World Food Resources . . . the Myth of Shortage (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Six years ago the Socialist Standard told its readers : “the world has, and has had for some time now, the natural, industrial and human resources to provide for the needs of all its people” (July 1970).

Yet this December, as usual, the bleeding-hearts business, big charities like War on Want, Oxfam, Help the Aged etc. will be appealing to you for cash to help feed the starving millions. Their ad-men will portray the usual appalling and pitiable near-skeletons of Asia and Africa, and advise you that a mere 25p will adequately feed a family for a week. Apart from advertising the evident failure of the soup- kitchen dole to solve the hunger problem, they are reminding us that capitalism can only try to alleviate, never eliminate hunger.

Many people still believe that hunger is caused today by over-population and that if there were fewer people in the world, then, and only then, could they be adequately fed. This is not so. In the first place, the resources and technology exist now to feed the world’s population many times over. Second, even if the population did decrease substantially, there would still be a hunger problem, since hunger like homelessness is essentially an economic problem, a poverty problem.

American food and agriculture experts, writing in the September issue of The Scientific American, stress again and again that there is no technical reason why we should not enormously increase food production. The factors which prevent or retard this increase are social, political and economic.

“There are two components to the solution of the food problem: increased production of food primarily in the developing countries, and widespread increases in family incomes, particularly among the poor . . . People can buy food if they have money, but hungry people do not have money—in the developing countries or in the U.S. or wherever else people are hungry.” (Sterling Wortman, Scientific American p.35)

Writing about American agriculture, which by means of high capital inputs has enormously increased the potential of its labour force, Earl O. Heady calculates: “If international organizations or a single world organization could establish institutions that would make added output from American agriculture available to the world’s hungry, and if the effort could he made economic for American farmers, the US could increase its agricultural output and exports by a substantial amount . . . The US has a considerable reserve of land that could be planted to crops if it were profitable to do so. The latest available census data show that in 1969 the nation had 422 million acres of cropland, of which only 333 million acres were devoted to crops: the remainder was given over to pasture or lay fallow. . . .  If just the unused cropland were now converted to crops, if water were utilized efficiently and if all proved new technologies were adopted, by 1985 the nation could fully meet all domestic demand and still increase its exports of grain by 183 per cent over the record average level between 1972 and 1974. Specifically, corn exports could be increased by 228 per cent, wheat exports by 57 per cent and soybean exports by 363 per cent”, (pp. 126-7, our italics).

The reason agricultural output is not increased substantially is basically an economic one. The hungry have no money to buy food at existing prices, so they do not constitute a market. Under capitalism food is a commodity and commodities are only produced when there is an effective economic demand. People feeling hungry is not the same thing as “economic demand for food”.

Finally, W. David Hopper concludes his assessment of agriculture in developing countries by asserting that: “the world’s food problem does not arise from any physical limitation on potential output or any danger of unduly stressing the ‘environment’. The limitations on abundance are to be found in the social and political structures of nations and in the economic relations among them. The unexploited global resource is there, between Cancer and Capricorn. The successful husbandry of that resource depends on the will and the actions of men” (p. 205).

In the last thirty years there have been two major developments in arable agriculture. First, the application of fertilizers and the development of pesticides, which have boosted yields, especially in conjunction with improved irrigation. Then, the “green revolution”, based on irrigation, fertilizers and the use of new, improved varieties of rice and wheat developed by plant-breeding establishments. This has resulted in phenomenal increases in yield.

However water-control requires huge capital investment maintained over a long period. Also fertilizers and pesticides are very expensive luxuries for Third World farmers. The small farmer—and in India 25 per cent of farmers have less than 5 acres of land, and even the landlords typically own only 10 acres, worked by three or four tenants and their families—finds he cannot afford the new seed varieties and continues to use the old varieties. Thus in Third World countries the poverty of the rural population retards the development of modern agricultural techniques, and at the same time their failure to use these techniques perpetuates their poverty.

Roger Revelle estimates the capital cost for developing modern techniques in India at around 1,000 dollars per hectare. From this he projects an estimate for Asia, Latin America and Africa over a 25-year period at more than 30 billion dollars per annum. Feeding the starving millions would require an enormous capital investment totalling more than 700 billion dollars. Too much, say the governments of the world.

