What Shall We Do About the Falling Pound? (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before 1939 all schoolchildren, including the ragged and undernourished, had shown to them the vast pink-tinted areas on the map of the world that were “ours”. Every child knew also the price of the American dollar in English pounds. Immutably, there were four dollars to a pound. A dollar was five shillings; the English half-crown piece was called, in popular slang, “half-a-dollar”.

No doubt this recollection helps to produce a sense of calamity over the fall in the price of the pound. In June 1972, before the pound was "floated’ by the British government, the exchange rate was $2.60. This year it has gone below two dollars to about $1.80; on 14th May it was $1.8275. The use of the words “weakening” and "strengthening” implies further that these figures are the index of a frightful disease, caused — of course — by the sloth and greed of the working class, and remediable only by a prolonged fast. All of this is untrue. The progressive fall in the pound since the war has been the result solely of policies pursued by Labour and Conservative governments alike. As to how much difference it makes, workers should ask if they were better off when the pound was “strong” and the map was spread with pink.

Prices at a Stroke

A drop in the exchange rate has the same effect as devaluation of the pound. Devaluation was carried out officially, as part of economic policies, by Labour governments in 1949 and 1967. The 1949 devaluation from $4.03 to $2.80 was in fact proportionally greater than the total fall since. At the time, Conservative spokesmen said any more devaluation would reduce the status of sterling “to that of one of the untrustworthy currencies of Europe or South America” and “indeed there would be nothing for this country to look forward to” (David Eccles and Oliver Stanley, House of Sommons, September 1949). Nevertheless, the Conservatives’ floating of the pound in 1972 was done in the knowledge that it could only move downwards, and the result was a further devaluation.

The necessity for devaluation by governments is caused by rising prices. If prices go up markedly in Britain it means that British exports also become dearer and therefore less competitive in world markets; while ether countries’ goods are rendered relatively cheaper, so that imports increase. The result is an adverse balance of payments. In 1948 the dollar deficit ranged from £93 million to £147 million a quarter, and in the quarter before the decision to devalue it was £157 million.

The aim of devaluation is to move towards a reversal of the position. The prices of British commodities abroad are immediately reduced, and foreign ones are made dearer in Britain: exports increase, imports decrease. However, the simplicity of this is countered in several ways. First, because it is a nationalist solution in a world of international competition, ether countries take similar steps. Second, it means that more goods are sold abroad but at lower prices. As Anthony Bambridge wrote in The Observer on 9th May: “Equally, although our exports are much cheaper and more attractive in world markets, we have to sell many more Marks and Spencer pullovers for every ton of iron ore we import.”

Third, the higher price of imports means further general price rises in Britain. It is calculated that every 1 per cent, drop in the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar adds 0.25 per cent, to retail prices in the shops, which gives an addition since the beginning of this year of 2½p. in the pound. Thus, rising prices are by no means cured by devaluation. A company report in The Times on 10th May observed this:

Mr. Tapscott [chairman of Lesney Products] voices a timely warning for exporters about the “dangerous drug” of cheap sterling. As a result of the new collapse in the pound, he declares, it will not be long before the company is paying much more for its imported raw materials and a further twist to the spiral of inflation is begun.

The additional fall of the pound in recent months has not been directly due to government action, of course. The price on the foreign exchange market is affected by companies’ efforts to anticipate developments and secure advantages in trading. The “loss of confidence” in the pound resulted chiefly from commercial selling by firms buying foreign currency for future import orders, and holding it for as long as possible in hopes of a profitable exchange. In this situation, news of the policies of the British government and other governments causes further ups and downs on the exchange market.

Paper Promises

Fundamentally, the depreciation of the pound is due to inflation. Because of the over-issue of paper currency, the amount of gold represented by a pound note has been reduced. This is the sole cause of the massive rises in prices since the war. Before the adoption of Keynesian policies by the governing parties, the issue of paper money was strictly controlled and prices remained stable apart from normal fluctuations. In the last thirty years this long-standing practice has been discarded. Governments have financed their expenditure by borrowing from the Bank of England and allowing more notes to be printed to maintain bank reserves of cash. The result is continuing depreciation of the currency, and inflation: which in turn has led to the devaluation of the pound, whether by government action or “loss of confidence”.

In a recent speech Sir Geoffrey Howe, the Tories’ “shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer”, appeared to know the answer: "Strict control of the money supply had to be an essential foundation of economic policy” (The Times, 13th May). However, he said the control would be restored gradually, and linked with a reduction in public spending and a wages policy. In effect, the Conservatives would follow those aims as far as capitalism allowed. The reducing of public — i.e. government — expenditure is an obvious necessity for dealing with inflation, but to contemplate it puts the Conservatives in the same dilemma as Labour: it means the cutting of education and other services, and the risk of losing electoral support.

Workers should beware of the statements made about inflation and the pound. Don’t accept the glib assumption that “the country” is the people as a whole, that the problems of “Britain” are theirs to overcome. These are the problems of capitalist commerce, whose vision of prosperity is limited to itself just as much as its cries of plight seek to embody everyone. Don’t accept either that inflation prices are caused by “excessive” wage increases. Wages are prices, produced and conditioned by the same factors as the prices of all other commodities.

Still more important, workers should not swallow the idea that if the pound were made strong and inflation overcome they would be far better off. A “strong” pound means a balance of payments surplus and the exchange rate restored to a level of former years, with British goods selling abroad not only plentifully but at higher prices. Imports would be cheaper, and the cost of living relatively lower. Given those circumstances, is it seriously imagined that the capitalist class and its governments would declare the time come for high living? On the contrary, if inflation is halted the present period will provide a myth of the awful consequences of letting workers have wage increases, and a standing argument against such profligacy in the future.

Workers and Wages

One of the purposes of the devaluation of the pound in 1949 was to avoid major struggles over wages between employers and workers. Though it had appealed for belt-tightening, the Labour government hardly dared to try to force down working-class living standards when the wartime and post-war “austerity” period had still not ended. The alternative was to cheapen prices abroad drastically, and hope that this would fill order-books and restore profitability for British manufacturers. In 1976, while the fall in the pound is having the same cheapening effect, the workers are having their wages held down too. Insofar as reductions in government expenditure are made, these can involve additional cuts in living standards, since subsidies and welfare service take the place of additions to wages.

The tragedy is that it is all for nothing. The economic crises of capitalism are not exceptional dire occasions, but its normal working. With or without inflation, and whatever the standing of the pound, the position of the workers is the same. Throughout the decades when there was no inflation and the map was pink, there were high unemployment and low living standards (the Daily Express in the nineteen-thirties advocated some inflation as a means of improving things). There is really no way out of the problems of the capitalist system — except to abolish it and have Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

Karl Marx on . . . (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

. . . Prices

“If the quantity of paper money issued be double what it ought to be, then, as a matter of fact, £1 would be the money-name not of ¼ of an ounce, but of ⅛ of an ounce of gold. The effect would be the same as if an alteration had taken place in the function of gold as a standard of prices. Those values that were previously expressed by the price of £1 would now be expressed by the price of £2.”

