About socialism (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

1. What is the Socialist Party of Great Britain?

It is a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed in this introductory leaflet were adopted by the Socialist Party in 1904 and have been maintained without compromise since then. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles, and they too remain independent from all other political parties.


2. What is capitalism?

Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices, transport, media, etc.) are monopolised by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us, the majority working class, who sell our mental and physical energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold on the market at a profit. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but, as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.


3. Can capitalism be reformed in our interests?

No: as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers, but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such a promise is like offering to run the slaughter house in the interests of the cattle.


4. Is nationalisation an alternative to capitalism?

No: nationalised industries simply mean that workers are exploited by the state, acting on behalf of the capitalists of one country, rather than by an individual capitalist or company. The workers in nationalised British Leyland are no less the servants of profit than workers in privately-owned Ford. The mines no more belong to "the public" or the miners now than they did before 1947 when they were nationalised. Nationalisation is state capitalism.


5. Are there any “socialist countries”?

No: the so-called socialist countries are systems of state capitalism. In Russia and its empire, in China, Cuba, Albania, Yugoslavia and the other countries which call themselves socialist, social power is monopolised by privileged Party bureaucrats. The features of capitalism, as outlined above, are all present. An examination of international commerce shows that the bogus socialist states are part of the world capitalist market and cannot detach themselves from the requirements of profit.


6. What Is the meaning of socialism?

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self- defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying or selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet earth.


7. How will socialism solve the problems of society?

Capitalism, with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future; almost one in four families with children living below the official government poverty line; many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation — tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more: yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses; yet it is not "economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.


8. What about human nature?

Human behaviour is not fixed, but determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. The capitalist jungle produces vicious, competitive ways of thinking and acting. But we humans are able to adapt our behaviour and there is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate. Even under capitalism people often obtain pleasure from doing a good turn for others; few people enjoy participating in the "civilised" warfare of the daily rat-race. Think how much better it would be if society was based on co-operation.


9. Are socialists democrats?

Yes: the Socialist Party has no leaders. It is a democratic organisation controlled by its members. It understands that Socialism can only be established by a conscious majority of workers — that workers must liberate themselves and will not be liberated by leaders or parties. Socialism will not be brought about by a dedicated minority "smashing the state", as some left-wingers would have it. Nor do the activities of paid, professional politicians have anything to do with Socialism — the experience of seven Labour governments has shown this. Once a majority of the working class understand and want Socialism, they will take the necessary step to organise consciously for the democratic conquest of political power. There will be no Socialism without a socialist majority.


10. What is the next step?

Many workers know that there is something wrong and want to change society. Some join reform groups in the hope that capitalism can be patched up, but such efforts are futile because you cannot run a system of class exploitation in the interests of the exploited majority. People who fear a nuclear war may join CND, but as long as nation states exist, economic rivalry means that the world will never be safe from the threat of war. There are countless dedicated campaigns and good causes which many sincere people are caught up in, but there is only one solution to the problems of capitalism and that is to get rid of it, and establish Socialism. Before we can do that we need socialists; winning workers to that cause requires knowledge, principles and an enthusiasm for change. These qualities can be developed by anyone — and are essential for anyone who is serious about changing society. Capitalism in the 1980s is still a system of waste, deprivation and frightening insecurity. You owe it to yourself to find out about the one movement which stands for the alternative.


If you have read this set of principles and agree with some or all of the points in it, contact the Socialist Party with your questions and ideas about what you can do to help speed the progress towards Socialism.

Message from somewhere (1988)

A Short Story from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Memo from Captain Krik of the Starship "Entrepreneur"

Prior to our most recent case, of which details are given below, this voyage has been extremely successful. No fewer than five habitable but practically unoccupied planets which offer useful supplies of raw materials have been discovered. In addition, we encountered two planets where the life-forms have attained a moderately high level of social organisation. Both offer abundant labour power, and one may well become a leading holiday attraction in view of its varied scenery. In neither case do we anticipate any difficulty in persuading the inhabitants to accept our guidance and control: not only is their technological level far inferior to ours, but there is significant discontent on both worlds. An offer of a higher standard of living plus a harmonious social order in exchange for minimal amounts of labour and raw materials would, if appropriately presented, be bound to be attractive.

This brings us, however, to the case mentioned earlier. I refer here to object 7UN/4WS. a nondescript but ore-rich planet and one of nine circling a nondescript star. After orbiting around it and performing initial linguistic and anthropological study, we as usual sent agent Itocs down to the surface to live among its inhabitants for a short period. His adventures there were so singular that I feel it is worth quoting some extracts from his report. Itocs first made acquaintance with a person who gave him a lift to the nearest city; he naturally used the opportunity to enquire about the local social set-up.

"There was an awkward period," writes Itocs. "during which I discovered that my companion had no conception of government and was moreover curious as to how I could have developed the expectation that such would exist”. I muttered something about having been in an isolated part of the globe for some time, which seemed to convince him. Surely, though, there was some means for making collective decisions about matters of common interest, I asked him.

' "Oh yes," he replied, "there are local meetings where everyone discusses issues and decides on them. We also elect representatives to the regional bodies which debate questions like building new roads or something. And there's an organisation above regional level, too, for even wider issues."

"That sounds like a government", I suggested.

' "Well," came the reply, "we call it the EC. though I don't think anyone knows what the initials stand for, or if they stand for anything. To tell the truth, it doesn't need to meet very often — people just run things for themselves."

'Once we reached the city, my companion, seeing how much of a stranger I must be, offered to show me round. I had realised by this time that it would be wise to say as little as possible and to show no surprise at whatever might transpire. So over our excellent lunch I mostly just listened to my companion's chatter. I had determined to act as much like him as possible, so at the end of the meal I simply followed him out of the restaurant without making any attempt to pay for the food. I was more than half expecting to be accosted by an irate manager, but nobody chased after us. It was the same when we collected some food and various household items — no payment and no objections.

' "I must leave you now." said my companion. "I am going to work."

'I managed to ask, in as roundabout way as possible, in order not to show myself up, why he was going to work when goods were freely available.

'He looked perplexed. “I don't see the connection. If people didn't produce them, there obviously wouldn't be any goods. But how could their being freely available be a reason for not working?"

"Couldn't someone who didn't work take the same amount of goods as you?"

'This had plainly never occurred to him. "I suppose so, but why would anyone not work? I don't see what you're getting at."

' "Then answer me one last question. What name do you give to this social system?"

'Again he looked mystified. "We don't call it anything, it's just the way we live, and the way we have lived for generations. If we wanted a name. I supposed we'd call it life." '

Wherever he travelled on the planet. Itocs found the same situation. All goods were freely available, so nobody starved and there were no rich and poor. The farms and factories belonged to no one, and there was nothing that could be called government. Not that everyone was happy the whole time. There were still arguments and individual antagonisms, but no socially-caused dissatisfaction.

This of course raises a problem for our strategy towards this planet and its inhabitants. While our civilisation outstrips theirs technologically, it is hard to see how we could convince them that we were offering an improved way of life. The alternative of a military conquest seems to me out of the question. We have only ever used this against a recalcitrant minority, to use it against the entire population of a planet, even one without armed forces, is surely unacceptable.