But capitalism has neglected the enormous potential of Third World countries. Land, water and sunlight are there in abundance. But India and other Third World countries concentrated on the development of heavy industry. They built up the cities at the expense of the countryside. Capital was directed to steel, mining, engineering and consumer industries. And when domestic agriculture, starved of capital investment, failed to deliver the goods, the US were all too quick to give food aid.

This “aid” was probably more helpful to the donor country than to the recipients in the long term. The former were delighted to find an “economic demand” for grain which might otherwise have had to be disposed of less profitably (in silos, at the bottom of the sea or simply ploughed under). But the provision of these vast quantities of grain helped to depress the price of locally produced food. So the Third World farmers were unable to expect a high price in famine years to compensate for lower prices in other years. Thus dependence on food aid has acted to retard the development in India and other Third World countries of an indigenous agriculture based on a high and continued capital investment in water-control, fertilizer and improved seed varieties. The policy of dependence on North America’s bread-basket is in the interests of the industrial sector in the developing countries: keeping food cheap is one way of preventing wages from rising.

Thus the food problem in Third World countries derives from he conflict of interests between the industrial capitalists and the rural proprietors. The consequence is summed up by Hopper: “Keeping food cheap to appease urban consumers often leads to policies that destroy the economic incentive for modernizing farms . . . The food generosity of the industrial countries, whether in their own self-interest (disposing of food surpluses) or under the mantle of alleged distributive justice, has probably done more to sap the vitality of agricultural development in the developing world than any other single factor. Food aid not only has dulled the political will to develop agriculture but also, by augmenting domestic production with grain grown abroad, has kept local prices at levels that destroy incentives for indigenous farmers” (p. 203).

We can sum up the conclusions reached from studying the facts and figures presented in The Scientific American, briefly, as supporting the Socialist case that it is the capitalist economic system that prevents farmers from growing enough food for every man, woman and child on this planet. The land is there, much of it unused, capable of feeding more than twelve times the world’s present population. That is the estimate given by Robert S. Loomis on page 105.

Capitalism has developed all the productive techniques necessary for production for abundance. But the capitalist economic system can only produce in response to economic demand and the prospect of a profit is a sine qua non, in farming as in every other sphere of capitalist production. The farmers must have “incentives” — and Oxfam pictures of starving children do not amount to an incentive.

The begging bowl is not just a symbol of the charities: it is a symbol of the misery and want in many forms endured by the poor. It is the hallmark of the most productive economic system man has ever developed. The stark contrast between the starving millions on the one hand and the enormous potential for food production on the other hand emphasizes the need to end commodity production. We have developed social production, with global cooperation we can make use of the techniques for increasing food output. Socialism can make this possible: only Socialism can release our productive potential and make the begging bowl a museum curiosity.

Charmian Skelton

Letter to Jimmy (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellow American,

Boston,

Mass.

President-elect James Earl Carter                                                   
Plains, Georgia, 
U.S.A                                                                                                                        

Dear Jimmy,

Inasmuch as you-all are about to take over the chores in the Oval Office of the White House, ah hope you don’t think it presumptuous of me to make this little offering toward your announced goal of he’ping the working people of this great country. We sure can use a mess of he’p and since ah believe ah knows what’s wrong with the nation and the world ah believe it would be a downright crime to withhold the information. Since you-all has been running what you tell us is a lucrative bidness, yo’se’f — a peanut bidness — maybe we-all can tackle the problem from that angle. Condense it, so to speak, to a peanut.

Now it goes without saying, Jimmy, that if one is to produce anything and hope to make profits one has to concentrate on items that are saleable. It wouldn’t make sense, even in Plains, Ga., to produce outhouses because there just ain’t enough people today without in-door plumbing. Chances are you still have a few of those chic sales around with the Sears-Roebuck catalogues hanging from the doors but, mostly, they just have antique value. A fellow might do all right for awhile, manufacturing phoney antique out-houses but the market would soon be flooded! So you’ve got a gold mine in those peanut plantations of yours because most folk still have the kind of teeth you need to eat them. And I can’t he’p but think how all those toothpaste bidnesses he’p the peanut bidness because they encourage everybody to grow strong, healthy teeth like the successful politicians. And, anyway, peanuts make right good eating and are packed with all them useful vitamins. In fact, ah believe that peanuts are all we really need and if we could get everybody to eat practically nothing but peanuts we wouldn’t need all those high wages. Peanuts could be produced in such a mass quantity that the price would come away down and we could all afford to work for peanuts, literally. But ah’m wandering from the subject and I must get back to it, dreckly.