(Capital Vol. 1, p. 104, Unwin edn.)

. . . Inflation

“The state puts in circulation bits of paper on which their various denominations, say £1, £5, &c., are printed. In so far as they actually take the place of gold to the same amount, their movement is subject to the laws that regulate the currency of money itself. A law peculiar to the circulation of paper money represents gold. Such a law exists; 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.”

(Capital Vol. 1, p. 103, Unwin edn.)

Is Money the Master? (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite the fact that the great majority of people never manage to obtain very much of it, money is without doubt the dominant thing in the life of everybody.

Those who have little of it are usually those who work for wages producing the wealth of society. Those who have a lot of it are usually those who produce nothing, but who own means of wealth production. Right away a contradiction presents itself. Those who spend their lives working, carrying out all the multifarious tasks in the world, when they come to the end of their working lives have accumulated precious little. Productiveness and possession are polar opposites.

Money is to the system we live under what oxygen is to organic life, the essence of existence. To most people’s minds, money is part of the natural order of things without which continued existence would be impossible. Money, or considerations resting on money, forms the basis of nearly everything we say and do. It is the centre of most everyday conversation. The theme and plot of most of what is euphemistically called entertainment on TV etc. The politician of the system would be speechless if he could not refer to money. Every promise and reform scheme from pensions to pollution and from H-bombs to education is argued in money terms. The reason given for promoting many reforms is to save money. The excuse for not pursuing others is that they haven’t got the money. Which is shadow and which is substance is a question most would find hard to answer. Such reverence is felt for money that its complete artificiality is rarely noticed.

Exchange & Incentive

To establish, as Marx did, that money is a means of exchange, a standard of price and a measure of value, is to raise the question as to why such a medium is needed. Again, most people and certainly the politicians would not answer the question. The working class need money to obtain life’s essentials, food, clothing and shelter. People have to buy and sell in order to live. It is accepted that access to life’s needs is possible only through money. So money is all-powerful. The legal machinery of the state stands ready to punish anyone found trying to obtain goods without money. Another contradiction. If money is there to circulate goods, why is it a barrier standing between you and what you cannot afford—even though you helped produce it?

If audiences in Hyde Park are anything to go by (they must represent a cross-section of the working class) money is the only conceivable incentive for doing anything in the minds of most people. That such a distorted view of life can prevail as popular opinion underscores the fact that the dominant ideas in society are those of the ruling class. (No, this does not rule out Socialism, because ruling-class ideas will cease to dominate when the workers have had enough of capitalism.) The idea that money is the real incentive for doing anything is part of the wider ideology of capitalism, an attempt to justify the profit motive.

The capitalist only risks his money in investments because he hopes profit will be forthcoming. This keeps him on his toes because he has to compete, and profit is his just reward for the service he provides for society. The workers, of course, should be grateful because he provides them with work. So monetary gain, in one form or another, is normal and natural. After all, nobody does anything for nothing. Simple, isn’t it? You must be a crank or a utopian dreamer to advocate a world without money.

Social Relations

The pundits of capitalism can avoid the really awkward questions, because their crude rationalization— the three-card trick—is accepted. Where did the capitalist get the money which he seeks to reinvest for further profit? How did a minority come to own and control the means of wealth production in the first place? Does not man’s development stretch back over many hundreds of thousands of years of communal existence without money, and without private property in the means of production? Were the first class systems (the beginnings of recorded history) not built upon the violent theft of common land and the ownership of slaves? Is the wages system operating throughout the world today anything more than a form of slavery?

The capitalist (state or private) is not saddled with direct personal responsibility for feeding, housing and maintaining his employees, as was the slaveowner. He pays them a wage out of the wealth they produce and which he owns, and they maintain themselves. Also, unlike the slaves of old who changed hands when they were bought or sold by their owners, the modern wage-slave is “free” to hire himself to any capitalist who is interested in his particular skills or abilities. This is what freedom amounts to for the working class.

But while a wage-worker can divorce himself from a particular capitalist, he cannot for long divorce himself from capital. Wage-labour is utterly dependent upon capital. Capital is utterly dependent upon wage-labour. They co-exist in mutual antagonism. Capital can live only on continuous supplies of fresh labour to reproduce it by the creation of new wealth, and labour submits to the draining away of its life- force, because in replenishing the vampire capital it is allowed to maintain and reproduce itself.

Those who believe the money system is natural and eternal have not begun to understand the world they live in, or the many phases of development through which human society has passed. Man did not descend from the trees clutching bundles of inflated dollars, roubles or pound-notes and head straight for the nearest supermarket. The nearest supermarket was about two million years away in the future. The universal rôle of money is a fairly recent development, historically speaking. For the far greater part of man’s existence he has produced the wherewithal of life without the use of money.

Attitudes

“Nobody does anything for nothing.” That is a glib piece of ignorance on the part of those who think money is the only possible incentive, but in another sense it is true. Man has always worked and produced to stay alive. That is not doing something for nothing. Even today, with the prevalence of the perverse attitudes ingrained by capitalism, people do a tremendous amount of work without receiving any money. The satisfaction gained by millions of people from the often back-breaking work of gardening, in many cases, simply to create a colourful display of flowers, is one of hundreds of possible examples.

Buried somewhere deep in the muddle-minds of the money-incentive school is the vague suspicion that work, as employment, lacks any satisfaction and sense of achievement. People only do it because they have to. Perhaps what they are really trying to say is that they can’t imagine any mentally healthy person doing many of the jobs done today, unless made to. Capitalism engenders many such tasks. Jobs that are monotonous, unfulfilling or socially destructive: we might instance banking, insurance, munitions-making and thinking-up fairy stories for TV commercials—there are many more. Work under capitalism means employment, working for wages. Work has lost much of its pleasure for most people. The idea of work (as employment) is not to produce clothing, food or furniture, but to obtain money. Surely this relegation of usefulness and the elevation of money to the supreme position in society, far from being a reason for the universal acclamation of money, is the strongest ground for condemning capitalism.

Very early in his life Marx understood and wrote about human alienation. Marx was a great admirer of the works of Shakespeare, and in 1844 he wrote an appreciation of Shakespeare’s grasp of the nature of money. Marx quotes from Timon of Athens:

Gold ! yellow, glittering, precious gold ! No gods,

I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens !

Thus much of this will make black white; foul fair; 

Wrong right; base noble; old young; coward valiant. 

. . . Why, this

Will lug priests and servants from your sides;

Pluck stout men’s pillows from behind their head;

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed;

Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,

And give them title, knee and approbation 

With senators on the bench: this is it T

hat makes the wappen’d widow wed again;

She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores 

Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices 

To the April day again. Come, damned earth.

Thou common whore of mankind, that putt’st odds 

Among the rout of nations . . .

