The Myth of Moral Re-armament (1961)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Moral Re-armament—that high pressure political religious movement—has been making quite a lot of noise lately. The premier of its latest film, The Crowning Experience, was shown a few weeks ago in the West End of London. Full page advertisements have caught the reader’s eye in such respectable newspapers as The Guardian and The Times. According to Ivan Yates in The Observer, this publicity offensive represents their most sustained effort yet for support in Britain. A costly campaign it is, too, and quite clearly the wherewithal is not lacking.

Just what then is Moral Re-armament? When and where did it begin? Just what are its aims? The outstanding name of the movement is, of course, Doctor Frank Buchman; it was he who officially launched the movement in 1938 at East Ham Town Hall.

Buchman was born on June 4th, 1878 in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. Alan Thornhill, in a brief chapter at the beginning of the book of Dr. Buchman's speeches (Remaking the World), talks glowingly, almost gushingly, of his chief's Swiss ancestry, of his folk brought up “with democracy in their blood"— whatever that may mean. Very religious people, too, with a love of life.

Buchman’s conversion came when he was visiting Keswick, Cumberland, during a holiday on doctor’s instructions. He entered a little church and listened to the service and suddenly he was aware of his own faults. ”. . . Something fresh had come into his life, something which was to determine its whole course . . . ” He sent letters of apology to the members of the board of a children’s home against whom he had harboured ill-feeling and was then all set to carry his ideas to practically every part of the globe. This practice of apology is common to all converts to Moral Re-armament—one might call it their initial humbling and an invaluable experience in their subsequent efforts to make others humble too.

Dr. Buchman’s movements are vague during these earlier years, but we do know that his activities were to lead to the formation of the Oxford Group in 1928, when a number of Rhodes scholars and other Oxford students were given this name after a propaganda visit to South Africa. Moral Rearmament was launched ten years later, in face of the threat of the second world war. “The crisis is fundamentally a moral one. The nations must rearm morally.” Such was the new cry, and perhaps here was the beginning of the political side of the movement which was to be more obvious later.

“It is not an organisation; it is an organism,” Dr. Buchman is never tired of telling us. MRA has no formal membership, no such thing as signing the pledge. It holds its meetings and congresses, and publishes lashings of literature, and when a person has received the message loud and clear, he becomes “changed" and supports the movement. And what support this movement has, although The Observer article of March 26th claims that there has been disappointment at a recent falling away of influence in England. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there is a considerable zeal and enthusiasm among Moral Re-armers, many of whom have given every penny they possessed and have surrendered themselves completely to the task of spreading the message.

So just what is there in Moral Re-armament to fire people with such energetic conviction that they are prepared in many cases (not all), to change their way of life? To say that it is a religious movement is to state the obvious, and as with religion generally, there is a vagueness which the high powered techniques and sweeping statements fail to mask, in fact, serve only to accentuate. Gabriel Marcel, for example, talks airily of a “community life based on faith" and that last word gives the reason for the vagueness. It must be so, because its basic assumption of the existence of the supernatural has not one jot of scientific evidence to support it.

This is not to doubt the sincerity of the bulk of “ Buchmanites,” of course. As Geoffrey Williamson points out in his illuminating book Inside Buchmanism, just to talk to them is to see how fervent and conscientious they can be. Aware of the terrible problems of modern society, and lacking the essential knowledge of their origin, such people are comparatively easy meat for such movements as Moral Re-armament. Or, to put it a little more kindly, they turn to Moral Re-armament for the answer.

And what are they told? That the world’s evils are created by man’s selfishness and greed. That only when the world’s people “listen to God” and become guided by Him, will we have harmony in the human family. Dr. Buchman has made assertions repeatedly for well over twenty years. For example:

  When God has control, a nation finds its true destiny. (Massachusetts, U.S.A.. 4.6.36.)
  The world awaits an inspired answer from statesmen as well as the ordinary man . . . guided ... by that added help which sees and recognises the Supreme Plan. (Interlaken, Switzerland, 2.9.38.)
  As men listen to God and obey His orders, nations find a pattern that makes plain God’s will for Government. (Caux. Switzerland, 4.6.47.)
  Go all the way with God and you will bring the answer to your nation. . . . (Mackinac Island, U.S.A., 4.6.58.)

Their insistence on absolute standards of honesty, purity, unselfishness and love, makes strange reading when it is remembered that they supported the Allied war effort from 1939-1945. Which just goes to show how relative their “absolute” standards can be when the occasion demands. With the outbreak of war, as Geoffrey Williamson puts it. the word ”patriotism” began to appear in the M.R.A. vocabulary, and although the movement came under fire in some quarters on the grounds of army-dodging, the more astute capitalist politicians, particularly in America, were quick to recognise it as a stimulant to the war effort.

”Moral Re-armament is a message of the highest patriotism. It gives every American the chance to play his part," said Dr. Buchman at Philadelphia, June 4th, 1941. And to prove it, written and spoken propaganda were stepped up. They even produced a National Defence Handbook You Can Defend America, and its transatlantic counterpart Battle Together for Britain. In England alone, they claim to have distributed some five million books and pamphlets during the war.

In the post-war years, an openly political note has sounded in M.R.A. propaganda with a heavy “anti-Communist” bias. They have claimed verbal support from such leading statesmen as Dr. Adenauer and Robert Schuman, and some following seems to have been captured in the new Capitalist States like Burma. Sweeping claims have been made for the success of their ideas in the field of international politics, and it is then that charges which have recently been levelled at them seem to have most force. Just listen, for example, to extracts from Fresh Hope for the World, edited by Gabriel Marcel:

  . . . We have seen how men and also a nation (Japan) have found a fresh realisation of their true destiny (p. 208)
   Already the main features of a new society are emerging (p. 209).
   The African Nations are giving . . . tangible evidence of their experience of Moral Re-armament (p. 209).

And perhaps most pathetic of all in view of recent events:

  Even the most entrenched prejudices yield to this new conception. . . . In S. Africa black men who have led the struggle for the defence of their people s rights . . . and white men of the most extremist outlook . . .  in uniting, bring to the world a new conception of racial relations (p. 210).

True, M.R.A has supporters in many countries and is not without influence, but it is about as useless as any other reformist movement and shows the same ignorance of the world of Capitalism.

On the industrial field, M.R.A. has served only to worsen confusion in workers' minds and blind them still further to their interests. It has intervened quite openly in strikes and helped to deflect efforts at securing better wages and conditions at perhaps the most favourable time—in the immediate post war years. In June, 1948, the Warwickshire mineworkers’ president is said to have claimed that M.R.A had given “real teamwork and better output” in the British Coal Industry, while in 1952, a French Iron and Steel Boss paid tribute to the part M.R.A. ideas had played in securing an agreement with his workers to forego wage increases for four years. And again, said the late John Rifle, former U.S. labour chief, “Tell America that when Frank Buchman. changed John Rifle he saved American industry 500 million dollars.”

What a tragedy indeed that many workers should have been sufficiently gullible to fall for this gigantic fallacy that is Moral Re-armament. Quite openly they are discouraged from thinking for themselves and are told only to “tune in” to some mythical God, Spirit, Intelligence—call it what you will. To be swayed by such pernicious doctrine is to surrender all right to independent thought and become particularly susceptible to any earthly dictator glib enough to convince his followers of his “God-given authority.” Signs of this danger can be detected in Dr. Buchman's own words. "There is tremendous power too, in a minority guided by God.” (Interlaken, Sept. 6th, 1938). There was even the foolhardy statement before the war, that Hitler, Mussolini, or any other dictator, if God- controlled, “ could control a nation overnight and solve every bewildering problem.”

Within M.R.A. itself, the adoration of Dr. Buchman is repugnant and at the same time ominous. His followers seem ready to quote his words parrot fashion and to treat his most commonplace utterances as world-shatteringly important. At least one observer has complained of this. But it is hardly surprising really. The very basis of M.R.A. belief fosters such an attitude.

