make an intellectual somersault. China is living in a capitalist world jungle and must be prepared, in its own interests, to support a war against its erstwhile “comrades”. There must be no fifth column in the Chinese camp.

Another homegrown problem is the rise of the wealthy farmer, a new economic group since the seizure of governmental power by the Chinese “communists”. With their surpluses of commodity crops they have made a mockery of the food and clothing rationing which still obtains in China. The black market is now known as the free market and is officially recognised by the Government. Any of the rationed goods can be obtained at a higher price and this is part of a process whereby the rural rich are becoming richer. Universal rationing for all has become rationing by price, officially lauded by the authorities. This, of course, is the state of affairs to which the workers of the rest of the world are accustomed, whether they are starving in the backward countries or the “affluent” of western capitalism.

China has had a somewhat different history of social development to the West over the centuries, so that capitalism there is a little different from capitalism here in some of the details. But Chinese workers have basically the same economic interests as the workers here; and the so-called communist government there behaves domestically and in its foreign policies, like the capitalist power that in fact it is.

Frank Offord

On campus—USA (1984)

From the Winter 1984 issue of the World Socialist

The educational system functions to serve the needs of the capitalist society in which it resides. Its objective is to produce educated and competent workers, including managers and military personnel; in addition, knowledgeable, sophisticated members of the capitalist class. The subjects and training cover a vast complex field that assures the owners of a qualified work force that can do everything that is necessary to produce, distribute and market commodities for sale and profit, in line with existing technologies. And of vital importance is the fact that initially a working class is produced that has been subtly brain-washed and seduced into social and political acceptance of capitalism. The majority of students, when their formal education has been concluded, embrace the wages system without question. Their labour power is ready to be marketed. They, in turn, are willing to conform with docility and eagerness to all the standard norms of capitalist society which, in effect, will maintain their rulers in power in contrast to their own commitment to subservience. Although they have been informed of revolutions in the past, they enter into their new careers with a tacit acknowledgement that the existing society is the beginning and end all for them, and for everyone else; imbued with personal ambition which is devoid of a proper understanding of the social nature of their new environment. Sure, capitalism may always need improvement—but never elimination. This latter, they are not taught—nor ever will be within the boundaries of their formal education.

We do not imply that there has been some malevolent conspiracy at work engineered on an in-depth discerning level by the capitalist class and their agents. In most instances, both the rulers and the ruled are unaware of the economic causes and social consequences of the system they uphold. The superstructure of society, in this instance the educational system, is determined and conditioned by its economic base—the dynamics for its existence. Capitalism is a social organization wherein a minority own and control the means of production and distribution for the purpose of capital accumulation through the realization of profit based upon large-scale wage labour. The educational system is locked into this process in every conceivable manner, both directly and otherwise. There has never been a practical need for the capitalist class to properly understand their own system, notwithstanding the fact that Karl Marx in Das Kapital had most thoroughly accomplished the analysis. Capitalism, regardless of manipulation, follows its own pattern, and conditions the education of the working class to conform to all of its many requirements under the tutelage of the exploiters and their agents. This immense task is by no means an easy one, cut and dried, without its problems, complications and financial burdens. It is always an ongoing operation, subject to continuous reformation which revolves around the "quality" of the education supplied together with its costs and sources of revenue.

Political indoctrination 

Political indoctrination commences with millions of school children, throughout the land, starting the day by reciting in unison the patriotic litany:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

To quite literally add injury to insult (which such trivia is to a young, uncluttered mind) it was reported in a news item on January 2, 1983, in the Arizona Daily Star, and I quote:

Each year, 1.5 million school children in the United States are physically punished under the authorization of principals and other school administrators. This figure does not include informal slappings or beatings meted out by teachers, coaches, bus drivers and other school employees. The schools most inclined to punish are those in Florida, followed by those in Arkansas and Mississippi. In Florida, one out of eight public school students receives corporal punishment in a typical year. The national average is one out of 28. Black school children are victimized most often; one out of three is punished nationwide in a typical year.

An award of commendation goes to Hawaii's board of education, which refuses to allow corporal punishment.

I presume that this treatment prepares the recipients somewhat for the brutality of capitalism that they will eventually encounter in later life.

The state, which exists to preserve, maintain and administrate capitalism, bears the responsibility for the bulk of the educational system; in addition, there are schools, colleges and universities that are either privately or parochially endowed, in many cases receiving added subsidizing from the government. It is therefore surely obvious that such a structure can never be expected to allow or instigate any teachings that will directly challenge or threaten its position. All educational reforms will ultimately prove of prime benefit to the rulers, because to the extent that the educational system is successful in producing competency and political acquiescence within the working class, so to that degree profits will be generated and protected to the highest maximum possible, subject to general market conditions and the prevalent militancy of the workers. This does not imply that the education received by workers cannot be used by them for their own interests. In fact, the mandatory exposure that they receive, especially in subjects exclusive of the social sciences, provides the basis for their ultimate comprehension of the socialist case.

Subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, mechanics, geology, accounting, languages, law, medicine, computers, business administration, engineering, architecture, pharmacy, military science, aerospace, agriculture are all essential to the pursuit of profits and are approached scientifically within the confines of budgetary allowances. But the social studies such as history, economics, sociology, political science, theology, anthropology, are handled with biased restraint and the investigations are by no means impartial. Evidence unfavourable to the existing scheme of things is either suppressed, ignored or perverted.