Image or Reality ?

Marx’s essay, where he also quotes from Goethe’s Faust, runs to five pages. Space prevents reproduction in full. It is a stirring piece of writing. A short excerpt might prompt another look at capitalism by some of those who too readily swallow its sales talk.

I am an evil, dishonest, unscrupulous, dull-witted man, but money is held in honour — hence so is its possessor. Money is the highest good, hence its possessor is good: money saves me the trouble of being dishonest, so I am assumed to be honest. I am dull-witted, but since money is the real spirit of all things, how can its possessor be lacking in spirit? More-over, he can buy the cleverest people; and if a man has power over the clever-minded, is he not cleverer than they? I who, through money, can do anything the human heart desires — do I not possess all human virtues? Does not my money therefore transform all my inabilities into their opposite?

Capitalism has the deceptive knack of turning things into their opposites. The imaginary has thus become the greatest reality. Man’s power does not derive from money. The power of money derives from man.

Socialism will end human alienation. In a world based upon common ownership, money will not exist. People will relate to each other purely as human beings. They will co-operate to produce life’s requirements and freely use or consume what they need. Under capitalism, need can only manifest itself through money; capitalism presumes that where money is lacking, no need exists.

Harry Baldwin

Good Thinking, Ma'am (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new twist on the dangers of TV horror shows :

Mrs Mary Whitehouse's latest allegation against TV is that its coverage of modern warfare, “showing burning homes, dying soldiers and mutilated children”, could be sapping the national will to safeguard freedom. She has come up with this thought:

“We would now do well to ponder whether it will ever again be possible to fight a war, however just, in a democracy which has uncensored television, and colour television at that, in almost every home”.

Daily Mirror 8th April 1976 

R.B.Gill

She wouldn't censor war — only shows about it!

Organization and Socialism (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the nineteenth century the capitalist world has been swamped with organizations. Political parties, trade unions, religious sects and nationalist groups have gained mass membership or support. All these organizations have been expressions of conflict, dissatisfaction or grievances among sections of the population. Trade unions were formed to try to safeguard the interests of groups of workers against pressure on wages by the employers. As capitalism brought under its sway more and more of the population, so did the belief spread among these workers that organizations like trade unions were necessary to protect their interests. Consequently these organizations grew, both in number and support.

But the workers were wrong in believing that these organizations could solve their problems. Because the organizations were based on attempts to solve economic problems only within the existing capitalist system, they took on the character of that social system. They lost democratic intentions which existed at their origin and became bureaucratic. Leaders arose to control them. Workers found that they had to accept organizational structures which reflected the class society they lived in.

In Germany, the Social Democratic Party gradually dropped the pretensions which a small number of members had for changing society. It adopted the objectives of the German trade unions, which were to gain immediate benefits for their working-class supporters within the capitalist system. The consequence of this was that the class nature of capitalism with its division of society into capital and wage-labour, owners and producers, leaders and led, was reflected in the structure of the Social Democratic Party. A large bureaucracy arose to control the organization.

Some theorists, like Michels in his work Political Parties have seen this development as an inevitable result of organization. But in arriving at this view he neglected the type of society in which the organizations have arisen. He saw their structure as reflecting the nature of man rather than the nature of the particular society. In looking at them without accounting for either the capitalist basis of society or the reformist objectives which the organizations had, he neglected those factors which determine their fundamental structure.

Many organizations have complained of apathy among the working class. Attendance at meetings of trade unions, political parties and other organizations has declined; “Leftists” and other reformists have declared that the lack of interest displays a lack of political consciousness among people. But all it shows is the absence of understanding. “Leftists” look to the odd clauses in the manifestos of reformist parties, like the Labour Party, to try and show that these parties are not reformist but have socialist origins. They fail to see that the original role of the organizations, and one they maintain, was as an expression of the wish for reforms of capitalism. They fail to see that the leadership nature of organizations was and is a reflection of these reformist aims.

What a decline in active involvement in these organizations shows is that numbers of the working class no longer believe that devoting their time to participation in reformism is worth while. Socialists agree with them. We have always advised the working class that involvement with these organizations can never solve the basic problems of society. At most, trade unions make gains which can quickly be eroded by developments like inflation. The reforms which political parties implement are introduced largely to facilitate the further development of capitalism. Even the National Health Service, that “sacred cow” of the Labour Party, has primarily served to ensure that the illnesses which workers have do not result in an excessive loss of labour-power from productive employment.

Socialists say that in the light of the failure of these organizations to solve the fundamental problems facing the working class, people should now take a further step and put an end to the capitalist system, which has been the cause of their problems throughout the period of mass organization. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has continuously and consistently put forward that those problems can only be solved by the establishment of Socialism. Throughout the SPGB’s existence it has opposed all other political organizations because it recognizes that the aims of these organizations were limited to obtaining reforms within capitalism. But unlike other organizations, the members of the SPGB do not see the political party and its structure as being maintained within a Socialist society. It exists solely to work for Socialism among the working class in order that they themselves can abolish capitalism. Consequently the organizational structures which reflect the class basis of capitalism will not be transferred to Socialism. Because it means that everybody will own and control the means of production, instead of a minority as in capitalism, the democratic structure of Socialism will reflect the very different purpose of the society. This is the aim of fulfilling human needs, as opposed to the aim of capitalism, which is to produce profits for a minority of the population.

M. D.

A Night at the Opera (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The hypocrisy of capitalism’s protagonists is to be discovered in all corners. For example, who would imagine that it would find its way into an opera programme?

In this case, it must be admitted the occasion was a special one. The Proms at Covent Garden, in fact, a week in which, due to the generosity of the Midland Bank Ltd., sections of the working class (not apparently horny-handed sons of toil but students, office workers, lawyers’ clerks, etc.) can grab a space on the auditorium floor for 50p. As put in the programme: “inexpensive accommodation at prices well within the young person’s pocket”.

What is not mentioned is that to do so successfully, apart from the back-breaking, bottom-aching business of squatting two or three hours in a space just enough to fit in a sleeping dog (not too large a one), he or she must stand or sit on the pavement outside in winds or rain (as the case might be) unless lucky enough to find a doorway in which to cower.

The very long queue only serves to underline the numbers of impoverished so-called “middle-class” workers waiting for prices to be lowered to “accommodate” their pockets to enable them to visit the opera.

The point of all this, however is, that it seems the writer of the programme blurb overlooked one fact. There are some young persons whose pockets do not need to be “accommodated.’ '

On leaving at the end of the performance the present writer spied in front of the theatre a massive, polished conveyance, a Rolls no doubt, whose doors were being opened by not one but two uniformed (not their own to be sure) flunkeys to facilitate the entry of three or four “young persons” whose dress, besides all else, made clear that they had not formed part of the queue earlier on. Did the Midland Bank in its worthy and laudable project in making possible a 50p. entry to the Covent Garden Opera have this section of “young people” in mind? It is to be gravely doubted.

