And then the roof fell in! (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The American Slump

The beginning of a recession is like intoxication: the patient gets worse—but he feels better. British and American capitalism has been looking and feeling better for two years, but now the symptoms are beginning to show. Business has been booming, problems of shortages have been overcome, and for the consumer—with the end of the “sellers’” market, inducements to buy in the form of better quality, better service, better packaging or even lower price: all these have made life seem better and easier.

Buy now and pay later

Since the War the credit buying was expanded greatly in this country, but it has never reached United States proportions. The legal restriction on hire purchase trading that we have here (minimum deposits, etc.) does not apply in the U.S., and consequently, as selling became more difficult, “easier and easier” credit terms were offend. Not only is credit buying respectable in America, but almost a national custom. Whatever the income range—from the lowest paid to those executives whose blood pressure would suffer considerably at the thought that they wen “workers’’—all buy houses, cars (a new one every year if possible), refrigerators, holidays, and all the gimmicks of the American Way of Life, on credit.

Then is also a growing inability and reluctance to repair anything. When that brand new car—or fridge— or house—starts giving trouble, well then, just throw it away and buy another one. Last year Time magazine, which usually has on its cover the effigy of a Great Man (or film star), featured “The American Repair Man.” and the article dealing with the cover story showed in amusing detail the situation of the American worker, surrounded by mechanical appliances which would save him a lot of labour if only he could get them to work again. 

Throw it away!

But, of course, the advertisers have the answer: buy another one. Buy this year’s model: be in the fashion: your old green refrigerator is out of date—red is the colour this year1

In fact, there is only one thing wrong with buying on credit, and that is that you have to pay for it even if it is later rather than sooner, and this is rapidly being brought home to those millions of Americans who are now unemployed.

Unemployment

The present situation in America is that there are over three million drawing unemployment benefit. The actual number of unemployed exceeds this figure, since the benefit only lasts for a maximum period of 39 weeks and many have been out of work long enough to be now disqualified. This puts them “on relief,” paid for by their city, and they come out of the statistics of “ unemployed.” Arising from this lack of work (and consequently, lack of pay) the furniture and other items bought on credit are being repossessed by the sellers, mortgages are in many cases being held over temporarily and stealing of food from self-service stores has increased noticeably in those towns that have been forcibly hit by unemployment. 

The “land of opportunity” is receding for the unemployed worker whose home and way of life is in danger. Suddenly, the insecurity of capitalism is made real.

This problem will be aggravated since we learnt recently that the American car factories are shortly to shut down production of 1958 models for several months to give dealers time to sell 760,000 1958 cars now unsold. The industry always shuts down every year in order to retool for the next year’s cars, but this year the closure has been brought forward many months.

Too Much

Everywhere the terrible cry goes up—surpluses. Too much food, bumper crops; too much oil; too many cars and other goods on the market: too much production of raw materials from South America and Asia, causing world prices of raw materials to drop drastically: too many unemployed, not able on the benefit to buy more of these commodities and seeing those that they have “ bought ” taken back by the finance companies.

Add to this catalogue the statement by Mr. Khrushchev last November: "We declare war on you in the peaceful field of trade.” Thus Russia, a new competitor, enters world capitalism on a large scale as a rival to the older established powers.

Capitalism's Answer

What is the answer? In May there was a meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board in New York at which economic and business experts gave their remedies. Cut taxes to encourage business they say: but the man on relief does not pay taxes and has not business been “encouraged” too much? Produce better values, they say; but the man on relief (or in danger of it) will be unable to buy anything other than necessities, good or bad value. Bring back the lost art of selling, they say: but again, if you haven’t got the money you can’t buy, no matter how slick the salesman. Introduce high tariffs against foreign imports? but that will only aggravate the bankruptcy of countries like Bolivia, Chile, Indonesia and others, and will have a profound effect on countries like Britain, which depends largely on car exports to the U.S. It has been estimated that a 4 per cent. drop in key prices in undeveloped lands cancels out all the funds supplied by the United States in economic aid. In many cases the drop has already exceeded that amount.

It may seem strange that those who support capitalism most volubly—including those workers now unemployed—are those who understand its workings least. Or perhaps it is not so surprising since if they did understand it, would they still support it? See the great surprise of the American worker who finds it hard to realise that all that bustling prosperity founded upon these great factories—such permanent things—all this should suddenly collapse into what is now politely called a “recession.” A recession, mark you, that shows no signs of getting better yet. The National Industrial Conference Board which met in New York this month (referred to above) received a “report from businessmen pointing to a further decline in spending for plant expansion that will last into 1959.” And recently a top building-industry economist, speaking to the New York Society of Security Analysts said that the recession will last “through I960"

Our Criticism

Socialists are opposed to capitalism and we are opposed because we do understand the basic workings of the system. The broad cycle of slump and boom will continue due to the basis on which production rests. This basis, this “ incentive ” that is thought so admirable by anti-Socialists, is the competitive urge to profit. But this incentive can work both ways—if the production of a commodity does not appear profitable, then it will not normally be produced. On the other hand, distribution has no relation to the needs of people but only to the ability or otherwise to pay the price.

Generally the picture of the world commodity market today—of which America is only a more dramatic example—is of too many goods unsold, in store, production being restricted. And, at the same time, too many people needing those goods and without the money to buy them.

It's Falling

This is always the picture in capitalism and is only brought out more clearly when, as at the present time, there is a growing world recession. To those who support capitalism, this system of fake individualism, financial enterprise and dog-eat-dog competition, we say. this world as you see it now is the society that you perpetuate.

We say further that this is not necessary. The energy and enterprise that goes into attempts to solve insoluble problems and to stabilise an unstable system, and the techniques of production that produced these vast crisis-making surpluses—all these could be used perfectly well for the benefit of the whole community, in a society where goods were made to satisfy peoples’ needs and not for the profit of the producers.

With Socialism, economic security would be a reality.

As one of the unemployed said, in Bristol, Connecticut, where now nearly one worker in four is unemployed: “ It seemed set to last for ever, and then the roof fell in.”

L. B.

The Mind in Chains: Censorship and Society (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps the commonest of all traditions in a parliamentary democracy is that a law can be passed to put anything right. “It ought to be stopped” is the expression of most people's belief that somehow a statute can be got up that will check greed, prevent cruelty, or end any of a thousand kinds of nastiness. There is remarkably little evidence for this; only a few months ago Sir John Wolfenden’s committee reported the impossibility of making laws to deal with prostitution, and modern history is full of unsuccessful attempts to put down social problems by law.

Even where laws do seem to have succeeded, usually the real factor has been something quite different. The decline of gangsterism in America was due less to legislation than to a change from the social climate which produced so many gangsters; similarly, the probable suppression-of fox- and stag-hunting in this country will barely anticipate the death from natural causes of what have ceased to be the upper-class sports.

In the last few years, attention has been repeatedly drawn to the censorship laws. They were in fact extended three years ago by the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act—the “Horror Comics” Act; now there is the report of the Select Committee on Obscene Publications, making recommendations for the consolidation and extension of existing laws.

Most of the Committee's proposals reiterate those of the draft Obscene Publications Bill which had its first reading in Parliament in 1955 and now awaits further presentation. Briefly, they aim at clarifying the law and removing anomalies so that first, "serious" works may be better distinguished from others, and second, things may be made hotter for the others. Because the emphasis has been on the possible benefit to works of art, the proposals have been viewed favourably all round; the fact remains that they are for an extension, not a relaxation, of the censorship.