Now having made the point that you have to produce something that people want, I have to make another point. And, Jimmy, you ain’t going to believe this. Not straight off, anyway. Your profits don’t come from peanuts and you’re really not producing peanuts. You are growing and marketing a commodity and it wouldn’t make any difference to your well-being if peanuts were used to fill up the Grand Canyon instead of to eat. And your profits actually come, not from the peanuts, but from the unpaid labour time your wage-slaves and all other wage-slaves put in.

Yes, Jimmy, ah said slaves and ah meant slaves. Sure, you don’t own them “body and soul” like in those old times “that are not forgotten”. And, sure, you are said to be one of those “Good Ol’ Boys” rather than those traditionalists who hate to see the old ways disappear. But you have to admit, Jimmy, that this new way of doing things ain’t bad at all for bidness. In fact, it’s a heap better because you don’t have to do much else than pay the market price for human energy except throw in some extras to take care of extra hardships that happen because the competition makes you pay as little as you can get away with. But it all adds up and it ain’t so bad, is it, to sing along with some of them in church and in Sunday School? It all smells a heap better than it used to in those old chattel-slave times or even in those pre-Civil Rights days. Brotherly love with wage-slaves pays off!

But let’s get down to brass tacks on this bidness of you-uns he’ping we-uns. You seem to think that the main problem is unemployment, and that ain’t the case at all. In fact, unemployment could be down right enjoyable if Welfare checks were high enough to live decently. The main trouble, Jimmy, is employment, at wages. Because that’s what makes slaves of most of us, dependent for our very lives on the chance to make profits for employers. And our masters can’t pay us enough to make life worthwhile, even if they wanted to, because their competition on the labor market (the wage-slave market) won’t allow it. Then, too, doesn’t a sizeable army of unemployed he’p to keep the wage rates down!

So, Jimmy, if you-uns really want to he’p we-uns, you gotta remember that the trouble is the production- for-profit motive for peanuts and everything else. Why not study this problem and how to solve it with common ownership of all the peanut plantations and everything else that is designed to produce wealth? You could use it as a text for your Sunday School class at the Plains Baptist Church — that is, if your fellow worshippers will let you get away with it.

Yours for World Socialism, and that ain’t peanuts!

Harry Morrison

World Socialist Party of the United States

The Cosy Days are Over (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The cosy days are over”, our Labour Leader told us at the Blackpool Conference. You must have blinked, mustn’t you? Ever since the last war (and before that) a procession of capitalist leaders has told us to accept less financial return for greater productive effort in order to bring about that prosperous, contented state which can only result from such an arrangement. Harder work, wage restraints, wage freezes, social contracts — it’s never stopped — for as long as anyone can remember. One would have expected the long-promised good times to appear at any moment. But what in fact happens? Mr. Callaghan suddenly tells you they’ve been and gone!

You must have blinked! When and what were those cosy days he’s now referring to? Surely not the “You never had it so good” days MacMillan told us about? MacMillan was a Tory, and a self-styled “socialist” like Callaghan would surely advise you not to listen to such capitalist claptrap. So listen to Mr. Callaghan’s capitalist claptrap instead: “Because we are socialists we have to be practical!”

He went on to reveal that by being practical he meant that investments and profits must come first. “Practical” socialism to Callaghan, Healey and Co. means keeping British capitalism going at all costs. Ask these “socialists” why we are in such a state of need and deprivation (“we” meaning the workers — the Callaghans and Thatchers of this world enjoy all the luxuries of life whatever the social climate) and they will tell you: “You are not paying your way. You are not producing enough to foot the bill for the things you need.” 

In fact, “not paying your way” consists of having worked yourselves out of a job. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been sacked because their bosses just can’t find profitable markets, and the same thing’s happened all over the world. But it doesn't bring the cosy days. You don't get to consume more, you don’t get longer holidays and shorter working hours: a million and a half get sacked and the rest are urged to work harder than ever! Just what have the workers to do to satisfy their “Red Flag”-singing champions? One heart-breaking aspect is that the world’s workers who produced the boom which produced the crisis don’t think of anything to beg for except more work! In Britain, they still accept the “socialist” announcement that cutting wages and public spending at the behest of the profit-makers is in their own interest — an assertion the Wilsons and Callaghans would have torn the Heaths and Thatchers to shreds over had the latter been in power. But “when you’re in you’re in — when you’re out you’re out.” When it is in “Labour” — backing profits against workers’ interests — doesn’t even say we must be “practical” despite being socialist; they have the gall to say it’s because they’re socialist!