I suggest, therefore, that this planet not be colonised in any way. Instead, its unique form of social organisation should be kept under constant observation, albeit from a distance. It is hardly surprising that this eccentric type of society should not have developed elsewhere in the known universe, but we should at least keep a close eye on it.

Paul Bennett

The Four Tigers (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A weary Asia out of sight  

Is tugging gently at the night  

Uncovering a restless race; 

Clocks shoo the childhood from its face.

W.H. Auden

A trade union demonstration in Singapore is a rare sight; one protesting a decision of the United States Congress is unheard of. That it was permitted is a measure of the government's concern at Singapore's inclusion with South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong as one of the Four Tigers allegedly threatening the economic life of the US. and therefore scheduled to have its GSP privileges withdrawn on 1 January, 1989. The Generalised System of Preferences allows free or low-tariff imports of certain goods into the US; Japan and the EEC have similar schemes. Its purpose is. ostensibly, to encourage the trade and economic development of Low-Developing Countries. But trade is at least a two-way business, and developed countries are involved as much for the purpose of their economic health.

Growing up in capitalism is a painful affair, as any worker knows. Having successfully responded to the urging of their US mentors to modernise and achieve newly industrialised country status, these LDCs are reaching out for some of Uncle Sam's bourbon and cigars and have been told that they will be "graduated" from their trade privileges as a consequence.

The present trade deficit of the US. and its changed role from creditor to the world's heaviest debtor nation, is something that capitalism's supporters would have found difficulty envisaging ten years ago. Some blame Reaganomics, but this cannot explain how the exceptional economic superiority of the US after the Second World War appears to be progressively deferring to the rapid growth of Europe and Japan. Although persistent trade imbalances can be reversed and do not indicate the permanent demise of a country's economic strength, it does seem that the automatic assumption of US economic hegemony is being challenged by the development of capitalism itself in the shape, in this instance, of the Newly Industrialised Countries.

Asian NICs
These countries have all experienced colonial status and their development in the last decade has been outstanding. The UN Economic and Social Commissioner for Asia and the Pacific states that the Four Tigers achieved a remarkable 11.7 per cent growth in real GDP in 1987. Even the growth at 5.7 per cent of another Asian ex-colonial LDC, the Philippines, exceeded that of the most developed countries. And despite the continued general slowdown in world economic growth projected by the IMF at 2.9 per cent this year, the Tigers' expansion rate, in keeping with ESCAP's regional projection of 5.6 per cent, is expected to continue well above those of developed countries.

The scheduled withdrawal of GSP privileges is an example of increasing US protectionism which highlights the international nature both of markets and investment capital. The Singapore American Business Council's call on its government in Washington to reconsider withdrawal, argued that cheap imports of Singapore products into the US — in particular from their own factories in Singapore — help lower costs in US-finished products, increasing US competitiveness. In a demonstration of their capitalist maturity, the NICs took immediate steps after the announcement to support their separate economies. Trade delegations between the Tigers followed, as well as between them and areas such as India, Pakistan and East and West Europe. And Taiwan and South Korea, with a competitive eye on China's cheap and abundant raw materials, agreed to reverse their previous trade policy with her and to open their markets.

The role of the Tigers' exports in the US trade deficit is an indication that capitalism can still develop increasing productivity and output, and that industrialisation still results from investment in low-wage areas. US, Japanese and EEC capital have played the major part in this.

But the Four Tigers represent only part of the picture of Third World development in East Asia. Thailand, better known for export of rice and rubber, now exports Japanese cars, its manufactured products swelling from two per cent to 60 per cent of exports in 25 years. With the highest growth rate in the ASEAN group of six countries, and an IMF forecast of a seven per cent annual growth until 1991, she is expected to become the next NIC. Like the Tigers two decades earlier, Thailand has a flourishing labour-intensive textile industry with low wages — about US$3 daily. The increasing use of machine-intensive industry, staffed round the clock by an adaptable, young labour force, could well follow their pattern by keeping labour costs low and the economy competitive. At one-third of the cost, industrial productivity almost equals that of South Korea. Already a magnet for US and Japanese capital, investments now flood in from the economies of the Tigers and the EEC. to share in the fruits of exploitation.

Malaysia, another ex-colony attracting foreign investment, has urged Singapore and Taiwan, already the second and third largest investors in the country behind Japan, to avoid GSP restrictions by relocating their industries there, stating its aim as wanting to form an "economic power to replace the weakening US and EC markets". Its manufacturing sector's growth of 12 per cent, and its 69 per cent growth in trade surplus in 1987, reflect the surprising fact that Malaysia is now a significant producer of electronic and electrical goods, and that machinery and transport equipment head both its import and export lists.

Keeping a watchful and wary eye on these developments — and on her trade surplus with the NICs — Japan is in the forefront of OECD moves to include them in a new Pacific OECD. However, they already account for 25 per cent of the US deficit, and as they turn to the EEC to avoid US protectionism, the European trade situation could worsen. Expected by OECD to surge past Japan's surplus, and to double that of the EC and EFTA combined in 1989, it is not surprising that their inclusion in economic dialogue is seen by Japan and the other major powers as essential.

When Auden wrote the lines at the head of this article, much of Asia and the Pacific rim were colonies. Fifty years and decolonisation have passed, and many countries seem ready to move into what is referred to in Singapore as the "chopsticks century", as fully-fledged capitalist powers experiencing the same competitive pressures. As exploitation in South Korea intensified. leading to a series of strikes and a 20 per cent pay increase last year, suicides among housewives increased sharply. And in a rare demonstration of strength and solidarity, Thai workers in reorganised unions are demanding a social security system from birth to death.

Increasing US protectionism, and the anticipated strengthening of EC external tariffs with the community's impending economic unification, have led to calls for an Asian Common Market. We are not in the business of making predictions, and treat economists" forecasts with a caution derived from our knowledge of capitalisms' economic anarchy. Whichever scenario obtains — free trade or protectionism — Asian workers will indeed have lost their childhood.

Bill Robertson

Far Eastern Notebook (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Year of the rabbit

Whilst the Japanese government tried to remedy its labour shortage by a January feasibility study on opening its labour market to foreign skilled and semi-skilled workers (except of course for the construction industry), Singapore has similar problems. Since the mid-sixties the government family planning campaign on hoardings, TV and in newspapers, to "Stop at Two" has borne fruit in a lowering fertility rate. One would have thought that this would have been cause for government self-congratulation as well as a good omen for the world which, we are continually told, is overpopulating itself to the point of self-starvation. But as socialists have always held, population laws are social not “natural", and in capitalism, are geared to the requirements of capital accumulation and profitability. As the Singapore Straits Times (8.1.88) put it, "Public officials, business executives and others were previously reported to be alarmed that continued low births would eventually damage the economy, retard progress in living standards and even threaten the nation's security". Hence the recent reversal of government policy replacing financial penalties for third births and more, with population incentives, although the sudden surge in births last year was attributed to its being the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.

The reversal of the policy and of the arguments used, does not seem to have damaged the government’s credibility. Of course, by the time a generation of home-grown workers reaches an exploitable age the labour market situation could well be reversed many times, and with it the arguments. But that is the capitalists' problem. That of the workers world-wide is to realise that in every country they are conjured into, and out of. existence like an obedient genie, to satisfy capitalism's need for factory and cannon fodder, and to totally reject this obscenity.


