Obituary: Janet Carter (2026)

Obituary from the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to have to report that our comrade Janet Carter died at the beginning of May at the age of 89. During the Second World War she was evacuated from the East End of London to Cornwall. Janet first came across the Socialist Party when she bought a Socialist Standard at an anti-Vietnam war demonstration in Trafalgar Square in 1967. The following year she joined the Haringey branch, having previously briefly been a member of the Communist Party. Later she was a member of the Redbridge, North London and latterly our Online Central Branch.

Nationally, Janet took on various responsibilities, serving at times as General Secretary, Executive Committee member, and Central Branch Secretary. During the Miners’ Strike of 1984-5 she had two children of miners stay with the family. She had started work as a shorthand typist, and later, after doing a part-time degree course, worked as a qualified librarian. She worked at Walthamstow Central Library where for a while she was a union rep too. She was predeceased by her husband Joe who had also been a Party member. She was a calm, considered voice in the Party who widely commanded the respect of members. Our condolences go to her daughter and son and other members of her family.

Blogger's Note:

From an earlier post on the blog.

"In 2019, Janet [Carter] kindly agreed to be interviewed for an article in that year's Summer School publication, which had the theme of 'being a socialist in a capitalist world'. Carla Dee put together some questions and wrote up Janet's replies about her life as a socialist and the people she met. Here's the text of the interview".

Janet Carter

I just discovered via Spintcom, the SPGB discussion list, the incredibly sad news that Janet Carter has passed away. 

Janet originally joined the Socialist Party in the 1960s, and was an active party member during all her years of membership. I originally met Janet in the late 1980s when she was the secretary of Central Branch and, as a young Central Branch member, I remember her kindness and encouragement. She later served as the General Secretary of the Party for a number of years and, to the very end, Janet was an regular participant in the Socialist Party Friday night zoom meetings. She was predeceased by her husband, Joe Carter, eight years ago, who was also a very active member of the SPGB.

I am sure an obituary for Janet will appear in a future Socialist Standard, but I just wanted to mark her passing on the blog. Socialists like Janet are the backbone of the SPGB, and she will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

On the thread on Spintcom, Mike Foster posted the text of an interview that Janet gave as part of the programme for the Socialist Party's 2019 Summer School. I think it's worthwhile reposting the text of that interview here:

Mike Foster wrote:

"In 2019, Janet kindly agreed to be interviewed for an article in that year's Summer School publication, which had the theme of 'being a socialist in a capitalist world'. Carla Dee put together some questions and wrote up Janet's replies about her life as a socialist and the people she met. Here's the text of the interview":

Carla: How did you first come across the Socialist Party?

Janet: I went up to Trafalgar Square during the Vietnam demonstrations in 1968 and I was wandering around collecting various leaflets from people and came across this older man looking rather dishevelled, standing in front of me holding a bundle of Socialist Standards; Jim Doherty, I think it was. There was one copy that took my eye with a cover slogan of ‘Who Needs Leaders?’ and that rang a bell with me so I bought it.

I had been investigating left wing politics and was starting to get political, but under my own instigation, for which I pride myself because there was no-one in my family or no-one that I knew who was political - no conversations at home or anything like that. I was going to the library and reading various left wing articles on Marxism and it all seemed to make sense, but there was no-one really to talk to, so I suppose I must have been a thinker. I’d already discarded religion in my teens.  

The Aberfan disaster in 1966 really affected me, and I saw how nothing had been done to avert a disaster in the name of profit and that propelled me towards the party too.

When did you join the SPGB and which branch?

I joined the party in 1969ish at the old Wood Green branch, which held meetings at a kind of evening class place in a community hall, I think. I remember the application interview as if it was yesterday. There was Jack Bradley, a leading member of that branch at the time; I was very fond of Jack though I didn’t know him very well then. John Lee, Ken Leggett and another chap whose name I can’t remember were there too. I can tell you I got a bit sweaty under the collar because it felt like a bit of an inquisition.

Were there any women in the branch?

No there wasn’t. It seemed like I was always the only woman in the branch.

How did your family react when you joined the party?

They would say “oh she’s getting on her soap box again”. I was getting the Standard delivered, reading it and giving it to everyone I knew, but there was no sympathy or interest, which I found frustrating but I was never a chatterer so I tended not to bring up the subject of socialism. I regret that, and I wish I had been more forthright, more combative.

How were you affected by the party case?

Absolutely delighted when the penny dropped! At last I thought I was sane and it was others that were mad, whereas it was the other way around before. I felt enlightened, if I hadn’t found the party I think I would have gone on thinking that I was a little bit mad. 

I was attending meetings and studying on my own. Well, I had the time as I didn’t have any children in my twenties, and I can’t imagine being able to be so active if I had children to attend to and clinics to go to.

When did you meet husband and fellow socialist Joe Carter?

I met Joe at Wood Green branch; he had been a member for about three years. He was very active and I had been to a couple of outdoor meetings where Joe was speaking and was quite impressed by him. We also shared a great enjoyment in long distance walking and wish we had done more of it.

You said there were no women in your branch but there were quite a few women in the party 

Yes. Though I can’t recall any women outdoor speakers there were some very impressive women like Eva Goodman and Florrie Evans - who was general secretary during the war - and Phyllis Lawrence and a woman called Helen whose surname I can’t remember. She was married to a bus driver; they were quite an impressive couple.

Funnily enough when we attended general meetings you would see a lot of the women knitting. I think it must have been a throwback from the days when women couldn’t be seen doing nothing. It was also considered to be saving money by making your own woollens. It was very fashionable, and I even started knitting myself.