And so our “egalitarian”, right-wing leftist leaders tell us to work even harder (if you can find a job) to save the situation; and accept less though prices of necessities inexorably rise. This, they’ll tell you, is your only salvation — for as long as you continue to listen.

Tragically, whilst they continue to support and promote the exploitation of the working class — they still receive the backing of the majority of that class. It is amazing that by the mere expedient of adopting the label “Labour” a capitalist party can still hoodwink those it has helped to exploit for seventy years.

It is less amazing, in view of the working-class support the professional politicians get, that the latter not only forget their prophecies and promises, but live with their consciences and do not even lose sleep over them.

No Government anywhere, Labour, Tory, Communist — you name it — has ever backed labour against capital. Not once has one said to the owners: “Give way to the workers’ claim.” The only thing to choose between such parties is that the Tories don’t sing “The Red Flag”. They all represent the ruling class Ask the British seamen. Did their Labour government support them in their struggle against their exploiters — or vice versa? And where did the TUC stand? Side by side with the pro-capitalist Government — four-square against the workers they claim to represent. Quote, Edward Heath, the Conservative Party Conference 1976: “Trade union leaders should take the credit for what they have done in income restraint.” And the government doesn’t even have to pay the union leaders to represent them against the workers — the workers do the paying for them. Remember the enormous signboards we saw after the second world war — “Hard work now means better living sooner”? Union funds went into those signboards. Then as now, workers contributed part of their wages in order to tell themselves to work harder!

So who have the workers to turn to in their fight against the class that live on them? Only themselves. They are in the vast majority and able at any time time to vote out the system that plagues us all. It may seem disheartening that they still won’t listen to the small voice of the SPGB and its companion parties who urge them to do so. But the voice will continue to be heard because it speaks historic fact and logic. In that cause there are no failures — only delayed success.

R. B. Gill

The Cloak and Dagger Brigade (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The knives are out. Sir Harold Wilson and a large section of the Labour Party are gunning for those who claim to be trying to “re-establish its socialist principles”. For a party who has never had any, their task is a hopeless one. Going for “Trots” and other so-called left-wingers is unproductive, and two members of the Labour Party National Executive have tabled a resolution asking the Party to cool it. The two members, MPs Eric Heffer and Joan Lestor, are considered by many to be “revolutionaries” in their own right. Their resolution contains the following:

Attacks which add nothing to solving the serious economic and social problems which confront this country.

Whilst we agree that attacks add nothing to solving the problems which confront this country, the solutions put forward by the Labour Government do not seem to be meeting with much success. Indeed, we might say that these solutions have added nothing at all to the old solutions that have been tried in the past, and failed.

We wonder if Heffer and Lestor are among those Labour MPs whose favourite reading today is, apparently, the works of Karl Marx? If so, we suggest they don’t just read Marx but study what he had to say, and see if it adds up to the world which they are trying to better. If they don’t read Marx, here is a glorious opportunity not only to find out how capitalism works, and the solution, Socialism; but a knowledge of Marxism will enable them to deal with the spurious “left-wingers” who are masquerading under the cloak of Marxism within the Labour Party. They could tell these quacks exactly what Marx was after.

In the present circumstances, we reiterate the idea that the principle (of tolerance must be one of the basic concepts of democratic socialism.

Is it only when the Labour Government are in a tight spot that the principle of tolerance must be one of the concepts of “democratic socialism”? If the Government had a thumping majority in the House, would such tolerance be so basic? Whilst tolerance might be a virtue (and we can well understand Labour politicians desiring it, particularly from the electors, who see their promises unfulfilled), it has nothing to do with democratic Socialism. How can a Socialist be tolerant of a man such as Callaghan who calls for the system to be more profitable and for the capitalist class to invest more in industry? Profit and investment have nothing to do with Socialism. Are we to be tolerant of a man who mouths such rubbish (in the name of Socialism), and tolerant of the Heffers and Lestors who will support him when the chips are down?