Is there any harm in that? The "considerable and lucrative trade in pornography" of which the Committee speaks is a pretty squalid business, and few people would be sorry for its disappearance. The basis of censorship lies much deeper than that. Its function is to suppress anything which seems potentially harmful to the established order. In our society, it concerns itself with three main threats to the régime: subversion of the state, of religion, and of the monogamous sex pattern.

Apart from the legal prohibitions imposed directly by the state, there are a number of subsidiary censorships to the same end: for example, the exclusion of non-régime views by the broadcasting and television monopolies, the film censorship, and the with-holding of news by the press. There is, too, the simple censorship of price: statutes are scarcely needed to restrict the circulation of five-guinea books.

State censorship in this country dates from the granting of the Stationers' Company's charter in 1556, giving the Company a monopoly of printing and charging them with the suppression of seditious and heretical works. Under this and the various other licensing acts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the censorship was concerned with religion and the state, and hardly at all with sexual morals.

"Obscenity” did not enter the Common Law until the eighteenth century; even the attack on the Restoration comedies was political much more than it was moral. The first moves towards censorship in this direction were made as the middle-class reading public grew, and its real establishment came with the Industrial Revolution and the puritanical religious movements which followed the new-born industrial working class into the towns.

The big drive was promoted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, an offshoot of the Evangelical Movement founded in 1802 (Sydney Smith called it "a society for suppressing the vices of persons whose incomes do not exceed £500 p.a.”). Among its members were Shakespeare’s "collaborator" John Bowdler, Hannah More, Dr. Wilberforce, and Keate, the flogging head of Eton. Its chief concerns were profanation of the Lord’s Day, blasphemy, disorderly houses, fortune-telling and obscene books.

The pornography trade did rise and thrive in the nineteenth century. Its centre in London was Holywell Street—then by the Strand, now demolished—where, according to contemporary accounts, the sale of all kinds of pornography flourished openly. Apart from the flood of books and pictures there were several magazines explicitly given to homosexuality, flagellation, and so on: some with such innocent titles as the Rambler's Magazine and The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine.

The first major legislation on the subject was Lord Campbell's Obscene Publications Act of 1857; this, in fact, together with supplementary items from various other statutes, is the law under which the censorship works today. On its introduction it was vigorously opposed in Parliament by members of the upper class who believed „ enough in laissez-faire to hold that morals were a personal matter (including some who had erotic libraries of their own: see Cyril Pearl’s Girl With the Swansdown Seat).

The legal application of Campbell's Act was given eleven years later by Chief Justice Cockburn. In his judgment of an over-zealous anti-Catholic pamphlet called The Confessional Unmasked he uttered the famous definition of obscenity which has been accepted by judges ever since: “The test of obscenity is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.'' 

In this century'a number of factors have given novelists reason to assume a wider scope than they had before. The spread of psychological teachings that emphasise sex as a mainspring of behaviour; the decline of the family from the Victorian ideal; the effects of two world wars (war novels, indeed, seem to enjoy impunity in laying on the sex and the swear-words). The result has been a series of prosecutions extending from Wells's Ann Veronica in 1909 to the recent crop involving Julia, The Philanderer, September in Quinze, The Image and the Search and The Man in Control.

The lawmakers' dilemma now is to re-frame censorship so as to admit the changes in morality and, at the same time, keep out the undesirable. The difficulty of doing this is obvious. It means, in effect, that some kinds of frankness and even obscenity are useful to our society (both The Philanderer and The Image and the Search are, in fact, heavily moral books) and some harmful: the trouble is finding a yardstick.

Several people pointed out the same thing in the “horror comics" agitation—a Daily Mail editorial, for example, remarked that the news pictures of Mussolini hanging rivalled anything Dr. Wertheim had found. And on the point of obscenity, the News of the World on May 25th had an interesting paragraph in the report of a photographer's case: “Asked . . . if he had ever taken an improper photograph, he replied : ‘ Yes—once during the war for the Foreign Office. I believe it was for propaganda purposes'.”

An enormous amount of pornography, and stuff that is very near to it, does serve the interests of Capitalism. How about the nasty dreams of sexual irresponsibility that have been the films’ great stock-in-trade for thirty years, and have helped replace religion as the opium of the people? Or the dirty fantasies that are provoked to sell anything from sedatives to soap? Or the pornography of wartime, sanctified because it spurs on our gallant boys and shows what beasts the other side are?

That does not condone the back-street pornography trade, of course. Apart from the stuff detailed in the police statement to the Select Committee—a good deal of which is sold openly at shop counters, despite what the police say about the difficulty of obtaining evidence of sale—there is a considerable trade in near-pornographic books and pictures. The vital part of the near-pornographer’s art is to accurately assess the changing wind, and much of his business is done by post and advertized in likely magazines: “Young Lady Photographer can supply unusual studies to private collectors, send s.a.e.", etc.

What all this shows is the need, not for more censorship, but for something to be done about the world in which these stupid trades can flourish. Most of the matter in question is miserable rubbish, but its real authors are the people to whom Capitalism must be doing something bad: how frustrated must one be to pay the pomographer's price for a second-hand sexual thrill? Here is the condemnation of censorship—that it aims to protect and perpetuate the social order which causes so much of frustration and unsatisfied need.

There is little to show, as the Home Office officials had to tell the Committee, that anyone is “depraved and corrupted" by pornography. Indeed, it becomes harmful when it is legalized and used for economic and political ends like fomenting hatred in wartime. The censors, the magistrates, the policemen and the members of the Public Morality Council do not seem to be transformed into satyrs by all that they see. This is one case, in fact, where those who do not care need not be affected. Most people go through life without ever seeing a dirty book or picture, and the common effect on those who see involuntarily is not corruption but revulsion.

On the other hand, the everyday world is full of well-established means to “deprave and corrupt" on which there are no prohibitions. Few things deprave more than the sight of money, or corrupt more than a little power over others. Empires and businesses are built on depravity, and exposing the young to its influence is a statutory requirement under the Education Act.

Whatever one thinks about obscenity, the extension of laws against it means the extension of the State's domination over what people may read and think. And, always, the concern is to secure conformity in the working class. In a prosecution in 1935, a main question which helped lead to suppression was whether the book was “fit and decent for people of the working class to read." The proposed new Obscene Publications Bill has the same regard in asking for, as evidence of obscenity, “ evidence, if any, as to the persons to or among whom the said matter was, or was intended, or was likely to be distributed, sold, or offered for sale." And N. St. John-Stevas, in his Obscenity and the Law—largely an advocacy of the new Bill—is explicit on the point:

“Publishers certainly act on the presumption that a high-priced book will not be prosecuted, and sometimes produce editions of the same book, one bowdlerised at a low price, and the other unexpurgated at a high one . . . the protection of the mass of the people from the corrupting effects of pornography is not so much class prejudice as a realistic recognition that the present educational level leaves them open to victimisation."

In other words, the mass of the people don't know what is good for them: an argument which is unfailingly used to support taking away any freedom of choice or expression. Incidentally, Mr. St. John-Stevas devotes six pages immediately following this passage to showing that pornography has no "corrupting effects," and so leaves one to wonder if it isn't “class prejudice" after all.

All censorship should be opposed. Bernard Shaw called it “the intolerance of the community," but he mistaken: it is the necessary intolerance of rulers towards any apparent threat to the security or stability of the society they rule. It is not expressed like that, of course —it does not have to be, because while the ideas of the ruling class are dominant most people see them as the "natural” ones.

Nevertheless, it is a weapon against knowledge and thought. In a free and sensible society it could have no place; in the meantime, censorship can be nothing but an impediment to progress towards such a society.