Our friend the robot

Robots in manufacturing are no longer news. But a new generation in the building construction industry is setting fresh standards of innovation in Japan. Modularised to handle the variety of tasks and situations found on site, these are commercially marketed as viable replacements for labour used in concrete pouring, plastering and the erection of the steel skeleton of buildings. Much is made of their safety function in a country with nearly a thousand deaths a year in the building industry, but the main motive, as with much machinery introduction, is replacement of skilled labour in short supply, which translates into higher labour costs and lost contracts.

In construction, the average age of the skilled worker is now over 40, an indication of one of the biggest headaches for the Japanese capitalist — its ageing workforce. With present labour demand high, the unions see retraining as an acceptable alternative for workers replaced by the robots. As Makoto Saito, assistant manager in Kajima, a large construction company said. "[Our workers] think that the robots are developed for their benefit”.

The higher demands of flexibility, adaptability, and robustness placed upon construction robots as opposed to those used in manufacturing, have prompted the Japanese Construction Ministry in association with research institutes, to develop new design and planning systems for construction to suit the limitations of robots and not of people. When this is done in ten years or so, and the robots' role becomes more general than a mere labour shortage stopgap, Japanese construction workers may be in a better position to see who are the beneficiaries.


ASEAN’s rising sun

This region’s non-event of 1987 was the December meeting of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) heads of government in Manila. The first for ten years, its official business took only eighteen minutes, and was mainly a demonstration of support for the Aquino government.

The role of Japan, a non-member, in the region, was highlighted by a report by the member states' Foreign Ministers. This expressed the fear that the reduction of USA involvement in the region was allowing a more prominent role for Japan militarily. In particular it points out that Japan's announcement that it is prepared to protect the sea-lanes of communication as far as one thousand miles from Tokyo, and the increase of its defence budget to beyond one per cent of its GNP has raised some concern among the ASEAN member states. Another committee stated that Japan would strive to achieve a military back-up for its dominant economic might. This mood was not dissipated even after the summit, when Japan's Prime Minister Takeshita presented ASEAN with a US$2 billion aid offer (later tied to joint Japanese participation) and, almost contritely, referred to Japan's "deplorable history of the last war” and its present rejection of the path to military power. Japan's recent warning shots at a Russian Badger bomber in its airspace, the first such incident despite many similar incursions since the war, and the knowledge that its self-defence force contains 270,000 people, 1100 tanks, 50 modern destroyers and fourteen submarines, as well as hundreds of combat aircraft could have been to blame. Perhaps ASEAN is beginning to realise that its Manila Declaration aim to produce a nuclear weapon-free zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality in its region will founder on the hard realities of its own world of national and commercial rivalries.


Profit or loss of liberty

Little has been heard of Laos since the 1975 takeover by the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party. But what we did learn from those admirers of this particular brand of state capitalism, was that it was busy building "socialism" with the aid and advice of its comrades in Vietnam. The Far Eastern Economic Review (31 December 1987) quotes Suthin, manager of a plastics factory: "Under the new policies the government won't tie our hands and our feet. We're free to run our own business, but we're expected to make a profit". If the factory loses money "and the manager doesn’t have a good reason, he'll be thrown in jail".

The economics of slavery in the West Indies (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Slavery has existed from the earliest records of human history. The ancient Egyptians used slave labour to build the pyramids from 4,750-3,000 BC; the Romans and ancient Greeks owned slaves and the geographical areas from which slaves were obtained had a history of owning slaves themselves. The West Africans had slaves and the Carib Indians of the West Indies raided Puerto Rica. Hispaniola and Jamaica for slaves. Slavery was such a basic feature of ancient societies that Plato, Plutarch and Aristophanes all retained slavery as part of their utopias, and even Thomas More, in his Utopia, as late as 1516, retained slavery as a punishment for crimes and adultery.

The slave trade of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries differed from earlier periods of slavery in that the number of people enslaved was much greater; the contradiction between the alleged Christian beliefs of the white slavers and the evils of the trade led to pseudo-scientific theories that their black captives were not really human, which, in turn, produced entrenched racist ideas which have persisted into the twentieth century.

The trade in African slaves to provide labour in the Southern states of the USA and the West Indies lasted for approximately 250 years and led to the transportation of an estimated forty million slaves. The Portuguese began trading in slaves at Lagos between 1440 and 1450 and by 1540 ten thousand slaves were being shipped to the West Indies from West Africa each year and. in addition, slaves were sold in South America and Mexico. Although slaves may have been brought to England as a result of the Iberian trade, the first group of African slaves to be brought to England by an English trader came from the Guinea Coast in 1555.

Britain's participation in the slave trade dates from 1564, when Sir John Hawkins made his second expedition to Africa in the flagship Jesus, with Queen Elizabeth's blessing, his first trip, two years before, having been highly successful. Manufactured goods such as textiles, iron, guns and spirits were shipped from Britain to the Guinea Coast and exchanged for other goods and slaves. These were exchanged for raw materials such as sugar and cotton in the New World which, in turn, were transported to England, completing the triangular trade. Jack Grates (The Great White Lie) states:

 Profits derived from the system found their way through reinvestment into other industries and agriculture, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they contributed substantially to the development of the Industrial Revolution on which Britain's nineteenth-century prosperity was based.

Liverpool was the main British port from which the slave ships sailed. In 1730, the port had 15 ships; in 1751, 53; 74 in 1760; in 1770, 96. and 132 by 1792 (Karl Marx. Capital).

The slave trade corrupted the African chiefs who bartered with the white slave traders. The insatiable demand for slaves led to an increase in tribal wars for captives who could be sold to the slavers. And by the middle of the eighteenth century the kidnapping of men and women of working age and in their most active reproductive years, the terrible loss of life resulting from the tribal wars and the spread of disease which accompanies foreign invaders, caused some areas of Africa to become underpopulated.

As the slavers pushed further into the interior of Africa the forced marches to the coast became more of an ordeal. Thirty per cent of the slaves died before they reached the coast to board the slave ships. And sometimes slaves who were rejected as unfit were killed by the black traders (Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, 1788). Conditions on the slave ships were barbaric in the extreme: a captain in the Royal Navy made a famous drawing of the slave ship Brookes in Liverpool docks in 1787, which showed how 450 slaves were packed into the ship, allowing six feet by sixteen inches for every man and five feet by sixteen inches for every woman. This "tight-packing", as it was called. led to considerable loss of life during transportation and in 1788 to the British Parliament regulating the conditions under which slaves could be shipped. Although this made the transportation of slaves more humane, by regulating the trade Parliament had officially sanctioned it. Greed had led to the "tight-packing" of slaves but the higher survival rate of transported slaves after regulation may have been commercially just as successful and, by its claim to be humane, may have set back the campaign to abolish the trade.

William Wilberforce campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade from the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in London in May 1787 to the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act on 16 March. 1807. A number of myths surround Wilberforce. He was an MP and a wealthy factory owner who exploited child labour in his Hull factories. Contrary to popular belief he was opposed to the emancipation of the slaves, claiming that they were not fit for freedom.