Mr. Heffer in the House of Commons, April 9th, 1975, said: “We determine the future of our country”. He and the others in the Labour Party have a lot to answer for.

Cyril May

The Left: Once more boring from within (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Left" is pidgin-political for reformers babbling of green fields, syndicalists, and advocates of state capitalism. Socialists reject it as a label because we want none of those things, and there is one other conspicuous difference. No Socialist would touch the Labour Party with a barge-pole; the "left" fall over one another getting into it.

In the past two or three years there have been repeated alarms about the activities of allegedly Marxist (usually Trotskyist) groups in the Labour Party. On one hand they agitate for new programmes of reform; on another, they are said to plot within constituency parties to get rid of MPs who do not suit them. in November 1975 the Labour national agent presented a report called Entryist Activities to the party's national executive, defining "entryism" as "a decision by an outside organization ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party that its members shall enter as individuals, to carry out activities as directed by the outside body". In the first week of December 1976 The Times had a series of articles on Trotskyists in the Labour Party, and Callaghan and Wilson made speeches denouncing "infiltrators who seek to take over local parties and unseat respected Labour MPs" (Sunday Times, 5th December).

These reactions are revealing in themselves. To the Labour leaders and their naïve supporters, the "left" are bent on socialist revolution; and that is the last thing the Labour Party wants. The Sunday Times report quoted Callaghan as saying "the most hateful slogans he had heard recently were: What do we want? Everything! When do we want it? Now!'" A party which lives on promises of a little jam tomorrow is bound to object to demands like that. Nevertheless, some vital questions are raised. Should democracy permit wreckers to have their way? What would happen of the "left" became the majority in the Parliamentary Labour Party? Is it likely?

Controlling Influence

From the time the "new left" began to form, about 1960, "entryism" was a widely talked-of tactic. The Labour Party has maintained a list of proscribed organizations, i.e. groups and parties which are refused affiliation with it. Technically, a member of one of them may be refused admission or expelled if his membership can be proved; however, some "left" groups  have no formal membership — the "Militant" group which is said to be specially active in provincial Labour Parties presents itself as a collection of devotees of a weekly paper.

Such a situation creates a problem in voluntary organizations. Each exists for a particular purpose which its constitution is framed to further. If a section with unacceptable ideas finds its way into membership it can make use of the procedures and rules to further its own purposes instead. As a parallel, the Socialist Party of Great Britain does not admit to membership people who hold religious beliefs, are interested in our anti-war case more than in Socialism, or think we should join forces with other parties. If such people joined, it would be possible for them eventually to out-vote the rest of the membership and alter the purpose of the SPGB. It is absurd to suppose that they should be admitted and permitted in the name of "democracy", democracy is related to a given framework.

But the prospects of "left" groups being able to take charge of the Labour Party are remote. That they have been successful so far in campaigns against MPs in two constituencies — Prentice in Newham North East and Sandelson in Hillingdon — chiefly reflects apathy and non-participation by other members. However, the fact is that constituency parties do not run the Labour Party. They are only a small fraction of the membership; though they provide half the representation at conferences they have about one-sixth of the votes (the remainder being in the hands of the trade unions). In 1930 Beatrice Webb recorded a conversation in which her husband, Sidney Webb, said

that the constituency parties were frequently unrepresentative groups of nonentities dominated by fanatics and cranks, and extremists, and that if the block votes of the trade unions were eliminated it would be impracticable to continue to vest the control of policy in Labour Party Conferences.

This is quoted in Robert McKenzie's British Political Parties (1964), and McKenzie adds: "there can be little doubt that he accurately reflects the conviction of the great majority of the parliamentary leaders then and now. The conference could not be accorded even nominal authority in determining the long-range goals of the party if it were subject to the overriding influence of the constituency party delegates. But the parliamentary leaders have little to fear from the party conference as long as they retain the confidence (and the block vote support) of the traditionally moderate and conservative leadership of the big trade unions." This contrasts with the claim made by a Labour Party organizer, quoted in The Times (2nd Dec. 1976) of an "immediate threat" in "Trotskyist-inspired resolutions" put forward by constituency parties at the annual conference.