Robert Barlrop

A Spirited Criticism (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Strange Manifeitations in ‘‘Two Worlds”

The May 17th issue of Two Worlds, a weekly Spiritualist paper, carries an article headed “Red Flag Makes Him See Red About Spiritualism." Under this bright, economical title "Two Worlds Reporter," makes a vigorous attack on the article "The Sad Religion," in the May Socialist Standard.

It is to be expected that Spiritualists, or any other body of people whose beliefs are criticized, should want to defend them. In fact, it is a pity that “Two Worlds Reporter" has not defended them. Instead, he directs scorn at the writer: "puerile," "babyish," and so on. His readers are given few or false ideas of the subject-matter of the Socialist Standard article, and if there are counter-arguments he never makes them known.

"The Sad Religion” briefly outlined the history, beliefs and practices of Spiritualism. The view it mainly expressed was that Spiritualism rests upon the loneliness and disconsolation of bereaved people, and thus reflects much of the suffering caused by Capitalism's wars and poverty. "Two Worlds Reporter” says not a word of any of this, and thereby misleads his readers as to the nature of the article he criticizes.

The article contains the following sentence: "Why, one wonders, are they not all prosecuted and locked up under the Witchcraft Act? " Leaping forward, “Two Worlds Reporter" trumpets eagerly: "If he (the writer) had done only elementary research, he would have known that the Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951." "Two Worlds Reporter" should be more cautious. To say without qualification that an Act has been repealed is to convey that what it stood for has been wiped off the books. The fact is that the Witchcraft Act was brought up to date in 1951. The old Act of 1735—"so far as still in force "—was replaced by one called the Fraudulent Mediums Act.

In any case, however, by quoting one sentence in isolation "Two Worlds Reporter" again gives his readers a false impression—i.e., that “The Sad Religion" was saying mediums ought to be "locked up under the Witchcraft Act." That is not so. The sentence was simply a reference to a fairly common reaction to Spiritualism, as anyone may see from a reading of the passage in which it occurs.

Most of "Two Worlds Reporter's" comments are no replies at all. The writer, “ has his own version of history," he says, and his account is " divorced from the facts"; but he makes no attempt to show wherein that "version” is wrong and what the "facts" are. His remarks about extra-sensory perception are beside the point:—

"Even scientifically conducted experiments in extra-sensory perception are ruled out. According to Coster they just did not happen.”

This is misrepresentation, of course; but, more important, it evades the real question. Have the experiments established extra-sensory perception as a fact, verifiable and predictable in the same way as light or sound waves? Of course they haven’t—as "Two Worlds Reporter" knows.

The same applies to the "fact that Sir William (Crookes) had himself photographed with the materialised Katie King." This "fact” was not even acceptable to other Spiritualists in its day, which was eighty-four years ago. The Rev. C. Maurice Davies, a member of the British National Association of Spiritualists, described the stagecraft of Katie's appearances in his book Mystic London, and added that the behaviour of Sir William gave "the final death blow to my belief that there might be something in the manifestations."

“Two Worlds Reporter" takes up the reference to Robert Blatchford as a "sad, aged figure," and says, jeeringly: “ If, however, Blatchford had continued to be a materialist, then, of course, his age would have made no difference." Curiously enough, Blatchford first began calling himself "a convinced materialist" when he wrote More Things in Heaven and Earth, after he had become a Spiritualist. In his God and My Neighbour, an attack on the Churches published in 1904, the term " materialist" is never used. Blatchford calls himself there a Humanist, a Rationalist and an Agnostic: he also says, "I am rather a religious man." His Merrie England, first published in 1894, has heavy religious overtones: "God's creatures," etc.

The other main theme of "The Sad Religion,” the social rôle of Spiritualism, is summed up by "Two Worlds Reporter,” thus:—

"He is a very class-conscious writer, who believes that Spiritualism is part of a capitalist plot to serve the interests of the 'ruling classes ’ and to make the working class submissive! . . . This, of course, may be the doctrine according to Karl Marx. but to attempt to apply it to Spiritualism makes it seem more like the doctrine of the Marx Brothers.” 

Where “Two Worlds Reporter” thinks he read about this plot, it is difficult to say. The Socialist criticism of all religious forms, including Spiritualism, is part of the case against Capitalism, in which there is no supposition of conspiracy. Indeed, if capitalists could plot this, presumably they would be able also to plot better things—including how to avoid commercial crises and the destruction of their property in war.

What Socialists argue is that supernatural beliefs, by their promise of a better world beyond the grave, make for acceptance of this world as it is. Because of that, they have always played a large part in maintaining the status quo (if “Two Worlds Reporter” does not believe it he had better look in the history books); and because of that, they serve the interests—consciously or otherwise—of those who have a stake in maintaining the status quo, the ruling class.

Finally, “Two Worlds Reporter” complains of the drawing which accompanied “The Sad Religion.” He says it isn't funny. One has to admit that it does not compare for sheer uproarious fun with the illustration to “Two Worlds Reporter's” piece. This is a portrait of Mr. Hannen Swaffer who, the writing says, “ makes nonsense of critic's charges” by his contention that “Spiritualism and Socialism are two halves of one whole.”

Mr. Swaffer is, of course, a supporter of the Labour Party, which has been making nonsense of the word “Socialism” for fifty-odd years. In that light, his contention is probably true.

Robert Baltrop

Editorial: The Bus Strike (1958)

Editorial from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

It may seem that a strike lasting nearly seven weeks was a high price for the busmen to pay for the relatively small gains they made in the shape of some increase of pay for the men outside central London who at the start were excluded entirely from the offer of 8s. 6d. increase: though even this was noteworthy in face of the adamant attitude of the London Transport Executive. But the heartening demonstration of working class solidarity by the central London men will have achieved much more. The employers and the government were looking at the busmen’s struggle as a test case for the wage claims in other, larger, industries. Having seen the hundred per cent, solid strike, they will take note that there is a degree of determination behind the claims that they did not expect

The T.U.C. comes out of it badly. Having given verbal encouragement to the busmen’s claim they were too timid to face the prospect of extending the strike and limited their help to an appeal for financial assistance.

The Government cleverly applied their old class principle, "divide and rule,” by detaching the railwaymen from possible involvement in the dispute, with a 3 per cent. wage increase, to be paid for through redundancies and economies. (Readers should turn to another column to see what this journal was saying about Railway Nationalisation 50 years ago.)

Sir John Elliot, chairman of London Transport, showed that a nationalised industry behaves just like employers generally. He was, as he said, being tough, and was apparently prepared to see the buses off the streets till Christmas in order to win. Simultaneously, he announced further contraction of bus services, because they don’t pay their way.

Taken all in all the bus strike was a complete demonstration in tangible, painful form, for everyone to see, that under its thin disguise of “Welfare,” capitalism has not changed from what it always was, a hard, ruthless social system in which the workers are expected to take what capitalism offers and be beaten down if they try to get more.

50 Years Ago: The Uselessness of Railway Nationalisation (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Given nationalisation there follows the concentration of traffic, the closing of offices and redundant stations, the abolition of the canvassing and clearing house departments, and, to a large extent, the abolition of the advertisement department, the reduction of trains, etc., etc. In short, the elimination of “waste.”

Now the working class under capitalism is not concerned with the elimination of waste . . . The working class must live. To live it must sell its labour-power. Does “waste” increase the demand for labour-power? If so, it is a good thing for the immediate purpose of the working class.