Looking at the world now through ‘socialist eyes’ what are your thoughts?

I’m exasperated, sad and disappointed.  When I first joined the branch, Joe and I used to get the bus from Muswell Hill where we lived down the hill to Wood Green, and I would look around the bus with such optimism and think that very soon all the people on the bus would be socialists. Society is in such a mess and so many horrendous things are happening that it’s no wonder people are suffering from depression and anxiety. I don’t believe in hell of course but it seems that society is going to hell in a handcart.

Why do you think socialist ideas don’t seem to have been more popular?

The party has worked so hard. We must have tried everything to get our ideas across. But the party case is not easy, contrary to what some members say, especially the economics side: the explanation of surplus value for instance and the idea that the working class do not pay taxes. People have got distracted by single issues, charities and identity politics and blaming individuals for the mess. I don’t blame people for being exasperated with politicians.

But I have no regrets and cannot ever imagine not being a socialist - it’s who you are, isn’t it?

SPGB Meetings (1975)

Party News from the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the October 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1973)

Party News from the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1990)

Party News from the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Arms Industry: From Bazil Zaharoff to Ray Brown (1966)

From the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The affairs of arms manufacturers and their agents have for many years been a fertile field of investigation for social reformers who look for the cause of human suffering and social chaos in the activities of evil men. The recent appointment of Ray Brown to the new government post of Head of Defence Sales, for example, let off a storm of protests by government back-benchers. An old bogey was raised in a question by Labour M.P. John Rankin: —

Is my Right Honourable Friend aware that the appointment of Mr. Brown seems to be similar to a former appointment, that of Sir Bazil Zaharoff, who earned a reputation in this country and in the Labour movement for his nefarious practices which were widely condemned by every member of the Labour movement?

A brief study of the development of the arms industry over the last hundred years will show the points of similarity.

The second half of the 19th century was a period of rapid technical advance in armaments. The industrial revolution produced the coal, iron and steel, chemical and mechanical engineering industries which were to make this possible. The Industrial Revolution was itself part of the development of a society where antagonisms made arms production a necessity.

For about 300 years naval warfare had changed little. It was fought in wooden sailing ships carrying bronze cannons with the winds and human energy as their only sources of power. Between the Crimean War and the end of the century great changes took place. Steam powered, armour-plated ships built with rifled steel guns capable of hurling shells of three-quarters of a ton many miles with great accuracy. Armoured plate became thicker and tougher as the guns became more powerful. At the end of the century the torpedo shattered the supremacy of the battleship. On land similar advances were made by artillery. In small arms the machine gun, developing from hand operated models to the Maxim automatic, gave the infantry far greater firepower. The railways also made it possible to deploy men and war materials rapidly.

The great technical development of the advanced countries and the consequent rapid increase in production provided not only the wealth, but also the source of frictions which were to make increased arms expenditure necessary. One result was the intensified rivalry in the search for markets for the increasing volume of commodities. There were many chances for the weapons to be proved in battle; the American Civil War, Franco-Prussian War, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War and so on until the First World War.

The great arms manufacturers were drawn into the industry by the prospects of greater profits. The steel and heavy engineering industries were in the second half of the 19th century plagued by fluctuations in the demand for their goods. Expansion during boom time and prospects of bankruptcy during slumps made it urgent that their activities be diversified. The British government, in order to have the latest technical developments incorporated in the weapons of its armed forces, placed orders for components such as gun barrels with the Sheffield steel makers and later for the complete guns. It was in this way that pickers came into the industry. Their activities grew as they took over a shipyard at Barrow and the Maxim Machine Gun Company. By 1914, Vickers had grown to an international combine, whose products ranged from complete battleships to machine guns. Armstrongs, a general engineering firm in north-east England, also became a giant of the arms industry. Krupp in Germany and Schneider in France were their main rivals.

Like any other commodity, armaments were—and are—made to be sold profitably. Governments were usually the customers and the industry's sales methods were tailored to suit the markets. The major manufacturers had well staffed branch offices in the capital cities that offered the best prospects of sales. These offices were private diplomatic missions in close contact with the government; some were reputed to have greater knowledge of local politics than the official embassies. Where local conditions demanded it, bribery and corruption were used.

Zaharoff, whose early life was spent in the Balkans, started his career in the arms industry as the Balkans agent for the Anglo-Swedish firm of Nordenfeld. Among their products was the first commercial submarine. His first success was the sale of one of these to the Greek Navy in 1877 followed by an order for two from the Turkish Navy. This was the start of Zaharoff’s reputation for playing one nation against the other; for exploiting a rivalry which already existed. Zaharoff was well equipped for his job; he was fluent in several languages, a great charmer, had a wide knowledge of the world and politics, all of which he applied with great success to his job. He quickly became Nordenfeld's agent for the whole of Europe.

In this new capacity Zaharoff was up against Maxim’s, whose machine gun was far superior to Nordcnfeld's. Zaharoff tried every dirty trick in the trade to win orders for his firm but they were of no avail against the superior product. The result of the clash was the merger of the two firms with Zaharoff looking after the sales and Maxim's the technical details. Later in the 1890’s, Vickers took them over and it was with Vickers that Zaharoff reached the height of his career. His activities look him all over the world, negotiating orders wherever the demand occured.

Vickers at this lime obtained large shares in a number of overseas arms companies including some in Spain. Italy and Japan, as well as contracts to manage the government dockyards of Russia and Turkey. Other international activities included membership of a syndicate of British, French, German and American firms to divide territories and profits and to pool patents for armoured plate; licensing a German firm, Deutsche Wallen, to manufacture and sell machine guns with shared profits in certain markets; an agreement whereby Vickers made and sold Krupps time and percussion fuses. There were also gentlemen’s agreements with Armstrong to avoid clashing in foreign markets.

