Letters: Too much theory (1981)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Too much theory

Dear Editors,

I find your magazine very informative and stimulating and going in the right direction. But I am somewhat mystified by your interpretation of Marxism. You seem to be all theory and hope to convert the working class by reason and persuasion against ignorance, a biased education system and a totally subservient press and TV barrage of propaganda. Marxism, surely, is “praxis”, a blend of theory and practice. That means getting stuck in on the factory floor, workshop, office etc. and calling industrial action to foment the class war. Could you please answer this?

A. Chattin

Bolton

Reply:

You are correct in stating that the SPGB aims to convince our fellow workers of the need for socialism by reasonable means. It is our argument that the hard logic of the case for socialism is powerful enough to defeat the ideology of capitalism as presented by the education system, media, religion and so on. To get workers to understand socialism requires good, strong arguments — or theory. Of course, theoretical clarity is not enough. Hard work is involved in putting that theory to workers; and we in the SPGB are getting stuck in as often and as energetically as we can, bearing in mind our limited resources.

The working class has had a century of industrial action in which sections of the working class have confronted their employers over wages and conditions. While recognising the defensive role of trade unions, as socialists we urge our fellow workers go for revolutionary political action: not in order to “foment the class war", but so as to end it by the democratic victory of the working class. Revolution is necessary because it is the entire social system of capitalism which must be removed before the chains of wage slavery can be broken. This political task involves both theory and practice. (In connection with the latter, our correspondent may be interested to know that the Bolton branch of the SPGB will be working hard in the coming months in preparation for contesting the Bolton West constituency in the next general election and should he care to get “stuck in” with them they will welcome his assistance.)

Editors.

Fear of ‘1984’

Dear Editors,

I would like to support Jean Ure’s comments in your January issue.

1. The majority of serious-minded people (including politicians from all parties, upon whom you pour such scorn) would probably agree with your ideas, but fail to see how they can be achieved in the foreseeable future.

2. The world cannot rid itself of religious dogma and racial prejudice overnight.

3. The nations of the West will not initially be prepared to share their wealth equally with the Third World.

4. Granted that a socialist society was achieved, how could a modern society be organised on a world-wide scale with a workforce whose only reward is to serve one’s fellow human beings?

5. What would be the reaction of a small band of dedicated members performing skilled and essential services, to those merely paying lip service to a routine job in a factory?

6. Could people ever be made to work if they are unwilling?

7. My own feeling is that society would quickly degenerate into a nightmare similar to George Orwell’s 1984.

No doubt you will be able to give me some glib reassurance that my fears are unjustified, and that people will be conditioned to be socially responsible. However, my doubts will probably still remain.

R. J. Martin,

Wheathampstead.

Reply:

1. Politicians from all parties certainly do not accept the ideas of the SPGB, even though some may claim to do so. How many Tories support the idea of social equality? They say that human beings are inherently unequal. How many members of the Labour Party advocate the abolition of the wages system? Or free access to all wealth? Or the elimination of national frontiers? All other parties claim that the capitalist system is here to stay. We are alone in stating that the present system conflicts with the material interests of the overwhelming majority of the world’s population and must be replaced immediately by world socialism.

2. We have never suggested that the transition from mass acceptance of capitalism to majority socialist consciousness will occur “overnight”. Those who say that revolutions cannot happen overnight are usually trying to tell us either that ideas cannot change at all, or that, if they can, they will only change very slowly. The entire history of human society disproves such a conception of change ideas can, and frequently do, change very rapidly indeed. They change because human experience clashes with scientific developments in mankind’s control over the natural environment. Consider, for example, decline in religious belief in the last fifty years or changing reactions to sex roles.

3. Socialism means the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution by the entire world community. We all need each other in society and that is why people in Europe and people in Africa and Asia will recognise their common interest in a socialist society. Mutual aid or co-operation is the key to socialism; if it is claimed that humans are incapable of co-operative behaviour, we reply that co-operation will become an attractive idea when it is seen to be in the material interest of the co-operators. In capitalist society the working class is very cooperative — but with the master class and for their interests. Finally, socialism will not be a society of sharing, but one in which individuals will take freely from an abundance of wealth according to their need.

4. The reward in socialism will not be to serve others (which is what workers do now when they produce profits for an idle class), but to serve oneself by contributing to society.

5. Modern industrial society involves a complex division of labour in which diverse labour processes contribute to the overall supply of goods and services. In socialism the differing talents, skills and mundane contributions which people have to offer will be equally appreciated because people will realise that they are all necessary.