If any section of the workers is persuaded that in some such reform movement as the nationalisation of the railways there is salvation, it will come to itself in the final reckoning, sick and sorry, with apathy bred of disappointment and despair born of withered hopes. It will be more difficult material for the Socialist leaven to work upon. It will retard the advance of the workers towards the Cooperative Commonwealth that lies at the end of our journeying. It will, until the effect of its painful experience and knowledge of the wasted energies have grown small, be a stumbling block and a rock of offence in our path.

(From the article on “ Railway Nationalisation,” in the Socialist Standard, July 1908.)

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Summer Provincial Propaganda. It is pleasing to note that extensive arrangements have been made by the Propaganda Committee, Central Organiser and the Provincial Branches and Groups for speakers from London to visit the Provinces this Summer. Comrade James went to Nottingham in June for two weeks and held eight meetings each week in Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester and Bradford. From July 14th to 19th, Comrade Baldwin is going to Swansea to hold meetings there and in Newport. Comrade Harris of Newport will be available to help and throughout the Summer he will be helping the Comrades who are visiting the area for week-end meetings. Comrades D'Arcy, Grant and May will be doing these meetings, including visits to Bristol, where Comrade Flowers and the Group there are having good meetings on Durdham Downs. The period they hope to cover is from June 8th to July 13th. During August Comrade Young is touring in his vintage caravan and visiting Nottingham, Birmingham. Edinburgh and Dundee, to name some of the towns in his itinerary. An ambitious programme, all round, and no doubt it will prove as successful as the earlier Provincial tours.

* * *

Bloomsbury Branch will hold discussions on the first Thursday in each month, commencing September 4th. when Comrade Hardy opens the series with a discussion on Crises. Fuller details will be given in the August Standard. As in the past, no Branch meetings will be held during August by Bloomsbury Branch as Conway Hall closes for that month.

* * *

Outdoor Propaganda in London. A list of outdoor meetings is given on another page of this issue and Comrades are urged to note the time and places of meetings and give their support wherever possible.

* * *

Comrade Friend of Winnipeg is returning home after a holiday in Britain, and a Social evening was arranged for Comrades to meet him once again at Head Office on Friday, June 13th. Members at home wish him a good journey back to Winnipeg and express their pleasure that he was able to have such a holiday and to re-new contact with Party members in Britain.

Phyllis Howard

What is wrong with arbitration? (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politicians and newspaper writers who say that they believe in the principle of the right to strike, but who always condemn workers in this country who come out on strike, are fond of saying that strikes aren’t necessary any longer because wage claims can go to arbitration; where, so they say, the claim will receive impartial treatment. As these opponents of strikes are not at all impartial themselves their enthusiasm for arbitration is suspect to start with. But among the workers, too, especially when a strike puts them to great inconvenience, there is a widespread belief that somehow the arbitration courts are, or ought to be, a substitute for coming out on strike.

The idea is that if you have the right sort of men on the arbitration bodies, and supply them with the right sort of supporting evidence, they will argue it out and reach a " just ” solution. But who are the right sort of men and what is a “just” solution? The Tribunals usually consist of a President (with or without two other “ independent ” members), assisted by a member drawn from an employers' panel and a member drawn from a workers' panel.

The employers' and workers' members, and the independent members, no doubt, argue from their respective standpoints about the issues presented, and the award or refusal of an award is in the last resort determined by the independent members Tribunals or the President. While it is assumed that the Tribunals work on such conceptions as a "fair" wage and "what the industry can bear," these are meaningless or vague, and individuals can have their own interpretations. The Tribunals are not (though many people think they are) under specific obligation to try constantly to push wages up, or even necessarily to keep' them in line with the cost of living. Their essential purpose is to secure the settlement of disputes between employers and workers, with particular regard to the fact that if such disputes are not settled, production may be halted through strikes or lock-outs. Where it is a question of workers claiming higher wages one of the things the Tribunal is in effect considering is what price the employers will have to pay to avoid having their business (and their profits) brought to a standstill by a strike. The determination and intensity of feeling of the workers is therefore a factor in the issue.

From the organised workers' standpoint if arbitration bodies are of any use it is due to the fact that behind the workers’ claims is the readiness to strike.

In recent years most wage settlements have been made without arbitration or strikes (though often with the threat of strikes in the background), but these settlements were largely a recognition by the employers of the fact that with rising prices and little unemployment they had to pay more or lose workers to competitors.

Those who oppose all strikes deny that the strike is a necessary weapon for the workers. A case in point was the provincial busmen’s strike in July, 1957. The Unions representing the busmen (those employed by the bus companies outside London) demanded an increase of 20s. to bring them more into line with busmen's pay in London. Having been offered only 3s. they determined to strike. The Minister of Labour then referred the dispute to arbitration and the Industrial Disputes Tribunal awarded 11s. The Daily Telegraph (July 26th, 1957), which had condemned the strike, maintained that the award proved that the busmen would have got 11s. anyway, and that therefore, "the six-day strike is, and was from the first, headstrong, malicious and unnecessary." Of course, the events proved nothing of the kind. If merely stating a case were all that was required to get an 11s. increase, why did the employers refuse to offer more than 3s.? and can it be doubted that in its purpose of getting the dispute settled the members of the Tribunal had to take into account the fact that the men were so determined in their claim, that they had decided on their strike before the reference to the Tribunal, and were still engaged in it while the Tribunal considered the case?

The workers’ victory was rather a vindication of the declaration of Mr. Frank Coyle of the Transport Workers’ Union: "I stand by my previous objection to arbitration in any form.” (Daily Herald, July 17th, 1957. Mr. Coyle made this statement on hearing that the Minister had decided to refer the case to the Tribunal.)

The Rôle of the Government

But let us not get this matter out of perspective. Arbitration without the readiness to strike is a broken reed, but there are also narrow enough limits to what strikes can do. Strikes cannot always be successful in the aim of getting a wage increase or fighting off a decrease: so much depends on the state of trade and the amount of unemployment. And behind the employers is always the government, with its steady purpose of keeping capitalism going—which means keeping it on a profit-making basis. Many workers fail to see this and expect the government to remain "neutral." After seven years of Conservative government memories have grown dim about what preceded those seven years, and many workers believe that while the present government one-sidedly opposes the workers and wants to keep wages down, things were different under the Labour Government.

Not Different Under Labour Government

Things were not different under Labour Government. The same causes produced the same effects. The obligation to keep capitalism going led the Labour Government to assert the doctrine of "wage restraint," and the Tories have carried it on. The next Labour Government will do the same.

But for those who have forgotten, it was all set down in the Labour Government’s "Statement on Personal Incomes, Costs and Prices" of February, 1948. Re-reading that document alongside recent declarations made by the Tories confirms Mr. MacMillan’s jibe in the House of Commons on May 8th, 1958, that the statements made by the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the late Sir Stafford Cripps, "were very similar. One might almost think they were written by the same hand."

The 1948 Statement asked individual employers not to pay wages above agreed rates; asserted that there could be no justification for a general increase of wages (or profits and interest) unless accompanied by a substantial increase in production; denied the claim of workers to have higher wages merely to keep relativity with other workers who had had an increase; declared that the Government would observe those principles in its negotiations with its own employees; urged all who were engaged in negotiations, or "decisions which might result in an increase in wages or other personal incomes" (i.e., the Arbitration Tribunals) not to depart from these principles; and stated firmly that if there was any departure, employers and the nationalised industries could not expect to call on the Government to provide the money or make it available through increased prices. (Just like the recent Government attitude to railwaymen and busmen.)

The 1948 White Paper had one clause saying that if at some future date there was a marked rise in the cost of living the level of wages, etc., would need reconsideration.