It is probable that Zaharoff had a hand in negotiating many of these agreements, which were, after all, normal business arrangements. He was also credited with controlling sections of the foreign press and of getting into the confidence of the world’s leading politicians. His tactics included philanthropy; grants to set up aviation studies at one university, financing literary prizes and establishing homes for disabled sailors. It was rumoured that he was one of the richest men in the world and had control of the world's armament industry. When he died in 1936, he left only £1 million which is far from making him one of the richest men but very good for a salesman.

The First World War caused the expansion of the arms industry so that a large part of world industry was geared to supplying the combatants. The war provided the incentive to develop Switzerland’s aluminium and hydro-electricity generating industries: Japanese industry prospered greatly and expanded. The opposing forces faced each other with international armaments. 'The world's navies were clad with Krupp’s patented armour plate. The armies used machine guns operating on principles developed by Maxim. The torpedoes were Whitehead’s design.

Once the war was over the accounts had to be settled. Krupp’s and Vickers were in dispute over royalties on fuses and Vickers and Deutsche Wallen were in dispute over royalties on machine guns. Business, in other words, as usual.

The ending of the war produced the very situation—the slump—which the arms makers had tried to safeguard by joining the industry. Their activities had expanded continuously for many years during the pre-war arms race and during the war had expanded much more again. In Britain, there was a boom in engineering and ship-building for two or three years after 1918, then the slump came with production and prices dropping drastically. Both Vickers and Armstrong had tried to diversify their activities into a wide variety of products from locomotives to sewing machines, but to no avail. By 1925 they were both in great difficulties and outside experts were called in to advise. The two firms were merged and Vickers-Armstrong struggled on for many years before another arms race restored their profits.

In the slump, these two mighty firms were powerless. Their best salesmen could not revive the market. Their close contacts with the great politicians and military leaders of the world could not help them. In fact, capitalism mastered them and not the other way round.

Various efforts were made by the League of Nations to regulate the arms industry but with little success. Many hooks were published during this period exposing the arms industry. They were useful in showing the workings of the industry but their solutions limited to such useless measures as nationalisation and international commissions to control sales. Disarmament conferences were piecemeal affairs, trying to limit the number of battleships and cruisers, weapons which were on the way out.

The arms race before World War Two was concerned with aircraft, tanks, armoured cars and submarines. The industry became more subject to government control. Instead of setting the pace with design and innovations, it became more and more dependent on working to government specifications.

The Second World War saw the introduction of some of the war material with which we are familiar today—electronics in radar and rocket guidance, rockets and the atom-bomb.

The atom-bomb could only be developed by governments; it required far greater resources than any private firm could muster. The IJSA was the first to produce it, over a million men being involved in this project. In spite of the greatest secrecy about its production, there are now five countries openly making this weapon. The main rivalry since the Second World War has been between the USA and Russia. There has been a continuous high level of spending on arms, including a race in the production of nuclear weapons and the aircrafts and rockets to deliver them. This rivalry is now carried on into space.

The expense of this development can only be borne by the giant nations such as the USA and Russia. The former great nations are now left well behind.

Since the war the international arms trade has continued. The Nato and Warsaw Pact alliances provide large markets, as do the new independent countries many of which spend over 30 per cent of their budgets on so called defence. For all the government control, the internationalisation of the industry is still there. The British Hawker Hunter and Canberra aircraft and the American F104 have been built in many countries. The Russian MIG fighter is built not only in Warsaw pact countries but also in India.

The arms trade has continued to flourish but the British capitalists’ share of it has declined steadily. Russia and America now oiler a far more attractive range of goods and are also better organised to take advantage of the market. Russia’s triumphs include breaking into the Egyptian, Cuban. Indonesian and Indian markets. Private enterprise USA is also showing the way by having a government sales organisation with Henry J. Kuss in charge under the title of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Logistics Negotiations. Kuss is a career Civil Servant and The Observer (15.5.66) reported, “Last year he was given a medal by McNamara for selling 9,000 million dollars worth of arms since his appointment in I960.” He also forecasts a booming market. “Mr. Kuss was recently quoted as saying that over the next ten years about 100,000 million dollars would be spent in the free world outside the United States on military hardware." (Financial Times, 22.12.65).

This brings us back to Mr. Ray Brown and his job of expanding Britain’s arms sales. Despite such promising markets, only £125 millions of British arms are being exported each year. The Labour Government are hoping that an increase in exports will help to solve their balance of payments problem. At present, Mr. Brown must he a little confused with his job. as there are certain promising markets out of bounds: South Africa and Spain, for instance. The conditions for sale to America must be hard to swallow: no doubt the Labour conscience would he calmed if the arms were only used for peaceful purposes like strike breaking or quelling riots.

And this brings us back to the agony of the Left. Mr. Rankin sees a similarity between the roles of Zaharoff and Brown. Of course there is: the only difference being that Zaharoff worked for Vickers and not (as Mr. Rankin thought) for the Government. The conditions of 1966 may require different selling techniques to 1906 and, as men, Zaharoff and Brown may be as different as chalk and cheese but the essential features are the sun. Weapons of war are made to be used and their effects will be the same whether gentlemen or rogues sell them or whether it be governments or private firms that employ the salesmen.