Shapeless Fringe
Webb was a member of the second Labour Government, and he was referring mainly to the ILP which disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 1932. The ILP's militant slogans at that period have a familiar ring today — "Socialism in Our Time" and "The Living Wage Policy". In disaffiliating the ILP believed it would hold the bulk of its MPs and local members, particularly as the Labour Party was in disarray in 1932. However, only a handful of the 156 MPs who were nominally members of the ILP remained with it, and the great majority of constituency members rejected it for the Labour Party. A "left-wing" confrontation would produce the same result today. Indeed, it is plain that the infiltrators are in the Labour Party because they see no prospect of success standing on their own feet. The election results for International Socialists, International Marxist Group, Workers' Revolutionary Party etc, have not alarmed anyone except their wealthy supporters who provide the money.

What do they hope to achieve by infiltration? "Left" is a muddled, imprecise term covering many ideas and motives. The groups working inside the Labour Party are not at all united in their aims. IS and IMG have been called "middle class centrists" by the WRP, who want Labour on power so that Labour "will be exposed and will be driven out" (1974 Election Manifesto). Andy Bevan, the Trotskyist Labour Youth Officer, wants only a different policy — "a programme that can really show the way forward to the Labour Party" (TV interview reported in Sunday Times, 28th Nov. 1976). In May 1972 a "left" Labour agent debating with an SPGB representative at Canterbury asserted that "revolutionaries" would take over the Labour Party, then get it while in power to engineer an economic crisis of which they could take advantage. (He was a Labour candidate in the last general election, and the crisis took place without the Government even trying.)

The demands made by the "left" are sadly familiar: soaking the rich, nationalization, the right to this and that. A letter to The Times in 7th December from the editor of the Militant paper protested against a "scare campaign" and said:

What frightens you and the class you represent is that the Labour Party rank and file should have the temerity seriously to wish to implement Clause IV, part 4 of Labour's constitution, which calls for the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy. Militant has concretized this part of Labour's programme with its demand for the taking over of the woo or so monopolies which control 80-85 per cent of the economy, with the compensation to the shareholders on the basis of proven need, under democratic workers' control and management.

Let The Times and some of its readers be frightened for the right reason, at any rate — not that these demands have anything to do with Socialism, but that they seek to run capitalism with a new degree of ineptitude.

"Left-wing" leaders with political power are in the same position as "right-wing" ones: they have to meet the realities of managing capitalism. On 16th November a group of Labour MPs who call themselves the Social Democratic Alliance pointed a finger at 33 other Labour MPs who, they allege, are under "Marxist" influence. In most of those cases the likelihood is that the MPs are no more than idiots who court popularity as bold radicals. Possibly others are secret members of Trotskyists groups. But what are the preoccupations of all of them now? Trying to cure unemployment by reviving those sections of industry which need it; looking for a formula to check inflation; improving the balance of trade — in short, doing the best they can for British capitalism.

Each generation of radicals believe there has been a sell-out by the previous generation. Most of the 1923 "wild men of the Clyde" became respectable establishment figures. Michael Foot, who in 1966 was reported in The Observer as saying he would teach his grandchildren to say "I am an anarchist", is now Labour's Deputy Leader and opposes "extremists" on the grounds that party unity is essential. What is not realized is that the let-down comes at the beginning, not the end. Early Labour leaders who were aware of the nature of Socialism put it aside in favour of getting mass support quickly. Some at least of the "left" today reject Socialism for the same reason, and because of the excitements offered by the militant scene. Yet, despite the professions made, the only alternative to Socialist politics is capitalist politics. If he makes that choice, the "extremist" of today is already the trimming statesman of tomorrow; if it comes to it, the possessing class will make terms with a Trotskyist state as with a Tory one.

The appearance of a fresh political faction enables the press and party leaders to try to impress on the working class that who runs capitalism is all-important. It is not. The one issue that matters is exchanging capitalism for Socialism; besides ending the problems of society as we know it, that will make democracy in the widest sense a reality.

Robert Barltrop

Workers of the world wake up! (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The title of this article is by way of an apology to Marx. His grave at Highgate is only a few miles from Hyde Park and his remains must have been gravely disturbed by two demonstrations attended by many thousands of workers at the end of November, one being for The Right to Work and the other against racialism. The first one is the sadder event in the eyes of a Socialist and the one that really must have made Marx turn in his grave, although the second is outrageous for reasons we come to later.