Weeding-out process

The whole curriculum, from start to finish, is conducted within an atmosphere of competition and stress together with a weeding-out process which segregates those with supposedly superior talents from those less fortunate. This is accomplished through the use of tests, examinations, and grading, all of which have a direct bearing upon ultimate occupations and potential earnings. Such an environment prevents the pleasurable pursuit of education as a primary end in itself. The young find themselves involved in an intensive training programme, presented under the guise of education, which will ultimately affect the price of their labour power and in many instances can prove disastrous health-wise.

In an article on February 5, 1978, in the Arizona Daily Star, it stated that:

Why are child suicides increasing in Japan? Last year more than 700 children and teenagers took their lives there. Japanese authorities offer two reasons: (1) the country's fiercely competitive educational system in which the road to success in later life is linked to passing difficult examinations to leading universities; (2) the reaction of some children to the mounting pressures of excessively regulated lives.

A further quote in the same article stated:

The educational pressures in Japan are unremitting and not only cause ulcers in children but in many cases lead to suicide. Prof. Masayoshi Namiki recently told an international medical convention that he had come across 19 children, none older than 14, with ulcerated stomachs, "dramatic evidence of the unnatural life-style our children are forced into under the pressures of our educational system".

An article in the Wall Street Journal dated June 10, 1980, entitled "Why Are They Cheating?", written by a member of the Journal's Washington bureau which covers education, states:

In addition, statistics show that the rate of campus homicides, suicides, illegitimate births and drug abuse has been steadily increasing for more than two decades, says Edward Wynne, associate professor at the University of Illinois and editor of a magazine called Character. Cheating is just another indication of a "change for the worse", he says.

It is common knowledge that drugs and violence are two of the major problems to be found within the school system today—coupled with large numbers of students who are leaving school with an inability to properly read and write or perform well in simple mathematics. The International Reading Association in Newark, Del., estimates that some 20 million English-speaking, native-born American adults read or write so poorly that "they have trouble holding jobs or suffer loss of self-esteem." In the Wall Street Journal on January 22, 1981, Samuel Halperin, director of the Institute for Educational Leadership at George Washington University, was quoted as follows:

Schools can't teach drug abuse, sex education, driver's education and still teach reading, writing and arithmetic well. And you can't buy that much these days with $2.39—the average hourly amount spent last year on each public-school student.

The perpetual conflict within the educational system is the attempt to produce the desired results, at a budget price, within a competitive, stressful environment harmful to both students and teachers. The teachers themselves, in similar fashion to their students, have been graded and selected to perform at certain levels in different categories. Their own education has been, in many instances, limited by economic and material circumstances beyond their control. They find themselves frustrated by rigid guidelines that apparently do not bring out the best in their students, especially those who come from broken, badly poverty-stricken homes. In addition, just like their fellow workers, they are forced to eke out a marginal existence finely honed to a limited wage. And when they sometimes are forced to rise in protest and strike, they are criticized and condemned for having acted in a supposedly anti-social manner, ignoring the needs of their pupils.

Direct relationship with business world

The educational system abounds with a never-ceasing variety of seemingly insoluble problems which relate to the economic considerations of a cost-conscious administration where the individual needs of the student rarely, if ever, get priority. Instead, education receives the same approach as that given to commodities which have to be produced in a given period of time, at a certain price, for a particular market, with a quality-control that leaves much to be desired. In a Washington (AP) news item on February 1, 1978, Kenneth Clark, in an address sponsored by the US Office of Education, and I quote:

attacked the system of "tracking" in which talented students are steered to elite high schools or courses while the majority of young people are considered "educationally expendable". Clark said American high schools neither facilitate upward mobility nor promise equal opportunity. 

"In fact, under the guise of democracy in selection and the maintenance of standards of merit, they are very effective instruments for the maintenance of racial and class distinctions and the resulting discriminations and inequities," he said.

One might well ask, whose needs are being served here? Those of the students who have been discarded along the wayside, or those of the prospective employers who eventually will be presented with a selected so-called "cream-of-the-crop", the result of a weeding-out process accomplished on a cut-rate budget basis.

There is an interdependence, a direct relationship, between the educational system and the business world. The capitalist class are forever watchful that their source of future wealth, the embryonic working class, receive adequate preparation for the jobs that lie ahead, notwithstanding the prevailing shortcomings. Beyond this point, at the university level, business and higher education in many instances are inter-locked in associations that virtually incorporate the educational machine into the production process. The Associated Press, in an article on December 14, 1982, states:

Scores of universities have entered research contracts with big business, in partnerships that both sides believe will help America regain pre-eminence in world markets such as automobiles and electronics.

And further:

Industry-funded research centers are springing up at Princeton University, Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford University and elsewhere. For business, it means a valuable source of brainpower. For cash-trapped universities, it means millions of dollars, new facilities, and a way to keep top faculty members in the thick of developments in their fields.

Starting with first grade children, a concept called "career education" has been used which in theory is supposed to permeate all academic subjects at all levels of education, from kindergarten through junior college. Typically, simple field trips are made into stores, etc.; workers are observed at their jobs, and high-school students sometimes have mock interviews with prospective employers in order to develop their job-finding skills. In an article in the Wall Street Journal dated November 26, 1976, it was stated:

Career education began taking hold five years ago when Sidney Marland Jr., then US Commissioner of Education, coined the phrase and gave the concept top priority. Since then, according to the American Institutes for Research, some 9,000 of the country's 17,000 school districts have launched programs.