Joe Carter

Britain and the Common Market (1967)

From the July 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

After a lapse of four years Britain has again applied to join the Common Market. Last time it was a Conservative government. This time it is Labour, showing that capitalism imposes similar programmes on its political parties in power. The line-up for and against Britain’s entry draws support from both parties as it did in 1962. In fact Labour rebels have taken a stronger stand on this issue than on any of the other controversial measures of the present government.

On May 2 Harold Wilson declared in a House of Commons statement:

“This is an historic decision which could determine the future of Britain, Europe and the World for decades to come.”

Leading Labour opponent of Britain’s entry, Emmanuel Shinwell, said in the same debate:

“In view of the unqualified approval by three members of the opposition benches, can I assure the Prime Minister that with all the force of which I am capable even by myself, I will give him the most relentless and ruthless opposition.”

In view of the claims of both sides it is worth examining the question in relation to working class interests.

At the end of the nineteenth century world trade and industry was dominated by the states of Western Europe with large empires under their control. The world wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45, which were the outcome of the struggles between these powers for supremacy, resulted in their decline and in the emergence of America and Russia as the leading industrial and military powers. A struggle developed between them with Eastern Europe dominated by Russia and Western Europe by America. They stationed their armed forces in these areas and geared the economies of these territories to their own.

In Western Europe America consolidated its military power through NATO. The economy was revitalised by American government funds through the Marshall Plan with the condition that the countries of Europe must band together and agree on a joint recovery programme. Thus America, in meeting the challenge of Russian state capitalism, was forced to finance the revival of industrial competitors.

Expansion in world trade soon allowed production to exceed pre-war levels and one country after another had its “economic miracle”. European capitalists had a large pool of unemployed displaced workers at their command along with the latest plant and equipment. Britain, on the other hand, survived with much of its industry intact and its order books were filled for years ahead to supply the backlog of demand from its traditional markets. Its workers were in a relatively strong position as a result and were able to enforce demands for pay increases and to maintain working practices which became more and more of a hindrance to efficient production as manufacturing techniques developed.

In spite of early enthusiastic pronouncements by Churchill and Attlee on European unity no practical initiative to this end was taken by Britain. The first move to set up what is now known as the Common Market was the establishment in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) by Belgium, France, Holland, West Germany, Italy and Luxembourg. Its aim was to regulate the production and marketing of coal, iron and steel in this area. The ECSC was soon faced with problems in Belgium, with its uncompetitive coal industry. Mines were closed and thousands of miners laid off. Mineowners received compensation from the ECSC; miners got compensation from the dole and industrial retraining for other work. The employer-employee relationship remained as before.

The difficulties facing the ECSC have continued. With increasing iron and steel production and with mergers and streamlining to meet world competition, profit margins have dropped. The coal industry has its troubles with mine closures recently in the Ruhr. In Britain the coal and steel industries face similar problems and membership of the ECSC would only give them access to a market which is already oversupplied—and this would affect the present ECSC members. Whichever of the partners gains from entry the position of the workers, the insecurity of living on a wage or salary, will remain.

In 1957 the Rome Treaty setting up the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) was signed by the same six states. The EEC, or Common Market, aimed at

“… the creation of a customs union with a common external tariff and by the abolition of internal tariff duties and quotas, the establishment of a common agricultural policy, the free movement of persons, services and capital; and a harmonised transport system” (Westminster Bank, The Common Market and the United Kingdom).

British capitalism, with the bulk of its trade located in the Commonwealth and Sterling Area, took little interest in the Common Market. The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was set up by Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal in 1960. Its main aim was the progressive reduction of customs duties on industrial goods. There was no provision for common external tariffs nor a commitment to political unification, which made the idea more acceptable to the British government. By 1961 trading conditions were changing in the Commonwealth and Sterling Area, making it harder for British goods to be sold there. Countries such as America and Japan were taking a growing part of their trade. The Common Market, with the prospect of a home market of 250 million people including Britain and some of its EFTA partners, became an attractive proposition. The first application came at a time when EEC itself was making heavy weather of formulating a common agricultural policy. Britain’s conditions, on agriculture, Commonwealth trade and concern for EFTA, proved too much and negotiations broke down in January 1963.

Since then there has been a change of government and Labour soon found themselves as impotent as the Conservatives to deal with the economic ills of British capitalism. Meanwhile the trends in world trade which had made application desirable earlier continued. Britain’s share of Commonwealth trade continued to decline. Trade with Europe, on the other hand, increased. With EFTA, where customs tariffs were lowered, it increased 70 per cent since 1960. In the EEC where external tariffs were going up it increased by 100 per cent for the same period (Financial Times, 2 March 1967). Hence the new application.

The Common Market has come about as a result of the pressures of world capitalism. It is an effort to give Western Europe the political and economic structure to compete commercially and militarily with America and Russia. Britain’s desire to join is not motivated by some newly discovered principles of internationalism by Wilson and his government. Rather it appears to offer the best hopes of a solution to some of the problems of British capitalism. The Confederation of British Industry has made it quite clear that it favours entry: As reported by The Times they said:

“This is the move that industry has been waiting for and the CBI have been urging the government to make. The CBI’s recent report, based on a year’s analysis, concluded that on balance entry would be to the benefit of British industry” (3 May 1967).

The interests of the working class are not served by debating the merits of being in or out of the Common Market. The Common Market amounts to the re-arrangement of tariff barriers amongst member states. The alternatives posed by opponents of Britain’s entry vary from keeping present arrangements to forming a North Atlantic Free Trade Area and to greater trade with East Europe. All of these proposals leave capitalism intact. Production for sale and profit would continue; the working class would still exist; and the social problems of the system would still be there.