The growth of Socialist knowledge, the mass understanding and conscious change at which we aim, can only be hindered by such as M.R.A. Their hysterical “anti-Communist” outbursts, their denial of the class struggle on the one hand, and their fanatical religion on the other, are a menace to Socialism and even to the limited capitalist democracy that we enjoy today. It may seem comfortable to relinquish responsibility for one's thoughts and actions and shut out the uncomfortable world of reality. But it is not the way to salvation for the working class. That way, in fact, lies damnation—of the earthly kind.

Eddie Critchfield

Socialist Principles (1961)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrades,

On this Continent, the pressure of capitalism on the working class is not minimized by welfare-state palliatives. Today, all the problems, whether of the homeless families, or of the young, or the old, of increasing criminality, etc., etc., not only remain, but are accentuated. Life is getting harder for the workers, more difficult and more insecure. One need not detail the daily reports of domestic tragedies caused by want and misery—one need only look at the newspapers' headlines, and leading articles, such as ” This Lost Generation,” "Courage to see things in their real light,” “The alarming rise of criminality a feature which, one of the papers says, shows a deep crisis in a sick society.

The working class of all other European countries are in no lesser plight. You have read of huge strikes in Italy and of demonstrations in Belgium against the further lowering of the workers' living standards. In France, unemployment, cuts, short time working and strikes are on the order of the day. A periodical, Les braves gens, published by an organisation of French philanthropists appealing to the rich for a realisation of the suffering of the destitute and the plight of the lonely old people in particular, states in bold type: 4 million French live on 1.88 NF (about 3.s. per day). The paper states that thousands of people have had their gas and electric current cut off for non-payment of bills. And how could they, with 3s. per day to live on? Perhaps this will remind you of the Abbé Pierre campaign in Paris to arouse the well-to-do to a realization of the terrible plight of the French capital's poor and homeless outcasts, though when all is said and done by these philanthropists, the workers remain the wretched and heavy laden in this capitalist world. Saying this to the President of the movement Les braves gens (whom I happened to meet at a swell Vienna hotel), and suggesting that nothing but a fundamental change of the constitution of present-day society can do away with these evils and with what les braves gens called a national disgrace. Count de Danne replied that ideals do not pay, that my proposal was impossible, and that all one can do is to palliate the sufferings.

A glance at the world in general reveals a sadly sick and chaotic society. UNO and FAO-statistics show a shocking picture of hunger and misery, almost unbelievable in a world of staggering wealth and unlimited possibilities. That behind the line facades there exists a tortured humanity and much happiness, seems paradoxical. Yet, such is the dismal truth.

In the face of such a situation and the permanent threat of another war; in the face of the inability of all the statesmen, politicians, leaders, writers, scientists and churchmen to solve any social problem; in the face of the past failures of the “superior brains" to avert catastrophes such as the two world-wars in this progressive "enlightened” generation, one can only marvel at the childlike attitude of the surviving poverty-stricken masses of the people still looking with confidence and respect to the “personalities" and to their leaders. Is it not yet evident enough that these individuals always stood—and stand today-for the continuation of the present system, of which poverty and insecurity of the workers, armaments and all-round conflict, always on the brink, are inseparable parts? What greater human disaster must befall us before it dawns on the workers that fundamental change is imperative! Surely, with the daily references in Press and Radio to such questions as Germany, Berlin, Laos, Indonesia, Algeria, the Sahara, the Congo, Palestine, Pakistan, and Africa and Asia in general, and to the nauseating thieves quarrel over the control of the tremendous resources and exploitable populations, the workers can no longer fail to see the real CAUSE of all the trouble commercial rivalry.

Of course, not one of capitalism's apologists or statesmen would lay his finger on the root cause of the social dilemma. Not one would point out that what is in all logic to be done, is the removal of the private ownership barrier in favour of common ownership by the people as a whole, which alone would enable mankind to rise to higher and loftier forms of human co-existence.

Many of capitalism's henchmen claim to have been in the “resistance" movement and to have suffered for their opposition to war. But the only genuine opposition movement in the world to capitalist war was and is today the revolutionary organisation of the S.P.G.B. and their companion parties. All others are not opponents to war as such; they were only on the wrong side of the warmakers' line-up. They wanted the other side to win, but not to oust capitalism.

Therefore, here is our watchword for the workers for the next Election: Up with principles the revolutionary Socialist Principles—and no Vote for individuals unless they are uncompromisingly committed to subscribe and endorse the Declaration of Principles!

A hearty Salute to all comrades!

Fraternally yours

for Socialism!

R. Franks

Votes in Belfast (1961)

Party News from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

A telegram from the members in Belfast received as we go [to] press, reads:

824 VOTES, DEPOSIT SAVED 

Hearty congratulations to our comrades in Ireland on what must have been a very active campaign.


Blogger's Note:
More details on this election campaign in Belfast appeared in the July 1961 Socialist Standard:

• The Belfast Campaign
• Election Manifesto
• News From The Belfast Front

See also the following article from the June 2004 Socialist Standard:

• Northern Ireland: Our first election campaign

The Passing Show: Russian "Socialism" (1961)

The Passing Show Column from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russian "Socialism"

A letter in The Times on May 10th read as follows:

  The gap between Marxist theory and practice could not be better illustrated than by the extension of the capital penalty in Soviet Russia. In theory the state and crime in the Communist society are supposed to "wither away.” The fact that 44 years after the Marxist Revolution it should be necessary to reintroduce the death penalty for a number of crimes is surely a very much more important propaganda point for the West than who manages to be first in orbiting the Earth with a satellite.

The harm that has been done to the cause of Socialism by the Russian Communist Party is incalculable. Over and over again the opponents of Socialism are able to make speeches and write articles sneering at Socialism on the strength of what the Russians are doing. If we say that Socialism means the end of war, they retort that the Russians have Socialism, and they also have one of the biggest war-machines that have ever been built. If we say a means the end of wage-slavery, they retort that the Russian workers still have to labour for wages. If we say it means the end of crime, they show the Russians' own reports revealing widespread crime in the Soviet Union. If we say it means the end of money, they point triumphantly to Russia—they have Socialism, and they have found they can't do without money.

From both sides of the Iron Curtain the flood of lying propaganda is endless. The Russians maintain they have Socialism, hoping thereby to secure the allegiance of the world's workers, and make the task of any states which go to war with Russia much more difficult. The Western world also maintains that the Russians have Socialism, because they hope that their own workers, seeing that the Russian workers are no better off than they are themselves, will therefore turn against Socialism.


State & Public Property

Further grist to the mills of capitalism’s supporters comes with the news that capital punishment in Russia has now been expended to further offences. It was abolished with great publicity in 1947,and then restored in 1950 for “traitors to the country, spies and wrecker-diversionists.” In 1954 it was applied to murder in "aggravated circumstances." Now it has been decreed for persons convicted of large-scale theft of “state and public property," for forgers, and for criminals who “terrorize'' fellow-prisoners. The British newspapers have not been slow to make capital out of the news. Here we are, they say: here is the “classless society" that the Socialists want—and it can’t even get along without executions! Even many admittedly capitalist countries have been able to abolish capital punishment: even in the old Russia, under the last Czar the death penalty was reserved for political crimes—that is, treason and attempts to murder members of the Imperial House.

Against this, Socialists can only go on repeating the facts of the case: that in Russia, as the most cursory unbiased examination would show, the presence of private property, wage-labour, state industry, commodity production, crime, and the coercive apparatus of the state all demonstrate quite unmistakably the nature of the economic and social system. It is capitalism, and nothing else.

But this has to he done in face of the capitalist monopoly of the Press, pulpit, radio, cinema, and television, all of which strenuously maintain the opposite. In fact, so useful is Russia (i.e., a capitalist country calling itself Socialist) as a propaganda weapon to 'the supporters of the status quo, that one is tempted to transfer a famous phrase: if it hadn’t existed, it would have had to be invented.