The article further states that endorsements have poured in from numerous big organizations which have included the US Chamber of Commerce and several blue-chip companies. For those who support capitalism, such a program no doubt seems practical and worthwhile (although many teachers have been critical and have not jumped on the band wagon). However, to the socialist such exposures to the existing system that are obviously done in an uncritical, prejudiced manner, without an in-depth economic evaluation of the exploitive nature of present-day society, are a flagrant one-sided approach to reality.

Education true and false

It would be Utopian thinking to expect the educational system under capitalism to be different from what it is, or to anticipate anything radical in the way of change. It is a creature of its environment, tailored to the needs of the ruling class that it serves. A vast conglomeration of facts and misrepresentations have been assembled, masqueraded under the banner of "education". This knowledge, liberally interspersed with falsehoods, is crammed into minds that assimilate a proportion, become bored with much that is offered and quickly forget a great deal after examinations are over. Frequently, the unhappy student seeks escape in various unhealthy pursuits.

True education, whereby the pupil is taught in an environment without stress and competition, where time is not at a premium, where financial considerations are non-existent, where individual needs are in harmony with society's, has never been given an opportunity to work its potential wonders. Education, properly organized under these conditions, will become delightful— pleasurable, without undue burden. The process will be a continuous one that will not commence and finish at a given age, but rather will be recognised as a never-ceasing quest for individual improvement throughout the whole of our lives. Blueprints cannot be supplied until socialism has been established, but it should be obvious that education will not be prostituted to the needs of a class minority or the demands of a market place—because neither will exist. All healthy individuals will be able to satisfy their desire for knowledge unhampered by economic restrictions or barriers. The whole of society will in a sense become a perpetual seat of learning wherein schooling, travel and the productive process can become beneficially interrelated. In socialism, assuming intelligent organization, the world itself can become the classroom.

Samuel Leight

(World Socialist Party of the United States)

A Workingman's Education. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is difficult to see what connection the present “Education” Bill or the outcry regarding it has with education itself. Indeed, the frothy struggle for religious domination almost completely obscures the really important matter beneath.

Most people do not distinguish between education proper, and the mere imparting of information, but the distinction is vital. To educate is not to merely pack the brain with facts or cut and dried formulae, but is to bring out the powers of the mind, to train the faculties for the reception and use of life’s present experience and of the knowledge handed down from the past; to prepare the mind for the first-hand gathering of knowledge, and the co-ordination and right use of it.

To pith children’s minds with facts and dead formula; whose inner significance is not understood, may make excellent parrots, but cannot make thinkers. Such a procedure causes a one-sided, mechanical development, and leads to a taste for snippetty bits. It does not enable the mind to draw useful knowledge from the facts of life; it brings about an incapacity for sustained and logical thinking, and creates a habit of mind that is eagerly receptive of superficials, but in no wise creative.

Mere surface information, however well tabulated, cannot take the place of, and is a poor preparation for, the first hand experience of life. Our personal experience is the foundation of our appreciation of the great works of the world, and our early information has to be recast in the mould of our later experience.

It cannot, be denied that the so-called education of to-day resembles more a packing of the brain than an unfolding of its capabilities, and this defect is but the reflex of the mechanical, specialised and hurried character of modern society.

It is, of course, with the “education” of the working class that we are most concerned, although the defects of this are reflected to a great degree in the education of the class above. Naturally, also, we find that the quality of the worker’s instruction is traceable to the demands of the prevailing methods of wealth, production. There is no necessity to the capitalist of a mass of fully-educated, original-minded and high-spirited men as wage-slaves ; they would be in the way, and far too costly. The necessities of the day demand workers who are mechanical, one-sidedly developed, and eminently submissive. It is necessary to the capitalist, not only that the workers be not taught things which may injure his domination, but also that their energies (and his wealth) be not used unproductively for him ; that they be trained so far and no farther ; that they be disciplined in routine work, and pithed with just sufficient knowledge to do the master’s work cheaply and fairly efficiently.

Our system of education has, in general, the appearance of being deliberately planned to a sinster end, so well does it suit the master’s interests. A few who may be required as hired captains of industry, instructors and such walks of life (and the few only), can be sifted from out the mass of the people by means of a sieve of “Higher Education” (save the mark !) which contains a special hole here and there labelled “Scholarship,” through which a fixed and very small number of the more able or more fortunate may pass ; but for the mass there is nothing but the compulsion, under threat of hunger, to go out to earn their bread as soon as they have passed the point, no more no less, at which their masters say they are fit for the factory.

The history of “education” in this country is a curious mixture of cupidity and hypocrisy, being largely the story of the struggle for religious domination. The modern system is the direct descendant of that which was born of rival religious struggles for power, with the various religious bodies competing viciously for a larger number of children into whom to force their dogmas; and on the poor children was inflicted the proverbial pound of Bible to the ounce of useful knowledge.

To-day the squabble in the capitalist camp is almost entirely over religious instruction, the question of education itself taking a quite insignificant part in the controversy. The length and breadth of the land is stumped in the interests of rival religious factions, (representing as they do, the interests of various sections of the master class,) anxious to inculcate the dogma of their sect and interest into a larger number of the nation’s young.