6. Why should any healthy human being be unwilling to work? It is understandable that when work means employment (wage slavery) workers may find work dull and meaningless. But given a society in which work is for one reason only: to provide goods and services for the use of humanity, why would people not want to give according to their abilities and take according to their needs? Of course, if you are correct and human beings cannot co-operate, then socialism will never happen. But the evidence is on our side: humans have a natural need to expend mental and physical energies in order to survive.

7. You give no reason for feeling that socialism will "degenerate into a nightmare” and so we are unable to re-assure you, glibly or otherwise, that your fear is unjustified. We assume that your fear of freedom is based upon what you have heard and read from the apologists for capitalism who warn workers to avoid the nightmare of a world without employment, poverty and war. lest we shatter their dreams. 

Editors.

Loss of faith

Dear Editors,

I have lost faith in the two main political parties. It has become the case of the lesser of two evils. I would like to know how much different you are.

1. Are you just a jumped up Labour Party? Why don’t you put up candidates in the area?

2. What would you do if you did come to power?

3. What would you do about the over-powerful unions? If you quelled them, would it be too much and to your advantage?

4. How much different are you from the Communist Party?

5. My husband and I have saved for our own house. Would we be penalised for it?

6. Would you go far enough to take money away from people who had too much and give to those with not enough? How are you going to do this?

I hope you don’t mind me firing all these questions at you, but 1 would like to know all about it. I don’t think joining a political party is something you can do half-heartedly.

D. Cowley, 

Frome, Somerset

Reply:

1. The SPGB is totally opposed to the Labour Party and has been since we were formed in 1904. Labour stands for the reform of the present capitalist system. The SPGB stands for the abolition of capitalism (production for profit) and its replacement by a system of society in which the means of wealth production and distribution will be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole community.

2. The SPGB does not want to obtain power. We want to see power placed in the hands of the working class once they are consciously and democratically organised for socialism. Once the workers of the world have taken over state power, they will use it in order to get rid of capitalism and establish a system of production for use.

3. The trade unions are not “over-powerful”. It is the small minority of the world’s population who live in luxury as a result of receiving rent, interest and profit — the capitalist class — who are the ones who enjoy social power at the moment; they enjoy it at the expense of the majority — the working class — whom they exploit. Trade unions are a necessary means of bargaining over the intensity of exploitation. But socialists want workers to go beyond trade unions (the industrial struggle) and use their political power to get rid of this exploitative social system once and for ail. There will be no trade unions in a socialist society, since there will be no economic classes and therefore no conflict of interest. The capitalist-run media hates to see workers using our power, even in militant trade union action. Socialists claim that workers have hardly started to flex their muscles. We have nothing to lose and much to gain from workers recognising their strength.

4. The Communist Party claims that there is socialism in Russia. We point out that it is a state capitalist dictatorship. The CP advises workers to reform capitalism to their advantage; we say this cannot be done and that the only solution to working class problems is political action to establish socialism. The CP stands for capitalism. We stand for socialism or communism. The two terms mean the same thing, when properly used.

5. We want a society where houses are built for humans to freely live in, not for sale. Why should you have to save up in order to have a roof over your head when society is now quite able to build adequate accommodation for everyone?

6. The SPGB does not stand for the redistribution of wealth, but for free access to all wealth within a society where the productive machinery is owned by everyone without distinction of race and sex. Society is now capable of providing an abundance of wealth to fulfil human needs without anyone going short. This will not require the rich to give to the poor, but the elimination of the inequality of class.

We agree that joining a political party is a serious business and we welcome your thoughtful questions. We do not put up candidates in Somerset because the SPGB is as yet weakly organised in the area. We look forward to seeing you help to change that situation.

Editors.

Letters: Road to socialism? (1981)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Road to socialism?

Dear Editors

On page 35 of the February Socialist Standard, ALB states that the majority working class must be organised for the subsequent running of socialist society. Socialist society in practice, however, would at least need temporary delegate bodies. The- democratic machinery needed for electing the temporary delegate bodies of a whole society could not itself be set up arbitrarily by an unelected body; it would have to grow with some functional purposes over a period of time; and ALB does not show how this evolution of democratic machinery preceding socialist society might possibly come about without any existing function 

H. Smith

Bristol

Reply

The working class will be able to make use of some of the existing institutions of capitalism in order to indicate the democratic decision to set up socialism. In this country it will make use of the elaborate parliamentary machine, together with the various forces of the state which it controls. The SPGB urges workers to elect socialist delegates in local and national elections, not simply as a propaganda exercise, but in order to gain democratic control over the machinery of the state. The growth of the desire for socialism can practically and effectively be demonstrated via the ballot box. In most capitalist countries this “democratic machinery” does exist, at least in constitutional theory. What is lacking is a working class which has decided to use constitutional democracy for the purpose of creating socialism.