Strike Over Algeria

Monday, April 24th was a notable day in the history of France. At five o’clock precisely all industries, all public services, all organised labour ceased, and there was a nation-wide strike lasting one hour. All the trade unions—communist, social democrat, right-wing—joined to support this tremendous demonstration. Some ten million workers came out, and it was considered “probably the most massive strike in French history.” What had caused this enormous working-class reaction?

The answer, of course, is Algeria. The revolt of April, although led by four generals, was a movement of the French settlers in Algeria and their sympathizers. These settlers form a landed aristocracy. Their position as a propertied class depends on their keeping the Algerian land which they or their forerunners seized. While the Algerians themselves could be subdued without too much expense, the French capitalist class was prepared to support these landed settlers. But now the situation has changed. A whole rebel army is in the field, and large-scale military operations are necessary to keep Algeria from falling into their hands. A new Algerian moneyed class, which is the mainspring of the rebellion, is growing up.

It is in the interests of the French capitalist class to cut its losses, and by giving independence to Algeria to escape the crippling financial burden of the Algerian war. Then, in peace, French firms can resume their profitable activities in Algeria as they have in the other former French colonies in Africa. This is what the French ruling class requires, and this is what its present executive officer, General de Gaulle, will carry out. Even though the General was brought to power by a movement which had its origin among the settlers in Algeria, the necessities of the ruling class dictate his course. Which explains why there have been two more attempted coups in Algeria since de Gaulle took power, led by the very men who at first supported him, and who now, of course, regard him as a traitor. But he is not that. Just as in other countries the elected politicians throw overboard their promises when “the needs of the country” (i.e., the needs of the ruling class) demand it, so in France de Gaulle has been forced to disappoint and discard the men who thought they were raising him to power in order to “ keep Algeria French.”

This, then, is the nature of the struggle in Algeria. Basically it is a contest between the new Algerian capitalist class and the landed settlers, with the self-interest of the French ruling class forcing it at last to come down on the side of the former. And the massive strike carried out by the French trade unions was in support of the French ruling class against the settlers.

When the workers devote half the time and energy which they now give to fighting for the interests of their masters, to fighting for their own interests, they will he irresistible.


Headaches

From the Sunday Express, May 7th:

  Soon returning to London after spending the winter months in Jamaica are Lord and Lady Brownlow. They have been staying at The Great House, Roaring River—the 3,500 acres of cattle land and plantation which Lord Brownlow— formerly Lord-Lieutenant of Lincolnshire —bought 13 years ago.

But "although his estate adjoins the fashionable vacation resorts. Lord Brownlow does not find that his visits to Jamaica provide restful holidays." He is reported to have said: "Being a member of the so-called Plantocracy these days means more headaches than profits." Naturally! Property-owning has always meant "more headaches than profits." Property-owners throughout the ages have been at pains to make this clear to the non-property-owners. So insistent have property-owners always been on this point that we would be tempted to believe them—if only they showed they meant it by giving up their property.

Alwyn Edgar

Jehovah's Servants (1961)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Until a couple of centuries ago human knowledge of the physical universe and of man’s historic development was scattered and very limited. The principal guides were religious works and teachings, the most familiar being the Bible. The idea of the World and Universe coming to an end, and being reborn again in some other form, stemmed from man’s primitive struggles with nature, the observance of life and death among plants and animals, the waxing and waning of the heavenly bodies.

The strong religious theories and dogmas influenced ideas about society.

It was when the class struggle became more acute that suppressed groups combined theories about new societies with the contemporary religious ideas on the ending of the world. Politics in 'those days were never far removed from religious hair-splitting and supplication.

In the 16th century Germany was in a state of upheaval. The creed of one Protestant group, the Anabaptists, included a belief in ’the return of a divine power and the establishment of a system of common ownership. The dramatic outcome of this movement was in 1535 when the Anabaptists under John of Leiden, took over the town of Münster and attempted to set up the millenium on earth. The adventure was an experiment in a commonweal society which the feudal landowners, aided by the Church, stamped out in mass bloodshed. In England at the time of Cromwell a similar but smaller group called the Fifth Monarchy men exited. Successfully hampered by the magnates and Cromwell, they awaited the Restoration to gain a place in history. Frustrated then at every turn they took to the murder of legal gentry, and followed this up by a comic opera attack on the Tower of London. This adventure effectively erased them from activity.

With the opening up of the United States the ideas of the Millennium took on a more peaceful form. In North America, where land was plentiful, colonies calling themselves the Lord’s Elect set up their Edens, practising mutual aid, pooling of resources, and strict living. Others more colourful awaited what they hoped was to be the second coming under some self-appointed Messiah or Shiloh. The weakness of these colonies lay in their exclusiveness. The outside world interested them only slightly; they had no desire to interfere with society.

However, in the 1850’s one group formed a different attitude. Known as the Christadelphians, they laid down very definite views on their God's plan far mankind which they based on biblical study. They claimed that the old earth would pass away with Christ's return, and a new world with no evil, oppression, or wars, would be the reward of the believers, with an everlasting life thrown in. They made a name for themselves as conscientious objectors in the American Civil War.

By 1872 Pastor Russell, living in the U.S.A., had formed another group based on Christadelphian theories. These groups called Bible Students were worldwide, linked to their chief, Russell, by a system of publications and pamphlets that embodied the Russellite theories. After the death of Russell in 1916, the mantle of leadership fell on the shoulders of Judge Rutherford, who had American know-how on sales pressure, publication and organisation. The Bible Students were banned in the U.S. during the first World War and Judge Rutherford was jailed.

It was in the unsettled conditions of the world after 1918 that the Bible Students turned their propaganda to eye-catching and shock provoking tabloids. Such statements as, “ Millions now living will never die ” (in a world still numbed by the World War losses) or “ Religion is a racket ” at least arrested attention, even if the subsequent arguments were lacking in proof.

The Rutherford clique tightened up on the old members and widened the base of membership. The original select class were quietly pushed out and the members eventually became known as Jehovah’s Witnesses—a more comprehensive name and helpful in making new members.

The ideas of the sect are disturbing to other creeds. They renounce the conventional ideas of heaven and hell, the immortal soul, and the holy trinity. Backed up by Biblical quotes, the Witnesses argue that Man was created and lived under perfect conditions, but fell under the influence of a fallen angel, namely, the devil. Since then the world and its social systems have fallen more and more under the sway of the devil and his legions. Wars, sovereign states, hunger, poverty, oppression and death itself are all manifestations of mankind's turning away from Jehovah’s revealed truth.

The current troubled society fills them with hope, however, as the Witnesses proclaim that the day of Armageddon cannot be far away. The faithful, they say, will survive the final struggle in which the devil will be made captive, and "this system of things” swept away. Christ will rule the earth, supported by some 144,000 spiritual beings who once lived on earth. The rest of men will not die, and under the theocratic order the earth will flourish as a garden.

When the earth is fruitful again a resurrection of all the dead will take place. All will enjoy the paradise on earth and so remedy past sins by acknowledging Jehovah and Christ. However, after a thousand years the devil will be released to tempt the wavering. This is the final struggle and the devil and his followers will be finally condemned to death.

A cynic might wisecrack and ask how anyone could turn "bolshie” after a thousand years of the millennium; will it be the outcome of boredom? Many may howl with laughter at these theories —at the same 'time as they are swallowing other dogmas, religious and political, that are just as unreal.

The Witnesses can argue their case with ability and verve, which is more than can be said for the average Catholic, Tory or Labourite. Fundamentalists in a world of science, they fearlessly attack theories of evolution by rapier thrusts at the weak links in Darwinism. They are the type of religious opposition to keep materialists on their toes. They have been scourged by the dictatorships which have tried to keep them from their domains as if they were the plague. This is to be expected when great “Leaders” are filling their workers up 'to the brim with home brewed ”People’s Republics” and ‘‘New Orders.” The Witnesses might appear to their masses as some rival supermarket.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses may be painstaking in argument, energetic, skilful in propaganda, obedient in organisation; but after all this they are supporting some theory that has no basis in fact. For their case ultimately pivots on a manlike conception of a god; a deity with human emotions and ideas, a god made in man’s image. The grimness of capitalism has driven these people to feel that man cannot help himself; he must forever wallow in blood and hatred, never growing up, always dangerously infantile.