In this question the workers, (who seldom, if ever, go to church) have had impressed upon them the views of sections of the ruling class by means of the newspaper and platform, and have been stirred into a flabby semblance of interest in a question of dogma which, in reality, does not concern them at all.

What does concern them is the fact that they and their children are members of a subject class deprived of light and life by a system of class-domination out-worn.

What does concern them to know is that the associated industry of to-day places it within their power to become masters of their own destiny, and to themselves enjoy the wealth their labour creates, and so prevent the consumption of hard-earned bread by the wilfully idle mouths of others.

What does also concern them is the fact that an education, worthy the name, is a possibility for them only when they have conquered the power of the State, abolished class parasitism, and organized industry, in order that the wealth, health and leisure that form the indispensable foundation for education and happy life may be theirs.

F. C. Watts

Tiny (URL) Tips (2009)

The Tiny Tips column from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the worst events can bring out the best in people,why can’t that impulse be sustained in everyday life?

As Solnit notes, “the real question is not why this brief paradise of mutual aid and altruism appears but rather why it is ordinarily overwhelmed by another world order.”

[Link.]

#    #    #    #

The United States spent $75 billion over the past year to finance worldwide intelligence operations that employ 200,000 people, according to an unprecedented disclosure by the nation’s top intelligence official:

[Link.]

#    #    #    # 

At the Charter School for Excellence, a school in South Florida inspired by Gothard’s draconian principles that receives $800,000 in state funds each year, children are indoctrinated into a culture of absolute submission to authority almost as soon as they learn to speak. A song that the school’s firstgraders are required to recite goes as follows:

Obedience is listening attentively,

Obedience will take instructions joyfully,

Obedience heeds wishes of authorities,

Obedience will follow orders instantly.

For when I am busy at my work or play,

And someone calls my name, I’ll answer right away!

I’ll be ready with a smile to go the extra mile

As soon as I can say “Yes, sir!” “Yes maam!”

Hup, two, three!

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

New research indicates that 80% of Afghanistan now has a permanent Taliban presence and that 97% of the country has “substantial Taliban activity.”

[Link.]

#    #    #    #

Are you totally reprehensible and feeling lonely? Or maybe you’re just a struggling business looking for some instant online companionship? The firm Usocial has the answer for you — buy Facebook friends and fans:

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

“But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” : Barbara Bush on ABC – Good Morning America,

March 18, 2003….Six years later…. The Obama administration’s freak out… over the …. circulation of a photograph of a dying US soldier in Afghanistan..

[Dead Link.]

#    #    #    #

A millionaire in northern China paid four million yuan (600,000 dollars) for a dog and ordered 30 luxury cars to come to the airport to greet her and the animal:

[Dead Link.]

Briefing: Sir Keith's education (1984)

The Briefing Column from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Joseph clashes on ‘Marxist slant' in Open University" was the arresting headline which the Sunday Times (1 July) gave to an article by their Education Correspondent, Peter Wilby. What is happening at the OU? The net contribution of my school and “higher" education towards my socialist knowledge was nil, and that goes for most socialists, I guess. The article just had to be compulsive reading.

Apparently Sir Keith has been taking a close personal interest in the University’s foundation course in social science, coded D102. Earlier this year he asked for copies of the 20 course booklets and commissioned a secret 17-page report, written, we are told, by "a number of professional economists", alleging serious bias.

Just what was the "serious bias” about which Sir Keith is complaining? Wilby’s article quotes some detailed complaints:

1) "The (course) authors are preoccupied ‘with depicting production as essentially a struggle between capital and labour’.” Now in our present-day society—capitalism—the working class, the overwhelming majority, have no other way to scratch a living than to sell their physical and mental energies (labour power). Capital and labour thus face each other as buyers and sellers, those interests a priori must be antagonistic. Another angle on this conflict is to see it as a struggle over the division of the product of labour. The higher the share taken by the non-producing capitalists, the less is the portion left for the producers of the whole wealth of society, the working class.

2) “Profit is seen purely in terms of the expropriation of a surplus created by labour; no mention is made of its possible role as a reward for risk-taking or for the stress and burdens of entrepreneurship.” This concedes that surplus wealth (above the worker’s pay) accounts for capitalist profits. We can concede that a capitalist investor is sometimes taking a calculated risk, with heavy losses on occasions taking the place of spectacular profits. But what have the capitalists as a class contributed to the actual productive process? In both cases, nothing. As for the stresses and strains of entrepreneurship, where they represent a real contribution they are now almost exclusively performed by salaried employees, members of the working class.

3) “The booklets are ‘at great pains to conclude that Britain is basically a capitalist economy’. The report says that ‘most professional economists' would not agree." Very unprofessional judgement, professional economists! It should be obvious from the definition of capitalism which we gave in 1). that the only area of the world to which it does not apply are those still at earlier stages of development (for example. New Guinea). What confuses these "professionals" and others is the position of nationalised industries, where a state-run body acts as employer. However workers in these enterprises are selling their labour power in exactly the same way as workers in "private" industry are to their bosses.

4) “Capitalists are viewed as having a desire to keep wages as low as possible.” We saw under 1) that all things being equal, the smaller the share of the total wealth accruing to the workers the greater the profits of the capitalist class. In some cases, by paying somewhat higher wages an employer may attract better workmen or women and so increase profits. Also, although it is difficult to express this in figures, a happier workforce on pay somewhat above the going rate may perform better and again produce more profits. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be “a desire to maximise profits”, but this is pretty well the same as minimising wages relative to profits.