The best model of how a democratic organisation of men and women can work is the SPGB. We do delegate responsibility to people within the Party, but only on condition that the delegates do what the members want; should they prove to be unsatisfactory they are removed. Socialist society will be the same. Electing delegates does not, of course, ensure that those elected will be the best people for the job in question, but it will mean that the majority can decide how things are done, and, once they have decided, ensure that their will is not ignored.

Membership of the Socialist Party (in Britain or any other country) is an important training in democracy. In the last century, Marx pointed out membership of a trade union helped to prepare workers for democratic action. In short, the job of working for socialism is itself the best means of preparing workers for a democratic future. If anyone wants proof of that, they should attend the SPGB Annual Conference at Conway Hall, London, between April 17 and 19. There they will see for themselves that democracy does work and that when everyone wants the world to be run democratically they have only to put their political strength behind it.

Editors.

Real answers, please

Dear Editors,

Arising out of the letter from Jean Ure (Jan. 1981) and your self-righteous reply to it. The SPGB is strong on the whats and whys of socialism, but weak on the hows. What is socialism? It is a wageless, classless, stateless social system. Why socialism? Because it will give people a better, more secure life. How will socialism come about? Firstly, when the majority want it they will vote for it democratically. Secondly, it must be introduced simultaneously throughout the world. This leaves some unanswered hows:

1. How to persuade the House of Lords to accept the decision of the elected chamber. How to persuade the military to accept the decision. 
2. How to persuade the civil service to accept the decision.
3. How can it be voted for throughout the world when most of the world is illiterate?
4. How do you persuade people to choose socialism when all they car. think about is their empty bellies?
5. How do we prevent ourselves from being blown to kingdom come while we are waiting for socialism?
6. When we have socialism, how do we persuade people to empty dustbins, dig roads, mine coal, dive in the North Sea, without the wage incentive?
7. Without the machinery of state, how is socialism to be administered?

Unless it comes up with some real answers to real problems, the SPGB must be regarded as a religious sect rather than a political party.

Arthur Spender 

Weston-Super-Mare

Reply

1. Socialism will only be established when a majority of workers understand and want it. The workers constitute the vast majority of society. How many of the military are non-workers? How many civil servants are anything other than wage or salary slaves? (Not many, if the recent CPSA strike is anything to go by). How many journalists are able to operate without the aid of their fellow workers who print and sell their pro-capitalist propaganda? Once a majority is organised for socialism there is no reason to think that these groups will not be part of that majority. As for the unelected House of Lords, which is largely made up of members of the capitalist class, once the working class has decided to opt for socialism do you really think that anyone will care what a few unrepresentative old aristocrats have to say about it?

2. The gaining of the franchise by the working class tends to be a consequence of the development of industrial capitalism. Where democratic facilities do not exist, it is the message of the Socialist Party of Great Britain that workers must combine their struggles for such rights with a political struggle for socialism.

3. At the moment it is not only the illiterate who support capitalism; the literate workers are often equally taken in by their masters' propaganda. It is experience of capitalism which makes people think about socialism and the more this crazy system goes on the more likely it will be that workers will realise their real interest. Capitalism is rapidly eradicating illiteracy because the bosses need a literate workforce. In so educating workers the capitalist class is producing the gravediggers for their system.

4. Socialism is the immediate solution to “empty bellies" because production for use is the only alternative to the market anarchy which lets people starve if profit cannot be obtained. Can Mr. Spender think of anything better for starving people to think about than the urgent abolition of the system which deprives them of food?

5. If Mr. Spender cares to tell us how to avoid war other than by removing its cause we may be able to answer him. If he wants us to march up and down asking governments to ban the bomb we advise him to consider the more serious proposition of not electing the governments in the first place. If you wait for socialism to fall out of the sky. do not expect the SPGB to tell you how to spend your time.