As the cost of living was rising more or less continuously the need arose soon enough, but not much more than a year later the Labour Government added another turn to the screw by announcing that there was no case for higher wages even if the cost of living did increase. This arose when the Government devalued the pound in 1949, knowing that this would raise the cost of living still further. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the late Sir Stafford Cripps said in the House of Commons (September 27th, 1949):-

“ Especially and specifically there can, in our view, be no justification for any section of the workers, trying to recoup themselves for any rise in the cost of living due to the altered exchange rate.”

All this time, under Labour Government and Tory Government, strikes were continued and will continue.

Those who think that the workers’ struggles over wages would cease if we had a different sort of government are deluding themselves; as also are those who think that strikes are no longer a necessary weapon of defence for the worker.

Edgar Hardcastle

Victory for Socialism and those who want it (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is often said that the “world is full of surprises,” but when a split occurs or a new group is formed inside that Super Political Pawn-shop—the Labour Party, nobody is particularly startled.

If the S.P.G.B. did not know its reformist opponents so well, we might have been surprised to learn that a newly formed (or rather resurrected) group inside the Labour Party claims to want “Victory for Socialism.” The Socialist Party of Great Britain, it would seem, has a lot to learn, for we were formed in 1904 with the single purpose of establishing Socialism—and without compromise have worked ever since for its victory. Now, after all these years of thinking that Socialism meant a change in the system of society, from the present one of wars and class war, wages and profits, to one where none of these things would exist, a classless world in which goods are produced for use, we discover (via the new group) that Socialism really means—capitalism with smaller tombs and lower rents. This kind of outlook typifies reformists everywhere. They start off not really understanding the significance of the Socialist case, then they dismiss their own misconceptions of Socialism as “futuristic pipe-dreams.” In the blind conceit that they know their way, they proceed to carry on the “day to day struggle” of trying to make capitalism with its wage-slavery less burdensome to the working class whose life-blood it sucks. It is a self-evident fact to every Socialist, that the evils which curse the lives of the working class CANNOT be removed within capitalism. If, as the so-called Communist and Labour Parties claim, the problems of slums insecurity, poverty, wars and slumps, can be got rid of bit by bit, one at a time, there is no need for Socialism. It is the fact that these and other such problems, are part of capitalism that makes Socialism necessary. If on the other hand they claim to know that the one solution is Socialism, then to continue toying with the effects of capitalism is the depth of stupidity and the height of folly.

Day to Day Capitalism

Rent Acts and hydrogen bombs are the current evils which stir the emotions and fire the slogans of the reformists. Capitalism is so sick that every day brings some fresh manifestation of the need to get rid of it. Ten years ago the reformists were wasting time and energy on now forgotten slogans and campaigns; in ten years’ time, who knows what they will be hollering about, except to say that it will be the latest ugly developments of a basically ugly system. If, ten years ago, instead of telling us that Socialism is “a pipe dream,” they had made the little effort necessary to understand it and then worked for it, the present fearful mess might never have existed. In trying to solve the day to day problems of capitalism the reformers thus became part of it and only help to prolong its existence—such is the price of ignorance.

The Bitter Truth

In order that anything worthwhile may be achieved it is no use the workers being just anti-Tory. The so- called “Victory for Socialism” crowd and the rest of those who support or belong to the Labour Party are at one in wanting to swing the current anti-Tory mood in the direction of another Labour Government.

It is true that the V.F.S. group claim to be “left wing” and to disagree in some ways with the Labour Party leadership but in a General Election they would be asking you to elect those very “right wing” they claim to oppose, for if another Labour Government is elected it will be these who will take over. They say they want a Labour Government with “sound policy” on peace, wages, rents, and pensions, etc., but they must face the hard facts of 1945-1951, bearing as they do, indelible witness to the uselessness of Labour Governments to the working class. They are now arguing about H bombs, which are only developments along the line begun by the Labour Government which established Harwell and took the first steps towards this “British” H bomb. It was the Labour Government which started the present arms drive. Under capitalism then as now, armaments come before houses, pensions, or anything else. Pensions and housing troubles are part of the general poverty suffered by the wealth producers. If the workers fail to learn from their past experiences of Labour Governments, they will go on electing strike-breakers and war-planners until the obvious dawns on them and they realise their real position under this system and organise with us to end it.

The various reforms and limited objectives dealt with in this article, are by no means new, but while workers are prepared to waste their time on such things, we must continue to explain their correct nature. All these points and more besides were raised at a discussion the writer attended at the Islington Open Forum a month or two ago, where most of those present supported the “Defeat Socialism” Movement under that other name. Other points, such as Industrial Action, Slogans and Demonstrations Lobbying M.P.’s and Leadership will be dealt with in a later issue, but on this occasion, let us take stock—let us see that attempting to deal purely with the effects of capitalism, its ugly life is prolonged. Movements of whatever name which do not seek the immediate establishment of Socialism (as defined in our Object) whilst they can never really defeat Socialism they certainly help delay it.

Harry Baldwin

Link to Part 2.

Blogger's Note:

There is little or nothing about the Victory for Socialism group on the 'net. The best I could find was this interview with its leading light, Stephen Swingler M.P., which appeared in the February 22nd, 1958, issue of the Trotskyist journal, 'The Newsletter'.  (Page 53). 'The Newsletter' was the journal of Gerry Healy's mob, The Club, (which later became the Socialist Labour League), and they probably saw Victory for Socialism as a nice wee vehicle to ride alongside, picking up recruits and building up their profile.

The Soviet Union — in Facts and Figures (1958)

Book Review from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a very glossy cover and 215 pages this book (published by Soviet News) is ludicrously cheap at 5s. It contains many facts and figures — and some fiction.

Among the facts are: the Soviet Union is the largest country in the world; the population is now 200,200,000, and the capital is Moscow, with 4,839,000 inhabitants. Whilst in the fiction department we are told that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a “Socialist Revolution”; that “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of workers and peasants”; and that all power in the U.S.S.R. belongs to the working people; and that:—

  “The economic foundation of the U.S.S.R. is the Socialist system of economy and the Socialist ownership of the instruments and means of production.”—Article 4, Constitution of the U.S.S.R.'

But, The Soviet Union, In Facts and Figures, gives its readers ample evidence of the non-Socialist character of Soviet society. Ideas, attitudes and many institutions familiar to us in Western Europe and in America are also found in Soviet Russia, and are mentioned with pride in this book. Mention is made of the Armed Forces of the State “to defend the Soviet Union’s freedom, independence and security . . .” (p. 157). A large section of the book is given over to the “National Economy" — to the Five-year plans for economic development, capital investment, retail trading, foreign trade with other countries, the U.S.S.R. Chamber of Commerce, and the like. 

Important sections on the Soviet monetary system, financial agencies, state budget, budget revenue (including profits in the national economy, taxes, etc.) and information on Soviet banks and credit systems, should be of interest to all readers of this journal.

Much useful information is given on the so-called trade unions of Russia; on the only legal political party— the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; on public education and scientific development; on literature and art; and on music, the cinema, the theatre and sport. There is also a brief survey of religious organisations, and in the section on the constitutional position of these religious organisations we are told that “The only instances when the Soviet State prohibits the formation of a religious body is if its doctrines or rites are cruel or a menace to society (for example, sects that preach self-torture. sects that call for a struggle against all forms of government, and so forth).” So the Canadian Dukhobors. who are returning to Russia after years of exile from their native land, had better look out!