5) “The ‘overthrow of capitalism’ is mentioned three times in half a page." We know that Sir Keith and his friends don’t want to overthrow capitalism, but here we are given no clue on the context of these remarks and what the OU authors understand by the term.

6) “Monetarist theory is described as ‘silly’ and attributed to ‘class interest’.” Definitely a sensitive point with Sir Keith. Monetarist theory is a totally inadequate model to describe the workings of the capitalist system, which is a long-winded way of saying that it is silly. As such its advocacy can only benefit the class in whose interest the capitalist system operates.

At this point the professional economists might as well give up. From their complaints you would think that course D102 had been prepared by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Alas, this is very far from being the case. In answer to the criticism from Sir Keith’s department. Peter Wilby quotes a spokesman for the University as saying “The booklets also describe Britain as a ‘mixed economy’ and add that they refer to it as capitalist ‘not in order to dismiss the importance of the state sector but to continue reminding ourselves of its dependence on the rest of the economy’.” This quote is enough to show what line the authors of D102 have really adopted. State ownership is socialism. Russia is socialist. The conflict between capital and labour can be regulated within the framework of the present social system, or at least this has to be the implication as the authors have no concept of how it can be transcended.

Having said that, we can afford a chuckle at the extreme sensitivity shown by Joseph and his allies to what is taken to be criticism of their capitalist system of society. Their intervention to try to alter the contents of this course is being undertaken because they believe they are suppressing socialist propaganda. But the contents of course D102 appear similar to the misconceptions propagated for many years now by the so-called left wing parties. These have led many workers, who realised that something is seriously wrong with capitalist society, to expend their energies along futile paths which have divided the working class. In contrast the anaemic, 100 per cent pro-capitalist course which Sir Keith would no doubt like to see substituted for D102 could well be seen by some students as so far removed from real life that the result may be to enhance their efforts to work out things for themselves. That road took me and many others into the Socialist Party.

E. C. Edge

Candidates are reminded . . . (1988)

From the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

It's Summer, Ian McCaskill has once again, for a brief interval, been recast from a harbinger of gloom to a relatively welcome informant. Six hundred and fifty MPs are preparing to go on holiday for a couple of months and leave the profit system to run itself while slow-paced, deep-voiced cricket commentaries, emanating from every media outlet, provide the season's soundtrack.

One place that soundtrack does not intrude upon, though, is the silence of the large, wooden-floored hall in every school and college where thousands of young people every year sit exams. Every summer tens of thousands of students from High schools and colleges step off a convey belt and into a quality control unit — the examination. Like cassette players or cars which carry a 'Tested—Okay' label, some candidates will leave the process certified as competent to perform certain roles in the commercial system or pass on to the next stage of training. Others will be sent back to the drawing board or invited to quit the process.

In Victorian times the education system prepared young people for wage-slavery in a blunt and blatant fashion. In Hard Times, Charles Dickens describes this operation with vivid detail in a chapter called 'Murdering the Innocents'. Here children are being knocked into uniformity and docility by one of a new regiment of indoctrinators. The teachers were made by much the same method as they were now using on their victims.

. . . Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs.

Some of today's educationalists would say that things are drastically different now. But are they? The same class-divided social system operates today as operated in Dickens' day and it has the same demands for a workforce which is disciplined, respectful of authority and implanted with the same fundamentally fallacious assumptions about society, class, competition and "Human nature" as its Victorian predecessor.

Examination Halls are once again filling up every morning and afternoon with hundreds of worried people. Once inside the Halls, the candidates, whose only identification for these purposes is a number, will be ushered to their respective desks the regulation three feet from their neighbour. They will be briefly addressed in a detached, impersonal tone and then will follow two or three hours of occasional coughing, sporadic fidgeting and the trail of invigilator's footsteps. College lectures have been described as the process by which lecturers' notes are passed to the notepads of students without really passing through the minds of either. Spilling out the same stuff on an exam script in a similar fashion is often the next stage in the game. I have been a participant in this rigmarole for 17 years: eleven as a student at various schools and colleges and now six as a teacher and examiner. The more familiar you become with the whole process, the clearer its main purpose becomes. Vainly describing itself as 'Education', the training programme delivered to people between the ages of 11 and 18 is little more than preparing people for the job market. Students are encouraged that the later they leave the process. the more attractive will be the job application form available to them.

Training Workers

The burden of cost for education, so-called, lies with the ruling class — the small minority of men and women who own and control the world's wealth. Education is. with most governments around the globe, the second largest budgeted expenditure after "Defence" (War), such is its importance in moulding a working class generally compliant to the hardships and insecurities of the profit system and tailored to the requirements of its work.