6. In a socialist society work will be carried out for the common use of humanity. If people in socialism want a job done they will have to organise to do it. If machines can be employed to do jobs that humans do not want to do, then they will. The incentive in socialism will be that needs will be the primary concern of social organisation,

7. See reply to H. Smith of Bristol.

Mr. Spender has had his “real answers to real problems”. If he is unsatisfied he can come back with more. If, however, he is unwilling to accept the SPGB’s case, preferring to stick rigidly to the idea that the establishment of socialism is impossible, then who is being religious, him or us?.

Editors.

Wrong economics

Dear Editors

Having read a few issues of the Socialist Standard I find that, although mostly correct, certain of your statements on economics seem rather foolish.

Firstly, the statement that as wages are a price (of labour) a rise does not cause inflation. Wages may be a price but they are also a cost (i.e. a “variable” cost to the capitalist), and a rise in this cost will mean that to maintain profit the price of the commodity to the consumer must be pushed up. Secondly, the statement that a lower minimum wage would not increase employment is not thoroughly explained. The reason it would not is because the lower wage would reduce the worker’s spending power and thus cause unemployment in other industries and the recession-depression cycle would recommence. I think that these attacks on orthodox economics, although tempting to us socialists, are self defeating. May I strongly recommend all the editors to read Paul Baran’s Political Economy of Growth, which is an excellent Marxist book on economics and could provide the basis for better attacks on capitalist economics.

Another thing which concerns me is the repeated attacks on the once-socialist Labour Party. You would be better served by trying to persuade the socialist element (there must be one!) to join in your campaign instead of alienating them. As with the Labour Party, so with the SWP, IMG and Solidarity: a united socialist movement is far better than a divided one squabbling about tactics. These criticisms, I must stress, are concerned with your tactics rather than your aim and the majority of the Socialist Standard is excellent and lively leading. But the way in which you attack fellow socialists as much as capitalists is over-harsh—they are well-meaning and sense the correct way ahead if not the right path.

Finally, keep up the good work, for there are far too few of us socialists about. This I have discovered in the debates of the Grammar school sixth form which I attend. It is literally me versus the rest.

David Stubbs  

Sharples, Bolton

Reply

Marx considered the view that wage increases cause a general price rise to be an “antiquated and exploded fallacy”, and dealt with the question in his address to the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association in 1865 (available in pamphlet form as Wages, Price and Profit). Very briefly, profits are not settled by tradition, custom or the will of the capitalist; there is no ideal or “normal” price for a commodity. The capitalist sells his product at the maximum price that the market will bear and cannot therefore raise it at will. To accept the contrary would conflict with the labour theory of value — conceived by Marx and accepted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain — and leave us with the absurd notion that prices (of labour power) determine or regulate prices (of other commodities). Inflation, incidentally, is not synonymous with rising prices: we use the word to refer specifically to the issue of paper currency by governments in excess of that needed for the circulation of commodities.

The trade cycle of booms and depressions is not a consequence of workers being unable to afford to buy what they produce, of there being “too little” money. This is merely the superficial appearance. The present recession is confirmation that capitalism is operating as it always has: anarchy in production leading to the withdrawal of investment from industries in which the prospect of profit has diminished. Production for the market with a view to profit cannot by anything but a system of chaos.

Paul Baran is not a writer we would recommend, since he confuses socialism with state capitalism—in Monopoly Capital, written with Paul Sweezy, he describes the Soviet Union as a “backward and undeveloped socialism” (p. 15, Penguin edn.)—and was not noted for his opposition to Stalin’s economic policies in the 1920s and 1930s.

Our opposition to the Labour Party and left-wing groups generally is not based upon a difference of opinion over “tactics”. The Labour Party was formed as a trade union pressure group in parliament and had no socialist pretensions. In 1918 it adopted a new constitution which included the now notorious Clause Four, a commitment to nationalisation or state capitalism. Nationalisation is not of benefit to the working class or a step towards socialism; and by pretending that it is the left wing make the work of socialists that much harder. We advocate the abolition of the wage labour and capital relationship and its replacement with a world society of voluntary cooperation and free access to wealth. Labourites and left wingers do not share this objective.

Finally, don’t be put off by strong opposition to socialist ideas: we have faced it for more than seventy-five years but are just as determined as our founders.

Editors.

"The Thatcher and the Michael Foot . . . " (1983)

From the February 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Click to enlarge.

Letter: SPGB is self-righteous (1981)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I have now been reading the Socialist Standard for a year. If it has not “converted” me to socialism, that is because I had already come, independently, to the views of the SPGB before starting to take the paper. I am wondering, however, whether it would have done so had I been only half way committed, and am reluctantly none too sure that it would. Indeed, I have an unhappy feeling, which has been growing on me during recent months and which I’ve been doing my best to ignore, that it might have done the very opposite.