Joe Carter

Colonel Lancaster (1978)

From the July 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outdoor speakers of the Socialist Party are frequently requested to name capitalists and are deemed to have failed to prove their case on declining to do so. The validity of our case does not depend on the ability to compile a directory of the parasites of this society however. Capitalists are the products of social conditions where the means of living are privately owned and production is for profit; they are not the makers of these conditions. So it is essential to understand how capitalism works. Socialists only quote names to illustrate this.

A good example is provided for us by the item in the Daily Telegraph of 5 June titled “Tory MP leaves £2.8m fortune”. The point of interest for us, was not in the fact that a Tory MP died rich, there is nothing unusual about that. It was in the first paragraph which stated “Reinvestment of Government compensation from his substantial interest in coal mines in Nottinghamshire, as a result of nationalisation in 1947, has helped to provide the largest probate value so far this year — £3,145,452 gross, £2,807,920 net — for the estate of Col. Claude Lancaster, a Conservative MP for more than 30 years”. To put it crudely, the Colonel, a former mine owner, was the victim of Labour’s nationalisation policies and came out of the ordeal with his wealth intact.

The mining industry between the wars faced shrinking markets. The measures to combat this included wage cuts, deterioration in working conditions, and pit closures and the resulting resistance of the miners to these cuts put the industry at the centre of political controversy in those days. The Labour Party, with the support of the miners, claimed the fault lay with private ownership of the mines and the owners’ greed for profit. Nationalisation was to be the remedy by eliminating the owners. It was understood that the chaos of competition would be replaced by a sane and humane planning of production. The Socialist Party at the time argued that nationalisation was not the answer, as the result would be state capitalism with no important changes in the lot of the workers.

The nationalisation that the Labour Party and many mine workers wanted so badly has been implemented for over thirty years now. Mining has changed much over that period of time, yet the essentials remain the same. The profit motive determines the decisions of executives of the National Coal Board every bit as much as it did that of the managers of the old companies. Closures have continued and the industry has shrunk much since 1947. Mechanisation, which could have been a boon in lightening the toil of the miners, when allied to the profit motive brought stress and danger instead. Nationalisation did for a time bring a change that Colonel Lancaster and the former owners would have appreciated, the miners believed in nationalisation and went along with the streamlining of the industry they had resisted before.

Thirty years after the event that was claimed to be such a momentous change, workers still produce wealth for the benefit of the owning minority and the announcement of Colonel Lancaster’s will is a timely reminder of this.

Joe Carter

BP’s profits and the pipeline (1971)

From the June 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a full page spread of the Financial Times of 6 April, the British Petroleum Company (BP), gave a summary of the chairman’s statement and accounts for 1970. Among the snippets in large print were these: “Total sales continue to rise but margins eroded” and “considering the problems we had to face, I think we did well in 1970.” The report gave details of the erosions and problems faced by BP, and in so doing of those of the world of capitalism in general. Gross income (sales) had risen from £2,124m. in 1968 up to £2,659m. in 1970, while net income (profits) fallen from £101m. in to £91m. in the same period. The chairman summed up the position neatly:

  The whole of the year has been a struggle to recover additional costs in our selling prices. In the earlier part of 1970 we had rising freight costs; now we have rising taxes and royalties in producing countries stemming from an increase in government take which the oil industry had to concede in the autumn of 1970 to producers in the Gulf and Mediterranean.

It is worth noting that the cost increases ate into profits. Price rises cannot automatically be made to compensate. Oil companies have to compete for markets and dare not let their products become uncompetitive. For once rising costs are not blamed on workers’ wages but on the sections of the capitalist class. “Larger quantities of oil had to be lifted from the Middle East in tankers chartered on a short term basis at greatly increased rates.” When it came to royalties and taxes, those paid to the Middle East, Libya and Nigeria, rose from £210m. in 1966 to £465m. in 1970. This was not all, when taxes in the consumer countries are taken into account £l,359m. was taken from BP. How their shareholders including the British government must fume, knowing that so large a part of their profits are ending up in other hands. However in spite of these “eroded margins” the company raised its capital expenditure to £322m. from £244m. last year. After all, even if their cut comes only to £90m. it is not to be sneezed at.

This all adds up to big business, very big business indeed. In the field of discovering and extracting oil BP lead the industry, to the extent that major rivals get some of their crude oil supplies from them. In the early years of this century they gained concessions to the oil fields of Persia, which are to this day a major producing area. Their discoveries of oil in Alaska recently, may prove equally important. In spite of its name BP is an international company,

 Over 90 percent of the groups trade . . . was carried on overseas and the majority of the crude oil and products was neither imported nor exported from the U.K.

Alaskan oil will, or so BP hope, gain them access to, and a large share of the American market. To this end they have been acquiring facilities such as refineries and distributive outlets. In the process they have had to overcome objections raised by government trust-busters. Now they are faced with more problems, those of transporting their product from the frozen wastes to the markets. Not only must heed be taken of technical factors, but also of costs and the aforementioned 'eroded margins’. Their proposal to build an 800 mile-long, heated pipeline, over frozen tundra to the port of Valdez has met with objections from conservationists. According to the statement ". . . the Valdez line can be built whilst fully meeting the legitimate anxieties of the conservationists”. These include the fact that the line would run over an area subject to earthquakes. From Valdez the oil would be carried by tankers. This has given rise to fears that the West coast of North America would face the consequences of polluted waters and shores as a result of having become a very busy tanker route.

The rush to get the pipeline built, and oil to the customers and a profit realised on the investments, militates against a sane and rational decision being made. Time would be needed to make thorough investigations of conditions and alternative proposals. More than this, sane terms of reference would exclude cost accountancy and commercial rivalry. How can the best decision from an environmental standpoint be taken when such objectivity is impossible under capitalist conditions?