It is true that widespread literacy and numeracy are a pre-condition for the democratic operation of world society but we have already reached that stage. Since the early nineteenth century, the commercial system developed the need for a better educated workforce and then, later on,, for increased technical skills. Syllabuses and examinations have developed broadly in accordance with what the profit system needs. One recent development has been the move to experiential learning techniques and corresponding methods of testing those skills. The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) O’ level have now been abolished and replaced by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) syllabuses which purport to provide a better "education" for those leaving full-time education at 16. One important factor in the design of these new courses was the way they would help to improve the organisational skills of prospective workers. According to a recent publication from the Department of Education and Science. GCSEa Guide for Employers,

Many employers have long been in favour of GCSE. It was, after all, developed in consultation with employers and other interests. (HMSO Educ. Jo. 243.1988)

In Britain about 4,000,000 people work in offices and there is a growing concern amongst employers, as commercial competition becomes more intensified, that their workers may not be up to date with the latest technology. The main purpose of the "A" level exams is to provide an entry ticket for the arena of "Higher Education", or entry into wage (salary) slavery at a "higher" level. Although some people climbing these rungs of the ladder can give the impression that the altitudes are enough to cause giddiness, their clamberings are not even visible from the heights of wealth and power occupied by the ruling class. Back at street level, even several of the "A" level syllabuses are being revamped to include more "practical" components. The Business Studies "A" level, for example, now incorporates a period of "work experience" where the student contributes a few weeks work to a local firm for nothing or next to nothing. Clearly a nice little perk for the owners of the local firm but less clearly a useful experience from the student"s point of view. Arguably the best result that can come from this episode is for the student to work his or her guts out during the "experience". not make any inquiries about a union and act with the right sort of servility to the right people — then they just might be hired by the firm on a "permanent" basis.

Learning the Rules of the Game

Recently, the courses run by the Business and Technician Education Council have become more prevalent in colleges around the country. The BTEC courses at "First" and "National” levels roughly parallel the more theoretical GCSE and A" level courses. They are based, almost exclusively, on a learning-by-doing principle and students' progress is monitored by continuous assessment of "assignments'". The BTEC National course (the "higher" of the two), though, has an examination at the end but because the ethos of academic exams runs against the ethos of the BTEC, their exams are not called exams but "Time Constrained Assignments".

Students on these courses are frequently asked, as part of their assignments, to assume the role of a particular type of employee and then, presented with a "scenario", are invited to complete a number of "tasks". You can see why the owners of industry and commerce must find this sort of thing a real boon. For one thing, it must cut the cost of their own training schemes, either in-house or the type they pay their workers to attend. Education in the commercial system, capitalism, has always been geared to shaping people for the role that their class demands from them. The children of the wealthy owners of society are sent to expensive, exclusive, elitist schools where they are trained in the ways of being patronising members of the ruling class. Conversely, ninety per cent of us attend schools where they teach you (or try to) how to work and to be on the receiving end of orders from the boss. The element of these BTEC courses which is a new departure is the open starkness with which the "students" are being apprenticed to types of work in the setting of a college; not just the skills and procedures required in different types of work but also the way in which they are encouraged to adopt The Right Attitude.

Consider one example of an assignment for students on a BTEC National course designed to prepare them for low levels of management. Details are given about an imaginary company, Fuelsave Ltd. based in Cricklewood with a workforce of eight, three of whom are part-time. The company produces a petrol saving device. A full report on the company is also given, " . . produces between 225 -275 Fuelsavers a week . . . gadgets retail mainly through garages in the South East for £80. . . Fred Smith the founder and majority shareholder wishes to increase production but expansion at the current site is impossible. . . Fred calls a Board Meeting to discuss expansion ". Students are then asked to put themselves through a succession of different roles in furnishing the firm with advice about relocating in two sites, raising new sums of financial capital, suing other firms if they try to use the technology of the fuelsave device (which has been patented), and the "best" way to make workers redundant. Other assignments in this course entail the students casting themselves as clerical workers, estate agents, insurance officers and local government workers.

The remodelling of education on more commercially related lines has also begun to percolate into higher education not only by the innovation of degrees in subjects like "Business Administration" but also in attempts to trim out of existence those research projects which do not appear to be useful to the actual workings of capitalist society and its constant quest for profit for the few. Higher educational institutions are also being seen as places which could be more concertedly used by the owners of industry to cultivate greater numbers of their highly skilled workers. Speaking recently to a conference in London, Lord Prior, former Employment Secretary (before he disagreed with Thatcher) and now collecting a little spending money as Chairman of G.E.C. (£200,000+) said that Britain is too snooty about its universities and this is "depriving industry and commerce of highly-trained brains". He suggested that universities and degrees should not be seen as ivory towers offering glittering prizes. “They should be seen as places which produce a highly-trained workforce for the market place".

(London Evening Standard, 30 April 1988).

If you are taking exams this month, or have children who are, or are teaching towards them or marking them, then you may well be familiar with the little blurb at the top of exam papers which proclaims that "Candidates are reminded of the necessity for good English and orderly presentation in their work . . ." A fully honest preamble would also tell you that "this exam is a necessary part of a competitive and uncivilised social system. It has virtually nothing to do with genuine study and knowledge . . ." One final point, in fact an alternative exam question: Imagine you are living in a society which has abolished class division and operates on the principle "from each according to ability to each according to need". Explain how your life is different from that of one of history's wage slaves!

Gary Jay

The pessimists. (1923)

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are certain people who show that, to some extent, they are acquainted with the Socialist philosophy, and yet will be heard to utter the sentiment that it is useless talking about the principles of Socialism as the workers, from the point of view of intelligence, are hopeless.

This pessimistic view is often stated by many who have done next to nothing in furthering Socialist knowledge, and perhaps, when noticing the lack of knowledge displayed by the average worker in a discussion of a political and economic character, form the above opinion. But, of course, the workers are not hopeless from an intellectual point of view, whatever a superficial view of their mentality may disclose, for it should be obvious that as they are able to assimilate all the ideas connected with the details of the production and distribution of wealth in modern society, so will they in due course assimilate those ideas which will enable them to secure their freedom from capitalist domination.