When Earl Percy wanted to bring in a Bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indies in 1807, Wilberforce stated: "I and those who think with me not only abstain from proposing such a Bill, are ready to reject such a proposition when made by others". Wilberforce had a patronising attitude towards the slaves and was intolerant of Mohammedanism and Hinduism, which he wished to replace with Christianity.

The Prime Minister, William Pitt, also claimed to be an abolitionist but trading actually increased during his administration. It is thought that his opposition arose as a result of the sale of slaves by British merchants to foreign colonies, especially France, which although profitable in the short term was damaging to Britain's long-term interests.

After the abolition of the slave trade a million slaves remained in bondage in the West Indies and as slavery continued until 1833 slaves, therefore, had to be replaced. But the illegality of trading pushed up the price of slaves. To prevent illegal trading the British government provided bounty money for the capture of slave ships. As a full ship could command a bounty of £2,500 the naval squadron patrolling the African coast preferred to catch slave vessels at sea because it was more profitable than prevention. To evade the risk of capture the slave captains would put the slaves into specially prepared hiding places, so small that the slaves often died of suffocation or else they would be thrown overboard to drown or be eaten by sharks. The illegal trade was so profitable that if only one in three of the slave ships delivered its human cargo, a profit could be made. The European slave owning countries co-operated with each other to stop the slave trade but the USA refused to take part for a time and it was possible for a ship to avoid capture by running up the American flag.

The abolition of the slave trade provides a classic example of the futility of a reform that leaves the system intact and can sometimes lead to a worsening of conditions rather than an improvement. By the nineteenth century the industrial revolution had superseded chattel-slavery and feudalism in Britain. A new class of labouring poor with nothing to sell except their labour power had emerged in the industrial towns and cities. Slavery was becoming an anachronism. Slave labour was not free: slaves had to be maintained and, unlike the wage-slaves of Britain, they were expensive to buy. In Jamaica, in 1817, male slaves aged 20-40 years were valued at £139 and female slaves at £124 (B.W. Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica 1807-1834, Cambridge University Press. 1976).

As the work performed by slaves was usually of poor quality incentives were provided within the slavery system. In the French West Indies slaves had some legal protection against arbitrary punishments being meted out by their owners and. it is claimed, those islands were more profitable. In Jamaica slaves who had learned trades were able to amass fairly large sums of money. The ending of the slave trade led to a higher proportion of unproductive slaves as the owners were forced to breed slaves for themselves.

Further pressure was put on the slave system by a fall in the price of sugar which, by emancipation, was worth only about half of its value at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Reform Bill of 1832 halved the planters' representation in the British Parliament which weakened them politically and the increasing number of slave rebellions culminated in the Jamaican rebellion on 27 December 1831 in which 20,000 slaves took part, killing 14 whites and destroying over £1 million worth of property.

In the face of growing economic and political problems the plantation owners opted for the compensation offered by the British government of 1833 which, in fact recognised the legal right of one person to own another. For the former slaves, emancipation changed their material lives very little; their former owners kept control of the courts and owned the land. As Tolstoy observed fifty years later:

 . . . the essence of all slavery consists in drawing the benefit of another's labour-force by compulsion, and it is quite immaterial whether the drawing of this benefit is founded upon property in the slave or upon property in money which is indispensable to the other man (What Shall We Do Then, 1885).

Chattel-slavery was a particularly vicious form of exploitation, although the condition of the working class under laissez-faire capitalism was also inhumane and squandered workers' lives. For workers all over the world the fight for emancipation against wage-slavery and its replacement with socialism still has to be won.

Carl Pinel

No business like . . . (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

How do you persuade millions of people that commerce and conscience are compatible after all? The ITV television companies certainly had a good try at this over the bank holiday at the end of May. For 27 hours, a procession of media has-beens such as Tony Blackburn, Lionel Blair, Rolf Harris and Frank Carson were given a new lease of life. Tipped out of their Rolls Royces on to our TV screens, these "entertainers" then proceeded to trot out their Bob Geldof impersonations, ordering the British public to redistribute their poverty.

The event was helped along by various other budding cheerleaders, such as that opportunist and careerist starlet of the "alternative" media establishment, Emma Freud, together with racist comedian Jim Davidson, and Derek Hatton who, having tired of making Liverpudlian workers' lives miserable in the name of "socialism", was now seen judging a beauty contest at a London nightclub while swigging bottles of champagne (for charity, of course). We were even treated to a performance from David Steel and Alan Beith, who showed that their musical ability was as flimsy as the political lies out of which they have built careers.

This charity bonanza had creaked into action on the Sunday evening, when Prince Charles gave us a message from his home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire, urging everyone to "keep up the good work", just like the local headmaster or vicar at the village fete. By the time it was all over, and Cilia Black sang "Tomorrow is a Lovely Day", many viewers must have been saying that it had better be. for the day that had passed was a tawdry shambles of crass commercialism dressed up as a caring conscience. As the picture faded, the audience could be heard chanting "Here we go. here we go. here we go . . ." and again, there was a feeling that this was yet another case of the journey being more important than the arrival.

Unlike previous such events, this was an openly commercial television charity show. With a sickening narrow-minded nationalism, the advance publicity had stressed that this time the money would go to "our own", British charities (not to mere Ethiopians, or others who might be starving). What an admission this is, that Britain also is plagued with poverty and suffering, despite the pretence of civilisation and prosperity. In fact, in Britain today there are over 100,000 registered charities, all seeking to mop up after the devastation caused by the priorities of the profit system.

The chief presenter, Michael Aspel, entered into the competitive spirit of the day by boasting at the end that "we" had beaten "the Americans" in their recent efforts to raise money along similar lines. In fact, the total raised was a pittance compared with the needs it was seeking to meet: a mere £22 million. At the time, the audience gasped and screamed with excitement that such a lot had been raised. This is only because it is more than working-class families will see in their lives. But it was only about 40p per person in this country. When divided between the several thousand charities involved in the share-out, it will hardly solve the problems they are trying to deal with. In capitalist terms, the amount collected represents the money received by General Motors last year from their car sales every 3-4 hours on average. (Their total sales last year were over 100 billion dollars.) The total spent by British companies on advertising themselves in 1987 was £5.8 billion: nearly 30 times the telethon total.

Looked at from another point of view, the total of £22 million could have been easily provided by just one man, if Robert Maxwell had donated one-third of his personal unearned income for 1987. Or if Sir John Sainsbury had added just one-fiftieth (or two per cent) of his own private accumulated wealth to the ITV begging bowl, it would have more than doubled the total collected immediately. It was certainly, then, a case of the poor throwing a few pennies at the poor and becoming hysterical in the process.

Undoubtedly the most hypocritical aspect of the May Telethon, however, was the nature of some of the donations themselves. Nicholas Scott, the government Social Security minister, came on to present a cheque for £ 1 million, made up from pensions which had been underpaid as a result of a computer error. One wondered whether this error would have been announced very loudly by the government if it had not been parading its generosity on TV. by handing back to the poor and needy those benefits which were originally supposed to have been paid to. . . the poor and needy. Then, to add insult to injury, it was revealed some weeks later that this government "cheque" had in fact been a blank piece of paper held up for effect, as the government would be donating this money only indirectly, through concessions.