Of course, the Midland Bank could have asked a Socialist to explain in the programme that in a class society, such as our present capitalist one, allowing for the obvious fact that it is the privilege of the privileged capitalist class (and their young) to be privileged because of their ownership of the means of production etc., it is not to be wondered at that we find the distinction being enacted in front of our eyes.

However it is not the practice of our capitalist masters to say such things. Hence the crass hypocrisy laid down in the programme. In this context it would not be inappropriate to remark that in a Socialist world the glorious music as rendered in Covent Garden, that night and other nights, would be freely accessible to all the young (and others) of that world, without the humiliation of having it handed out to them as a charitable gift.

Max Judd

Food and Starvation (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The case of the SPGB against the capitalist mode of production is that production based on social need and democratically administered is far superior to the existing system of organized scarcity: a system which is subservient to market needs. In order to begin Socialist production, the old obsolete capitalist form will have to be removed, for the very simple reason that it does not work efficiently — that is, it does not satisfy social needs.

A report published by the Select Committee on Overseas Development, and placed before Parliament on 13th April 1976, made the claim that nearly 500 million people are verging on starvation (The World Food Crisis and Third World Development: Implications for UK Policy). This astonishing piece of information will undoubtedly stir a few consciences, but the mass reaction will be one of relative disinterest, as most workers are preoccupied with their own problems — a subjective and narrow attitude born out of the social conditions of capitalism. They do realize that there is a direct connection between people starving in Africa, Asia or India and the problems of unemployment, bad housing and poverty common in the Western world. Both sets of problems have a common origin, and can be traced to the contradictory situation where the means of production exist to produce capital first and wealth incidentally.

According to Sir John Baker, chairman of the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation, half the people of Africa are undernourished, and he has been told that annual spending on defence by African states equalled three times the cost of their deficit in food. Uganda spends twice as much under General Amin on defence as it did under Oboto. Tanzania, Zaire, Ghana and Congo all spend more on defence than they do on agriculture (Times, 19th April 1976). The same thing applies in India where vast sums are spent on armaments whilst millions of people starve or are undernourished.

This is true of capitalism generally. As the competition grows keener greater masses of wealth have to be devoted to the upkeep of the armed forces by all capitalist powers. The “killing” industry is a constantly expanding industry, and in a class society this is as inevitable, as it is wasteful. Could the situation improve if all the nations could agree to disarm and direct their resources towards the production of food? This is not a new argument, and was used by the ILP before 1914, when they were opposed to the British capitalist class building Dreadnoughts (battleships) when they should, in the view of the ILP, have been spending money on social reform, i.e. providing housing and increasing pensions for workers. The same argument was put in reverse by Adolf Hitler before the commencement of the second world war, when he argued the case for “guns before butter”.

It should be remembered that the butter is the property of the capitalist class, as also are the guns, and because the capitalists choose not to spend their money on armaments does not imply that they will spend it on social reform. The two propositions are quite separate, and only muddle-headed social reformers could bring the two together. The capitalists spend their revenues where it will best serve their economic and political interest, and they have no enthusiasm for spending money on armaments in particular: they are always eager and anxious to curtail such expenditure. That is why all governments, including the American and Russian, are trying to reach agreements on policies which will limit expenditure on armed forces. The twentieth century has been interspersed with disarmament conferences, but generally speaking these have produced little or nothing. In fact, on at least one occasion they could scarcely agree on the shape of the table, and in the Vietnam peace talks held in Paris, months were spent on discussing the seating arrangements.

The Select Committee’s report referred to above told MPs: “The United Kingdom should oppose proposals for food aid except as part of the European Economic Community’s contribution to agreed food security stock”. That is, no aid to backward countries unless the capitalists of the European Community can tie up a sphere of influence in any of these countries who are suffering from starvation. The criterion is not whether people are starving, but whether Western capitalist interests would be served by supplies of food.

Production under capitalism is a strange phenomenon which is peculiar to a certain stage in man’s development. Historically necessary, its rôle has been completed, that rôle representing a phase in social development. Now it has become reactionary, and the growing anarchy which arises from increasing competition exposes its basic anti-social characteristics. The obsolete social system which retards human progress must be removed. By progress we mean the free and unrestricted development of the social means of production, having as our object the fulfillment of social needs and not production of private profit.

The planning of social production within a socialist society will provide a great opportunity to demonstrate the intellectual capabilities of ordinary men and women, as it is upon them that society depends. It is this exciting prospect of re-fashioning the world into a place of culture, harmony and plenty, that is the incentive behind the propagation of Socialist ideas.

Jim D'Arcy

So They Say: Imaginary Differences (1976)

The So They Say Column from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imaginary Differences

Cartoons have been appearing in the press suggesting that the policies of the Conservative Party have become a mystery—that they offer no alternative to the Labour Party. In an attempt to dispel this view, cartoon characters in the shape of Conservative MPs and their attendants have been hurriedly pounding tables proclaiming that there is a clear distinction between “Conservative philosophy with Socialist [Labour Party] dogma” (letter to the Daily Telegraph, 12th May 1976).

What the Conservatives had to do was point out to the country that the Labour Party was under the control of the left wing and the Michael Foots of the world and then point out that the Tories were a party who took a different view and line for the future.

Daily Telegraph, 28th April 76

If that was not a tall enough order to begin with, the Labour Party is not making things any easier for them. Maurice MacMillan (Conservative MP), attempting to “make clear our own constructive alternatives”, pointed to the basic problem as he saw it:

Conservatives must be bold enough to say that businesses and investors must be given a real incentive by allowing them additional profits from their investments.

Times, 10th May 76

While MacMillan and his fellow drones have been plucking up their courage to say such a thing, they appear to have missed Callaghan who found his nerve some days earlier:

The first thing to concentrate on is to ensure that there is sufficient incentive to provide a proper level of investment in these firms so that productive jobs can be created. That is what I would like to focus on. But I don’t believe you can force a large private sector to invest. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and you have to apply the incentives necessary which compel it to drink.

Guardian, 5th May 76

Conservative philosophy or Labour Party dogma— after the froth, they bow to the profit motive.

An Acceptable Face

We have heard of the blind leading the blind. Now we have William Whitelaw, deputy leader of the Conservative Party, lecturing his cohorts on public relations. At a meeting held in a pub on 27th April he informed members of the Reform Group that at the next election Conservatives would “break from the party political tradition of making manifesto promises.” Other things were to change too—“we have to be scrupulously honest.” Good grief! What are they going to put in it? Whitelaw had an answer for that as well; they would announce “decreased public spending.” But before his audience could choke on their beer and sandwiches, he quickly pointed out that appearances could be deceptive: The Tories must not

turn into a hard-faced party. We must not be seen as the party looking all the time on the money side and not being interested in the various social problems that are certain to come up, and certain to be increased as our country is short of money. We must act with an economic head but also be seen to have a heart at the same time.