To accomplish the establishment of a new-form of society by means of a social revolution, which means that there must first take place a revolution in thought, entails more than the work of a moment; it means a considerable amount of toil to those who carry cut the many functions associated with the organisation of the working class. As those who do the work can testify, it means long and laborious work, and those who shrink from the task because it involves “hard labour ” should realise that they are leaving a larger field to the enemies of Socialism.

In the advocacy of revolutionary ideas the revolutionist encounters many prejudices and preconceived notions, and one can hardly fail to notice when in discussion with members of the working class on the subject of Socialism, how the force of tradition affects their mental outlook. This point may be overlooked by many who lament the “slow” progress made by the workers in forming revolutionary conceptions.

“The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp upon the brain of the living,” says Marx, and those whose interest lies in the retention of the private property institutions use all the means at their disposal to preserve the traditional illusions, such as religion, and the abstract notions of justice, morality, etc.

Ideas drag on long after their falsity has been exposed. The workers, in the main, are not acquainted with the scientific method of analysing and classifying their conceptions. To overlook or underestimate the force of tradition is a sad mistake, and that this mistake is frequently made does, to some extent, explain the psychology of those who express the pessimistic view stated above. They appear to think that all that is needed is for one to postulate a logical proposition and its immediate acceptance is assured, thus disregarding the effect of the multifarious ideas that have been gathered in the past.

Leaving aside the part played by tradition, there are other factors in operation today which act in moulding the worker’s ideas. To take the case of the child as an example. From the moment when it begins to form ideas, it imbibes the superstitions of its parents, and later, when at the elementary school, it receives but the barest of “education,” which consists largely of an instruction in capitalist “virtues,” both religious and secular, from the “love of God” to the “love of country.” It has been said of certain of the Jesuits that they have expressed the opinion that, provided they had control of the child’s education until it reached a certain age, that early training would suffice as am effective check against any antagonistic influences that were encountered later in life. While it is well not to interpret this view too rigidly, nevertheless it is certainly true that the ideas assimilated when young have a considerable influence on the mental make-up of a great number of the workers, and the clergy do not fail to recognise the value of obtaining control of the education of the child. But what applies to the sycophantic priest with his means of saturating the minds of workers with superstition, applies with equal force to those who have control of the secular forms of “education.” While it is true that religion has, to a great extent, lost its hold over the minds of the workers, they have imbibed other notions from their masters equally fatal to their class interest. It does not follow that because the worker does not concern himself with religion, that he necessarily exercises his thoughts in the interest of his class, as may be seen in the fact that many who hold definitely anti-religious views are among the opponents of Socialism. Where the priest cannot secure a hold, those in control of the secular forms of “education” usually succeed. In the schools the children are not taught the main factors in the process of wealth production. In history the teaching mainly consists of the deeds and misdeeds of kings and queens, and the records of those who have displayed so much “gallantry” in making England a “land of hope and glory.” What passes under the name of education is little more than an instruction preparatory to entering the labour power market, where they are forced to sell their energy in order to live. It is small wonder that, when the young workers enter the productive area, they are handicapped against grasping ideas which are contrary to those inculcated into their minds in infancy. The ideas expressed in the workshop are generally of the orthodox form; it is unusual to meet with anybody who has the faintest inkling of the working class position, or has become acquainted with the line of action necessary to the establishment of Socialism, Even with those who are generally proclaimed the “rebels,” the confusion of thought is amazing.

Thus, when we take into consideration both the influence of tradition and the instruction given in childhood, there is little room for wonder that the advocacy of revolutionary ideas does not obtain “quick returns.” There is the further point that while the capitalists have control of the Press they are able to disseminate their views by means of the publication of numerous newspapers, books, magazines, etc., whilst Socialists can only at present publish their views in a journal that reaches but an infinitesimal portion of the working class. In comparing the number of meetings held, we have the same enormous difference, where the capitalists and their agents are able to hire the best and largest halls and hold many meetings, we can hold but few in consequence of our limited financial resources. So the dice are loaded heavily in favour of the capitalists, nearly all the channels of “education” being held by them. But the recognition of this does not make us pessimistic ; on the contrary, it acts as a spur to action. The work of enlightening the workers in the knowledge of their slave position and the way out from their slavery, is essential to the establishment of Socialism. The Socialist way out of capitalism is the only way ; consequently the very necessity of Socialist propaganda, as a prelude to the overthrow of capitalist society, and the establishment of Socialism, is sufficient to guard us against pessimism. But in carrying on the work of Socialist education, one qualification is necessary, and that is, we must be patient. It is recorded by Karl Kautsky that when in conversation with Frederick Engels, the latter said, “We have learned to wait, and you in turn must learn to wait your time.”

But, contrary to the sentiment of the poet, he who only waits does not serve the cause of Socialism, so let all those who can, put their shoulders to the wheel and help to break down those intellectual barriers that stand in our way in the struggle for the abolition of human slavery. Our way out of present misery is not only the correct road to travel, but it is the only road open.

Robert Reynolds

Superstition Still Taints Education (1945)

From the January 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Notable advances have been made in recent years in the technique of teaching. Infant and nursery schools must be credited with a humane approach as between pupil and teacher, and there has been a corresponding seep seniorwards—Messrs. Squeers and McChonkuinchild are on their way to extinction.