The main feature of the programme, though, was a series of smiling businessmen, lining up to present cheques to the good cause, and stressing visually, verbally and in any other way they could think of. the identify of the company involved. It was not very long before the adverts shown every 20 minutes throughout the 27 hours were becoming indistinguishable from these cheque presentations. For example, there was what amounted to a full-blown Martini ad, complete with the familiar tune and a woman on roller skates with tray and drinks, who rolled on to present a cheque for a mere £ 10,000. The equivalent length of time for an ordinary paid TV ad would have cost several times as much as this, about £50.000. It seems that on this occasion both commercial advantage and conscience money came dirt cheap. Barclays Bank presented a cheque for £100,000, and had their name and image glorified across our screens. Were these charitable donations tax deductible? If they were, Michael Aspel certainly wasn't saying anything about it. In any case, as a fraction of Barclays' world profits, this amount would only represent about one afternoon of their earnings.

To criticise the pop-charity of recent years may be unpopular, but it does not take much investigation to see what is happening here. It is no coincidence that the present government, with its talk of Victorian values, and the cutting down of social benefits for the "undeserving" paupers, is quite keen on the indignities of good, old-fashioned private-enterprise charity, for the more "deserving" clients (if indeed the government believes that there are any left). The problems have remained or multiplied since efforts such as Band-Aid. and this has even been admitted by the charity guru, Bob Geldof himself. But "conscience money" allows people to retreat from real political action, safe in the false security of feeling that "something is being done". In the case of Telethon, it would be more accurate to say that "someone was being done", namely the viewers, as we were dished up hours of adverts and publicity-seeking, disguised as entertainment and compassion. . . and all for a pittance.

Clifford Slapper

Running Commentary: Junk society (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Junk society

It's not often that I find myself in half agreement with a lackey of capitalism, in this case Edwina Currie, junior Health Minister. When she made her headline-grabbing remarks that Northerners are more overweight than Southerners, eat too many crisps and drink too much. I could only concur with her. While aware that Southerners eat junk food too, Mrs Currie raised a question to which any socialist could have given her the answer: diet is related to economic circumstances.

Two years on medical "experts” have reached the same conclusion and are taking Mrs Currie to task for omitting this explanation from her previous comments. The Henley Centre's director of health. Mr Kreitzman. told a BUPA conference in Leeds that by the early part of the next century life expectancy in the South would be longer than in the North. "We are talking about four to five years, which is quite significant", he said. "Just as we are developing an economy with affluence and poverty living cheek by jowl, so it is the case with health" (Guardian, 2 June). Currie was also attacked by Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the Clinical Research Division of the Royal College of Practitioners, who said that she had failed to understand that a northern diet is based on a tradition of low wage levels and heavy manual work.

One explanation for the northern predilection for "comfort" food may be that offered by George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier:

 Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would rather starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less you feel inclined to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita; an unemployed man doesn't. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little "tasty".

As long as capitalism exists, if you have caviar tastes but a fish and chip budget then your choice of food will be restricted by the amount of money you get for selling your labour-power to a minority ruling class. If you really want to improve both your health and your happiness then abolish this junk system of society. Abolish capitalism.

Sheep’s brain

Tucked away on the back page of the Guardian of 7 June was a hundred and fifty word report headlined "Howe insists on the beneficence of the capitalist system". In a speech in the City of London the day before Sir Geoffrey Howe had defended the social responsibility of the capitalist economy by claiming that those acting in their own interest in the market were promoting an increase in others' well-being. (Those readers who haven’t at this point fallen off their seats, and are rolling about consumed with hollow laughter, read on.) Replying to recent criticism by the Church of England, Sir Geoffrey said. “Where people are able to respond to the signals of the market place, they are responding to the preferences of their citizens. In effect, in seeking to increase their own well being, they are often helping to promote an increase in other people’s well being." He concluded that the welfare state, by promoting rights rather than responsibilities, had undermined traditional obligations.

Assuming that all readers aren’t curled up on the floor at this point, screaming "Please, Sir Geoffrey, no more. Have you ever thought of auditioning for Bob Monkhouse's Opportunity Knocks?', let me remind you that Denis Healey compared being criticised by Howe to being savaged by a dead sheep. This is a mistake. One must never under-estimate the power and influence of a member of the executive of the modern state, the committee for managing the common affairs of the ruling class, no matter how inane or ineffectual he or she may appear to be.

Dave Coggan

Running Commentary: Tenants’ choice (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tenants’ choice

The government’s housing bill is currently undergoing its report stage in the House of Commons. This piece of legislation represents yet another example of the way in which government twists the meaning of language, purporting to give tenants more "freedom" and "choice" by granting them the "right" to opt out of local authority control. Just how far language is distorted is evident in the supposedly democratic procedures laid down in the bill for voting on whether ownership of an estate or block of flats should be passed from the council to a new landlord.

Only local authority tenants resident at the time the prospective landlord made his or her application to the local authority to take over specific properties can vote. This initial application may have been made as much as six or nine months before the ballot is actually held. As a result the “electoral register" will inevitably be out of date. In fact, any tenants who have left the relevant property in the intervening period will still have the right to vote — as will tenants who have died — even though they will in no way be affected by the decision made. On the other hand, tenants who have moved into the estate or block in the months before the ballot will not have the right to vote.

The second perverse feature of the voting procedure is that anyone who does not vote who is eligible to do so will be assumed to be in favour of the property being transferred to the new landlord, and that includes any dead eligible tenants.

Finally the transfer of the property will go ahead unless more than 50 per cent of those eligible to vote, vote against. What this means in practice is that the privatisation of an estate or block of flats can go ahead even if no one actually votes in favour of it. And they dignify this farce with the name of "tenants' choice ”.

Life and death

Many workers find aspects of capitalism morally repugnant: the degradation, misery and exploitation that continually flow from a class society throw-up impassioned voices of criticism and protest. Take the following examples of the way in which workers are brutalised for the sake of profit.

A Japanese electrical company was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 11 April to have been worried that its workers were not competitive enough. To overcome this problem fifteen trainees were deposited on an uninhabited island three miles from the mainland for a three-day survival course. Reporters were told by an enthusiastic employer that "The trainees will have to exercise their imagination and will-power to survive . . . We need flexible people." The article went on to discuss the way in which school-children, on joining Japanese companies, are often sent to military bases for a crash-course in discipline, conformity, teamwork, competitiveness and patriotism. The writer concluded: "Parade ground drill, three-mile runs and saluting the National Flag attune young people to the sacrifice demanded on their life-time marriage to the company".

The same paper on 5 March revealed that the Lord Mayor of London recently sought to persuade City firms to send their young employees into the Territorial Army. As in Japan, firms have been told that training professional killers will instil into employees the competitive will to succeed. Ironically it was advertised as less expensive than sending City workers to Japanese-style weekend training courses. It also falls conveniently in line with ideas put forward by the National Employer Liaison Committee, set up by Thatcher herself, which wants to increase employers' support for the state's reserve armed forces.

In the last week of May the Daily Telegraph reported the death of a Sales Manager. He had worked more than 12 hours a day to meet the demands of his employers, who still were not satisfied with his performance. Before he killed himself they wrote to him stating that "Quality and customer satisfaction must become an obsession". For good measure they advised him that he would have to work harder for less money. The coroner concluded that "There is so much more to life than business schemes and profit". but did not suggest so informing the CBI.