Daily Telegraph, 28th April 76

There goes the “scrupulously honest” facade. If this body politic of fair face, economic head, bulging pockets and kindly heart requires soft brain-matter, Whitelaw will no doubt become a donor.

You'll Never Walk Alone

It was hard to imagine that the announcements had not been made to the accompaniment of tambourines, the Joystrings and the Hallelujah Chorus: “We’re next for the economic miracle, says Healey” read the headline in the Daily Telegraph of 11th May.

Providing we can make this incomes policy stick to the end of the next wage round, I believe we have got the inflation problem under control. Now we must concentrate on the problem of unemployment. We want to get back to full employment within three years from now.

But "full employment” has become a loosely interpreted phrase, and before the “believers” acclaim the “miracle worker” too hastily, we draw attention to the specific statements made by Healey in the previous week.

The best we can hope for is to reduce unemployment to 3 per cent. or about 700,000 in 1979 . . . The TUC have expressed the hope that unemployment can be reduced to 600,000 in 1978. But I have already explained to them that this is too ambitious.

Guardian, 5th May 76

So the “miracle” becomes a mirage, and not a particularly distinguished one at that. The working class can take cold comfort from what Healey described as:

The tributes [which] are pouring in to the patriotism, the far-sightedness, common sense and maturity of our trade union movement as the full magnitude of this achievement sinks in.

The “achievement” of course, being the incomes policy agreement, not the aforementioned “miracle" which is only “hoped for.” Surely the TUC, who could by no stretch of the imagination be described either as far-sighted, or of mature judgement, must have noted the incongruity when Healey gushed forth:

Even the central bankers of the United States and Germany have added their tribute to the British trade union movement in the last few days — and believe me that is something.

Praise indeed, when the capitalists give tribute to the workers. Such praise is normally reserved for those occasions when members of the working class are encouraged to kill and maim one another on the battlefields.

What a Lovely Miracle

The chancellor expanded elsewhere on what he described as “the full magnitude of this achievement” —there were to be many sides to the miracle. Not only would there be the (hoped-for) 700,000 unemployed, but “The deal guaranteed that from August, wage rises in Britain would be the lowest in the world.” But how low an increase does he mean? Again we find some rather loose interpretation. An increase can usually be taken to mean an addition, but not apparently to Healey:

In fact wages will be coming down while our competitors will be going up . . . That is the best possible news for exports and employment.

Times, 11th May 76

In the light of the foregoing, and as the Chancellor is calling for “an 8.5 per cent annual increase in manufacturing output” and claims that “If we could get as much output out of our existing equipment as most of our competitors, we could increase our national income even without new investment by anything up to 50 per cent”, members of the working class would do well to consider their rôle in the “miracle.” It will be what it has always been—that of the wealth-producing class which owns nothing but the chance to work (literally) for the benefit of the owners. When workers see this division, they will have recognized exactly those whom the Labour Party represents.

Buy Me and Stop One

The ruthless examination of all aspects of social requirement from the point of view Can money be made from meeting such requirements? is one of the hallmarks of capitalist society. Marx put the view that when Socialism is established man will look back on his previous forms of society, including present-day society, and will describe them as pre-historic. We take a clipping from the London Evening Standard of 13th May which serves to underline the extent of our “civilisation.”

A price war is raging among private abortion clinics, it was claimed today. Mrs. Helene Grahame, of the Pregnancy Advisory Service, a London based charity, said the days of the get-rich quick abortionist look to be fading fast . . . Advertised prices of £50 and £60 are now quite common, against £70 to £80 a year or so ago . . . Clinics are advertising much more widely and extravagantly, and a free pregnancy-testing is being used as a come-on. All the indications are that they arc getting pretty desperate for patients — which is why they are getting into this kind of price war.

The Daily Express of 14th May reported the phenomenon in an even more matter-of-fact manner. The first line of their piece told us: “Women can now shop around for an abortion at the right price.” Hats off to capitalism: If the thing runs true to form we can next expect the equivalent of supermarkets giving special offers and Green Shield stamps.

Alan D'Arcy

Letter: A Double Bind or Two (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Idealism, as defined in the Socialist Standard, is the erroneous belief that ideas have an existence of their own and can be the operative force in changing society. Scientific materialism, on the other hand, relates ideas to class interest. Socialism, therefore, is an expression of working-class interest rather than the pursuit of ideas.

Yet the workers accept “the world of capitalism with its wages system, price structure and private property in the means of production” (SPGB Manifesto). They have, moreover, accepted ideas which bear no relation to their class interests (known, regrettably, only to the SPGB).

What can a reasonable person conclude except that the ideal of Socialism, held presently by the few (the very few within the SPGB) should also be held by the many? The working classes must pay heed to their mentors and pursue ideas which will enable them to question the whole basis of life under capitalism.

Such is the stuff of which idealism is made. How indeed could it be otherwise given the working classes’ refusal to walk the road Marx laid out for them? As capitalism hastened towards its inevitable collapse then, he predicted, there would “grow the revolt of the working classes”. They would only have “to observe what is happening before their eyes, and to make themselves its vehicles of expression”. From this moment “the science produced by the historical movement [i.e. Marxism]. . . would cease to be doctrinaire and become revolutionary” (Poverty of Philosophy). Capitalism collapses. The expropriators are appropriated. Socialism becomes a reality.

But far from collapsing, capitalism reveals an inherent tendency to survive and prosper. The plight of the working classes is less than dire. Their revolts consist of strike actions designed at best to improve their undeniable material prosperity. For them it is colour television before class consciousness.

All that any socialist party can do therefore is to remain doctrinaire in spite of the fact that the productive forces are sufficiently developed to indicate conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and the constitution of a new society. This the SPGB refuses to admit nor the idealistic utopianism at the heart of so-called scientific materialism.

Tim Caulfield, 

Bury

Reply:

All we find in this sneering letter is an assertion that the SPGB must be wrong because it is small. Obviously your reference to workers for whom “it is colour television before class consciousness” comes from the horse’s mouth.

You say working-class interests are “known, regrettably, only to the SPGB”, and Socialism is conceived only by “the few (the very few within the SPGB”). Does this somehow invalidate working-class interests and Socialism? If so, it is bad for most scientific theory, which has been known only to a few and has often had to struggle against ignorance and opposing interests. But your presumption that the working class is uninterested in Socialism is a mistaken one. Labour and social-democratic parties employ the word “socialist” because for large numbers of workers it is attractive and connotes equality and a better life; while their opponents depict the terrors of Socialism for the same reason. Though the result, is that we have to spend much of our time attacking these misconceptions, clearly workers have not the attitude to Socialism that you ascribe to them.

Marx did not predict the “inevitable collapse” of capitalism. He and Engels thought at times that a crisis or oppressive conditions would make the working class become revolutionary. That is not the same thing at all, and history since Marx’s time has shown it was a mistaken belief. Had he believed the system was going to collapse, there would have been no point in his advocating Socialism.