Although far from telling the whole story, or giving all the facts and figures about the Soviet Union, this book can be recommended, especially to Socialists who are able to read between the lines; and who whilst recognising the great technical advances that have taken place in Russia, do not fall for the “Socialism in Russia” line of Communist mythology!

The Soviet Union In Fact and Figures tells us of a great industrial state, not unlike other great industrial states: and as such is quite a good 5s. worth.

Peter E. Newell

The Supermarkets (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Take a basket, please,” said a smartly overalled young lady assistant as Writer walked into a supermarket for the first (and last) time in his life. How well lit the place was and what a marvellous display of colour! Could the magician’s cave of jewels seem more desirable to Aladdin than this wonderland of good things did to the Writer? Innumerable packets of powdered soup (just add boiling water); tins of ham (no bones with it, just slice it with the knife); meat gravy (just ready to be poured out of the bottle). Even the tinned carrots looked nearly as luscious as ripe peaches, or so the picture indicated. Rich, creamy custard powder and scrumptious cake-mixes (just add tap-water). Savoury cheese wrapped in cellophane already sliced (just remove the wrapper). Food in glass pots simply pleading to be eaten without even water being required, food in transparent bags and in beautiful packets. Could heaven itself be more beckoning? One of these and one of those—into the basket with them. And certainly some of these other ones and some of those, too. Quick, those over there are good, and these simply can’t be left behind. What bliss! And then, finally* the cashier. How much? £3 10s.? Phew! The Writer staggered out with his purchases, although he went in only intending to look around.

Food for thought

But the supermarket also provides food for thought and the question arises as to why the housewife prefers to shop mere rather than in the local stores nearer her own home. In shopping at the local store, when her turn to be served comes and she is confronted by a shop-assistant, she has to have her order ready. This means spending time considering what is needed, and if she is likely to be flustered or to forget some of the items when it is her turn to be served, she will have to write out a list. With more married women going out to work, with the increasing complexity of life, and the rising tempo of commercialised distractions as the present system of society develops, it is no wonder that the shopper prefers a supermarket—just walking around choosing at will. According to expert reports this impulse buying has grown every year for the past two decades and has coincided with the growth of self-service shopping. But perhaps the term “choosing at will” is not quite correct, in view of the deep trickery which is commonly practised. On May 18th, 1956, The New York Times printed a remarkable interview with Gerald Stahl, executive vice- president of the Package Design Council. He stated: "Psychiatrists say that people have so much to choose from that they want help—they will like the package that hypnotizes them into picking it” He urged food packers to put more hypnosis into their package designing, so that the housewife will stick out her hand for it rather than one of many rivals.

Mr. Stahl has found that it takes the average woman exactly twenty seconds to cover an aisle in a supermarket if she doesn't tarry; so a good package design should hypnotize the woman like a flashlight waved in front of her eyes. Some colours, such as red and yellow, are helpful in creating hypnotic effects. To get the woman to reach and get the package in her hands, designers, he explained, are now using “symbols that have a dreamlike quality.” To cite examples of dreamlike quality, he mentioned the mouth-watering frosted cakes that decorate the packages of cake mixes, sizzling steaks, mushrooms frying in butter. The idea is to sell the sizzle rather than the meat. Such illustrations make the woman’s imagination leap ahead to the end product.

The Colour Research Institute, which specialises in designing deep-impact packages, won’t even send a package out into the field for testing until it has been given ocular or eye-movement tests to show how the consumer’s eye will travel over the package on the shelf. This is a gauge of the attention-holding power of the design.

According to Vance Packard in The Hidden Persuaders, the Coca-Cola Company made an interesting psychological discovery that customers who paused to refresh themselves at a soft drink counter ended by spending substantially more. In a test where they offered customers free drinks, about 80 per cent, accepted the Cokes, and spent about a £1 more than the average customer. After coming out from work, the prospective shopper needs to relax and in this mood is fair game to any firm with all the know-how of tricks suggested by the psychologist. One can well understand that the working-class housewife with a background of forced economy and trying to make both ends meet can be “caught” by a little extravagance. An American supermarket found that putting a pat of butter on top of each of its better steaks caused sales to soar 15 per cent.

In a trance until pay time

A psychological researcher in America, James Vicary, became curious to know why there had been such a rise in supermarket sales. His suspicion was that perhaps the housewives underwent an increase in tension when confronted with so many possibilities that they were forced into making quick purchases. He set out to find if this was true. He hid a motion-picture camera to record the eye-blink rate of women as they shopped. How fast a person blinks their eyes is supposed to be a good index of the state of his inner tension. The average person, according to Mr. Vicary, normally blinks his eyes about thirty-two times a minute. If he is tense he blinks them more frequently, under extreme tension up to fifty or sixty times a minute. If he is notably relaxed on the other hand his eye-blink rate may drop to a subnormal twenty or less.

Mr. Vicary set up his cameras and started following the ladies as they entered the store. The results were startling, even to him. Their eye-blink rate, instead of going up to indicate mounting tension, went down and down, to a very subnormal fourteen blinks a minute. The ladies fell into what Mr. Vicary calls a hypnoidal trance, a light kind of trance that, he explains, is the first stage of hypnosis. Mr. Vicary has decided that the main cause of the trance is that the supermarket is packed with products that in former years would have been items that only kings and queens could afford, and here in this fairyland they were available.

These havens of plate-glass and chrome, hygiene and bright lights, the brilliant presentation of merchandise involving the most up-to-date tricks of salesmanship, these things, which together add up to the supermarket—the refuge of the working-class housewife. The very epitome of capitalist society itself seems expressed in the jungle of the supermarket.

Frank Offord

A Voice From The Past (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Our intentions are to assist, as far as our abilities are competent, the cause which has been so well begun, and which must finally prevail if its advocates persevere with fortitude and consistency. One principle, in particular, we should wish to inculcate, which is, that the people have nothing to expect from any exertions but their own. The choice of liberty or slavery rests with them, and on their virtue and perseverance depend the probability of their triumph.”—(The Gorgon, No. 1, May 23rd, 1818.)

World Worth While (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Reproduction of a leaflet issue by the Socialist Party of Canada.) 

The average person will endure hardships, even dangers, in a cause that he believes to be worthy. But he does not resign himself to a lifetime of such conditions. He wants to experience the more pleasant things of life. He wants to live in a spacious well- furnished home; strongly constructed and free from the clutches of banks and mortgage companies. He wants his family to be properly fed and clothed and provided with the tilings they need. He wants freedom and opportunity to expand his mental and physical capabilities in the directions of his choice. He wants peace, security and the happiness that the potentialities of the modern world can make possible.

How modest these desires are, yet how far from the grasp of the average person! Those who guide the affairs of the world are overwhelming in their assurances that no aim is closer to their hearts, that no goal receives more careful thought. But—ah, that fatal but!—there are so many obstacles that stand in the way, so many things that have to be done first There are depressions to be offset or overcome, trade agreements to be signed, international problems to be solved. There are billions of dollars worth of satellites to be sent spinning into space, billions of dollars worth of atom bombs and guided missiles to be perfected and stockpiled, freedoms to be preserved, mighty creations of man to be destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again. There are so many things that have to be done—first

No crisis or emergency is so great as to prevent the flow of luxuries into the possession of the idle class, the capitalist class. Only the wealth producers have to wait for the ending of the current depression, war, or other disaster before there is enough for them. Always there are obstacles, never-ending obstacles. Neva can the statesmen say. "You have produced abundance. It shall be yours.” The best that even the greatest of them can say is that none shall starve, and even this is said with reservations. Modern man lives under the capitalist order of society, and capitalism cannot be made to operate in such a way as to benefit alL

The workers today live steadily in the shadow of want and terror. They don’t have to. There is no law of the universe condemning them to live in this way perpetually. The evils of the modern world arise from the class ownership of the productive agencies. They can be ended, at any time the workers choose, by changing these agencies from the possession of a class to the possession of society. Not the government ownership of "public utilities” or “ basic industries,” which is of no practical value to society, but the common ownership of all the means for producing and distributing the needs of life.