In fact, only man himself can. work out his own salvation. In spite of the setbacks, heartbreaks, and mistakes, Man learns step by step to deal with his problems.

That is the final answer to the Witnesses of Jehovah, and to all other purveyors of religious theories.

Jack Law

Rocking the Boat (1961)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is everything quite well with Mr. Macmillan? Governments, we know, are bound to become rather unpopular at times: the working class has a nasty habit of suddenly turning against the very men whom they have just elected to power, and for no apparent good reason. Perhaps that is why we are hearing so much about trouble in the Tory ranks. Or is there something more?

The April issue of The Director, which is the mouthpiece of the Institute of Directors, carried an article which speculated upon the possible successors to the leadership of the Conservative Party. It is strange, as the article pointed out, that there is at the moment no immediately obvious choice to take over from Mr. Macmillan. When Churchill was Premier, everyone knew that he would one day hand over to Eden. And Eden, it once seemed, would pass on the burden to Butler, But Macmillan has not brought on any bright young man as his heir apparent—there are many who look as if they have a chance of one day stepping into his elegant shoes,

Now the interesting thing is that The Director should bother its head about the matter of the next Prime Minister at all. Mr. Macmillan is still young, as Premiers go. He has been in the job for barely four years and is hardly cool from his last smashing electoral victory. His government seems to have given satisfaction to large sections of the British capitalist class. Why, then, should some of them want to dwell upon the awful day when he must leave the stage to lesser lights? What are the causes of dissension in the Tory benches?

Well, there is Africa, for a start. The government’s policy of giving in so easily to the demands for independence has upset the tea-planting element in the Tory Party. Lord Salisbury spoke for them all when he castigated the Colonial Secretary as being ”too clever by half.” Some political correspondents are saying that not only Mr. Macleod is a sharp boy; Macmillan himself has shown a crafty hand over Africa. The Prime Minister’s problem is to bring his wilder and woollier supporters to accept the realities of modern British capitalism, on issues like Africa. Gaitskell, who has a similar problem over nuclear armaments, has not shown up half as well as Macmillan. The recent history of colonial nationalism must have convinced many influential sections of the British capitalist class that the most economical way of dealing with the nationalists is to give them what they ask and to make the best of it Then, they should be able to continue to invest money in the newly independent territory and so keep their influence with the native government.

This policy is much less ruinous than the sort of warfare which the French have waged over Algeria and the British over Cyprus. The sharper British statesmen must shudder when they recall the famous “never” speech of Lennox-Boyd in a debate on Cyprus. They must realise that it is better for the colonial powers to do a deal with a rising nationalist movement rather than to attempt to suppress it. This is one of the reasons for the sudden changes of front which we have seen recently over colonial affairs, changes which have transformed men like De Valera and and Makarios from terrorists, reviled by every popular news-rag, into respected politicians who are welcomed to the conference table. Soon, perhaps, Jomo Kenyatta will be similarly transformed; and Ferhat Abbas and the other leaders of the F.L.N.

Willingness to come to terms with the independence movements may be, for the capitalists, the saner course, but the Tory Empire men do not appreciate it. These are the men who are roasting Macmillan over Africa.

Then there is the matter of the spies. First the Lonsdale case, then George Blake. Macmillan did his best to soothe everyone, saying that Blake’s espionage had done no irreparable damage. This is impossible to reconcile with the words of Lord Parker, when passing sentence, that Blake had brought a lot of British intelligence work to nothing. This sort of thing must be very disturbing to the people who are charged with keeping the secrets of British capitalism—and the Labour Party, who are as worried about this as the rest, were quick off the mark with some pointed questions to Macmillan and were glad to see that Gaitskell went along to secret discussions with the Prime Minister.

No member jeopardised his majority by pointing out that all nations have their spies. (There are reports that Blake gave away some British spies in East Berlin). Nobody said that spying is one of the results of the involved diplomacy of the various capitalist powers., who are all the time working to extend their influence and power. Not one honourable member suggested that, whilst armed forces exist, they are bound to need powerful weapons, and to keep their latest methods of organised murder a close secret. There was not. in other words, one voice, however small, raised to say that espionage is part of the sordid way of capitalist life, that most capitalist nations have their own spies—whom they regard as heroes, whilst scourging their opposites as dirty snoopers. All sides of the House were united in defence of British capitalism; the only discordant note, in fact, was struck by a few Labourites and Tories who think that perhaps the government is not vigilant enough in this defence. Some government supporters may even have been a little irritated with Macmillan over the matter. There he was, so smooth and assuring, so full of honeyed words and all the time letting all that scandalous espionage go on behind his back.

If the Tories are a little down in the mouth, they can have found little in the Budget to cheer them up. We all know that Budgets can often win a few votes, even for an unpopular government. That can hardly be said for Mr. Selwyn Lloyd’s first effort. One aspect of the Budget which escaped notice was that it contained a lot of measures which are popularly supposed to come exclusively from the Labour Party. This year’s Finance Bill gives the government power to introduce, as it likes, a payroll tax and to vary certain excise rates by ten per cent. either way. These are typical of the powers which the last Labour Government used to take, in the days when it was absorbed in planning the recovery of post-war British capitalism.

At the time, the Tories attacked such non-Parliamentary powers as undemocratic (quite right—they are). They called them examples of Socialist dictatorship (quite wrong—they are nothing of the sort). Now that a Conservative Government is taking similar powers, is there a word of apology or a hint of diffidence about doing so? There is nothing of the sort. This is not surprising: the policies of capitalist political parties are determined by the emergencies which they encounter in trying to organise the affairs of the ruling class. Because they are all basically working to the same end, there is every reason for them occasionally to swap policies. It can be amusing to observe them doing so. But let us always remember that there is no concern for high flown principles of democracy and freedom in this. It is simply a matter of national housekeeping for their capitalist class.

These, then, are some of the worries which beset Mr. Macmillan. A short time ago he had the unusual distinction of stroking his eight to a third consecutive victory, but there are some signs that the tide is not running so well for him now. True, the Tories won a lot of seats at the recent local elections but, as The Economist has pointed out, they did not do as well as they might have hoped and expected. We all know that Dapper Mac is a clever political oarsman, who is well capable of pulling his crew together. In any case, the other possible eight is squabbling on the bank about nuclear disarmament and doesn’t seem able to agree on who they want for their captain. With all this excitement going on, who cares if the river is full of people struggling to keep their head above the water?

Ivan.

Letter: Socialism In One Country (1961)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Were England to achieve Socialism or even be in process of achieving that ideal goal, would we not become economically strangled by all other countries? Our natural wealth being limited to coal and iron, we are entirely * dependent on the means of survival to a prejudiced, vindictive capitalist world.

I would be pleased to know my fears are ungrounded, and would be grateful for a reply.

H. F. 

Leeds.

Reply:

Our correspondent’s assumption is, in fact, false. He himself points out that England, for example, is deficient in many types of natural wealth which are essential to a modern society. This is also true of many other countries. Even those countries which are naturally rich often find it to their advantage to import raw materials or manufactures.

The modern process of producing and distributing wealth is an intensely social and co-operative act, which no country can opt out of. Because of this, any attempt to set up Socialism in one country must come to grief, for that country would be forced to enter into commercial relations with the capitalist part of the world. The very fact of that country trading with others would mean that its "Socialism" was at an end.! 

Socialism, therefore, is nothing if it is not a world-wide system. Some parts of the world may advance towards it slightly before others. But the eventual establishment of it must be a virtually simultaneous act, to transform society from a competitive to a co-operative basis.

Editorial Committee

Branch News (1961)

Party News from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Demonstration For Socialism

They say that the day of the big indoor meeting is over. That working people won't leave the telly for a serious political meeting.

But this was well and truly dispelled by the Party on a day of heavy rain last April, when no fewer than 400 people went to St. Pancras Town Hall for the “ Demonstration for Socialism," the Party's most ambitious meeting for years.

They were attracted by an intensive publicity campaign, embracing (1) a series of leaflet raids on Islington and St. Pancras homes; (2) concentrated displays of striking red and white posters all over London, and (3) advertisements in political journals and local newspapers.

For nearly three hours, the audience heard Comrades Young and May outline the case for Socialism, answer a stream of questions, and reply to a lively discussion in which contributions came mainly from C.N.D. supporters.

Opening, Comrade Young quoted facts and figures exposing the fallacy of the “ You’ve never had it so good ” argument. He showed that workers were relatively worse off to-day than before the war. The gap between the wages of the workers and the wealth they produced had greatly widened.

Following up, Comrade May said the Socialist case was as valid to-day as in 1904—when the Party was founded. Tragically, workers still believed they could solve their problems by voting for reformist parties. They would always remain wage slaves until they voted for an international Socialist society, with no wages, no money, no national slates, and where goods would be produced for human need, not profit..

To Labour and Communist questioners, .Comrade Young said that nationalisation was a form of capitalism. It had nothing in common with Socialism. Neither had the state capitalist system operating in the Soviet Union and other so-called Communist countries.

To C.N.D. and pacifist questioners., Comrade May said the way to abolish war, both nuclear and “conventional" was to abolish the capitalist system that bred it. There could be no guarantee of permanent peace without a world-wide system of common ownership and social equality.

From the chair, Comrade P. Howard said the meeting had been so successful that it would stimulate the Party to organise similar events from time to time. A collection raised more than £25.


May Day

The weather was kind to London's May Day, allowing us to hold an outdoor rally in Hyde Park. Members made the best of some unaccustomed sunshine to notch up some good literature sales.

An interested audience heard the case for Socialism from Comrades Ambridge, D'Arcy. Bryant and Young.

In the evening we followed up with an indoor meeting at Denison House, where Comrades Grant and Baldwin spoke. Comrade Lake was in the chair.


Wembley

Four members of Wembley Branch sold twenty copies of the Socialist Standard in one hour's canvass of the Fratton area of Portsmouth on May 14th. In the afternoon of the same day, they were joined by comrades from Camberwell and Kingston Branches on the front at Southsea, where a meeting was commenced at 3.30 p.m. and continued until almost 8 o'clock, apart from a short tea break. Although it was still fairly early in the season, there was an average audience of about fifty, taking a lively interest and asking many questions.

The previous Monday, Comrade La Touche showed us some colour slides of the West Indies and gave us some useful general information on that area. He is in England for a few weeks' holiday and it was certainly good to see him after a long absence abroad.


Writers' Classes

The last of the writers' classes was held recently and it has been left to members to apply the information given. At least one valuable lesson, which we have all learned. is to look at our own writing with a far more critical eye.


Kelvingrove

Since January the branch has held no less than 16 indoor meetings. The average audience has been 30, with collections of over £1 at each meeting. Nine different speakers took part and there were good questions and lively discussion on nearly every occasion.

Phyllis Howard

Monkeys of the World, Unite! (1961)

A Short Story from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Monkeys, trained to operate controls at given signals, are being used to pilot American space ships! Newspapers show front-page photographs of the new astronauts, their apish chins thrust forward with Mussolini arrogance. It's all very interesting, but what about the social effects of such new developments?

Human astronauts are too few and disorganised at the moment to insist on union membership. And if an Astronaut Union meeting was held to discuss the matter, it’s likely that there would be more chimps there than men. The result could be a union dominated by chimpanzees.

Now everyone knows chimps are reactionary. They accept the truck system of payment, fully satisfied with a weekly wage of bananas. They demand no danger money and can easily be bribed with a full length cover story in Life magazine. What will happen when the characteristics of monkey labour are noticed by industrial employers?

An American factory has already tried using chimps as labour. Mechanisation and mass production have reduced most factory jobs to a simple routine. The monkey could become a serious threat to the working class. Their food, clothing and shelter requirements are few: so are their notions of freedom. They could be farmed in colonies and crossbred to produce strains suitable for all conditions.

Naturally they'd have to be kept happy but industrial psychology is already a science. How about a few rousing songs like. "The British Chimpanzee, is the salt of our Count-err-ree ”?

Laws could be passed making it a capital offence to murder a chimp and a National Veterinary Service could be set up to make sure a sick chimp could go back to work as soon as possible. British law would have to be extended to cover the chimpanzee; he should be able to sue his master for the loss of five bananas at the cost of only a hundred bananas.

Religion would have to be adapted for him. As a reward for work, patience and obedience, he would look forward to a life after death in which he would be introduced to a Gorilla father image who presided over a banana plantation. He would learn modesty and cover up his bottom, read good books and be prevented from reading bad books about his promiscuous ancestors.

None of these things is impossible with careful scientific breeding and conditioning, and our modern age would he far better served by chimp workers. For it’s becoming increasingly obvious that in our modern age. human beings simply don't belong.

P. McHale

Finance and Industry: The Manufacturer’s Dream (1961)

The Finance and Industry Column from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manufacturer’s Dream

Stock Exchange speculators and the financiers who manoeuvre take-overs can, within limits, accommodate themselves to the fluctuations of markets and production but the manufacturer has them always on his mind. When demand leaps he may suffer the anguish of knowing that if he had expanded more he could sell more and make more profit; and when demand drops he may find he has stocks of unsaleable goods. The manufacturers' dream of heaven is a market that steadily grows and never catches him unprepared.

After last year's collapse of the motor industry this thought has recurred to the export director of the British Motor Corporation, Mr. J. F. Bramley. In an interview in the Sunday Express (12/3/61) he told how he feels about it:

  People just don’t understand the problems that a sudden boom and an equally sudden slump bring to the industry. As long as the demand is there the overseas dealers keep clamouring for cars and you have to keep supplying them. At any moment there may be thousands of vehicles in ships or on railway sidings awaiting shipment and your factories are in top gear. Then overnight the market goes "soft" and the pipelines are choked with cars nobody wants any more. We would much rather see a steady demand at a gradually rising level.

The motor firms and other manufacturers may go on hoping, but there isn't anything they can do about it, for the "trade cycle” of alternate expansion and contraction is how capitalism has always operated. Already there is talk of another set-back for motor cars later this year, and now the cotton industry is facing trouble again, as well as the furniture industry and the clothing trade.

For many years politicians and economists claimed that, with the lessons learned from the depression of the 'thirties, governments could handle the problem, but fewer now confidently hold that view.

One popular business theory was that firms could gain stability by extending their activities into several different fields, but the experience of the oil companies shows the flaw in this remedy.

For some years now the oil companies have been hit by overproduction of oil, recently aggravated by the Russian drive to invade Western markets and by the opening of the Sahara oil fields. There have also been too many oil tankers, in spite of which the Shell Company reports that "in recent months there has been increased placing of new orders and this must inevitably tend to prolong the world tanker surplus, now in its fifth year."

The Royal Dutch-Shell group of companies found new outlets by developing methods of producing chemicals from oil, including fertilisers, industrial chemicals, plastics and resins, which, of course, meant competition with the chemical industry.

They now report that others are moving into the chemical-from-oil activity, "strong competitors formidably equipped with capital and technological skills." Consequently, "there is some danger of surplus manufacturing capacity being created as the result of investments based on an over-optimistic assessment of profitability.

Perhaps when there are too many chemicals the research chemists will develop another new industry, to turn the surplus chemicals back into oil.