Please don’t misunderstand me: the logic of all you say is impeccable. Its rightness, to me, remains the ultimate rightness. What I find very hard to live with is the tone of the paper. It comes across (yes, all right, to ME it comes across: the view must be subjective) as both smug in its isolationism and sneering towards those outside.

I say “isolationism” because having worked out one’s own fully socialist philosophy of life I think it becomes all too easy, in effect, to wash one’s hands of all the ongoing problems created by capitalism, which have to be coped with HERE AND NOW, and simply declare, as a blanket statement, that “only socialism is the answer” — which it is! I am not disagreeing. Neither am I advocating that we all start playing campaign politics. But still, the ongoing problems exist, and if you’re out of work, for instance, you want to work NOW, even on “their” terms, you don’t need the Standard sneering at the fact that there you are, wearing out your shoe leather with a million others, begging poor fool for the right to be exploited, while what you OUGHT to be doing is seeing the light and fighting the socialist battle. Likewise, it’s all very well adopting this lofty attitude that anti-nuclear marches aren’t going to stop wars, and almost certainly aren’t going to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, either — they aren’t: agreed. But still I don’t think that’s the way to put the message across to ordinary people who haven’t yet come to socialism and in the meantime are justifiably shit-scared of being blown to smithereens. For one thing, unfortunately, socialism is for tomorrow, whilst unemployment and nuclear weapons are with us today; and while the Right to Work marches and the Anti-Nuclear campaigns may indeed be ultimately futile they nevertheless serve an immediate purpose — yelling at authority, voicing one’s anger - which I suspect, alas, that the unveiling of the true meaning of socialism probably wouldn’t, at least for the majority.

Certainly that ought not to stop the message being put across wherever and however possible. I just don’t feel that the attitude adopted by the Standard is likely to achieve that. There is a note of . . . unctuousness? Self-righteousness? An awful air of “we enlightened few standing on our pinnacle” whilst all the rest of the deluded idiots rush to and fro like demented chickens in the capitalist hen coop. I’m perfectly sure that this is not intended, and maybe you’ll say that your harshest strictures are intended only for those who lead (and ought to be presumed to have thought things out rather better) than for those who follow; but since it’s the masses who follow, and the masses who must be convinced if socialism is to succeed . . . I just don’t think people like to feel they’re being GOT at.

Yours in socialism,

Jean Ure 

Croydon, Surrey

Reply

Discussion about the type of journal the Socialist Party of Great Britain should produce is determined by three principal factors. Firstly, we are a political party publication which exists solely to express the established policy of our membership. What we say is governed by our Declaration of Principles and by democratically agreed party decisions. This makes us unique as a journal: we have no editorial right (or decree) to say things that the membership of the SPGB does not stand for; we have a duty to accurately represent our party’s position on numerous theoretical and practical questions; all those involved in the production of the Standard are subject to democratic criticism or removal from office at any time. This may all sound very restricting but, in fact, it represents the only alternative to the anarchic “individualism” of the Fleet Street press — where the rule of the shareholders constitutes “editorial objectivity” — and the undemocratic control of the party press by the “intellectual vanguard” which prevails in leftist circles. Anyone outside the SPGB who accepts our political principles, but objects to our propaganda methods, should be inside the party using the democratic channels available to push the journal in the direction in which they think it should be going. Secondly, the scope of our publication is limited by both finance and manpower. Ideally two, three or four party journals could be published, each catering for different tastes. But we haven’t got the money (the Standard is run at a loss and we are frequently forced to appeal for funds to keep it going) and we just don’t have the manpower (writers, illustrators, lay-out people, sellers, dispatchers) to make more than one journal viable. Bear in mind that the Standard is entirely produced by voluntary effort. This leads to the third factor: that in producing the Standard we have to balance it so that it will be readable for totally new readers, those who have read it a few times but have not yet joined, and members. To leave out any of these categories of readers would be to ignore a section of our readership. At our last Annual Conference it was democratically decided that the primary aim of the Standard must be to explain our priorities to new readers.