All the arguments, whether or not they are expressed in terms of environmental considerations, must under capitalist conditions produce an answer in terms of profit margins. And we cannot help but suspect that some of the environmentalists’ genuine concern must be to the liking of some of BP’s rivals. After all if it helps to keep a rival commercially handicapped, then the preservation of the flora and fauna of Alaska is worthwhile.

Joe Carter

London Borough Elections (1971)

Party News from the June 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enfield (Palmers Green ward): Groves (C) 1,617; Collingridge (C) 1,599; Ellis (Lab) 512; Herbert (Lab) 499; Falkus (L) 313; Shaw (L) 293; Porter (Soc) 50; Hamme (Soc) 45.

Haringey (Turnpike ward): O’Sullivan (Lab) 1,282; Flower (Lab) 1,279; Easton (C) 753; Shrank (C) 720; Carter (Soc) 25; Buick (Soc) 17.

Socialists to stand in London Borough Elections (1971)

Party News from the May 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Haringey Branch is putting up four candidates in these elections to be held on Thursday, May 13:

Enfield Council (Palmers Green ward): H. Hamme, D. Porter.

Haringey Council (Turnpike ward): A. Buick, J. Carter.

The names of our candidates are now virtually insignificant since what matters is our Socialist programme and our description "the Socialist Party of Great Britain" will appear on the ballot paper.

If you wish to help in any way (distributing leaflets, selling the Socialist Standard, contributing to the costs) please contact the Election Agent: A. Buick, 13 Milton Avenue. London N6 5QF. Tel: 387 7631 X 32 (Office hours).

Neither coal or dole (1993)

From the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "The underground mining of coal is an arduous and potentially dangerous occupation, even using modern mechanised methods . . . the mining of thermal-grade coal could, in theory, be eliminated"—scientific report quoted in Independent, 30 November.

Imagine today’s headlines in a future, sane society. “Savage Government Axe Kills 30,000 Mining Jobs” screams the headline. How would someone from a future society, one based on common ownership of all the worlds resources, view such a message?

The first difficulty would surely concern trying to decipher the language. Such words as "Government" and "Jobs” would be as anachronistic as Middle English is to us today. Once the problem of defining the meaning of these words had been overcome the more difficult task of interpreting the meaning of the message and the various reactions to it would have to be tackled.

In a sane world the news that 30,000 people would be liberated from a tiresome and dangerous task would surely occasion great rejoicing. Imagine, then, people from a sane society trying to make sense of the storm the government announcement of the loss of 30,000 mining jobs has caused. They would have great difficulty in doing so if they were not well versed in the peculiar absurdities of the present system we live under.

Absurdities

Firstly, it would come as a great surprise to them that it was the miners themselves who objected most to the news that they were no longer needed to go down the mines. If our friend from the future assumed from this that miners were some kind of masochistic martyrs to an obscure cause she could be forgiven.

"The miners are upset because they will not have to go down the mines any more” does not really tell the truth though, even though our friend from the future might be led to believe this by reading and listening to some of the media coverage of this issue. The miners are upset because they are being denied use of their one marketable attribute in a world that is one big marketplace. They are being denied the chance to sell their labour power because their employer has decided that it is no longer required.

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

Our friend from another place will need some help in understanding the forces at work here. In the sane society where she comes from work is only undertaken if society as a whole decides it is necessary or if it gives pleasure. There are no economic factors to distort the issues against humanity. If energy is required to sustain a desirable way of life then ways are sought to obtain that energy in a way that is most convenient to most people. If people decided that coal-mining was an option they would like to use then the work could be done on a rota basis by as few people as possible for as little time as is needed.

However, coal-mining would be unlikely to be an option humans would need to undertake since either machines could be developed to do the work or other forms of energy, such as wind and sun power could be developed. In a sane, moneyless world the development of such energy sources would not be hindered by the financial interests of a small powerful minority or by the workers who depend on obsolete industries. In such a world we would not see people who had hitherto had to do unpleasant tasks for the benefit of all complaining that their burden had been lifted.

Having been completely baffled why the liberation of people from a dangerous and needless toil should be such a contentious issue our friend from a sane world would then have to try to cope with the even more baffling arguments each side put forward in defence of either keeping the mines open or closing them down. Here our friend would once again have to master terms completely alien to her own environment.

Arthur Scargill argues that mining is more economical (for “economical" read profitable to the ruling class) than other forms of obtaining fuel and that therefore the miners should be allowed to continue their thankless task. Our friend, on discovering the meaning of this strange word "profit”, would be surprised to learn that Scargill was putting the case for the miners.

Divorced by time and experience from the propaganda of the profit era, she would see profit for what it plainly is— the robbery of the working class by their employers. Scargill's assertion that it is more profitable to exploit miners than other types of workers in similar industries would seem like another reason why the miners should wish to discontinue their occupation.

The employer's stance would be equally baffling. To blame lack of productivity for the closure of the mines in a time of recession would take a jump in logic that our friend would find well nigh impossible. Outside of the warped logic prevalent under capitalism historians would have a clear understanding of what caused periods of recession.

Our friend would know that a recession, purely a historical phenomenon not affecting her own era of a sane social system where goods are produced only to satisfy human needs, was caused when workers had produced too much for their masters to sell. Recessions, and all the hardships these entailed for the working class, only occurred when the warehouses of the world were overflowing with the goods that the people who had produced them were in need of. Our friend would probably become dizzy if she tried to follow the verbal gymnastics of those who apologized or endorsed the system that made these recessions inevitable.

I doubt if she would be able to come to grips at all with the contradictions of capitalism. Anyone brought up in a sane world, where all the technological advances that had been made under the adverse conditions of enforced scarcity had been utilized for the benefit of the whole of mankind, would never be able to understand why it took so long for the majority of people to do away with a system that denied them so much when an abundance of all that was necessary for a pleasant and fulfilled life was there for the taking.

The mining fiasco, along with such things as the war in the former Yugoslavia and the starving millions in various countries around the world, are but the latest details in the rich tapestry of bitter lessons the dispossessed majority have had to endure in their acceptance of the capitalist system. Only when the majority of people come to fully appreciate the wonderful future that it is within their power to create will "our friend” cease to be a figment of our imagination and become the people around us. Until then the tragedies brought to us every day on the news will remain.

J.C.

Imperialism and Opportunism (1970)

From the April 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lenin’s wrong explanation

Anyone reading Lenin’s pamphlets on this subject would get the impression of following the arguments of a dedicated revolutionary explaining the wavering and deviations of his less resolute comrades. The titles give a clue as to how his thoughts went and a few quotations will confirm it:

  Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat. This has been confirmed since 1917 on a world wide scale” (1)

Something must have gone wrong. Fifty years later capitalism is still here (including Russia). It has changed considerably even to the extent of granting independence to the former colonies. But present day followers of Lenin keep up the tradition by explaining away the fraud of home rule by theories of neo-colonialism. Lenin went on to give his explanation as to why the eve of revolution has been so long:

  Obviously, out of such enormous super-profits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their ‘own’ country) it is possible to bribe the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the ‘advanced’ countries are bribing them, they bribe them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert (2) (Lenin’s emphasis). 

  Comrade Quelch of the British Socialist Party spoke of this in our Commission. He said the rank and file English worker would consider it treachery to help the enslaved nations in these revolts against British rule. True, the jingoist and chauvinist minded labour aristocrats of Britain and America represent a great danger for Socialism… (3)

So Lenin saw the scramble for colonies at the turn of the century as being the ‘highest stage of capitalism’, even the eve of the social revolution’ and was left to explain why organised labour was not ready and why the Second International disintegrated with the first World War.

The Socialist Patty of Great Britain recognises that capitalism is a dynamic, expanding and changing system of society, and that quite contradictory policies will serve the interest of sections of the capitalist class, as conditions dictate. Free trade, unfettered by tariffs and protected colonial markets, served the interests of the textile capitalists who dominated Britain after the industrial revolution. Later, with the dominance of iron and steel, came protectionism and a carving-up of the world into colonies and spheres of influence of the great powers of capitalism. Later still, large empires, with the problem of governing them, became an embarrassment and such staunch pillars of the system as Macmillan and De Gaulle presided over the dismemberment of the two greatest of them. For all the changes capitalism is still with us. It should be evident that the changing fortunes and policies of the capitalist class alone are not going to produce Socialism.

The Socialist Party has never found itself in Lenin’s position of proclaiming a revolutionary situation in which the revolutionary class are ‘jingoist and chauvinist minded’, for the reason that we insist that there can be no Socialism without a Socialist working class. We recognise along with Marx that “the ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas”. Hence nationalism, loyalty to the Empire, and the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, were the normal attitude of non-revolutionary workers in Britain and elsewhere in 1920. As for being bribed by reforms, the workers had fought in a war; they had unemployment, falling wages, hunger marches and another war to look forward to. It is the acceptance of the capitalist ideology by the working class, not ‘bribery’, that has kept them so loyal to capitalism.

While some reforms are of benefit to the working class, the general tendency is for them to make capitalism work more efficiently. This was so in the case of the 10 Hours Act in Marx’s time. The more efficient capitalism is, the greater the exploitation of the working class. Reforms are essential to the smooth running of capitalism and pay for themselves.

We oppose reform (or opportunist) parties such as the Labour and Communist in that they are parties of capitalism. We also recognise that people such as Lenin, who prate of revolution when the conditions are not ripe for it, are dangerous opportunists. It is a pity that he did not apply what he so correctly wrote in October 1916:

  The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war, to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics. (4)

Joe Carter

———-

(1) Imperialism, the Highest stage of Capitalism; Imperialism and the split in Socialism; Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International; The Awakening of Asia, all form the Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow.

(2) July 6, 1920 Preface to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

(3) Report of the Commission of the National and Colonial Questions to the Second Congress of the Communist International, 26 July 1920, The Awakening of Asia.

(4) Imperialism and The Split in Socialism

Reading for profit (1969)

Book Review from the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Literacy and Development in the West by Carlo M. Cipolla Pelican Original, 1969

In this short book the author traces the development of literacy from a state of affairs in which it was “the sacred monopoly of small elites” to that in which it is thought of as being an essential skill of industrial society. He points out that “by 1750 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, almost 5,000 years had elapsed since the first rudimentary appearance of the art of writing, yet more than 90 per cent of the world’s population had no access to the art” and that “historically it appears that the art of writing is strictly and almost inevitably connected with the condition of urbanisation and commercial intercourse. It is not surprising that by AD 1750 the West was vastly more literate than any other part of the world. In the following 150 years the gap grew larger”. In fact industrial capitalism requires workers able to read, write, and calculate. As industrial processes and social organisation become more complex, so the working class have to be trained to think logically and tackle problems scientifically. This led to a situation where spending on education has grown to match that spent on armaments.