These advances are only too liable to conceal the most important aspect of education in its wider social implications; the worker, above all, must firmly grasp the fact that while the educational machine remains an instrument of the governing class, it will of necessity be used in the interests of that class. Incidental advantages to the worker's child in any case will be negligible in comparison with the total gain accruing to the capitalist class as a whole.

Over 2000 years ago, a narrow Spartan oligarchy was bound by unfavourable geographical conditions to go all out for a very thorough "occupational" education. A brutal discipline bred a race of patriotic toughs ready to do the suicide squad act at Thermopylae; it could as efficiently organise a youth who held it a "sacred" duty to assassinate secretly any “dangerous" Helot—a member of Sparta’s racial underdogs.

Modern history affords complete evidence of the powerful instrument which that education machine becomes to the State. Fatuous historians of the J. R. Green type enthuse about the Tudor monarch’s love of learning; they instance the establishment of “grammar schools” (endowed grudgingly from the rich loot of confiscated monasteries). Virtue brought more than its own reward. The “New Monarchy" was materially aided in its stand against possible feudal reaction by an increasingly wealthy body of merchants and their “sea-dog" relatives; the grammar schools constituted a pool from which could be fished the budding Burghleys, the Hattons aud Raleighs, and the whole tribe of despicable lick-spittlers and crooks who foul that page of history which glorifies a not too meticulously “Virgin" Queen as “that bright Occidental Star” (see Preface to Authorised Version of the Bible).

The nineteenth century throws a high-light on the social bearings of education; let anyone who would get a clear picture of the condition of the working class in that period read J. L. and Barbara Hammond’s “The Town Labourer," and companion volume “The Village Labourer." The desolating morass of physical and moral filth which begun and ended the life of the average worker makes the epithet “savage” a gross libel on Choctaw and Cherokee. The stink was rank: it smelt to heaven, and a tiny section of the governing class, not so directly concerned in the nakedly brutal exploitation of the worker, were shocked. At least the sacrificial fires of Moloch must be damped down. Enter Mrs. Trimmer (“Town Labourer,." page 58), declaring that "the lower sort of children might be so far civilised as not to be disgusting.” Hannah More plumps roundly for “Education”: schools were established, and there was no ambiguous phrasing in the prospectus; these lower animals of a Loving Father’s creation were to be trained “in habits of industry and piety.”

“PIETY”: here the cat Piety leaps joyfully out of the bag to caterwaul with its lady friend industry. Wilberforce, fresh from discussing the “scandal” of chattel-slavery with Pitt under the spreading oak in Holwood Park, had “explained” that “Christianity makes the inequalities of the social scale less galling to the lower orders; their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand of God.” Hannah More was convinced that “Property would be safer if the poor were taught to read the Bible.”

The Education Act of 1870 practically superseded voluntary effort as far as the worker was concerned. The “Board Schools” which it created became factories where “grants,” based on individual performances in the “3 R's,” were ground out. At the outset, training of teachers was substantially in the hands of religious bodies; some day the naked truth about the majority of the “Church” training colleges may be told; inadequate premises, second-rate “tutors,” and low-grade clerical “principals” turned out a body of men and women who patiently bore the bullying of clerical “managers,” of Board or Government “inspectors.” The ruling class achieved gradually a more docile set of workers, and a body of “elementary” teachers clamant in their “loyalty,” never so happy as when running “Empire Days.” Miss Margaret McMillan, many years ago, wrote to the present writer, “They love the grind,” . . . and there the tragedy of it . . . Charity, my colleagues of a younger generation who have had relatively better conditions, for any specimens of the “old guard ” you meet.

The outlook in education to-day has some encouraging features; the new Act should make for happier pupils and give increased opportunity to teachers not bound down by time table and syllabus.

One big blot in the Butler Act seems to have escaped the criticism which it merits. The prescription of a “Corporate Act of Worship” as prologue to the more or less secular feast is probably its most important feature. Wilberforce and Hannah More, being dead, yet live. And their reincarnations administer a more subtle poison than their forbears. Backed by educational journalism, which bleats about the “priceless heritage” of the Bible, and yaps about “Christian Ethics,” the clerical brigade is quietly but firmly playing the old game with an additional weapon—to wit, a “Corporate Act of Worship”; what was vaguely prescribed before, and easily waived, becomes stark compulsion. Relying on a largely apathetic body of parents, the ruling class will get the children ON THEIR KNEES, physically perhaps, let alone figuratively.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is uncompromisingly anti-clerical, with all which that implies; it is keenly alive to the fact that men have always fashioned their gods out of solid material and economic circumstances. The Party utterly repudiates leadership with its degrading correlate of “Worship.” Hitler has well demonstrated what can be accomplished with the young by inducing an attitude of reverence through prescribed ritual. In a way. he has played the game more successfully than the ruling class of this or any other country.

“Secular Education” of itself would by no means assure Socialism; far from it. But we might at least have expected from organised Rationalism a move in that directing; it would at least have afforded evidence that the endeavour to foist superstitious practice on the young was recognised as the evil thing it is, considered (if possible) even apart from politics. We commend for the consideration of our Rationalist friends the weighty words of J. M. Robertson (“Christianity and Mythology,” p. xviii.): “Those who realise the precariousness of modern gains in the battle against the tyranny of the past must continue the campaign, so doing what they can to save the optimists from, it may be, a rude awakening.”

Augustus Snellgrove