Concentration of Ownership

Writing in the February Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Statistics, H. F. Lydall and D. J. Tipping publish the results of a new attempt to estimate how the wealth of the country is distributed. They write:—

  In broad outline these figures suggest that total personal net capital in early 1954 was about £40,000 million. Of this, nearly £31,000 million was owned by three million persons possessing over £2,000 each; and the remaining £9,000 million was owned by the other 32 million persons aged 20 or over. In the top capital group there are 20,000 persons with more than £100,000 each and an average holding of over £250,000; in the bottom group are 16 million persons with less than £100 each and an average holding of less than £50.

So the 20,000 persons who own over £100,000 each have £5,000 million between them; while the 16 million people who have less than £100 each have a total holding of less than £800 million.

In between are nearly 19 million people whose total is about £34,000 million, which makes their average about £1,800.

They warn that their figures are very rough owing to the difficulties of handling the available material. They think that there has been some redistribution during the past twenty years but have not found it possible to give even a rough estimate of its extent.


Views of Inflation

In the past, inflation had a precise meaning. Mr. Frank Bower, M.A., Lecturer on Political Economy, gave a definition in 1908 which was in harmony with that given by Marx half a century earlier. Bower wrote:

  A fall in the value of. money, with a rise in the cost of living, caused by a comparatively permanent excess in the amount of money in circulation over that which is needed to perform the transactions of the community. Inflation usually means the artificially high prices caused by an over-issue of inconvertible paper money.

Marx deal with this in Capital (Vol. I, Ch. III), when he wrote: “stated simply, it is as follows: the issue of paper money must not exceed in amount the gold (or silver as the case may be) which would actually circulate if not replaced by symbols.”

Bower and Marx were both writing when gold coins, and Bank of England notes that were convertible into gold, were circulating in this country. They were describing what would happen if an inconvertible paper currency replaced the gold and convertible notes, and if notes were issued in excessive amounts.

Later on, some economists abandoned that specific meaning of inflation and replaced it by the looser conception indicated by the definition given by Nuttall's Dictionary in 1931: "increase of the quantity of money and/or credit relative to the volume of exchange transactions.”

Then came Keynes, who used the term to mean something different again. For him it was a question neither of currency nor credit, but of whether there are unemployed workers, idle factories, and reserves of materials. With very low unemployment and fully occupied factories he argued that increased demand could not lead to increased production but only to higher prices and wages, a condition he defined as “ true inflation.”

His biographer, Sir Roy Harrod, wrote of Keynes: “He had indeed the right to claim that his theoretical work between the wars had revolutionised the modes of thinking of economists upon inflation. They had long ceased to regard inflation primarily as an over-issue of notes or even as an over-expansion of bank credits.” This disregard of the over-issue of notes reached its culmination in the remark of the Committee on the Monetary System in 1959, that ”bank notes are in effect the small change of the monetary system,” and that the Government’s action in expanding the note issue is merely the passive one of seeing that sufficient notes are available for the practical convenience of the public.

As the total volume of production in this country is about 50 per cent. above the level of 1938, those who hold such views have yet to explain why it has been "convenient” for the government now to have in issue over four times the amount of notes then in circulation from £530 million to £2,250 million. And if the over-issue of notes has not been the main factor in causing the price level to be three or four times what it then was they might explain what the cause has been.

Which Horse Won the Race?

Early each April the financial columnists go in for the sport of guessing what sort of budget it is going to be. It is like backing horses, but with a difference; for after a race you do know which horse won. Not so with the columnists, who, when the budget comes out, can rarely agree what kind of budget it is. The reader can take his choice according to the paper he reads.

This year on the 11th April the Telegraph headed its column "Chancellor puts Checks on Inflation but the Mail found the budget “inflationary,” as also did the Express. The Financial Times hedged and would only concede that on paper it was "a substantially disinflationary budget." The Guardian, less cautious, decided that "the total effect . . .  is disinflationary"; while The Times, coming up a day later, thought it "at least mildly disinflationary."

The confusion is partly the result of the “experts” not being able to make up their minds what effect, if any, particular governmental policies for managing production and trade will have, but it is also a by-product of conflicting views as to the meaning of the term inflation.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: King Capital's Coronation (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

A king is to be crowned. In the presence of Our Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Premiers of the five Dominions of “our" Mighty Empire, and the assembled Monarchs of many lands, and the Lord God of Israel and the Stock Exchange himself.

•

It is commonly believed that “royal" power is the attribute of the monarch of a constitutional country, but nothing could be further from the truth. That question our capitalist masters fought out many years ago. They have left the King his name and his robes, his crown and his palaces, but they have stripped him of every vestige of power. The “Crown" is not the King, in any capacity, but the capitalist State. The King's Speech to Parliament is written by his Ministers, even the prerogative of mercy is not the King's but belongs to the capitalist Cabinet.

•

Even the swearing to uphold the institutions of capitalism is all bunkum and make-believe. There is today, in this country at all events, no institution of capitalism that the capitalists themselves are not fully able to maintain, or that they trust to other hands than their own.

•

This is the real use of Monarchs in capitalist States. Behind the person of the King the capitalists can hide the fact that it is they in reality who rule. By parading their kings before the workers at every possible opportunity, and with every circumstance of pomp and display that their ingenuity can invent, by investing them with divine right and something of divinity itself, the capitalists awaken and simulate and nurture that spirit of reverence, which is so deadly an enemy to the growth of revolutionary ideas, and so detract attention from themselves.

[From the 
Socialist Standard,  June, 1911.]

Waste Making (1961)

Book Review from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Waste Makers by Vance Packard (Longmans, 21s.)

Capitalism has solved the problem of production. The system of capitalism, which already exists over much of the world and is rapidly capturing the rest, has given birth to sufficient productive potential to satisfy all the reasonable demands of mankind. All that now remains to be done is to bring in a system in which these potentialities can be realised to the full. For this is where capitalism has failed. 

Mr. Vance Packard’s new book The Waste Makers (Longmans, 21s.) throws lots of useful light on this failure and shows how some American capitalists try to create new markets and increase their profits. Of course, like racegoers betting on the Tote, they can't all win: but they all try. Sometimes an arms race will provide them with markets, and the American upper class realises how important the cold war is in staving off a slump. As Mr. Packard says:

  Financial columnist Sylvia Porter noted that every time there has been a suggestion of a major cut in Pentagon spending “the stock market has gone into a tail spin.” On the other hand, in May, 1960, when the Russian capture of the U-2 plane was followed by the collapse of the summit meeting, Wall Street stock-market prices advanced during seven successive days.

But even the unprecedented spending on arms cannot solve their problems. Mr. Packard says that “during the postwar years, the amount of goods and services that one man can turn out in an hour has increased by about 3 per cent, every year." What effect this had upon human fortunes? One is that consumer goods are deliberately made worse, so that they will wear out sooner, and therefore have to be replaced. Marketing Consultant Victor Lebow made a plea for “forced consumption” in the Journal of Retailing in the mid-fifties: “We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing late." Packard quotes General Electric decisions to “change" (without publicity!) the life of a 200-watt bulb lamp from 1,000 hours to 750 hours, and the life of the 2,330 lamp from 300 to 200 hours. The Vice-President of the Chrysler car company is quoted as saying the quality of cars “is not as good as 10 years ago.” A guided-missile expert is quoted as pointing out that there was no technological reason why television sets could not be built to last for eight years without repair; while (according to Packard’s carefully-marshalled evidence) the quality of TV sets was in fact deteriorating.

Another waste-making device is regular changes of style, so that with enormous advertising campaigns plugging the new style, everyone with an older car or refrigerator or set of china is made to feel out of date, and has to buy the newer style to keep up with the Joneses. In this connection the board chairman of the powerful Whirlpool Corporation told engineers at a washing-machine technical conference that “an engineer’s principal purpose as an engineer is to create obsolescence.”

Yet a further means of pushing goods is the never-never. Consume now, pay later. The result is that many American families now have a load of unpaid debts. A survey by insurance companies, says Packard, showed that the average American family was about three months from bankruptcy and for millions of families the disaster was much closer than that. One “solution” is for the wife—including wives with young children—to go out to work as well as the husband. Investigators for U.S. News & World Report found that Americans’ biggest worry was “money,” and “making ends meet.”

  A minister in Cedar Rapids. Iowa, reported that “in 75 per cent of the cases where people come to me with marital problems, money enters in." And a doctor in the same city said many of his patients’ aches and pains were caused by money problems. “You can buy a car on time and stretch the payments over thirty months, and you’ve got a chronic pain. You really have.”

And all this feverish drive takes place at a time when, according to an estimate by ACTION, the American national organization for civic improvement, it would cost about one hundred billion dollars to wipe out United States slums, and when, as Packard says, there are millions of families "unquestionably ill-fed. ill-clothed, ill-housed.”

This is a book which you should get hold of and read. You may disagree with the author's conclusions, hut the whole book is thought-provoking.

Alwyn Edgar

Worker's Prosperity in 1961 (1961)

Watford, High Street 1961 (Photo credit, Francis Frith)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The town of Watford, in Hertfordshire, is claimed by its Press to be one of the most prosperous in post-war Britain. One local weekly claims for it the distinction of being the second most prosperous town in this country—second after Coventry, in fact. Whether this held good after the motor car recession is not clear.

The sort of criteria applied are the number of vacancies at the local Labour Exchange, wage rates offered, enquiries for juveniles leaving schools. Income Tax returns, rents of shops, increase of population and, logically enough, price of house room either in rent or mortgage repayments. Unfortunately, this “prosperity” brings many unpleasant and disagreeable results.

In some ways, it is a miniature of what is happening on a national scale in Great Britain these days. A demand for labour raises its price. Higher wages bring workers from lower priced areas. And so Watford market resounds on Saturdays to the lilting song of the Celt, the guttural voices of the Clyde, the broad accents of the East Coast, and, to be sure, Mick and Pat, who never had it so good in “Ould Oireland.”. By the same token, a further 50,000 West Indians are coming to Britain this year, not as tourists looking at ruins,. but workers seeking jobs.

The employers, through their Government, can easily control this foreign emigration—turning it on, or off, as required, like a tap. They have always done so, as when Campbell Bannerman’s Liberal Government in 1906 boasted that any Jew landing at London docks with £15 in his possession might remain here, or when the successive American Governments at the turn of the century admitted emigrants by the million.

It is not quite so easy to keep them all at work once admitted, as all the historical cases show. The result of this in Watford is that Boom Town No. 2 is bursting at the seams. Although some employers, in their extremity, are making special provision for housing their workers, the unskilled (and paradoxically enough, even skilled building workers) are finding accommodation hard to get.

All this has prompted a local scribe to gently but firmly disillusion the large number of Easter Brides (and Grooms) about their chances of a roof in “prosperous” Watford. The local newshawk has taken the trouble to collect the facts.

So you want to rent a house? he says. Forget it!

“Mum and Dad never had the problem young couples in Watford today have to face. Before the war, there were houses galore for renting.” I haven’t let a house in years,” one agent told me. Even if one did come on to the market the rent would be at least £5 a week.”

So that’s out. There are a few houses—but they are all for sale only. Advances on mortgages are granted only to applicants in permanent and secure employment. ‘‘Watford’s terraced properties have priced themselves out of all proportion to their actual values. Houses built for £800 at the turn of the century are now offered for anything between £1,900 and £2,900, and they sell ” (Watford and West Herts' Post.)

The local writer goes on to say:

  To get the house, Bob [our hypothetical homebuilder] would have to afford weekly repayments of almost £5 a week, and sign a cheque for almost £400 to cover deposit and legal fees. . . .
  Another house advertised this week is a good semi-detached home in North Watford with garage space. The price: £3,750. . . . A £400 deposit would mean a loan of £3,350. . . . Repayments on this loan would work out at about £24 15s. a month. And how much would the legal and building society men want from you in fees ? Just under £100.
  What about interest on loans? That is the crippling thing these days. So many young Watford couples fail to realise just how much they will eventually pay for the house of their dreams. Borrowing only £2,500 on that terraced house Bob and Sylvia would, during those 20 years, repay the staggering total of £4,560. Almost double what they originally borrowed.
  With a loan of £3.500 and repayments of £24 a month, the couple, with this ball and chain firmly shackled to them, would pay back to the Building Society in 25 years the perspiring, hair-raising sum of £7.200. So do not think the Building Society is doing you a favour in lending you the money. They get it back with gold-plated interest.

What has our kindly press adviser to suggest? “If you are determined to live in this price-inflated piece of the country, then my advice to you is to live with Mum, live in two rooms, anywhere you can call home and save “ like blazes.”

But what are the harsh facts? Just as sellers seek the highest price—buyers chase the lowest, and there may be those who hope that new towns and estates will supply their need. Unfortunately for them the facts are these. At least 4,000,000 dwellings in this country today are over 75 years old. At least 10 million dwellings will be due for replacement in the next 25 years, to keep up with depreciation. That would require 400,000 houses a year. The Government post-war target was 300,000 a year. This has been dropped, and is not reaching anything like that figure today.

The present position is that slums are growing faster than rebuilding is taking place. Not only does this apply to slum dwellings, but to slum offices and slum industries as well . . . “At the present rate of building the indications are that the total of inadequately housed people will substantially increase over the next 25 years.” [Franklin Medhurst. Town and Country Planning Dept., Manchester University. Guardian. March 24th, 1961.]

The choice before the married worker is a very limited one. He can either pay up to £6 a week repayments, which includes £3 a week interest—or move further afield where rent and mortgages are lower. Then, if he wants the higher wages, he must pay fares, or run a car and spend time in monotonous travelling. Alternatively, he can live with Mum.

Horatio

What next in Algeria? (1961)

Editorial from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Algerian tragedy continues its melancholy course. Rising to high drama at one moment, it topples over into anti-climax and something often close to farce the next.

We are still too near to the event to know the full story of the “four days” last April. In fact, it is likely that we shall never know, so complex are its ramifications, so inextricably is it caught up in a web of intrigue, treachery, and fanaticism, so overlaid with high-sounding idealism and underlaid with the basest self-seeking.

Regardless of speculation de Gaulle proceeds at full speed to implement the plans he has been working towards ever since he came to power in 1958. The Army has played into his hands, its morale and self-confidence shattered, at least for the moment. The way has been left wide open to the objective he has sworn to achieve before he dies—the "decolonisation” (he uses the word as though he was talking of getting rid of a disease) of France. But he will need to move fast.

Wiser to the ways of the world of modern capitalism and more far-seeing than many of the ruling-class he represents, he sees the march of events and where they are leading. He knows that no Power in the modern world can hold on to its possessions according to the old imperialist traditions of the past. In the three years of his administration almost the whole of the former French empire has been granted independence. Of the former important territories of that empire, only Algeria remains. And, says de Gaulle, with that characteristically withering turn of phrase, devoid alike of delusion and sentiment, "l'Algerie de Papa est morte" — "Daddy's Algeria is dead"!

Daddy’s Algeria may well be dead, but nobody knows what the new one will be like. De Gaulle is staking all on an independent Algeria still within the orbit and influence of French capitalism, as he has successfully achieved with the great majority of the other former French territories. What is supremely important now for the French ruling-class is to retain their control over the Saharan oilfields and the vast deposits of natural gas. not to speak of the mineral wealth they also hope to discover in the future.

That is the hope. But there are many perils and possible pitfalls ahead. Nobody can say what the talks at Evian between the French and the F.L.N. will bring. Nobody knows what the European settlers will do, particularly the fanatics among than — there is already evidence that these latter are prepared to go to any lengths to frustrate de Gaulle’s plans. Nor does anybody have any real idea of what is in the minds of the leaders of the F.L.N.. preoccupied for seven years in fighting a bitter war and now faced with sitting round a conference table. There is still a terrible possibility that the next news to come out of Algeria will be of carnage and devastation as to make even the last seven years of its sufferings only a prelude in comparison.

We know that history, by which we mean in this case the inexorable demands of capitalism, will catch up with Algeria, as it will with East Africa. Angola, and South Africa.

But what a terrible price it will have exacted in human suffering by the time it does so.

Notes on Economic History (8) (1961)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Adam Smith's theories of Income

Adam Smith establishes an elaborate theory of the formation of value and of price, arguing that under primitive conditions, when there is little capital and when rent has not yet come into existence, the value of goods is determined solely by the amount of labour embodied in them. Things, like water, which a have a great use-value, have no exchange-value; and conversely, things with very little use-value, like diamonds, have a very high exchange-value. It follows that as the measure of the exchange-value of goods it is their "natural price" that matters. Not the utility of an article, but the amount of labour that has been expended in producing it.

In accordance with the fluctuations of supply and demand this market price swings to one side or the other of the labour expenditure price. The various items out of which the actual or market price is made up are the outcome of private property and the existing legal order, consisting of (a) wages, (b) the share payable to capital, and (c) rent, which may be regarded as interest paid for the use of land (equivalent to the difference between the price of the produce of the land, on the one hand and, on the other, the expenditure of the farmer upon wages, plus profit on his farming capital).

From this is deduced a theory of distribution, or of the formation of income (Smith uses the term "revenue"), for inasmuch as production is carried on with an eye to the market on the basis of the division of labour, the product is distributed in accordance with the laws of the formation of prices in the market. The distribution of wealth is effected in accordance with the constituents of every price; the worker receives the equivalent for his labour, and the capitalist and the landlord receive equivalent for the co-operation of capital and land.

Thus all the commodities which compose the whole annual produce of the labour of every country must resolve themselves into the same three parts, and be distributed among the different inhabitants of the country, either as wages, profit on capital, or rent for land. "Wages, profits and rent are the three original sources of all revenues as well as of all exchange-value. All other revenue is ultimately derivable from one or the other of these." Wealth of Nations (Book 1, Ch. VI).

Smith's theories on the laws of distribution may be briefly phrased as follows. rates of wages are determined, like market prices in general, by supply and demand, due to whose operation they vary to one side or the other of a subsistence wage:

The more capital there is in a country, the greater is the demand for labour, and the higher therefore are wages. The profit of capital has the opposite trend. The more capital there is, the lower is its rate of profit; the more capitalists there are, the greater is the tendency to underbid one another. Consequently, the more labour there is in a country, and the richer it therefore is, the lower in general is the profit of capital. (Book 1. Ch. IX.)

In the matter of land rent, a more complicated machinery is at work:

Increase in the productiveness of labour the division of labour and the expansion of manufacture leads to a fall in the prices of the products of industry. To the extent to which this happens, the products of agriculture automatically exchange for larger quantities of industrial products; that is, the former become dearer. This rise in agriculture prices is attended or followed by a rise in rent. (Book 1. Ch. XI.)

Rent also rises concurrently with an increase in capital, for since more capital and labour are applied to land, and land is therefore used more effectively, the income from land necessarily increases.

According to Smith economic life develops best when it is left alone. The main business of the State is to keep order. Economic activities when perfectly free develop harmoniously, and free competition must be left to do its work. Competition forces everyone to follow his own economic aims, to develop all his forces, and to produce as cheaply as possible. Consumers are supplied with goods at the lowest prices, capitalists can devote their energies to their tasks unhindered, and workers can seek employment wherever wages are highest. In this way a condition of social harmony is attained. At the same time, it results that everyone engages in the occupation which comes most natural to him. Division of labour takes place along the lines that are most economical.

By virtue of its own mechanism, society can get the better of that selfish outlook which is (primarily) hostile to society. Everyone becomes enabled, by the pursuit of his own advantage, to enjoy his natural rights.

Bob Ambridge

News In Review: The Space Race (1961)

The  News in Review from the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Man in Space

Russia's daring young man did all the right things, at the right time.

Sent looping round the Earth, he sang a patriotic song: ("The motherland hears, the motherland sees, the motherland knows . . . ") On the rostrum beside Mr. Khruschev, he was the star turn at this year's Moscow May Day parade.

Gagarin's exploit, Commander Shepard's flight, and the arrival of the Russian Venus rocket shot, have put spaceships right back in the news. Such things are interesting, not to say exciting—but have they been worth anything?

We all know that Russia and the United States are feverishly applying the knowledge which their space probes give them to the production of more accurate missiles. Some of these were paraded before Gagarin in the Red Square on May.

Without a doubt, the quest for more accurate and more powerful weapons is the main incentive in the space programmes of the great powers.

Incidentally, they may also gain knowledge which has little or no military value. But there is no guarantee that even this will not one day be misused.

There is one thing the space shots have to teach everybody. Capitalist society is bound to distort human knowledge for inhuman ends. Scientific investigation can only come into its own when this world is sanely organised.

Golden Boys

80,000 pounds is an awful lot of money.

We may think that the Milan Football Club, who paid that amount to Chelsea for Jimmy Greaves have a millionaire somewhere behind them.

They have. So have Juventus, Naples and other Italian clubs. This is why they can afford such enormous wage bills, and can offer irresistible financial bait to British footballers.

Greaves put it in record that he did not want to leave England, but Milan were offering him such a high signing-on fee that he really had no choice in the matter.

Helpless, the English fans moan as their golden boys take off for sunnier lands. They blame the clubs, the Football League, the Italians, for being a lot of poachers.

But the millions who weekly cheer their favourite club, support, almost to a man, the social system in which whoever pays the most money takes the best choice. They can hardly complain when that principle is extended to football.

Because, whatever the match programme may say, football is not a sport. When we hear it discussed in terms of transfer fees, gate money and the rest, we know that it is as much a business as any gas works or marmalade factory.

Cuban Failure

Whatever happened to that nice, level-headed young man Mr. Kennedy?

When he was campaigning for the United States Presidency he seemed so calm, so cool tempered. He sounded so peaceable. Lots of Republicans, in fact, thought that he might want to be too soft on the Russians.

The invasion of Cuba changed all that.

President Kennedy inherited the plans for the landing which the Eisenhower administration had laid. He chose to go ahead with them—and when the invasion failed, with typical acumen, he pointed out that his predecessor must take part of the blame.

This is the sort of ruthlessness and cynicism which we have come to expect from capitalism's leaders. And we have grown familiar with the assurances, as they are climbing to power, that they are anything but ruthless and cynical men.

Each time, the working class fall for it. Kennedy promised an era of sanity and calm judgement in foreign policy. In their millions, American workers voted for him.

Will they profit from the lessons of reality? Probably not. The signs are that Kennedy will be reviled not so much for agreeing to the Cuban expedition, as for the fact that the whole thing was a flop.

Ignorantly patriotic, the working class will forgive almost anything but that.

Stags Rampant

How did the strait-laced City Editors of Fleet Street come to be making jokes about Lady Chatterley?

Penguin Books recently announced a record profit, for which the trial—and the sales—of Lady C. can take much of the credit. At the same time, Penguin offered £450,000 worth of shares to the public, the more prosperous of whom applied for them to the tune of £67 million.

Now a lot of the people who tried to get Penguin shares are known, in Stock Exchange jargon, as stages. Hence the little jokes about gamekeepers, and Lady C. in the City columns.

The stags have been rampant lately, in shares other than the Penguin issue. They specialise in going for shares which can be easily applied for—sometimes by completing a newspaper coupon—and which are likely to rise quickly on the Stock Exchange. Some of them apply many times over for the same shares.

The snag is that the stags often pay up with bouncy cheques. The idea is to sell the shares at a profit before the cheques have had time to be cashed.

This is the sort of speculative boom which preceded the 1929 crash. Many sage economists have since told us that it aggravated matters in 1929—and that it could never happen again.

But whoever heard of investors refusing the chance of a profit? The stags have shown that capitalism is the same old animal as it ever was.