More emphasis is placed on statistics than on social theory relating to literacy and the many tables in the book are a goldmine of information for anyone wanting figures for “Illiteracy by age group; in selected European Countries” or “Illiterate brides per 100 illiterate bridegrooms in selected countries between 1880 and 1900” and so on. It comes down to a study in the growth of literacy with the advance of industrialisation. The author ends on a note of concern about the use to which knowledge is put. “Wherever we teach techniques we ought to teach also the ethical implications of their possible alternative uses and misuses.”

What the author and his fellow workers have yet to learn is that capitalism, which developed modern industry, has a set of priorities that allows no discussion, ethical or otherwise, of alternative uses or misuses of techniques. They will only be used if they are profitable to the minority who own the means of production. So that at present life becomes more and more subject to the anarchy of the profit motive. If it is to become more and more a function of human understanding, then a knowledge of how society organises its affairs is more important than techniques. It would be seen that those techniques that are beneficial to mankind would be used and there could be no misuse. 

Joe Carter

The Social Nature of Modern Production (1970)

From the August 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is torn by one major contradiction: that the socialisation of wealth-production has developed to an extent undreamt of in former epochs, whilst ownership of the means of production is concentrated in the hands of a minority. World-wide interdependence in production has made a material abundance possible for all mankind, yet the fetters of private property keep the overwhelming majority in poverty. The socialist answer to the poverty problem is to remove the contradiction by making the means of production the common property of society as a whole.

Most workers who support the social system that keeps them poor think in terms of greater productivity, more technology or other nostrums of capitalism. They fail to grasp that the problem of production has been solved. Nor do they realise that the abolition of private property will end all forms of exchange including barter and will result in free access according to need. Consequently such questions are asked as “say I made bicycles and wanted other things made by other people who don’t want bicycles, how do I get them without money?” These questions show a lack of knowledge of how production is carried out under any form of society. It suggests that individuals carry out the production of objects from start to finish and by virtue of this have rights of ownership. This has never been so and under capitalism, the producers do not even own the places they work in, nor the tools, materials and finished product. These belong to the non-producing capitalist class.

No single person could produce a bicycle right through. Nor in fact does any single industrial combine, huge and diversified as some are. The ores for the metals and their alloys have to be found, mined and processed. The metals have to be shaped and treated to make the tubes for the frame, sprockets, chains, ball bearings, wheels and other component parts. These processes need machinery of many specialised kinds. Transport of all types to move the materials through the various stages and processes, sometimes over great distances; electricity to power the machines, and the fuels to supply the power to generators are also essential. Then there is the paint and chrome-plating to be seen to. No bike can do without tyres, needing rubber from the plantations of South East Asia, cotton for the carcass and steel wire for the beading. The bicycle like other articles is not only the product of co-operative labour, but of a certain form of society. The techniques involved are of a highly sophisticated kind. They are not made in ones and two’s but in millions. The world is involved in producing them and they are available for the markets of the world.

Joe Carter

The same everywhere (1970)

Book Review from the October 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Message From Moscow, by “An Observer". Cape 26s.

As life for workers of any country is one of wage slavery which influences them as a class more than all the local variations of that condition, the role of those who expose the evils of one country, with the implication that it is essentially different elsewhere, is that of the pot calling the kettle black. Capitalism provides no end of material for those so occupied. Those who would have us believe that ‘we' in Britain are doing alright, have Russia and the so-called communist countries to point to. Message from Moscow helps to serve that purpose. It tells us, as we have been told many times, that life is tough for those who don't see eye to eye with the government. ‘An Observer’ is claimed to be a non-communist Russian-speaking Westerner, who has penetrated the barriers preventing foreign visitors getting to know the people. He describes how tourists, business-men, and journalists, are kept isolated from the native population. His intimate contacts are mainly the so-called intellectuals and the type of manual worker in contact with them, such as waitresses, shop assistants and taxi drivers.

The starting point is the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The event was played down, an appendix is devoted to the front page of Pravda for 21 August 1968, to illustrate this. Most people showed little interest in the event. The author’s friends got the news from West European radio broadcasts, before the jamming became efficient enough to cut them out. They were outraged,

  Our bastards [the Soviet leadership] just couldn't let the Czechs go on like that, making something civilised out of Socialism.

Most comments ‘An Observer’ heard were more loyal.

  Those bastards, we freed them from the Germans, spilled our blood for their freedom — and now look : they’re going behind our backs to the West Germans again.

Other comment shows more or less enlightenment, than those of workers elsewhere on the subject. For Socialists, this was a quarrel involving the security of the Russian-dominated Warsaw Pact. The interests at stake were capitalist, the question of Socialism did not arise and that working class interests were in opposition to those of their masters in any camp.

A chapter is devoted to the toughening attitude of the government to its critics, known as neo-stalinism. Things have changed somewhat;

  there have been no mass repressions and no trials unreported in the West. Mass terror and deportations, the infliction of direct physical pain and suffering, firing squads and torture techniques— in short, the horrifying aspects of Stalinism — play virtually no role in current measures of control: and in this sense, the comparison with genuine Stalinism is spurious . . . Punishment takes the form of personal and professional sanctions rather than imprisonment. The most common measures are dismissal from work, or demotion; expulsion from the party and Komsomol or severe censure, interference with academic and scientific careers; and retraction of privileges, including the privilege of living in Moscow.

It seems that the rulers of state capitalist Russia are beginning to learn that there are more ways of keeping control than by terror. The fact that workers are dependent on employers—state or private— for their living, makes them vulnerable to the kid glove type of coercion.

The most important fact about Russia which the author omits to mention is that the type of society existing there is state capitalism, a variation of the system of society that dominates the world.

Joe Carter