We suppose “doctrinaire” to mean that the Socialist Party adheres to its object and principles, and its work of propagating Socialism. You say this is “all that any socialist party can do” and then jeer at us for doing it. Perhaps watching colour television has made you confused.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Classes and prices (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

IS and others accuse the SPGB of standing "aloof” from the class struggle. But surely the class struggle consists in that over which classes struggle, by which they derive their separate existences as classes, i.e. ownership of the means of life?

Money and wages are only manifestations of private ownership. Accordingly, the struggle over wages implies an acquiescence to the continuance of private ownership, unless accompanied by the revolutionary struggle to dispossess the capitalist class. The SPGB, far from standing aloof, appears to be the sole party concerned with the very essence of the class struggle and the solution that will terminate it—abolition of wage-labour and capital, the two sides of the same coin that is capitalism. It must be asked of others why they should demand anything less than Socialism, since the material conditions that make it practicable have long been in existence. Besides, the conspicuous absence of what one should expect from “socialists” — an unrelenting clamour for Socialism out of the horse’s mouth so to speak — serves only to banish authentic Socialism in the minds of the misinformed, and confuse the clear-cut choice between Socialism and capitalism.

A question on economics. How do you translate value into price and why it is that prices, according to supply and demand, fluctuate about value (or do they?)? How does value express itself in price, and what happens to the relationship between prices, profits and wages as value declines? Finally, how will value under Socialism compare with value under capitalism?

Robin Cox

Haslemere

Reply:

When talking of commodities, there are two distinct uses of the term "value”; use-value and exchange- value. Use-value is the actual physical utility of an object, i.e. a bicycle’s use is to be ridden as a means of transport. Exchange-value is the amount of "worth” a commodity possesses on the market, in the form of abstract human labour. Exchange-value equates different amounts of various commodities to each other. For example 1 oz. of gold may be worth 2 cwt. of copper. According to the labour theory of value, the more labour a commodity contains the more value it contains (the measure being socially-necessary labour time). The amount of socially-necessary labour contained in an object includes all the processes involved in its production, not just the last one.

Price is the amount that a commodity realizes on the market, and generally speaking commodities sell at or around their values. Prices reflect the value of commodities. While we are of course aware that supply and demand will affect price, when supply and demand are equal then commodities will sell at their value. In the case of monopoly the price can be kept artificially high, and in the case of subsidy artificially low. In times of inflation (i.e. the excess issue of paper currency) there is a general rise in the prices of all commodities, even though their relative values remain constant.

Whilst a capitalist who is selling a commodity may not himself know the amount of labour embodied in it, he does know what he has paid for it including those processes carried out before it reached his factory. He will ask as high a price as he dare on the market, but must always try to keep competitive with his rivals. In society, as commodities exchange, the values are transmitted unconsciously through the price of each transaction.

When commodities change their values, this is due to a change in the amount of socially-necessary labour involved in their production, and this change will be reflected in the relative exchange-value of the commodities. For example, if 1 oz. of gold will buy 2 cwt. of copper we may say that 1 oz. of gold=

2 cwt. of copper. If then the amount of labour required to produce 1 oz. gold is halved, but the same amount of labour is still necessary for 2 cwt. of copper, then 1 oz. of gold=4 cwt. of copper. Assuming gold to be the money commodity, a fall in the value of gold while other commodities retain their values would be represented by a rise in the prices of the other commodities. The converse would be true if the value of gold were to double.

It must be remembered that labour-power is a commodity and is special in that it is the only commodity able to create value and to reproduce itself. A wage is the price of labour-power and on average represents its value: that is, the amount necessary to the worker to keep him going in the same task and for him to bring up the next generation of workers. It is of course up to workers and their organizations to get as much as they can in the form of wages from their employers.

We agree with you when you say that the struggle for higher wages without a revolutionary Socialist purpose implies acquiescence to the system and its private-property relations. Most workers are not yet Socialists and again we agree that a lot of the blame for this must be laid at the door of “left-wing” parties, including is, for their confusion and misrepresentation of Socialism. Why indeed ask for anything less than Socialism? Socialism will usher out all the paraphernalia of capitalism including capital, commodities, exchange-value, wages, prices, etc. Instead production will be carried on for the benefit of the whole of society.

Editorial Committee.

Correction

The July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a correction to the original reply:

"We are grateful to correspondents who have drawn our attention to an arithmetical error which occurred in our reply Classes and Prices, June 1976. The passage read “If then the amount of labour required to produce 1 oz. gold is halved, but the same amount of labour is necessary for 2 cwt. of copper, then 1 oz. of gold = 4 cwt. of copped.” The last line should have read “then 1 oz. of gold = 1 cwt of copper." "

Letter: The Military (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the last few years I have been a moderate-type Socialist, though I have never joined a party or been active in any way other than union membership.

I have just read the “Introduction to the Socialist Party of Great Britain” and I would like to know more about your policies, particularly how you hope the Socialist society will be established.

I am at present considering joining the forces. I do not like the idea of killing people or of being used as a tool for the oppression of the working class, but I know that all factors in our society are interdependent and that taxpayers pay a soldier’s wages. However, I would like to know your Party’s attitude to this, whether you would approve of Socialization and a democratic movement working inside the existing armed forces, or if you would rather wait for Socialism to be established and then abolish the military?

Does the SPGB want the present form of society to continue until the majority is convinced, or enabled to put your policies into practice? I would appreciate your help on this. I am not politically active but would like to be.

George Cummings 

Torquay

Reply:

The armed forces are part of the machinery of government, which exists to conserve the class ownership of the means of living. The aim of the Socialist movement is for the working-class majority, when it understands the need to do so, to elect Socialists to Parliament as its delegates to take the powers of government; with control of the machinery in their hands, nothing can then prevent the de-legalizing of class ownership and the establishment of ownership by all. In the Socialist world "the military” — like money and a lot of other things—simply has no function.

The taxpayers who provide soldiers’ wages and weapons are the capitalist class, for the reason given above; and for the same reason there can be no such thing as "Socialization and a democratic movement” changing the armed forces’ nature. You say you “do not like the idea” of killing other working people, being used to break strikes, and carrying out brutal and anti-social acts as ordered. We are not here to advise you about your personal life, and certainly soldiers are members of the working class and can become Socialists as anyone else can; but if they do, they find their employment intolerable.

You say you are "a moderate-type Socialist” and want to be politically active. This means, we think, that you have half-formed ideas about society. Why not spend a time learning about Socialism and getting matters clear? There is plenty of literature available, and Socialists in your area who would be pleased to discuss with you. Yes, a convinced majority is necessary to change society, but we don’t want a long wait; Socialism is urgently necessary, and you can help to bring it about. Sort yourself out.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Pacifism (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

By chance I have come across some of your leaflets and being a pacifist and member of the Peace Pledge Union, I am most impressed by your condemnation of violent revolutionary tactics. Among the left-wing parties very few would refrain from using violence to achieve their ends but these tactics lead to further misery, as in Angola.