Jean Ure criticises the Standard for what she regards as smugness, self-righteousness and isolationism. Clearly these are seen to be failings. But if for “smug” we substitute “politically confident”, for “self-righteousness” we substitute “a record of being consistently correct” and for “isolationism” we substitute “principled opposition to all anti-working class ideas”, perhaps we would seem less at fault. We are politically confident, though not because we are smugly self-satisfied but because, unlike the defenders of capitalism, we have a political theory capable of showing the working class their potential strength. We do have a record of consistent correctness which is proof of the usefulness of our theory. When we say that we alone have been able to interpret and predict the confused affairs of the capitalist system, we are not intending to be self-righteous, but to invite others to adopt our way of analysing social development. We are hostile to all diversion in the class struggle, including CND and the Right to Work Campaign, and feel that it is our duty to criticise the “campaign politics” of the Left. For, as Jean Ure accepts, these campaigns will not change the nature of the system and participation in them will not alter workers’ political awareness. So, any tones of political pride that occasionally appear in our columns are only the side-effects of having a political position worth bragging about.

The assertion that “socialism is for tomorrow, whilst unemployment and nuclear weapons are with us today sounds like the beginning of a defeatist justification of the “do something now rather than wait for socialism” argument. We in the SPGB do not accept it. We contend that the problems that are with us now are only the consequences of majority consent for capitalism. The idea that the here-and-now problem can be eradicated without removing the here-and-now system is basically false. Only socialism can put an end to unemployment and war and any suggestion that socialism is for the distant future is entirely repudiated by socialists. It is because we want to get rid of them now that we are in the SPGB. But — and this is the big qualification which reformists find unpalatable — we can’t achieve our aims without a social revolution which requires the conscious support of a majority of the working class. Those who can’t wait for the majority to be convinced — or, to be quite accurate, those who won’t help to convince the majority — may well sneer at the principled consistency of the SPGB but they can offer no short-cuts to the working class.

We do not blame workers for not being socialists. If we did, then we would deserve the criticism of Jean Ure. Clearly, the working class is prevented from “seeing the light” (as Ms Ure puts it) partly by all of the manipulative ideological forces of capital — the press, the schools the churches, the political parties. It is our job to counter these powerful forces with the convincing voice of rationality and point out that socialism is the only answer. Jean Ure says that it is “all too easy” to say that; so “easy” that millions of workers have not said it because they do not know it, and unless we continue to say it, loud and clear, they never will know it.

So what is your advice to the SPGB, Jean Ure? Do we stop saying that only socialism is the answer, which you freely admit that it is? Do you advise us to support those who campaign for nuclear disarmament within the profit system when you willingly agree that it will not “stop wars and certainly (isn’t) going to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons”? Do you think that we should encourage people to “yell at authority” in movements which you tell us are “ultimately futile” Do we, in other words, go in for the politics of deceiving our fellow workers that what we know to be a waste of time is energy well spent, for the sake of gaining popularity? Or do we tell them what we must now tell you: that the only place for socialists is a party which stands for socialism and nothing but.

Editors

Blogger's Note:

Jean Ure ended up joining the SPGB, and was a member of the Croydon Branch of the SPGB for a couple of years. In her working life she is an incredibly successful children's author.

Conservation with a deaf eye surgeon (1982)

A Short Story from the May 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s a long time since I’ve hail my eyes tested, the main reason being that I have no confidence in my ability to hold out against the standard opticians' con trick of no new lenses without new frames. In the end, however, I make the discovery that one eye is practically sightless, and being even more terrified of going blind than of being conned, I nerve myself and make an appointment.

The appointment is for 4.45: I’m kept waiting until almost 5.30. (Sublimate my anger by reminding myself that I might be going blind, or even have a brain tumour, and so can’t create a scene.)

The eye tester finally puts in an appearance. He is very old. After perfunctorily apologising for the delay, he informs me that he is not “a mere optician, you know”, but a real, bona-fide, fully-trained eye surgeon. Polite to a fault, 1 murmur that I will not hold it against him. The eye surgeon caps a hand to his car and barks “What?” I say that I am very pleased to hear it.

The actual eye testing is over in about five seconds flat. (I wonder how much they get paid for it. but remind myself that at least I don't appear to be going blind or have a brain tumour.) Before taking me out to meet the mere optician and be conned into buying new frames for my new lenses, the eye surgeon leans forward to peer at the party badge which I wear on my lapel. “What’s that?” he barks. “Socialist Workers’ Party?” (He is obviously short-sighted as well as deaf.) I correct him, in a loud bawl: “Socialist Party of Great Britain.” He peers closer to get at the small print. “World for the Workers, eh? So who are the workers?”

"You”. I shout, “and me”.

The eye surgeon doesn’t like this; he does not wish to be lumped with the rest of us as a mere worker. He informs me that he is a member of one of the higher professions. Still polite, I inquire of him (in the obligatory shout) whether he does not have to sell his labour power in order to survive? He catches but the one word: labour. Ten minutes later, when he has finished, I yell at him again. “Do you possess a private income that you can live on?” This question infuriates him even more. No. he does not possess a private income. He has had to work for his living. Why, there were times at the start of this career when he was working up to eighty hours a week.

I ask him, in that case, why he does not consider himself to be a worker? The answer, apparently, is that he is “an intellectual”. He tells me that I am talking to a “very intellectual type”. When he was in the army he was given a special test which proved that the higher echelons of the medical profession were amongst the world's intellectual elite. I refuse to be sidetracked. I ask him what point he is trying to make. For a moment, such is his intellectual power, he is at a loss; but after a few seconds comes back gamely with the contention that what he calls “the brains” of society must always be rewarded at a higher rate than what he calls “the rest”. I remind him that what we were discussing was whether or not he was a worker.

Mysteriously, at this juncture, he starts talking about Russia.

I give up on the class question. We talk about Russia, instead. Having disposed of the myth that Russia is in any way a “socialist country”, I go on to explain what socialism is all about. I yell at him about how common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution will mean the end of class exploitation. I bawl at him about how every human being will have free access to the social wealth. He suddenly cottons on: we are talking about a society without money. This is plainly an absurdity! “My dear young lady . . . how can you have a world without money?" We haven’t even got enough top medical men now (His words: his claim) so how on earth do I suppose we should have them in a society where they were not only not going to be paid more than other people, but weren’t even going to be paid at all?

I ask him whether, in such a society, he himself would still choose to be an eye surgeon? Or had he only become an eye surgeon for the money? Indignantly, he repudiates the suggestion: there are such things, my dear young lady, as ethics. So what makes him imagine, I shout, that in socialism we wouldn't have enough doctors? The answer comes back pat: it’s nothing to do with money, after all, it’s the simple lack of brain power. There isn’t enough brain power in the world to supply us with all the doctors we need. Doctors, he repeats, are “highly intellectual types”.

I resist the temptation to argue the point (he'll only start telling me again about the special test that “proved” it). Instead, I inform him that there is in the world a great deal of human potential which under a capitalist system is never allowed to be fulfilled; and that, moreover, in socialism a vast range of so-called “intellectual" activities necessary for the running of capitalism would be rendered obsolete, thus releasing large numbers of men and women to undertake far more socially beneficial tasks than they do at present.

To this-stumped, presumably, for any rational follow-up-the eye surgeon triumphantly informs me that 1 have not taken human nature into account. I ask him, in a bellow, what he conceives human nature to be. It seems that he conceives it as being something rather nasty. He does not personally feel the urge to rape and kill and cheat and pillage, but apparently most of the rest of us do. I start bawling into his ear about how most of us, under capitalism, live in conditions of chronic insecurity and stress, but before I can get very far he produces his trump card: what about natural wickedness? I have forgotten natural wickedness!

We have a long shout into each other’s faces about whether natural wickedness exists or whether it does not, during the course of which he suddenly makes the astonishing discovery that I must be an atheist. I accept the charge, and off we go again, on a different tack. He is very sorry for me that 1 do not share his belief in god; I am very sorry for him that he is so self-deluding. I tell him that his belief in god is nothing but ignorance and superstition and that he is like a child believing in fairies; whereupon he informs me that many medical men, “amongst the highest intellects in the land”, share his belief: at which I lost all credibility by resorting to the language of the gutter and snarling that there has never been any divine law which states that medical men shall not be capable of making arrant ********* of themselves. The eye surgeon, fortunately, does not hear this. He is too busy losing all credibility himself by relating a long, rambling tale of how, during a time of personal tragedy, he only survived by reason of his faith; thus proving irrefutably that his faith is based on scientific truth and god exists.

At this point, I collapse beneath the weight of accumulated illogicalities. Neither my throat nor my temper is up to continuing the struggle. These self- confessed intellectuals can wear a person out.

I pick up my prescription and say stupidly that we’ll resume the discussion in the afterlife. The eye surgeon pats me on the head and tells me that “in spite of everything" he is glad to have met me. I tell him that I am glad to have met him, too.

I tell his assistant, the mere optician, that I want my new lenses put into my old frames. I just wish I’d told the eye surgeon himself . . . 

Jean Ure 

Objections Overruled (1982)

From the March 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the most frequent objections to socialism is "That's all very well in theory, but you can't change human nature".

What exactly is meant by this? That human beings naturally do not want to share, co-operate, to be happy themselves and contribute to the happiness of others? That they must by their very nature snatch and grab, kick each other in the teeth, hate and maim and kill? If human nature is indeed like this, then it has to be said that there is an extraordinary number of freaks about—freaks who by some strange altruistic perversion actually stop at the scene of accidents to offer their help, rally around their neighbours in times of trouble, assist old ladies across roads, take lost children to the police station. It is the way society is based and organised which causes the distortions labelled as "human nature" by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and declaring socialism to be unworkable; or by those brainwashed to believe that the present system is the only system.

Under capitalism, one hundredth of the population own over eighty per cent of shares, while for the remainder it's a case of he who kicks hardest and fights the dirtiest wins most of whatever little is left. The wonder of it is not that perversions of human behaviour exist but that they are not a great deal more widespread. It is surprising, under such a system,  that people still do react pleasantly, decently and caringly towards their fellow human beings. Most men will not rape every woman they see on the streets after midnight, most blacks will not mug old ladies, most gangs of unemployed youths will not smash windows and bash in your head with a brick.

Human beings are not inherently vicious and violent. They become so only under certain conditions-stress, for example. The stress of chronic insecurity and appalling living conditions, of lack of opportunity and self-fulfillment. Where the world's wealth is owned by the few and denied to the many, then an attitude of grab-what-you-can and devil-take-the-hindmost is inculcated. Pleasure, for most people, comes essentially from sharing, be it sharing a good meal, or watching a good football match, or listening to a good concert. Human beings are naturally gregarious, and gregariousness does not square with the sort of antisocial behaviour represented as "human nature".

It now appears quite "natural" for the capitalists to tolerate the spectacle of workers suffering hideous industrial diseases, from pnemonoconiosis to cancer, in order that they might continue to rake in their profits. What could be more hideously inhuman than the manufacture of nuclear weapons? Such weapons would be indefensible even if they protected "us" against "them" (currently the Russians, whose "human nature" is apparently so debased that they are only awaiting their opportunity to massacre us).

In fact, it is not "the Russians" but the Russian ruling class, and it is not to protect "us" but to protect the interests of one ruling class against the depredations of another. Three thousand "top people" are to be rushed out of London to hide themselves in deep shelters "somewhere in Oxfordshire" as soon as a nuclear war threatens. These "top people" are the very ones who have howled loudest for the continuation of nuclear, and indeed of all other kinds, of armaments. They are to be preserved: we, the working class, are the one who are to be sacrificed.

Maybe among the select few who currently organise our lives for us "human nature" has indeed become permanently distorted. No one who heard the recent BBC interview with Master Jacob Rees-Mogg, the precocious schoolboy son of the former editor of The Times, can be in much doubt that the capitalist class are making a pretty thorough job of perverting the "nature" of their progeny. This is a child who, at the tender age of twelve is already dabbling in the Stock Market, has "rather good stockbrokers" and a helpful assistant bank manager, whose main professed interest is in the making of profit (which profit he prudently invests in antique silver) and whose first question on being invited to do a radio interview was "How much will I get paid for it?"

For us, the working class, who do not have the opportunity to share the Rees-Mogg's fascination with exploiting the labour of his fellow human beings, socialism will suit our natures very well. When there is a sufficiency for all, and all have equal access to it, we shall be quite content to take what we need, just as we shall contribute what we can according to our individual and social abilities. Being human beings, and possessing human natures, we shall doubtless still quarrel and still lose our tempers; but this will not be inflamed by the chronic insecurities, the constant fear of loss of livelihood, of degradation and poverty, which are endemic under the capitalist system. Socialism will have no "masters", backed by their accumulations of wealth, to incite us into rising against our fellow workers, to destroy each other with the nuclear bombs and missiles which we have made on their behalf to do their battles for them.

Under capitalism, while there exists the potential for a sufficiency—indeed, for an abundance—the system will not allow the potential ever to be fulfilled. Indeed, if there is the least danger of such a thing happening, then steps are very quickly taken to put a stop to it: sooner burn good food than let the starving get their hands on it. In socialism, where production will be for need rather than for profit, there will be no "market forces" operating to justify such obscenities. There will no longer be some of us condemned to go hungry while others glut, nor some who must remain homeless while others occupy palaces. Socialism, in short, is concerned solely to change the nature of our social organisation, not the "nature"of the human beings who make up that organisation.

Jean Ure