If Marx could have come to see the first demo, he would have dropped dead again immediately to see the forest of banners against the cuts which the fake-socialist government are compelled to introduce, on the orders of British capitalism which must be obeyed, and in favour of "The Right to Work". After all, it is well over a century ago that he told the working class they should inscribe on their banners not this sort of tosh (which is merely demanding the right to be exploited by the capitalist class) but "The Abolition of the Wages System". Around a century ago Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue wrote a pamphlet directly opposing the parrot-cry of the Right to Work and called it The Right to be Lazy. Yet here we are, at the end of 1976, watching the descendants of those same workers, with all the bitter lessons that capitalism has taught them over the years (well, should have taught them, anyway), with the experience of being governed by a so-called workers' government, something that was unheard of in those days, hugging their chains and complaining that they were not bound and fettered tight enough to the task of making profits for their rulers.

When the slaves of Pharaoh were building the pyramids and groaning under the lash of the slave-drivers, when Uncle Tom's friends were being driven by the plantation owners in the Southern States, they may not have done much thinking about a free society but at least they did not organize demos demanding the right to be sweated and scourged by their rulers. Marx would have grounds for despair if he could see the antics of the wage-slaves of the oldest of all capitalist societies today.

The workers have really no excuse. Other considerations apart, they should be aware that unemployment is an integral feature of capitalism and always has been. When goods stop selling, then capitalism simply must lay off workers. No amount of exhortation by the Jarrow marchers in the '30s against a mainly-Tory government, or by these demonstrators now against a so-called Labour government, us going to make a scrap of difference to hard economic realities. One advantage was gained by thousands of workers, however, since the Socialist Party went into the park to hold our own meetings and sell our literature, and our speakers told those of the demonstrators who would listen that they were simply wasting their time and their energies in marching for the abandonment of the cuts.

Even if the Callaghans and the Foots are sincere people, there is just nothing they can do against the inexorable laws of the system. After all, does anyone suppose that the National Government in the '30s really enjoyed having nearly 3 million unemployed on their hands (who incidentally had to be fed, or at any rate only half-starved)? Is it not time that the working class woke up and decided they were ready to act on the advice of Marx and abolish the wages system which causes unemployment, among a host of other evils? Is it not time to have a system where not only unemployment would be abolished but employment, too? Where everyone will work freely instead of being employed by masters (that is, when the masters want you) for their — the masters' — profit?

It is perhaps a pity that workers don't, on the whole, read that ancient organ of British capitalism, The Times. The chap who runs the "Times Diary", a highly-paid worker who does not understand the first thing about capitalism or Socialism (he would be horrified to know that he too was a wage-slave) had a paragraph about the SPGB meeting in his description of the demo. As he has deigned to notice us a few times recently, that must be a strike in his favour. He mentioned that one of our speakers was lambasting a heckler and telling him not to bemuse himself with his right-to-work slogans. The heckler was one of the numerous Trotskyists of various splinters who were in the demo ("at least we are doing something" — no doubt they could make the same claim of they were merely banging their heads against a wall which, in essence, is what they were at). They were flogging their pamphlets, all replete with headlines of the reformist slogans which the demonstrators had on their banners. And these are the very people who have the nerve to attack Labour politicians because they are reformists. One heckler was carrying a paper with a headline which looked to say "Down with Capitalism": which was interesting to say the least. However, on closer inspection it read "Down with Capitalism's Cuts". The "revolutionary" idiot (who, like most of his ilk, was more intent on preventing our case being heard than taking part on a democratic argument; they carry banners denouncing fascism but of course are incipient fascists themselves) and the "Marxists", Maoists, Trotskyists, etc., really think you can keep capitalism intact but without its cuts. And its wounds and its scars and its deaths.

A few days later, we witnessed — and addressed — another crowd of demonstrators who, this time, were on about racialism, which is just another evil produced by capitalism. (You could have a demo a day for a whole year against a different evil and not exhaust the list. And still not get rid of one of them!) The real thing about this one — which apparently never occurred to most of the marchers — was that it was actually run by the Labour  Party and addressed by well-known leftist humbugs from the present government. Everyone was busy denouncing racialist legislation, quite oblivious to the fact that it's a Labour Government in power which could remove it if it wanted. In fact, under Wilson, they actually brought in some of the vilest racialist laws themselves. Need we say more?

L. E. Weidberg