It was aptly shown in the case of the Russian Revolution that if a revolution is to succeed it must not use the tactics of the very system they deplore in order to achieve their cause. War cannot be defeated by war. The “war to end war” of 60 years ago and the Russian Revolution show that violence does not change the system, it only replaces the administrators of it.

May we show that all people can co-operate to meet each other’s needs rather than withholding them to all who are not strong enough to forcefully take them?

Stephen Holland,

Newcastle-on-Tyne

Reply:

Our condemnation of violence, as a proposed means to change society, is that it implies an attempt to gain political power by a minority. A majority understanding and wanting Socialism has at its disposal the only method which can end class ownership and establish common ownership—the non-violent, democratic conquest of the powers of government. If a minority takes power forcibly, it cannot establish Socialism because there is no majority desire for it to do so; the minority will not only rule, but must retain the use of force to support its rule.

We are glad you perceive this. However, we must state our disagreements with pacifism. Socialists are not pacifists, i.e. we do not hold that violence must be rejected on ethical grounds which precede all other considerations. Our standpoint that it cannot be used for the establishment of Socialism is an ends-and-means one deriving from our analysis of capitalism, the state, and the position of the working class. The common position of pacifists is opposing war and violence, yet supporting pro-capitalist parties (in particular the Labour Party) that stand for the system which produces war and violence. You appear to be thinking on the right lines; if you go on doing so, your next step is out of the pacifist movement and into the Socialist one.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Workers and Leaders (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have two basic questions about Party members and one question about a statement in the 70th Anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard, which I read avidly.

Question 1: Are any Party members wage-workers? Question 2: If not, how do you pay for food, accommodation and the other basic needs of life under the capitalist system?

On page 90 of the 70th Anniversary issue is printed a picture with the statement “No Leaders — the Executive Committee in Session, 1956”. I wonder how you qualify what seems to be a double-standard statement?

I am a sympathizer with Socialism, common ownership, but I am not yet a member of the only Socialist party, the SPGB (my age is 17). But I hope to become a member and learn much more about Socialism in the near future.

Barry Phillips

London SW9

Reply:

Nearly all the members of the SPGB are wageworkers. That is why we are Socialists. Socialism is the expression of the material interests of the working class, the nine-tenths who under capitalism have no choice but to sell their labour-power and be exploited. Having to “pay for food, accommodation and the other basic needs of life” is capitalism’s atrocious arrangement by which wage-workers perpetually go without; Socialism means free access by everyone to whatever is produced.

Leaders are people with followers. The Socialist Party has an Executive Committee and a General Secretary and members who do various other named jobs. They are elected by the membership, and none has a hope of exercising special influence or making our decisions for us; the constitution of the Party is framed to prevent that. The EC’s function is to put the wishes of the membership into effect and see to the Party’s routine business. That’s all.

Incidentally, Executive Committee meetings on Tuesday nights are, like all transactions of the Party without exception, completely open. If you want to know how it works you may walk in and see and listen.

Editorial Committee.

SPGB Meetings (1976)

Party News from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: Nationalist Parties (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

I should like to ask the Socialist Party view on nationalism and anarchism and some other points.

There is hardly a country in Western Europe that has not spawned a nationalist or separatist movement. Basques and Catalans in Spain, Bretons and Corsicans in France, Frisians in Holland, Scots, Welsh and Cornish in Britain. As all political parties are expressions of class interests, where do the nationalist movements stand on this score? Are these movements fighting to save minority cultures, and if they are is this good? As you advocate Socialism on a world scale you will surely need to satisfy the linguistic and cultural demands of minority peoples.

Second, your views on anarchism. I have read anarchist literature and found that their view of post-revolutionary society is similar to the Socialist Party’s, the disagreements appear to be over the methods used to obtain this objective. This being so, should Socialists work with anarchists?

As the capitalist class has vast wealth not only in cash but also in goods (houses, cars, art objects etc.) will these be confiscated after the revolution?

As the world cannot be expected to become Socialist all at once what would be the relationship between the Socialist and capitalist countries, for instance what would be the relationship between a Socialist Britain and capitalist Saudi-Arabia, considering that the latter supplies most of our crude oil? Would a country becoming Socialist have to achieve self-sufficiency?

Finally, do you think it desirable that the Socialist parties round the world unite to form a single World Socialist Party?

Ian Greenslade

Southminster

Reply:

What makes capitalists a class is that they have in common their ownership of the means of living, and an interest in preserving it and continuing production for profit. However, there are various sections of the capitalist class, and the regime in any one country reflects the dominance of a particular section. In Britain and other advanced countries the industrial capitalist holds sway, and other sections — as, in the recent past, the housing landlord — can be sent to the wall for his benefit. Thus, not one but several parties represent the interests of capitalists; each will favour a particular section, and will argue that to pursue policies on those lines is the best thing for the system as a whole.

The case of nationalist organizations is for local capitalists instead of foreign ones, and this is supported by programmes of reforms which they say would be made possible by the change. There are many recent examples to enable you to form an opinion of the consequences. The desire to preserve regional speech and traditions need fear nothing from Socialism. These suffer under the capitalist nationstate; “education” has ironed them out severely, and many people divest themselves of local speech and manners because they find them handicaps in getting jobs and maintaining prestige.

Socialists have a fundamentally different view of society from anarchists’. The latter see not the capitalist system but “authority”, particularly that of the state, as their enemy and therefore reject the idea of gaining control of the state machine to change society. It is difficult to generalize about anarchists because of the variety of their opinions as to what they seek to do, but anarchist publications continually demand social reforms. What is the use of advocating a free society and at the same time bolstering this one; or opposing the state and at the same time applying to it? We have nothing in common with that.

We are concerned with people getting houses in Socialism because they cannot get them now, not with "confiscation”. You will find that when servants are not available the desire to live in palatial houses will vanish (this is already happening now). When art objects no longer represent large sums of money there will be a different evaluation of them. We have all heard about priceless masterpieces found in attics; presumably they were put there because their owners thought poorly of them, until the discovery of the money connection endowed them with remarkable beauty after all.

To answer your final questions briefly, Socialism in one country is not possible. But you are assuming a one-way dependence. Turn this round and ask how a monarchical dictatorship would manage in a Socialist world, whether it would be capable of self-sufficiency, and how likely it would be in those circumstances to resist the movement towards Socialism in its own territory. There are Socialist parties with the same Object and Principles as ourselves in several countries, and with the growth of the movement we shall no doubt have to consider world organization. Hasten the day!

Editorial Committee.

Gold! Gold! Gold! (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Further shattering revelations by the BBC! First, the programme on “Where Keynes went wrong”. Now, the documentary on Gold. The Radio Times of 24th April said plaintively:

  Why do we dig gold out of a hole in the ground, carry it across the world, and bury it in other holes, with guards over it? There are millions of tons of it lying in the vaults around the world, yet nobody can touch it. How did we get into this insane situation?