Rigid discipline and the nurturing of aggressive behaviour are vital to capitalism. It requires such qualities no matter what the cost nor how unpalatable they are to workers involved. No moralising will make them disappear because the pursuit of profit must inevitably trample on human needs and brutalise individuals in the process. This is nothing more than a fact of life under capitalism.

Workers have two choices. They can go beyond the promises of politicians and the hollowness of reformism and organise politically to abolish capitalism. Or they can resign themselves to a lifetime of wasted effort working in charities, signing petitions, attending marches or writing harrowing books exposing this or that acute social problem. To do so will condemn us to stumble from one crisis to another and brutalise, degrade and maybe even kill us in the process.

Richard Lloyd

Running Commentary: Sweet talk (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rowntrees, the confectionery firm, have been "fighting off" take-over bids from nasty foreign rivals Nestlé and Suchard, defending our native Kit Kat and the like. But I am puzzled; surely the name Nestlé (we always called it "Nessels") is familiar from childhood. and inextricably wedded to the experience of losing your shillings in the chocolate machine? What is really astounding is that no one has asked the opinion of the foremost expert on the subject — Sandra Boynton. Her book Chocolate: the Consuming Passion (Methuen. 1982) reveals an extraordinarily wide knowledge (and I consider myself no slouch on the subject). Showing a firm grasp of economics, she says "It was the capitalists who first realised that it does not really matter whether chocolate exists or not. as long as people buy it". In the present "crisis" the vital question is whether the general consumer (for example me) will still be able to afford sufficient quantities of this essential commodity. To quote again: "If the current unequal distribution of chocolate continues unchecked, we increasingly run the risk of general depression. Chocolate is not a privilege: it is a right. As such, it must be provided as a readily-available service in every community throughout the civilised world." I couldn't have put it better myself.

AEB

Maggie's moral crusade (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Margaret Thatcher is the personification of a system which is uncaring, callous and hypocritical, but it does not follow that socialists are primarily concerned to win a moral battle. As human beings in an inhumane world which exploits and oppresses our class we are, to be sure, motivated by a profound indignation about the iniquities around us. Many workers, along the way to becoming socialist, express moral outrage at the system of capitalism — they see it as unfair, unjust and immoral. But. as historical materialists, we can see that capitalism is, indeed, '‘fair", 'just” and "moral" because the class which rules determines what is meant by fairness, justice and morality. The moral standards of any society are a reflection of the selfish class interests of those who control it. Not much more than a century ago in America slavery was considered morally acceptable. Only when economic forces made slave ownership an obsolete way of organising production did the new capitalist morality view the ownership of man by man as offensive.

On 21 May Margaret Thatcher addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It was an opportunity to outline her morality. And in doing so, she was able to express the moral outlook of the class of thieves and manipulators which she defends with such vigour. It is worth taking a look at what this message amounted to.

Responsibility

What is certain . . . is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm. We are all responsible for our own actions.

Are we? Is it the case that we individually determine whether we shall be born into circumstances of affluence and comfort or poverty and deprivation? Of course not. Is it the case that we are individually responsible for deciding how much access we shall have to goods and services? If so, then we must conclude that the tens of thousands of homeless families in Britain are without shelter, not because they are too poor but because they are too irresponsible to be housed. We must assume that the fifteen million children (world wide) under the age of five who die of starvation each year do so as a consequence of their own. individual lack of responsibility. Such reasoning is a distortion of reality. The geriatric workers who endure lives of impoverished semi-existence, threatened with death from hypothermia or because NHS cuts mean that there is no district nurse to attend to them, are not in such a position through irresponsibility. The wage slave whose life is one endless misery of trying to make ends meet is not in a self-created rut but one caused by capitalism, a social system which excludes the majority of people — the workers — from power over society and its resources.

It would be a mistake for socialists to blame the existence of working-class misery, which is a consequence of workers not establishing socialism, on individual irresponsibility. We must ask why it is that workers have not brought about a change which is in their interest. And in asking, we will not help ourselves to formulate a serious answer if we attempt to explain the continuation of the profit system in terms of the moral shortcomings of its victims.

Work

We are told [in the Bible] we must work and use our talents to create wealth. “If a man will not work he shall not eat", wrote St Paul to the Thessalonians.

Here we have a representative of a class which is free to be idle — which defines success in terms of the freedom to live without working — telling us that if you do not work you should not be allowed to eat. If this moral maxim is to be taken seriously, then it follows that those who are too old. weak, ill or young to work should be allowed to starve. In that sense at least, the moral would reflect life as it is, for under world capitalism it is precisely those who are unable to find a job who are most likely to be moneyless and hungry.

In the gentlemen's clubs of London various idlers and ponces of Thatcher's own political party — not to mention others who support the other capitalist parties or none at all — spend their days doing virtually nothing. They get drunk, they sniff cocaine, they purchase prostitutes (both male and female), and they sleep a lot. These people eat very well indeed. What they leave on their plates at banquets would do very nicely for those who have to squeeze enough money out of a wage or a dole cheque in order to feed the kids. They eat with great energy; they work not at all. Perhaps St Paul should call in on the parasites whose interests Thatcher so ardently defends next time he is having a word with the Thessalonians. whoever they may be.

If it is our moral duty to "work and use our talents", then is Thatcher saying that those who prevent willing people from doing just that are immoral? Of course not; for remember. humble brethren, if you don't do what you "must" do it is because you are irresponsible. Millions are unemployed because of a shortage of personal responsibility.

Money

. . . it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but love of money for its own sake.

Clearly the Prime Minister is not the prime reasoner. It is as clear as can be that she has made one statement using two different terms as if they mean the same thing. Wealth is the product of human labour on natural resources. Factories are wealth, what is produced in them are wealth, the produce of the land is wealth, coal and steel and textiles are wealth. Money is a means of exchanging wealth. It is an economic artificiality of property society. The working class produces the wealth of society. The capitalist class accumulates money because it legally steals the fruits of the workers' toil. Of course, there is nothing wrong with creating wealth; if we stopped we would all die after a certain time. But why create money? Because those who own and control the wealth require a buying and selling system which is totally outdated, and which socialists want to replace with a system where all people have free access to wealth. As we are not living in a free access society, the love of money becomes a way of life for many people — capitalists and workers. Thatcher should approve of such behaviour; indeed, she is hypocritical in pretending not to do so. It is only by allowing money to dominate the lives of men and women that she can have her so-called enterprise culture — a culture of total obedience to the laws of monetary gain.

The Bible

. . . we are a nation whose ideals are founded on the Bible.

One: "we" are not a nation. The nation belongs to "them", not "us". Two: their nation is characterised by a distinct lack of ideals. People do not go to the Stock Exchange to philosophise about "ideals" their objective is to make money. The best way of doing that is to exploit workers for profits. No ideals, just plain thieving. Three: Thatcher has a very selective vision of the Bible. Does it not include the commandment "Thou shalt not kill"? Did Thatcher not urge us to rejoice when Argentine workers in uniform were being killed? Does the Bible not speak of the rich giving up all their money? We have not observed any passion on the part of Thatcher's class to dispose of their money in preparation for entry into Heaven. Does the Bible not inform us that the meek will inherit the earth? Unless this is a reference to the meek in mind — in which case the Prime Minister's husband and son are assured of their inheritances — we are under the impression that Thatcher views the prospect of the powerless taking over the earth as a dangerous, Marxist threat.