A change of this kind does not convert stockholders into bondholders. It puts an end to stockholders and bondholders and transforms the beneficiaries of both these forms of parasitism into wealth producers. It ends the production of goods to be sold on the world’s markets at a profit and institutes the production of goods to be made freely available to all. It means the ending of profit in all its forms, the ending of the local, national and international antagonisms engendered by the quest for profit and so the ending of war, the struggles for military supremacy, the building of hydrogen bombs, guided missiles and all the other terrible things man has devised to destroy man. It means the passing of the foul propagandist activities of the huge publicity agencies, the educators and moralists, whose function it is to guide the workers in ways designed to preserve their enslavement. It means the liberation of human thought and the sources of knowledge. It means the ending of crime, since crime is rooted in a class divided society that will come to an end in a sane world.

Common ownership means the release from their present occupations of the judges, the jailers, the clerks of the court, the lawyers, the politicians, the bankers, the profit counters, the butlers, the valets and boot-polishers, and their transformation, along with the armed forces, the producers of munitions and all others engaged in socially unnecessary activities, into producers of things that will add to the comfort and pleasure of all.

It means the ending of the struggle between Capital and Labour over the division of the wealth produced by Labour, and it means the ending of Capital and Labour as class entities and the merging of these classes into a family of humans intent on making life worth living.

It means the ending of the system of society in which the mass of people are deprived of the fruits of their labour and the establishment of a system in which poverty will give place to plenty, privilege to equality, slavery to freedom. It means a world worth while. It means Socialism.

“Juvenile Delinquents” Again! (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

That section of working class youth, which it has become popular to describe as “Juvenile Delinquents” is once more in the news. A leading article entitled “Lawlessness and the Family” appeared in the Yorkshire Post of March 27th, expressing concern at the increase in “crimes of violence," said to be more than four times as high in 1956 as in 1938: “Not something which a community which cares for its future health can afford to ignore." The article asked the Government:—

  “Is there something in the nature of the society we have built up which encourages a light regard for morals or a weakening sense of responsibility?”

Here the editor has stumbled blindly across a situation his own paper has helped to create! Founded as the Leeds Intelligence on July 2nd, 1754, this organ of commercial influence has thus for over 200 years been supporting a buying and selling system of society with its luxury and palaces for the few, but misery, poverty, squalor, slum hovels and “dead end kids” for the masses, together with the wanton destruction of wealth in the military field—all of which is inseparable from a capitalist exploitative system.

Now—54 years after the Socialist Standard began its work of exposing the nature of capitalist society, the Yorkshire Post is timidly asking a question which was answered in 1904! We'll say there’s “something in the nature” of the society they’ve built up—and that “something” is the misery and poverty of the mass of humanity in relation to the wealth socially produced, but confiscated by a minority—the capitalist class. When the Yorkshire Post talks glibly about “a community which cares for its future health"— how does it reconcile this with its own support of the capitalistic malaise of mental and physical suffering, which as we have already pointed out is inseparable from a commercial system?

The environment and conditions of life of the millions of workers are anything but conducive to a happy, harmonious existence. Far from it! Sunless narrow streets of living quarters called homes, from which many are glad to escape to the factory! Blitzed sites of rubble as “playgrounds," “bread and marge" and “fish and chips” as food, shoddy clothes and footwear to combat a damp, foggy climate in winter.

In addition to all this there is the domestic strife due to cramped accommodation (the writer himself a victim) or a 9d. bus ride away, the onerous task of “Keeping up with the Jones’ ” on a “shoe string income."

Seeking to strengthen its “case” against “the evil in men’s hearts ” the Post calls to its aid a “star performer," Sir Hartley Shawcross. “ Time and again in cases of juvenile offenders,” said Sir Hartley yesterday, “one sees that the real offence lies in the home." Following Sir Hartley comes the chairman of the Middlesex Sessions, Mr. Ewen Montagu. “In many cases it is the parents who should be in the dock.” Not a word, mark you—of environment and conditions of poverty by these “leading citizens” of capitalism, who choose to ignore the real cause.

When men like Shawcross participate in the administration of the capitalist “Justice” of which they are so proud, it brings to mind, those memorable words of Burns:—

“Oh wad some power
The giftie gie us
To see oursels
As others see us.”

For what could be more hypocritical than to exploit the majority of mankind by dispossessing them of their real social inheritance—the crystalised labour power of their own and their forefathers’ human energy in its present form of a “vast accumulation of commodities”: hedge round this wealth with state powers of police, etc., and when any of the dispossessed attempt to retrieve a small portion thereof—clap them in “prisons” with a fanfare of trumpets, as they parade their “Goddess” of “Justice" before the eyes of a bewildered populace!

This much vaunted “Justice” of theirs rests on the slogan: “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” concealing as it does the robbery of those who produce, but do not possess. Even under present conditions, lest any “Juvenile Delinquents” be kidded into a feeling of biological inferiority by Shawcross in the Yorkshire Post, we remind them of Oscar Wilde’s words: “It is safer to beg than to steal, but it is finer to take than to beg.”

Much more important, we remind them that as Socialists we stand for the abolition of the wages system, together with the one-sided “Justice” it supports.

When this is achieved, the chains will fall simultaneously from the whole mass of suffering humanity and there will be no further cause for “Juvenile Delinquents” or for that matter, “Magistrates” sitting in “judgment” over them.

Socialism alone can foster the harmonious and brotherly behaviour of mankind which lies dormant in all of us, awaiting the freedom of expression and fulfillment that will accrue once the revolution has been accomplished.

To that end, we call on our fellow members of the working class to stop voting for the continuity of capitalism and “get moving in OUR direction"—on the “MAIN LINE” to SOCIALISM.

G. R. Russell

The Old Order Changeth (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers, especially those overseas, may be interested to learn that the old Marx house, his last dwelling place, in London, is now being demolished.

41, Maitland Park, just inside the borders of the Borough of St Pancras in North West London, and practically on the edge of Hampstead, which was No. 1, Modena Villas, when Marx moved in, on the proceeds of his small legacy from his mother, is now part of a terrace of derelict property.

For years now, the famous room on the first floor, where the great thinker paced the carpet from one comer to the other like a caged lion, wearing a path through it, has been a dangerous structure.

Some of the best and greatest work was written in that room: The Civil War in France, the greater part of Capital, the Address of the International Working Men's Association and the numerous critical and controversial monographs, Gotha Programme, Value, Price and Profit. (which though delivered verbally, was prepared there) and others.

The first house he moved to on leaving Dean Street, Soho, on medical advice, after the death of his son, Edgar, was No. 9, Grafton Terrace, just around the corner.

Here Marx and his numerous family suffered the most desperate privation. Here it was that he underwent the harrowing experiences which all the readers of his biographies know.

From this address came the frantic appeals for help because his children were dying, every piece of decent clothing was at the pawn shop, and butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker, were hammering on the door. Grafton Terrace, for the Marx household, was Heartbreak House.

Even after moving, things were not all that good, although some journalistic work did come from America. However, eventually Engels was able to retire from “filthy commerce” and move to 122. Regents Park Road, making his friend a regular provision and walking the short distance to see him every day. Engel's old house in London is still occupied.