Could it be that Simon Campbell-Jones (the producer) is a listener to the SPGB in Hyde Park? There, our speakers, in dealing with the absurd contradictions of capitalism, frequently refer to precisely this absurdity as the most bizarre of all: surpassing the glut of dairy produce, the millions of bricks, the wine lake, the motor-car crisis, and now the 74 laid- up super-tankers.

The programme was quite well done, even amusing in parts, but giving not the slightest hint of an explanation of this insanity, preferring to leave it at that. May we suggest a solution of this perplexing problem? First, the programme was in error in stating that gold buried in the ground by man “is quite useless and has no value”. The reason that 80 per cent. of the world’s gold is re-buried is because it does have value, not because it has none. If it had no value it would be thrown away. It has value because it contains human labour. This is the reason why it is so carefully hoarded, whether by individuals or governments.

Gold metal is preferred to everything else as a “universal equivalent” (“as the hart pants for cooling streams—so pants the Commodity for gold”, wrote Marx) because it is practically indestructible, conveniently divisible, and immediately measurable (by weight). Our original “One Pound” was a pound weight of pure silver, then ousted by gold. Bankers quickly found that it is not necessary to ship actual gold bars to settle debts. After all, its specific gravity is 19.00. Most accounts could be settled by clearing banks debiting one client against the credit of others. Paper documents, Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes, cheques, bonds, securities, are all ways of transferring goods without any move of gold bullion.

But, however complicated and extensive, the credit system still depends in the end on gold for solvency and stability. Gold: the one commodity everybody wants, because it reflects all the others. Who has gold, has everything. Gold is real wealth—tangible, shining, weigh-able labour—its value determined, like the value of everything else, by the amount of labour it contains.

Neither is it true that “nobody can touch it”. Not so! Today’s news is that the government has spent over £2,000 millions in gold, to try to bolster the falling paper pound. Those who push it down vaults —can pull it up again. Indian peasants hoard gold ornaments, Stalin insisted on payment in actual gold bars and not paper pesetas for the arms supplied to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Shylock demanded a bagful of real gold ducats in exchange for the paper promise.

What finally sparked the invasion of Russia by the capitalist powers in 1918 was not the Bolshevik “dictatorship of the proletariat” or Lenin’s red banner, but the fact that he confiscated the gold in the Czarist banks. This writer has actually been shown a wad of Czarist banknotes by a poor fellow in the south of France, confident that when the Romanoffs are back he’ll have it made.

When Trotsky was removed from the War Ministry and placed in charge of the Concessions Committee, one of his first visitors was Averil Harriman, the American banker. Harriman was proudly taken by Trotsky to the famous Lena goldfields and informed by him that “beneath that terrain was one of the richest seams in the world—and above it one of the best Communist Youth organizations in Russia”. Harriman was reported as saying on his return home that had the position been reversed he would have been ready to talk business.

When Ivor Montagu, the Communist scion of the Swaythling merchant banking family, visited the USSR to further his researches into the smaller mammalia, his father mentioned to him that they had regular confidential reports on the Bolsheviks’ gold reserve— hinting that confirmation of these would be much appreciated. The banker needed to know how much gold the Bolsheviks really had.

Capitalism has now reached the stage where even the BBC sees the absurdity: vast amounts of labour are wasted digging gold, to bury it again. But this does serve a function under capitalism; it is the real backing to the paper promise. What to do with the vast hoards of the stuff left buried by capitalism may be a problem in Socialism. Thomas More suggested that it be used for children’s toys. William Morris thought it might line lavatory pans, though porcelain is more hygienic. Apart from capping teeth, it seems foredoomed to ornamental use.

Horatio.

50 Years Ago: On Industrial and Political Action (1976)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

What we have said should have made clear by now the only real solution to this, and all other economic troubles affecting the workers. If the workers had been as solid in voting for Socialism as they have been in striking on behalf of the miners what a different tale there would be to tell! And yet, as long as the workers support a condition of things which lays it down as a fundamental proposition that there shall employers and employed, capitalists and wage-earners; and at election time puts control of the governmental machinery into the hands of the masters and their supporters, they must expect defeat in their struggle for better conditions. The solution of the difficulties lies in the workers’ own hands. The substitution of common ownership in the means of wealth production in place of the present private property system, and the accomplishment of this end by voting delegates to the central seat of power at election times to carry out instructions formulated by their working- class electorate.

(From an article “The Strike” by Gilbert McClatchie, published in the Socialist Standard, June 1926)

The Welsh Scene (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent unrest in the steel industry was inevitable to anyone with just a little knowledge of the nature of capitalist economy. In Wales, as elsewhere, workers have been rudely awakened from their dream that full employment would last. The logic of the message that the Socialist movement has propagated over the years is once again amply demonstrated. Unfortunately it is not at all palatable to workers who, for a considerable period, have depended on the unstable structure of additional pay from overtime and shift work.

Now the employers have had to shed many thousands of their work-force as well as cutting out the various forms of overtime. At a recent press conference in Cardiff the British Steel Corporation’s chief executive, Bob Scholey, said: “We do not think the funding of this luxury at public expense is fair.” Apparently he was serious about the world “luxury”: he was referring to the workers’ demand for work in an industry which, from the bosses’ point of view, is overmanned. A new blast furnace capable of increased output but requiring fewer men has been accepted by the unions on condition that the wages for manning it are increased, and this has been agreed to by the employers. So a section of the workers will be seen as retaining their jobs at the expense of the others—a hint of “divide and rule”.

It is indeed a sorry pass to which the workers have come, to be told that working longer hours is a “luxury”—that it is in some way associated with the quality of one’s life. Overtime has been the provider of holidays abroad and the host of knick-knacks which workers have been led to believe are indispensable for the good life. It is not that we are against the acquisition of more and better artifacts. We may condemn the shoddy and inferior things foisted on the workers; but even that supply can be diminished at any time when the capitalist system can no longer allow the means to enjoying them.

Some steel workers are attending the job despite being told there is no work. The masters claim it is unreasonable to demand work when it is unprofitable to employ them; they own the factories and they know the situation. It is the workers whose thinking is wrong, in imagining there is some divine law which entitles them to jobs. When are they going to wake up to the fact that all they have is their labour-power—and when that is not wanted they have to take it elsewhere if they can? The steel industry, like any other, exists to make profits.

There is no logic in workers’ giving their masters the legal authority to exploit them, and then kicking at the results. The constantly repeated crises of capitalism can only be overcome in one way, and that is for the working class to take—legitimately — the ownership of the means of living. This relatively simple, democratic measure will put and end to the sit-ins, strikes and the other acts which manifest the miseries of the present system. Society can be transformed into a structure wherein its resources will be utilized solely for human needs. This can happen when men desire it. The task of Socialists is to urge the working class to be conscious of itself and its potentialities.

W. Brain