Socialists have no interest in arguing with our class enemies over rights to the Bible. They have spilled enough workers' blood in wars which have been justified by men holding Bibles — let them keep the bloody book. The truth is that Thatcher does not really believe all this theological tripe; we give her credit for being wiser than her ancestors of old, who actually believed the Biblical nonsense. The current moral crusade of the Tories is clearly a political crusade for workers' minds, an attempt to persuade us to look at the world through the eyes of the ruling class. But every time they come before workers with their stinking class morality we shall be there too, demonstrating in clear terms that there is a better society which we could have.

Steve Coleman

1688 and all that (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year is a good one for patriots as there are three big anniversaries for them to celebrate. The shipwrecking of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the colonisation of Australia by British convicts in 1788 and the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. This last is perhaps the least well known. Not that this is such a bad thing since there was nothing glorious for ordinary people in the revolution which replaced King James II by King William III.

1688 did, however, have an immense importance for the propertied classes of Britain as it established a stable property regime that has lasted to this day, under which those who held property at that time were legally established in their rights and their descendants have ever since enjoyed the full legal backing of the Courts against the kind of arbitrary dispossession that frequently occurred up until then. It also established the constitutional principle that the sovereign is subordinate to Parliament. Although he was more than the well-paid rubber stamp that present-day occupants of Buckingham Palace are, William was appointed king by Parliament. He did not claim to rule by “divine right” as had all previous monarchs, including his immediate predecessor James, who paid dearly for his illusion, as did his father, Charles I, who had his head chopped off in 1649 in the course of the English bourgeois revolution that much more deservingly merits the title of “glorious”.

The ideological defence of the 1688 revolution was provided by John Locke whose Two Treatises of Government is still required reading on political philosophy courses in English-speaking universities. This work is not only a defence of the “rule of law” as drawn up by a parliament of property-owners but an explicit defence of private property as against common ownership. Locke was forced to do this in order to refute any embarrassing literal interpretation of the Christian doctrine which he quoted in the chapter “Of Property” in his second treatise: “God gave the World to Men in Common”. Political argument at the time was conducted in religious terms — which takes some getting used to for those, like socialists, who know that god is a myth and religion a collection of superstitions, but less than 40 years before William III replaced James II, Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers had interpreted Christianity in just such a communist fashion.

Locke’s way round this embarrassing aspect of Christian dogma was to argue that God did indeed give the world to humanity in common, but that it wasn’t his intention that it should remain so. According to Locke, it was clearly God’s intention that humans should take action to keep themselves alive and that to do so they should consume products from nature, insofar as they worked to obtain these products (even if the only effort involved was reaching out and picking an apple from a tree) they were entitled to ownership rights over them. As Locke, speaking for God, put it:

Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men.

Locke’s argument here, that natural materials that are “common to all Men” can legitimately lose this status and become private property when they are mixed with human labour, is not as obvious as he assumes. For it could just as logically be argued that the natural materials from which all wealth is fashioned should remain common property even after they have had human labour mixed with them. This, at any rate, was the prevailing view in those societies which practised common ownership. Nor is human labour the individual product Locke assumes, but a social product — all humans acquire their skills in and through society — and, in fact, since human beings are a part and a product of nature, human labour is itself a natural force.

Locke used the same principle of labour to justify private property in land: a person was entitled to own the land which they had worked because they had mixed their labour with it. At one point in his argument, however, Locke contradicted himself, writing about his right to own “the Turfs my Servant has cut” whereas, on his own argument, these turfs ought to be the property of the servant, who actually did the work and mixed his labour with the natural material, rather than of the servant’s employer who had done nothing. This was probably only a slip on Locke’s part, but a revealing one, as it demonstrated that Locke took for granted the division of society into masters and servants and the right of the master to appropriate the product of the labour of the servant. It was, of course, by exploiting this contradiction that early socialists, at the time of the Chartists, were able to turn the labour theory of property against the landlord and capitalist classes and to denounce them for the parasitic exploiters of other people’s labour that they were.

But Locke was concerned not just with justifying the private property of the working farmer or artisan but also with justifying that of the rich merchants and large landed estate-owners who existed both before and after 1688 and whose rights the revolution was intended to consolidate. Here again he came up against Christian dogma which taught that humans were entitled to take from the common store of nature and make their property only what they needed and no more. In fact, to the extent that taking more than was required for personal use deprived someone else of their basic needs, this was robbery and the person in need was fully entitled to take what they needed from the greedy person’s surplus.

Such a doctrine provided no justification for the accumulation of capital and the concentration of property ownership that were necessary for the development of the capitalist society that the 1688 revolution was designed to accelerate. On the contrary, it ruled out the accumulation of property beyond the personal needs of the property-owner. So, after refuting common ownership, Locke had to go on to refute also the idea that there were limits to the size of property holdings. He did so in what has to be admitted was an ingenious, if entirely specious way.

Agreed, he wrote, property-owners have no right to own more than they can use but the reason for this limitation is that they have no right to let any surplus to their own needs go rotten. If however, he went on, some means could be found of accumulating a surplus in a form which didn’t rot this would be all right from a moral point of view. This could be done, Locke concluded triumphantly, if the surplus in the form of perishable agricultural products is converted into non-perishable metals like gold and silver, in other words, if they are sold for money and accumulated as such.

Locke took the argument even further. In agreeing to the use of money and to the putting of a value on it, humans had tacitly agreed to the accumulation of property and the unequal distribution of wealth ownership:

But since Gold and Silver, being little useful to the Life of Man in proportion to Food, Rayment, and Carriage, has its value only from the consent of Men, whereof Labour yet makes in great part, the measure, it is plain, that Men have agreed to disproportionate and unequal Possession of the Earth, they having by a tacit and voluntary consent found out a way, how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus, Gold and Silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one, these metalls not spoileing or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things, in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of Societie, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver and tacitly agreeing in the use of Money.

It is for having provided this pathetic justification for unequal property society that Locke is regarded by contemporary capitalist society as the greatest political thinker of the 17th century and is taught in English-speaking universities throughout the world. Winstanley, on the other hand, who was by far Locke’s superior, both in style and quality of argument, is dismissed as a minor religious fanatic. But then, he defended common ownership and denounced the rich merchants and landowners as robbers and usurpers while Locke flattered them and justified their riches.

Locke was, however, right on one point: the link between money and the unequal distribution of wealth. A money economy is, or inevitably soon develops into, a society characterised by two main classes, those who own and accumulate wealth having a monetary value and those who don’t. It is because the so-called Glorious Revolution was designed to stabilise such an unequal society that we socialists won’t be celebrating it. After all, as class-conscious members of the majority propertyless class in society, why should we celebrate the consolidation of the property rights of the ancestors of today’s property-owning minority?

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: Who are the malingerers? (1988)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now the Public Assistance Board have nothing to do with the class of people who dominate the Ascot parades. It is not they who are referred to as malingerers. Yet they are the people who "toil not. neither do they spin. " The wealth they enjoy is obtained from the blood and sweat of the working class. Among the men who are described by the Public Assistance Board as having been continuously unemployed for three years are those who have helped to make possible the wonderful clothes and ornamentation of these Ascot and other "society" gatherings. Malingering is a disease arising from the anarchy generated in human relationships through class exploitation. To live without working, to live above the standard of those who have to work, that is the hall-mark of "success" in capitalist society. Parasitism is an essential part of social life today, therefore, the fact that here and there a few who belong to the working class may sometimes attempt to "get by" without work is but mere child's-play when it is compared with the gigantic exploitation by ten per cent of the population of the other ninety per cent. Socialism will end social parasitism in every form.

[From an article in the Socialist Standard, July 1938.]

Letter: Ex-entrepreneurs Unite! (1988)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ex-entrepreneurs Unite!

Dear Editors

I'm so glad that someone has at last spoken up for the unemployed "business-people". I thought no-one wanted to know us. Especially since I've "failed" and slipped back into the under-class. Worse off than ever having spent up savings from when I was last employed. With your MSC folder — "You've got the Enterprise, we've got the Allowance" — you go from being a despised unknown to being much sought after by sellers of advertising space and organisers of trade fairs and such like after your precious fortune of forty pounds a week. Suddenly complete strangers know your name. You are flattered and famous! This tells the "ex" claimant a lot about a society where your worth is based on your material wealth and potential for increasing other people's wealth. Your value as a human being just doesn't come into it.

But personal sour grapes apart, I am very worried about the implications of all this lonely (it is pushed as mostly sole-trader) enterprise. Obviously the government sees it as yet another way of hiding real unemployment figures. There isn't sufficient support such as low-rent premises and adequate financial assistance for it to seriously create new jobs. After all. they think when most of last year's entrepreneurs have gone bump, there's this year's batch to take off the register, and last year's failures can then be hassled to take low-paid jobs on Restart

Also there is the question of self-exploitation. Life isn't exactly a bed of roses for the employed worker, but while on the scheme I was told that 80 hours a week is necessary to succeed in business. And if you can't cope with an 80-hour week? If you fail? How convenient; no longer do you blame the capitalist — you blame yourself What better way to break our solidarity.

Paula Dibb 

Accrington 

Lancashire

Lessons for teachers (1988)

Book Review from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why don't teachers teach like they used to? by Rachel Pinder. (Hilary Shipman. 1987. paperback £6.95)

I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand

This old Chinese proverb forms the opening lines of Rachel Pinder s informative, sometimes amusing and always very readable book. Having spent her working life in teaching and the last ten years before retirement as headteacher in Inner London, she relates the history of teaching by both "progressive'' and ' traditional" methods over many centuries up to the present. In the process she exposes confusion, if not total ignorance, as what constitutes "traditional" methods; what has. and has not. been tried; and the results achieved by the different methods.

In 1510. Dean Colet. founder of St Paul's School, criticised "traditional teaching by rule and formal methods". Richard Mulcaster. High Master of St Paul's in Tudor times, complained about teachers who "think it the best that boys should fruitlessly run through all the rules learned by heart but not understand." Elizabeth Lawrence in The Origins and Growth of Modern Education goes even further back, quoting Plato: "Enforced learning will not stay in the mind. So avoid compulsion and led your child's lessons take the form of play". It appears therefore that "progressive" methods have been advocated and used for 2.000 years. Does that make them "traditional"?

Professor Jean Piaget, an eminent Swiss psychologist, refers thus to John Amos Comenius (1592-1670): "Comenius may undoubtedly be considered as the founder of a system of progressive instruction adjusted to the stage of development the pupil has reached." Comenius said that learning should be in four stages: examine; question; investigate; determine. In 1641 he was invited by Members of Parliament to visit England and set up a school system based on his principles; unfortunately the Civil War intervened.

Although the beginnings of "progressive" education are often credited to Rousseau, it is obviously much older than that. In a review it is neither possible nor desirable to quote every example but the following extract from Richard Edgworth's (1744-1817) Essays on Professional Education perhaps gives a key to Mrs Thatcher's obsession with "returning to basics"

  The first object should not be to teach them reading or grammer. or Latin or arithmetic . . but gradually to give them the desire to learn and the power to attend . . . they must be taught to think (our italics)

Politicians' exhortations since 1976 that schools should "get back to basics" shows an alarming degree of ignorance and apparent unawareness of school inspectors' reports over the past 100 years. The latest of these, in 1981. bears great similarity to one within over a hundred years ago:

 There is no evidence that a narrow curriculum, concentrating only on the basic skills, enables children to do better in these skills: HM Inspectors' surveys suggest that competence in reading, writing and mathematics may be improved where pupils are involved in a wider programme of work and if their skills in language and mathematics are applied in a variety of contexts.

In 1858 the Newcastle Commission was appointed to investigate education and make proposals. One of these was that children should be examined annually by an inspector and schools paid "by results". This was introduced in 1862 and Robert Lowe. Vice President of the Privy Council for Education said in the House of Commons:

  I cannot promise the House that this system will be an economical one and I cannot promise that it will be an efficient one. but I can promise that it shall be one or the other. It it is not cheap, it shall be efficient; if it is not efficient, it shall be cheap.

Examinations were based on a centrally controlled curriculum and although teachers were not forbidden to teach other subjects, there was great pressure to ensure that children would pass the examination rather than that they should learn anything worthwhile. The system worked as far as government expenditure was concerned; this dropped from £813,441 in 1861 to £636,806 in 1865. In Curriculum Change in the 19th and 20*h Century Gordon & Lawton quote from the 1871 school log-book of a Welsh headmaster:

  Believing that one-fourth of the school time that was devoted to subjects not recognised by the government and consequently not paid for by grants, had the effect of keeping a well-informed school but causing the percentage results to be lower than those of schools that are mechanical in their working and unintelligible in their tone. I have been compelled against my inclination to arrange that less time be devoted to them in future and more time to those that pay best.

However this teaching by rote did not produce workers adequately fitted for their role and the system was gradually eroded, being finally eradicated in 1890. How long will it take this century for realisation to dawn that "traditional' teaching, according to official definitions, not only stunts the mind but will produce a generation ill-equipped to provide adequately the labour required by modern capitalism?

Towards the end of the book Rachel Pinder talks of education which is not based only on lessons but also on the involvement of parents, family and friends in widening children's experience and therefore knowledge. This is a concept with which socialists would not disagree.

Eva Goodman

Single capitalist market (1988)

Book Review from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trading Places by John Palmer, Radius

The media are currently making a big fuss about the "single European market" which is supposed to be coming into existence in 1992. Capitalists have been appearing on television and in press advertisements to tell us what a good thing it will be for them. They are right; it will be a good thing for them, or at least for some of them, but for those who depend on working for a wage or salary it is a monumental irrelevance. About the only concrete change we'll notice will be the suppression of duty-free allowances when we come back from holidays in Europe.

Trading Places is written by Guardian journalist John Palmer, to accompany the ITV television series of the same title. He explains the idea behind the so-called single market is to move from the customs union (with no tariff's, quotas or customs duties) which has already been established in Europe to the abolition of what are called “non-tariff barriers" to trade, by which is meant differing health and technical standards and different taxes (VAT and excise duties) which impede the free movement of commodities. Hardly the most fascinating of subjects, but to be able to argue the case for the abolition of all markets, socialists need to be informed about what's going on under capitalism. This book provides the needed information on this particular subject in a readable form.

Adam Buick