Those interested could take the opportunity now to visit the Marx house before it is finally carted away.

A No. 24 or 21 bus or Primrose Hill station from Euston will land them a few steps away, Engel's old house is a few hundred yards distant.

In this contributor’s view, the great experts, in this case the St Pancras Council and London County Council, are making a grievous blunder. Preserved as a historic monument, Marx’s house could be a business proposition, increasing as the years go by.

On the other hand, Marx himself would have been the first to appreciate the inevitability of change.

Horatio.

Socialists and General de Gaulle (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are opposed to what de Gaulle stands for on principle, because he stands for French capitalism, and Socialists do not support any capitalist faction anywhere or at any time. But the Socialist principle on which we oppose de Gaulle just as imperatively lines us up against the French political parties that oppose de Gaulle, the so-called “Communists" and the minority of the French party misnamed Socialist (its majority supports de Gaulle).

The immediate issue which so bewildered de Gaulle's opponents of a few weeks ago that many of them ended by voting him into power, was the alleged “defence of democracy." Faced with a threat of civil war from the rebel generals and French settlers in Algeria and their sympathisers in France, they chose what they thought the lesser evil making de Gaulle head of the government in the hope that he could and would control the generals. The French Communist Party, which defends the Russian dictatorship and still applauds the bloody suppression of the Hungarian workers by Russian troops in 1956, came out hypocritically for the “defence of democracy" against the “Fascist" de Gaulle. We need waste no words on them except to wonder whether their failure to back up their outcry against de Gaulle with something more than words may not have been due to a lurking fear—that perhaps de Gaulle may do a deal with the Russian government behind their backs.

But although the Communist Party did not change its ground while the crisis was on, the French Labourites, the so-called Socialist Party, made themselves ridiculous with a series of somersaults. Starting with a resolution not to support de Gaulle in any circumstances, they followed this with a decision to let the M.P.'s have a free hand either to follow their leader Mollet who backed de Gaulle, or to vote against him; then another decision a few day later to let them abstain from voting on the question of handing over power to de Gaulle. With Mollet and others of their leaders in de Gaulle's government the party is split into nearly equal halves; with likelihood that more will swing over to Mollet.

The time-worn tactic of the lesser evil is the philosophy of the reformist labour movement in France as in Britain, but both movements might recall that 25 years ago the German Social Democrats in the same dilemma helped elect Marshal Hindenburg to the Presidency of Germany “to keep Hitler out" but as it turned out to open the door to Nazism. It does not necessarily follow that matters in France will take the same course, with Soustelle or some other playing Hitler to de Gaulle’s Hindenburg, but the “lesser evil" supporters of de Gaulle in France have no guarantee at all that this will not happen. They have taken a leap in the dark because they did not know what else they could do. Standing by the Socialist principle in the matter did not enter into their minds.

Are we entitled to condemn them and disregard their plea that they had to make a cruel choice? Emphatically, yes! Had they been Socialists, adhering to the Socialist principle which recognises as basic that working class interest is opposed to all supporters of capitalism, they would never have had to consider the matter at all. But that would presuppose that their organisation, their thinking, their propaganda and their actions in the past had all been fundamentally different from what in fact they have been.

In the last resort they accepted de Gaulle because, like, the British Labour Party and Trade Unions which rallied round their “enemy” Churchill in 1940, many of de Gaulle’s capitalist aims are acceptable to them. De Gaulle stands for French patriotism and “ greatness,” so do they—almost their last act in the Assembly before they changed sides was to stand singing the Marseillaise, the battle-hymn of French capitalism in its triumph over the old regime, in the French Revolution.

De Gaulle still lives in the atmosphere of the wars against German capitalism—so do they.

De Gaulle stands for a forceful foreign policy as in the Franco-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956—so did the French “Socialist” party under its leader Mollet.

They believe not in Socialism, but in Republicanism and patriotism, nationalisation and the reform of capitalism—so does de Gaulle. In his declaration of his aims at a Press Conference on May 19th, he stressed the grounds calculated to appeal to social reformists:—

“I fought the war to win victory for France. But I did it in such a way that it was also the victory of the Republic. I did it with all those without a single exception who willingly wanted to join me. And at their head I restored the Republic to its place. In its name, on its behalf, in conformity with its spirit, my Government accomplished an enormous task of renovation. Political renovation: the granting of the right to vote to women, citizenship given to the Muslims of Algeria, the beginning of an association within the French Union of peoples who formerly depended on us. Economic and social renovation: Nationalisation of the mines, gas, electricity, of the Bank of France, of the main credit institutions, the State-owned Renault car works, works committees, a social insurance organisation on such a scale and in such a way that workers are covered against century-old scourges . . . ” (Times, 20th May, 1958.)

So he went on reminding the workers and their organisations that if what they wanted is reforms of capitalism he was the man who did what they wanted.

The French “Socialist” party supported him before and served in his government, so why not again?

Thus do years of reformist propaganda rise up to mock those who used it. Elements in the British Labour Party fall for the same stuff and for the same reason. Philip Noel-Baker, writing in the Labour journal “Forward” (May 23rd, 1958) joined in the praise for de Gaulle, while reserving judgment as to whether he would succeed in resisting pressure to go in for “Fascist courses.” Noel Baker wrote about the General’s work for “nationalisation, economic planning and social reform” and ended his article:—

“But, whatever the fears and suspicions of the politicians, de Gaulle is one of the great Frenchmen of the modem age, with matchless courage, and great achievements to his name. I believe that history will judge him to be a writer of the finest modem prose, and, in his instincts, a democrat, and a reformer inspired by a visionary belief in the enduring greatness of his country, France."

The British Labour Party is divided in its attitude to de Gaulle for the same reason as the French party, with their leader Mr. Gaitskell counselling a waiting attitude and no hasty condemnation of Mollet, while others, including Bevan, taking a line of strong criticism. But neither side is guided by an over-riding Socialist principle, each treats it just as an issue in everyday practical politics.

Mr. Gaitskell in a speech at the conference of the Boilermakers Union at Scarborough paid tribute to de Gaulle’s past, hoped he would succeed, and ended by calling on his listeners to express “our support for and solidarity with all those French comrades, whether they voted ’for’ or ’against' de Gaulle, who are striving to preserve the democratic system and to resist the continuing threat of Fascist dictatorship” (Daily Telegraph, 4/6/58).

What will de Gaulle's efforts aim to achieve and actually achieve? French capitalism, after losing to England in the Napoleonic wars, the dominance of Europe and the seas of the world, built up a great colonial empire in the late nineteenth century. But, with the rise of the U.S.A and Russia as the two great world powers, with the decline of Europe and, with the emergence of local capitalist dominance in many of her African, Middle East and Far Eastern colonies, French capitalism, as an empire, even more than British capitalism, faces a hazardous battle to avoid relegation to the ranks of second class powers.

Whatever course events may take we have to face the lamentable fact that there does not yet exist in France, any more than in any other country, a united Socialist working class aiming internationally to end capitalism. As facts are, all the rival sections want to do is to play capitalist politics over the question whether French capitalism should be governed in the chaotic manner of the past 20 years or placed under an authoritarian regime with de Gaulle. The French scene presents us with another example of the emptiness of the reformist argument that because most workers are not yet Socialists, only a programme of reforms can unite the workers. Far from being united against de Gaulle they are divided for and against him, and on each wing there are yet other bitter divisions over yet other relatively minor issues. Socialism cannot unite the world’s workers now, but in the long run there is no other programme capable of bringing them together, for Socialism and against all the forces of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle