So They Say: Worker Priorities (1977)

The So They Say Column from the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Worker Priorities

One of the difficulties faced by those who believe that capitalism can be adapted to operate in the interest of workers is that they find themselves voicing the same views as those who actually reap the benefits, the owners of capital.

  Unless we start to achieve proper production levels, we are contributing to the downfall of our industry. (Joe Gormley, NUM leader. Daily Telegraph, 5th May ’77)

He does not mean “our industry”, however. Miners do not own the mines. The Daily Telegraph described his view as “down-to-earth common sense!” Elsewhere in the same newspaper, Terry Beckett, chairman and managing director of Ford’s, was expressing his views as an owner.

  British productivity was substantially worse in many operations compared with Germany . . . We therefore need a positive trade union attitude to management's initiatives on improved productivity . . . there is no doubt that our companies and our workforce have to be efficient and effective.

He is looking over his shoulder for trade-unionists to fight this battle for him. But before Gormley, or any other of his ilk, encourages his members to believe that they have mutual interests with the owners in running capitalism, it should first be made clear that workers as a whole have an overriding interest of their own. Not to support the private property system every time it creaks, but to dismantle the entire thing and establish a world of common ownership.


Capitalist Priorities

The main thrust of Beckett’s remarks was directed against “the motor industry’s bad strike record”, and the blame for this could be laid at the door of “technology”:

A handful of men could stop a whole line and bring 10,000 to a halt.

The “technology” he says is to blame—the machine line—is one of capitalism’s “effective and efficient” advances, in fact beloved by Ford’s. It is designed and introduced to intensify production. What he is really blaming is the “handful of men” who can leave such an expensive capital investment lying idle. Ford’s are then unable to reap surplus-value from the other 10,000. However, according to Beckett, there is a straightforward solution to any and every problem which workers experience. He advocates the mind-over-matter theory: whatever else, stay at the machine. Problems? Forget them:

  There was an obsessive concern with wages, prices, unemployment, living standards and funding the social services in Britain. People were hopelessly confused on what could be done to improve the position. Only good rewarding work [on a machine line?] could bring good rewarding pay. Britain had pussy footed around the issue of profits for years. The whole country needed to accept the necessity of profit with enthusiasm.

(Daily Telegraph, 5th May ’77)

More equal than others ?

We note that Mr. George Costakis must be an extremely hard-working man. The Russian Embassy in London informed the Socialist Standard last year that “material wealth is distributed in the socialist [Russian] society according to the principle of, from each according to his abilities, to each according to his work.” Mr. Costakis, 64, worked for many years “as an administrative officer in charge of Russian employees at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow” (Daily Telegraph). He has recently been given permission by the Russian Minister of Culture to take 80 of his 300 paintings out of the country.

 The Costakis collection has been conservatively estimated to be worth £2m on the western market . . . Contrary to Western belief, private collections are perfectly legal in Russia, and the late Ilya Ehrenburg, the Soviet propagandist, had a valuable collection of Picassos.

(Daily Telegraph, 11th May 77)

True to form

Those who suggest that nationalization has something to do with Socialism will note that the Post Office (“our” Post Office) has made an “excess profit” of £100m. on the telecommunications side. The proposed £7 rebate to each subscriber does not appear to be a very generous “dividend”, however, according to the Post Office chairman Sir William Ryland.

  But what is distributed now as a rebate will have to be recovered sooner or later from the customer or the taxpayer to help fund our large programme.

(Daily Telegraph, 5th May 77)

But was the £100m. profit a fantastic accident in the first place? Sir William Ryland does not think so:

  I make no apology for the success of the telecommunication services in moving from large losses to a healthy profitability . . . It is a fine achievement of immense proportions, something of which we should all be proud . . . Profit must be the heartbeat of the economy.

Safe Bombs

The science editor of The Times, Pearce Wright, had an interesting piece on 2nd May. The title above his column read: keeping nuclear bombs out of the wrong hands.

And what then, are the right hands? Perhaps the scientist knows something we do not. We had understood that nuclear bombs were designed to kill people.

Central Paradox

India currently has a record stockpile of 18 million tonnes of food—mostly wheat and rice—and is experiencing difficulties in storing it satisfactorily The expense of creating indoor space has meant that approximately one-third of the stockpile is lying under tarpaulins in the open air. In turn this can lead to deterioration of the grain by humidity and rain, and also by infestations particularly of rats. Within the next two months, officials reckon that the stockpiles will exceed 20m tonnes.

  But while farmers are pressing the new Janata (people’s) Government for higher intervention prices — which are set by the Government when it buys for storage — there remains the central paradox of overproduction in India: stockpiles exist side by side with more than 600 million people, two fifths of whom are too poor to buy sufficient food. Whether the stockpile is too much is uncertain. A senior official of the Food Corporation once actually proposed huge wheat exports.

Madness? Just another glimpse of capitalism’s “unacceptable face”.

Smooth Talker

Elsewhere the president of the European Commission, Roy Jenkins, eloquently expressed his side of the European “problem”:

  The basic problem here of course is that as long as you have a structural surplus of milk products generally and butter in particular, you have got an almost insoluble problem. You have got to try to get rid of it [butterJ somehow, and yet selling it at very low prices, which are the only prices at which you can get rid of it, to other countries, particularly if attention is concentrated on one country, arouses a considerable political storm.

The Times (Europa report), 5th April 77

If there is something to be got “rid of’ here, surely it must be the social system which creates the “central paradox” and along with it, its oily apologists.

Muddlers

The Labour Party’s home policy committee clearly feel that variety is the spice of life and are preparing a sort of variety-act, apparently because there’s nothing better for them to do.

  Labour’s policymakers decided last night to wage war on private landlords and agreed at the same time to start work on producing a ‘mid-term manifesto’ that will not meet with the approval of Mr. Callaghan.

The Times, 10th May 77

We suppose they imagine this a useful exercise. If they seriously wish to project something that Callaghan will disapprove—they could suggest Socialism. Regrettably though, the Labour policyfakers themselves are scared stiff of the idea.

Taking it easy

Daily Telegraph writers and ignoramuses in general are not backward in coming forward particularly when there is a suggestion that the workers are all sloping-off, or leaning on the proverbial shovel. Get your backs into it, seems to be their motto. One of them, Howard Hicks, wrote a piece in the 5th May issue “on the evils of falling productivity”.

His advice came as no surprise—“Wake up, workers of Britain!” We could increase productivity enormously. he assures us, “without dying of fatigue,” which is of some comfort; but he gets oven funnier:

 I do not believe that a country which has been breeding people with stamina, courage, determination and native genius for a thousand years, can continue to go dormantly downhill after about 20 years of apathy and soft living on borrowed money, and lack of dynamic out-spoken leadership.

How Hicks is talking about workers: what is the “soft living” he means? Two or, if you are really soft, three weeks a year on the infamous Costo Mucho beaches wedged in among the other fish-and-chip eating softies muttering, “This must be paradise”? After two or three weeks of that, no wonder that the blighters won’t work. But there is another side of it which appears to have escaped Hick’s attention. There are those among us, so the Telegraph's shipping correspondent would have us believe, who take things to extremes. Work harder? this lot don't work at all!

  The Cunarder Queen Elizabeth 2 is to make a 96-day Pacific cruise next year with the highest fare costing £88,550 for the best accommodation Mr. Victor Matthews, chairman of Cunard. said: Our two penthouse suites are the first to go. We have no trouble selling them and there are many people who want to spend this amount of money . , . People taking the penthouse in the past have entertained at a very high level— as much as £1000 a day.

Daily Telegraph, 15th April ’77

For the information of cheapskates, the lowest fare available is £5,350, but the report does not make it clear whether bread and water is thrown in for this amount. Howard Hicks, in his search for “dynamic and out-spoken leadership”, should move quickly. There’s a fair chance that a number of our leaders will be at sea next year.

Alan D'Arcy

The Imperial Communist Party of Spain (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

After forty years the Spanish dictatorship, dominated by bankers, landed aristocracy, mine-owners and wine-growers, has had to give way to its industrial capitalist section in its struggle to emerge as a competitor in the European and other markets by legalising trade unions and political parties. Restrictions imposed by the Franco regime — the police state, rigid censorship, and the political influence of the armed forces and the church, have produced a top-heavy bureaucracy and increased the expenses of government, whereas capitalism requires cheaper government. Surplus-value extracted from the working class, which is taken by the state in taxation, reduces the appropriation in private hands. The greater the overheads of the capitalist the less his competitiveness. In addition membership of the Common Market, which Spain seeks, entails the free movement of capital and labour, free competition, and free property lobbies in the shape of political representation.

According to the Daily Telegraph (28th April 1977) 130 parties are now legally recognized. Many of these are small fragments and sects from the main parties of Fascists, Communists, reformers, Syndicalists, Republicans. There is no Socialist party at the moment. Public assembly is strictly controlled by the police, the press is still censored, and strikes are still illegal. The Republican Convention (a Spanish anti-Fascist group) claims that 150 million work hours were lost in 1976 involving 5 million workers (May 1st circular, 1977). So much for the Fascist government’s attempt to suspend the class struggle.

It is this factor as much as any other which has pushed the ossified ruling class against its will into the 20th century of labour relations. There is still a long way to go before the corrupt Syndicatos (state- controlled trade unions of employers and workers) are swept aside, and a free and independent trade- union movement allowed to develop. The Workers’ Commissions (trade unions) are dominated by the Communist Party who are exploiting them for political ends which in the long run can only be detrimental to the independence of the re-born movement. A glaring example of this was seen during the recent TU May Day demonstrations organized by the Communist Party which were forbidden by the police, and ended in a series of riots. Marcelino Camacho, head of the Workers’ Commissions, openly admitted that the object of the TU demonstrations was to help the Communists in their forthcoming June elections (Daily Telegraph, 3rd May 1977).

Communist Hypocrisy
In denouncing police brutality he also stated: “Our main enemy is not the Suarez government but the threat posed by the Francoists and neo-Francoists forces to a true return to democracy”. So the Communist Party are not opposed to the Suarez government, and are prepared to support moves to a more democratic regime using the trade unions as pawns in order to achieve their political ambitions. At the Communists’ first legal meeting since the Civil War, held at Valaldolid with 10,000 present, the flag of the Spanish monarchy was displayed on the platform. Replying to protests from party militants, Santiago Carrillo the Party secretary explained: “To consolidate democracy it was necessary to be intelligent politically as well as brave . . . To win over new followers and neutralise enemies we have taken a step that many people do not understand”. (The Times, 28th April 1977.) We agree with Senor Carrillo; many people will not understand why the Communist Party support King Juan Carlos, hand-picked by Franco as the figurehead of the Spanish ruling class. Some Communists at least had sufficient principles to object to this shameful alliance.

The British, French and Italian Communist parties have all betrayed workers in the same way. During the last war, the British party dropped its opposition to British capitalism, and were calling for the prosecution of strikers and urging workers to fight for British capitalism on the Second Front. They too draped the Union Jack on their platform, and carried it in their processions. They also supported Winston Churchill and Tory parliamentary candidates. The Italian Party is sitting down together with the Christian Democrats, whilst the French Party is patriotic and supports French capitalism. Carrillo told a provincial committee that the Party “would support the monarchy without abandoning its Marxist principles”. (The Times, 25th April.) This is a contradiction, because they cannot stand for the abolition of capitalism and its retention at the same time; nor can all the warped and twisted reasoning of the Communist Party change Marxism into support for capitalism. The fact is that the Communist Party has no Marxist principles and could therefore scarcely abandon them.

Reform or Revolution?

Political democracy is the cry of a capitalist reform movement which no genuine Socialist would take part in. All the left-wing parties, including the United Socialist Party, Republicans, Communists and Syndicalists, want democracy in order to push their reform programmes. These range from agrarian reform to self-determination for oppressed minorities, and the release of political prisoners. Other reforms which are proposed include the right to strike and better working conditions for wage workers. These, however, can be achieved by the action of the workers themselves on the industrial field using the strike weapon. Workers can strike without the right to strike, they can achieve higher wages and better working conditions whether it is legally recognized or not. Workers have no rights before capital other than those they obtain and keep through their own action in the class struggle. If the workers using the strike weapon in a properly organized way are unable to wrest from their capitalist employers higher wages and better working conditions, then they are unable to obtain these by means of reformist political action. Reforms will always be enacted when the political parties representing the various sectional interests have made out their case, and the capitalist is convinced that his interests, whether long-term or short-term, will be served. By legalizing trade unions the government will be able to monitor their activities and to obtain their co-operation.

On the industrial field the working class can force the capitalist employer against his will to disgorge a larger share of the wealth extracted from the worker than he would otherwise part with. Therein lies the antagonism of interests which manifests itself as a class struggle between possessors and producers. Higher standards of living and better working conditions must be sought on the industrial field, and not through reformist political action.

However, this economic antagonism of interests, which expresses itself in the class struggle, can only be ended by political action for the establishment of Socialism. This is the real issue which must confront the workers of Spain, not the futile and useless policies of hordes of reformers bent on keeping capitalism going. Propaganda for Socialism does not require permission from the ruling class. Neither does it need any assistance from reformist democrats. The reformer and the so-called progressive elements in Spain have not only separated democracy from the class struggle, they have changed it into an administrative reform measure for the running of capitalism. They want the democracy of the commodity where equal value exchanges for equal value — the equality of property before the law.

Socialism and Democracy

Socialism and democracy are inseparable. Socialists in Spain must campaign for both at the same time. The left in Spain claim that their activities, which are non-Socialist, express the level of political thinking. At the moment this is unfortunately true because a genuine Socialist party has yet to emerge. However, to claim, as do the Communists (Sunday Times Supplement, 26th March 1972) that the workers are not in a position to win power therefore they must make a pact with the bourgeoisie to get the key of the door to get their freedom, is defeatist nonsense.

The Spanish working class is capable of Socialism, and they must stand together with the worldwide Socialist movement in working for its establishment. British workers have made the repeated mistake of making a pact with the bourgeoisie in the shape of the Labour government, and look where it has got them.

Appeal For Funds (1977)

Party News from the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the beginning of this year we made an appeal for money. The response to it was very generous, but we now have to appeal again. We hardly need to tell readers how quickly money is consumed in a period of rising prices. The Socialist Standard runs at a loss which has increased sharply because of higher printing costs in the last three years. In April and May we conducted highly active campaigns in the Greater London Council elections, which put the Socialist Party’s name before large numbers of people who had not heard it before. We never stop work for Socialism — and it all costs money.

Our outstanding need at present is for funds for the General Election which will almost certainly take place soon. Readers of the Socialist Standard and people who have attended our meetings often write in to say how impressed they are: why do we not put up lots of candidates? The answer is that we do everything we can from limited resources. We aim to have candidates in London in the General Election. The deposit and the election literature by themselves are big expenses. We must not miss any opportunity of presenting the Socialist case because we cannot afford it.

We ask all of you to give as much as you can — for Socialism. The address is A. Waite (Treasurer), SPGB, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN; mark the envelope “Parliamentary Fund”.

Swan song . . . (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Swan song of Jack Jones, a union leader: "Let's all work like beavers!"

As a prominent Tory once said: "You make your leaders and we'll buy 'em."

R. B. Gill

An interesting document (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Swedish correspondent has sent a facsimile of one of the most unknown editions of The Communist Manifesto — the first Swedish one.

This edition is in fact the first translation ever made of The Communist Manifesto. It was published already in 1848 in Stockholm. The first “known” translation, the French one, was not published until 1849.

It looks as if Marx and Engels never knew about this Swedish edition. It is not mentioned in any of their prefaces to the CM. And probably they would have been a bit shocked to see the slogan “Workers in all countries, Unite!” replaced with “The voice of the people is the voice of God”. This was probably to avoid censorship. As a whole this translation is very similar to the original — one paragraph is cut out from the text once and one sentence is reworded.

The origin of the Swedish translation is not known. But it was probably translated by a Swedish tailor, a certain Carl Rudolf Lowstadt, who had been in contact with Albert Anders, an agitator sent to Sweden by the old Communist League.

Ernest Jones (Chartist) (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

  I think it was Pliny who said if a religion had not existed statesmen ought to have invented one for it was the only thing that kept a people quiet in their misery.

Ernest Jones (Chartist), 1854

Our GLC opponents (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fact that all other parties are reformist is fundamental to the case of the SPGB. This means they seek not to abolish capitalism with its class division, wages system, state and frontiers, but to modify it a little this way or that in a futile effort to legislate away its problems and inhuman consequences. It follows that there can be only one party seeking to end capitalism and to establish democratically an entirely different world system, called Socialism. The abolition of the wages system, the end of trade, profits and frontiers follows naturally from the new basis of common ownership of the means of production and distribution. These unique principles of the SPGB can be amply demonstrated by reading the manifestos of all or any of our opponents, and then reading ours. Though our opponents may differ on what they see as most important in the continuing evils of capitalism the common approach of them all is reformist. Doctor the effects — leave the cause alone.

The Labourites

After their abysmal efforts at running capitalism they still have the audacity to present themselves to the workers and seek their votes. They were even brazen enough to charge 20p for their manifesto. This offered the usual reforms aimed at making poverty more tolerable, instead of seeking a mandate to end the system which generates poverty. In their clash with the Tories over “free” bus rides for old people they cynically exploited the poverty of the elderly to gain votes. If workers would only see the contradictory position of the Labour Party they could understand that ministering to poverty pre-supposes its continuation. After fifteen post-war years of Labour government old people still cannot afford bus fares. One of Labour’s own leaflets quotes a Mrs. Kitchener of Leatherhead on concessionary fares: “The passes are rotten value, and people can’t afford them anyway.” Can anyone imagine Wilson, Callaghan, Foot or Castle, or the head of any nationalized industry, spending their last years of life worrying about cheap bus rides in off-peak periods? These people have done quite well out of capitalism. They posed as your champions, to fight for you. Now they are well off and you are still poor and needy!

The same with housing. Where they find workers willing to be photographed smiling outside those little boxes of bricks called working-class “dwellings”, shown in the Labour candidate’s address, is hard to imagine. They called them “decent homes”. The blurb underneath should have read “good enough for workers but not fit for Labour leaders". Labour’s boast on education included:

  “We are now doing much in the education field for the training of young people for industry . . ."

Training workers for wage-slavery. Not a word about closing down teacher-training colleges, slum schools, and crowded class-rooms. No mention of the class-divide in education. The children of the ruling class are not trained “for industry”. The typical Labour leader is educated at Oxford. Lady Falkender, for example, was reported in the Daily Mirror (22nd April 1976 to be choosing Westminster public school for her two sons. The fees were £1,254 per year for a boarder and £789 for a day boy.

The Tories

With seventeen post-war years of Tory government and four years at County Hall and all the horrors of capitalism remaining to testify to their political bankruptcy, the Tories tried to counter Labour reformism. It is easy for them to make capital out of workers’ misery by saying “the GLC is probably the largest slum landlord in the world”. It was no different with them in power. In Lambeth Central the Tory candidate was Roy Hatter; he drew attention to two thousand houses in Lambeth boarded up, and seventeen thousand people on waiting lists. His claim to working-class support rested on having broken the world record by making a political speech that lasted over twenty-nine hours. If only words could build houses! Like most Tories, Mr. Hatter has the habit of calling Labourites “Socialists”. If he does not know the difference his long speech must have been painfully boring. He is himself an employee, a member of the working class, yet he embraces the system of his masters which exploits him as well as the rest of us.

The "Communists''

The election address of the so-called Communist Party followed similar reformist lines to the rest. Full of platitudes, promises and catch-phrases. A typical example was:

  "Pensions. End the scandal of poverty, neglect and deprivation for the elderly. They fought for and built London for us”.

Poverty! Neglect! Deprivation! Yes, under a government they urged workers to vote for. Poverty is produced by capitalism. It is glib and cynical nonsense to promise to end it while retaining the system.

These political commotionists can never resist the chance to pose as patriots. They might do better to ask themselves whether slums and poverty are worth fighting for? If by “us” they mean the working class, London was never built for them but for the capitalist class who own it. Much of London is so old that no elderly worker suffering poverty today had anything to do with its building.

Those former intrepid “revolutionaries” who used to train with broom-sticks for “heavy civil war” have become law-and-order men. They are now demanding that the Metropolitan Police should be under the control of the GLC instead of the Home Secretary. What relevance that has to “Communism” is impossible to conceive. They also demand “More Democracy” — a prime piece of hypocrisy for a Party built on reverence for Russian State-capitalism, the biggest and longest-running police-dictatorship in the world.

National Front

With the flag of British capitalism appropriately upside-down, the National Front leaflet, launched a tirade of bunkum about immigration. By “immigrants” they mean black people and ignorantly gloss over the fact that most immigrants are of white skin. Blaming the blacks for everything is a favourite get-out for the simple-minded. They claim that “Inner London is now a multi-racial slum”. Much of London has always been a slum. National Front only recognize slums when they are “multi-racial”. Black people did not create the slums. Many of them live in them, as do many of their “white” fellow-workers. Slums arise because capitalism produces cheap housing for workers. Overwhelmingly, slums are built as slums.

They seek to “immediately repatriate” any immigrant convicted of a crime. What an idiotic idea. Nearly half the black people in Britain were born here. If every country adopted the same policy, then all those Britons who have emigrated would be sent back here if convicted of a crime. As the emigrants outnumber the immigrants, there could well be a higher “criminal” population here at the end of the process! Their attitude betrays complete indifference to the social causes of crime.

They advocate segregated education. Anything that further confuses and divides the working class. As we have seen in dealing with the Labour Party there is already class-segregated education.

The “village pump” narrowness of the National Front is a snare for unthinking workers. Nationalism is an ideological disease. The Labourites, Tories, Liberals and “Communists” all sponsor nationalism. National Front merely carry the nonsense further.

The I.M.G.

This group makes the fraudulent claim to be Marxist and Socialist. Their manifesto sought only to outbid the others in the number and range of their reform proposals. They openly set out to gain “protest votes” from Labour. The fact that the National Front draws much of its support from disillusioned Labour voters did not seem significant to them. Such voters are politically muddled, and having despaired of the Labour Party are looking elsewhere for easy answers within capitalism. Nothing lasting or worthwhile can be built on such a base.

The IMG wants capitalism without its economic consequences. Their concentration on wages, prices and jobs shows they are void of any ideas beyond the present system of buying and selling and wage- labour. They seek to ‘nationalize all firms creating redundancies”. They have forgotten the redundancies in British Rail, state education, the mines, etc., and have yet to learn that state-capitalism works no differently from private capitalism. Far from being extreme in any way, IMG stand roughly where the Labour Party stood sixty years ago, still demanding a “national minimum wage”.

Their policy of “No platform for National Front” is absurd. False ideas cannot be banished by such methods. IMG linked up with the Communists and various Constituency Labour Parties in a group called alarm (All Lambeth Anti-Racial Movement). With each affiliated party seeking votes at the others’ expense, this can be only a very tenuous alliance. “Alarm” invited our candidate for Lambeth Central to address a meeting in support of their limited objective, jointly with the other candidates, excluding National Front. We circulated an open letter giving our reasons for not joining them to fight the effects of capitalism and arguing the need to end this system. In opposition to the platform our candidate was allowed to state the Party case from the audience. Copies of their invitation and our reply were sent to the South London Press but were not published. The Guardian also failed to publish a similar letter dealing with the rival demonstrations in North London on 30th April despite the publicity they had given the event for two days before.

The SPGB stands alone (in this country) as the one party which rejects the system the others want to reform and retain. Socialism depends upon understanding. Only a conscious majority gaining political power can achieve a world of common ownership where production will be solely for use with free access. Class rule and subjugation will then be replaced by human society.

Harry Baldwin

50 Years Ago: Our Open Platform (1977)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of our earliest, and one of our wisest decisions of policy, was that wherein we allowed our opponents access to our platform. Having heard our case, and subject only to the common usages and decencies of debate, we offer any opponent the right to oppose us, on our own platform.

★ ★ ★

We have nothing to hide, no secrets to keep, no leaders to apologise for, nothing but straight Socialism to preach. So we have nothing to fear. If anyone thinks we are crying for the moon, or are on a wild-goose chase, he is at liberty to tell us so. If he can prove it, he will save us wasting our precious time, and so do us a service. On the other hand, if we can in turn show that he is harbouring delusions unawares, he should be indebted to us. We have everything to gain by discussion. Can it be said that any of our political opponents are similarly anxious for discussion, or that they are prepared to offer equal facilities? Try them and see.

(From an article “At the Street Comer” by W.T. Hopley in the Socialist Standard, June 1927)

Letters: Parties and Profits (1977)

Letters to the Editors from the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parties and Profits

I subscribe to the Socialist Standard and, in the main, I find the contents of your articles to be both lucid and irrefragable. However, there are several points which, in my opinion, require elucidation.

Firstly, on more than one occasion, you have asserted that the Labour Party represents one section of the capitalist class whilst the Conservative Party represents another. Please identify these two sections of the capitalist class.

Secondly, in your answer to Robin Cox’s letter in your March 1977 edition you pointed out that although consumer expenditure increased by 80 per cent, between 1970 and 1975, the Index of Production rose by 0.6 in the same period. Could it not be that a part, at least, of the extra consumer expenditure was on imported goods not included in the Index of Production statistics, and that had British goods been competitive, there would have been an increase in the Index of Production?

Thirdly, as you adhere to Marx’s version of the Labour Theory of Value, can you explain how it is that retail organizations make profits if goods are sold at their value? Is it by exploiting their own employees?

P. S. Maloney

London N13

Reply

(The first part of this letter was dealt with in last month's Socialist Standard.)

It will be recalled that the original question was whether continued expansion of market demand will guarantee growth in production.

The reply quoted figures for Britain in the period 1970-75 showing that it had no such effect. It is the standard inflationist argument and never works. Capitalism goes through alternate phases of growth of production and stagnation.

It is correct that in the period 1970-75 there was a big increase of imports. They were paid for by loans from abroad. If British goods had been more competitive, imports would have been smaller and exports greater, with a corresponding fall of production in competing countries such as Germany and Japan. But Germany and Japan too were in a depression from 1974 onwards, and the solution for them also, on this reasoning, would have been to be more competitive. Thus overall it would not have prevented British production falling during the depression any more than it prevented production falling in countries where goods were more competitive.

On your last question, Marx distinguished between the “sphere of production” (which includes necessary transportation—Capital Vol. 2, p. 62) and the “sphere of circulation”. Surplus-value, of which profit is a part, is created in production not in circulation. In circulation it is realized, by sale. ‘Circulation, or the exchange of commodities, begets no value.’ (Capital Vol. 1, p. 182.)

Surplus-value is created in production by the unpaid labour of the workers, i.e. the labour in excess of that corresponding to the value of labour-power, wages. In circulation also (wholesaling and retailing) the workers give unpaid labour. (“The unpaid labour of his clerks, while it does not create any surplus-value, 3t least appropriates surplus-value for him, which amounts to the same thing, so far as results on his capital go. This unpaid labour is for him, therefore, a source of profit.”—Capital Vol. 3, p. 346.)

Capitalists in both spheres have the same interest in extending the unpaid labour of their employees. It does not, however, rest on commodities selling at value, which need not be the case. In first explaining the labour theory of value, Marx used examples assuming that commodities always sell at value, but he added that this simplification would be elaborated later. (Vol. 2, pages 244 & 335.)

The elaborated theory showed that in some cases commodities sell above value and in others below value, the price however being determined in accordance with the labour theory of value. (Vol. 3, p. 186). The developed theory Included Marx’s conception of the average rate of profit, i.e. that out of the total social surplus-value, the profit falling to each capitalist, whether in production or circulation, is proportionate (other things being equal) to the size of his capital. (Vol. 3, p. 187.)

All references are to the Kerr edition of Capital.

Editors.

Could Do Better?

How often one hears members of the SPGB accused of being "cranks” and "pedantic”. Is this perhaps because of their habit of frequenting the Establishment’s Sunday-morning soap-box at Speakers’ Corner? The only true Socialist Party in the Land strives to get its message across to tourists and passers-by . . . while the rest of the population is anaesthetized into yet another week of toil under Caesar whom only the SPGB has consistently attacked for seventy-three years.

If the majority of working people have never heard the socialist case why is the SPGB not doing all it should by, for example, exploiting the media and all the other available channels to put across the true case? I submit that this is one of the Party’s inherent weaknesses and, consequently, its methods of organizing and communication should be immediately re-examined.

The SPGB and its fellow parties must seriously ask themselves whether or not they are in civilization’s race to win through. They have not yet successfully put themselves forward as a viable and sane alternative not because of any misconceived concept but because, in their littleness, we cannot hear them!

The SPGB denounces the Trotskyists and WSL but is it not nevertheless a fact that these doctrinaire lefties hold greater sway because they organize at the level of industry and in other significant sections of society? Here they leave the SPGB behind and though SPGB itself claims consistency over these fashionable malcontents it draws no closer to achieving an influential voice.

Comrades, go out into the world of imperfections so that you may establish the numerical strength you so badly need and which will enable the socialist voice to be heard throughout the land. You should collect large sums of money for your innumerable activities; organize membership drives; charge weekly subscriptions; advertize SP literature and products more effectively as in the North American party magazine; hold international conferences; establish a current programme relevant to our immediate situation; exploit the media. All branches should daily strive to establish links with the working class and recruit from all spheres of society.

It is accepted that technology will create the right conditions for the social transformation. But while "we impose the form of the old on the content of the new the malady lingers on” (McLuhan). So why doesn’t the SPGB use the Open Door programme for example?

Jon Lieberman

Oxford

Reply:

Yours is the voice of an armchair philosopher if ever we heard one, asking why we have not provided Socialism yet. Among clauses in our Principles you do not mention are no. 5, which says “this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself” and no. 6, which says "the working class must organize consciously and politically”. Assuming that you are a member of the working class, what are you doing to help get Socialism?

Dividing your letter into two parts, the first lists things which in your opinion we need to do. In several instances we agree. Can you inform us how to achieve them as readily as you suggest? You ask why we do not use the Open Door TV programme. We have been on its waiting list, fobbed off, rebuffed and turned down ever since it began. You say "exploit the media”. We have an active, youthful committee and many individual members who try to get us on radio and TV and in the press continually. The BBC has made clear that it will not have us. How do you suggest we "exploit” them? "Collect large sums of money”—from whom, and by what means (and we do need money, as you say, for our "innumerable activities”)? "Advertize SP literature”—with large sums of money, we could. The attraction of the “Sunday-morning soapbox” at Hyde Park and other places for us is simple; it costs nothing.

The other part of your letter is the reference to membership drives, recruiting etc. A possible inference from this is that we should strive for numbers above all, and so accept members who do not fully understand the Socialist case. It is the argument put forward early in this century by Keir Hardie: that the Social Democratic Federation had made little progress by preaching Socialism, and the need was to recruit trade-unionists—regardless of their attitude to Socialism—and build a strong movement. His policy was given effect. The Labour Party he visualized grew, amassed funds, and became the government; and none of this did anything for Socialism.

We do not know what you mean by saying that the Trotskyists and similar groups "hold greater sway”. At any time such organizations may make greater noise than the SPGB, but their effectiveness is nil—which is why a very large number of them have come and gone during our seventy-three years. Similarly, the technological conditions for establishing Socialism, the capacity for a society of free access, have existed throughout the twentieth century. The task of the Socialist Party is to advocate it, and what governs the strength and variety of our efforts is how many of us there are. You may join without waiting for a membership drive.

Editors.

Industrialization

I should like to draw your attention to the problem of Socialism in the Third World. If an advanced industrial economy and consequently an industrial working class is essential for Socialism, world Socialism would appear impossible without world industrialization. However, even if this were possible it would cause untold damage to the environment. It would seem logical then for the Third World to avoid the capitalist stage of development and pursue an agrarian form of Socialism.

The problem existed in the 19th century between industrial Western Europe and feudalist Russia where the remnants of primitive communism remained. Alexander Herzen and other Russian populists argued that Russia could only achieve Socialism by using these remnants such as the mir or traditional peasant commune as the basis of social organization. Could this be applied to the peasant societies of the Third World today?

Ian Greenslade 

Southminster

Reply:

The idea that every part of the world must still endure the development of capitalism to be ready for Socialism is a mechanistic one which does not correspond to what takes place. When new nations come on the scene they are obliged not to re-enact other nations’ history but to aim at their present stage. The outstanding example in recent years is China, which from being a vast peasant country in 1949 progressed to exploding an atomic bomb in 1964 and has become a major industrial and commercial power.

It is true that at the time of the Communist take-over Mao told the Chinese they had to go through capitalism before “socialism” was attainable. However, the Communists had (and have) no intentions other than capitalist ones. In the preceding twenty years they had built up a large following among the peasants by preaching not socialism but nationalism. If the working class of the “advanced” areas of the world were ready to establish Socialism today, the remainder in relatively undeveloped countries would quickly become conscious of it and be able to go into world-wide common ownership without delay—to their immense benefit, of course.

“Untold damage to the environment” results not from industry as such but from production for profit. Try reading Engels's prescient statements on this in Anti-Duhring (pages 324-5, Lawrence & Wishart edn.). He says: The present poisoning of air, water and land can only be put an end to by the fusion of town and country; and only this fusion will change the situation of the masses now languishing in the towns . . .” And:

  Large-scale industry, which has taught us to convert the movement of molecules, which is more or less universally realisable, into the movement of masses for technical purposes, has thereby to a considerable extent freed production from the restrictions of place . . . It is the capitalist mode of production which concentrates it mainly in the towns and changes factory villages into factory towns.

Engels approved the idea, put forward by Fourier and Owen, of social groups of between 1,600 and 3,000 people—good-sized villages. The closest thing to a town would be four or five of these situated near one another. Every person would work in both agriculture and industry, and young people would be given all-round training so as to incorporate “the greatest possible variety of occupation for each individual”. However, these are precisely the questions—the arrangement of life and labour, and the organization of industry—which a Socialist community would debate and decide for itself.

Editors.

Educating the Educator

On page 6 of your pamphlet Socialist Principles Explained you state: "The founders owed much to the unsurpassed analysis of capitalism provided by Karl Marx." It should be noted that Marx not only owed a great deal to the Socialists of his day, but to those who departed this earth long before him. For Marx’s works are “saturated” with their influence, and in view of that it would be hardly fair to look upon his contribution to Socialist thought as anything but “contributory ’.

Unfortunately, there are always people who are confused into giving those who have made an art of refashioning or re-modelling old theories the designation of originator. Nowhere in history has there been any man who has, by himself, originated or invented anything of any significance without “borrowing” ideas from other men. In that respect Marx’s analysis of capitalism must be regarded to be the combined effort of many men.

To take any other view is tantamount to saying that the inventor of the wrist watch was also responsible for inventing the wheel, lever, spring, buckly, and even time itself!

J. W. Pitt

Worthing

Reply:

Of course Karl Marx learned from others. His writings on economics are full of references to Ricardo, Adam Smith and other investigators And according to his own historical materialist approach, which we accept, people’s ideas are formed by the conditions under which they live, and these conditions include the influence of others.

On the other hand, we doubt your claim that these others, for Marx, included Socialists. Whom did you have in mind? Who, in the 19th century or earlier, advocated a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means for producing and distributing wealth? Who was putting forward the view that only a consciously socialist working class could bring such a society into being? The Utopians drew up blueprints for new organizations of society, but their co-operative settlements were based only upon equal distribution of wealth, not upon common ownership. Others around in the 19th century—e.g. Louis Blanc and Blanqui—some of whom might have been called Socialists, certainly were not so by the second criterion; and, anyway, were more likely to have been influenced by Marx than vice versa.

Editors.

Hemlock and After

I have just read the Western Socialist entitled “Reflections on Religion". To what extent do you feel that the Socialist Party of Great Britain has played a part in declining interest in the Christian way of life in this country over the past twenty years? I would be grateful for your opinion.

Nicholas Fox

Edgware

Reply:

As you will understand from having read the Western Socialist, our opposition to religion is part of the Socialist analysis of the existing order of society. We condemn religious institutions for their rôle in upholding property and exploitation; and we reject religious thought as an obstacle to understanding.

For many years before the last war the SPGB published a pamphlet called Socialism and Religion. It is not produced now because of the “declining interest” you refer to. In general, the decline is due to capitalism itself which in the past saw superstition as an ally but now has to educate people for a complex material world. Numbers of people turn away from religious beliefs which palpably stand against their material well-being—i.e. they do not accept that poverty and meekness are blessed states: and see the number of Roman Catholics who are no longer behind their church’s teachings on birth control and abortion.

Certainly propaganda and argument have played a part, notably in times when to state anti-religious views aroused hostility. However, our position is different from groups like Freethinkers. We attach importance to the rejection of religion—when it is linked with acquiring Socialist consciousness. If it is not. there may be no marked improvement. Religion was the opium of the people, but capitalism offers other narcotics to the unaware.

Editors.

R. O’Neil (London NW1): Your letter reiterating the same point has new been written many times, the only variation being the signature.

Capitalism is . . . (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is a torn garment.
A torn garment is shabby and ugly
And can no longer be worn with pride.
Good tailors don’t attempt to patch up
And match with similar cloth.
Torn garments must be discarded
And new ones produced.
You and I are the tailors of Socialism
We must discard Capitalism
That we may live with pride. 

Capitalism is a decayed wall.
A decayed wall is not safe.
Good builders don’t attempt to patch up
With new plaster on crumbling brick.
The decayed wall must be demolished
That a new wall may be built.
You and I are the builders of Socialism.
We must demolish Capitalism
That we may live in safety. 

                                                                Paul Breeze

Russians and their "Rights" (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the Helsinki Conference (1975), the question of “civil rights” in Russia has become a football to be knocked about in the arena of international politics. Jimmy Carter pontificates on human rights, eternal verities and God-given etceteras. Brezhnev’s reply is that he should go count peanuts as the Helsinki Final Act emphatically says domestic matters are private. Which is true.

It is the only treaty dealing with human “rights” which actually begins with a “get-out” clause, before it gets to poetic phrases. Its very first principle says: “The participating States will respect each other’s sovereign equality and individuality as well as all the rights inherent in and encompassed by its sovereignty . . . They will also respect each other’s right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems as well as its right to determine its laws and regulations”.

Other Covenants do at least give you the fine phrases and sweet nothings first; for example, the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (articles 1-3) guarantees that “under no circumstances may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence”.

But along with these sweet nothings there are the “get-out” clauses. Article 12 says “the above- mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others”.

For many years Soviet dissidents have, in the face of very real difficulties, been actively organizing, cooperating together, publishing news and views, communicating with the West and developing their analyses of the Soviet political and economic system. They have to contend with social and financial problems. Most lose their jobs as soon as they become actively dissident: many scrape by in casual labouring jobs or rely on their wives’ pay. In any capitalist country, the monopoly employer has a powerful weapon in the blacklist. Russia is no exception. Hardly surprising that so few in each generation have the courage to be actively critical of the Partocracy.

Governments do not operate on any principle save expediency. The Helsinki agreement came about because the Russian, American and European bosses found a common cause for concern in their heavy expenditures on defence systems, their self-interest in markets, and their growing need for international understanding on pollution, energy, space etc.

To achieve agreement on the issues involved meant horse trading. Western governments wanted more information to go into and come out of Russia, more journalists to work there. As a quid pro quo, the Russians are now sitting in on a lot of scientific seminars, including those dealing with genetic engineering — a sensitive subject, since it has terrifying “defence” possibilities. The West proposed a liberalization of Russia’s attitude to travel, emigration etc., and presumably the Russians agreed because the Helsinki Final Act so strongly emphasized the “sovereignty” of States and the principle of “non-intervention in internal affairs”.

The Helsinki document gave the Russian workers no “rights” they did not already have. Their constitution “guarantees” freedom of assembly and political opinion, also the freedom of the Press. But constitutions, like covenants, treaties and “final acts”, are merely scraps of paper. What is required is that working people should struggle, not for more paper rights, but for ownership and democratic control.

“It implies that the people are to have complete control of all social institutions, the ordering of all social activities, the domination of the whole social life. Such a condition of affairs presupposes at the very outset the ownership by the people of all the means of life . . . There can be no other foundation for democracy than this common ownership of all the means of life, for where these fall into private possession social distinctions at once spring up, the owners become dominators, and it becomes impossible for the people to control the social activities — because . . . they have not control of the means and instruments through which most important of those activities — those directed to the production of social wealth — are applied”, (Socialist Standard, Oct. 1913.)

The history of Russia since 1917 has emphatically proved our point. Abolition of Tsarism, the nationalization of land, factories, mines, railways, control by a small group of despots — all this has left the people, the working, wealth-producing people, as they were before. In Dostoyevsky’s words, “the insulted and injured”.

Government in Russia is a closed shop. The ruling party recruits almost exclusively among top management, among the nomenclatura, the apparatchiks. A party card is an essential qualification for many jobs. In terms of ideology it means nothing. In social terms, it means the possessor is a lackey, a hireling of the state. In economic terms, it provides him with money prizes, country estates, and privileges denied to mere workers. Only a tiny fraction of Russians are admitted to this exclusive club. The rest of the population keep their noses bravely to the grindstone. Only a few criticize and attack aspects of the system.

The dissidents today are not united. There are the religious, racial and ethnic groups — Christians, Jews, Ukrainians, Georgians, Crimean Tartars, often excluding members of other groups. There are writers and artists who want to do their own thing without bureaucratic hindrance or control. Among those who want a more liberal political system there is a tendency to analyze and criticize the social and economic systems as well as the political superstructure.

Sakharov has described Russia as “a society based on state capitalism” (My Country and the World). A writer in Seyatel declared in 1971 that “our country is the purest and most developed example of state capitalism”. In an article about the similarity between the western and soviet economic systems, Agursky wrote that this resemblance was due to the fact that “the economic and social system of the ‘socialist’ bloc is not in any sense socialist, but is merely a variation of State monopoly-capitalism” (Cahiers du Samizdat, June-July 1974). However an opposing view is put by Roy Medvedev, an ex-member of the CPSU, who still believes that Russia enjoys that mythical state of bliss, “the dictatorship of the proletariat”.

The Socialist does not argue for “rights”. The concept of “rights” in a property-based society is a fraud and a sham!

“What becomes of the ‘right’ to live if the means by which alone it is possible to live are in the hands of others?” (Socialist Standard, February 1911).

Some at least of the Russian dissidents are aware that Socialism has not yet happened and that the Russian political dictatorship is a reflection of the economic tyranny which is capitalism. We hope that they will advance beyond demands for political “rights” to the revolutionary position of outright opposition to exploitation, to the wages system, and to the class division which is characteristic of capitalism in all its forms. In doing this they will be expressing their awareness of their common interest with the working, wealth-producing people of all lands in ending this enslaving system.

That struggle is the only one which offers a worthwhile goal — the end of poverty, conflict, war. Those who dream of the “Rights of Man” are the Utopians of whom Plekhanov wrote: “The Utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for a perfect social organisation” (Anarchism and Socialism). The fine words of the Helsinki Final Act — “human rights and fundamental freedoms” — are mere sham-words, good for those who still believe in the crock of gold at the other end of the rainbow. The real fight is the opposition of the exploited class to the system which enslaves it.

Charmian Skelton

The mad hatter on inflation (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand’, she said, as politely as she could.‘Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.‘No, I give it up’, Alice replied: ‘Whats the answer?’ ‘I haven’t the slightest idea’, said the Hatter.”

(From the Hatter’s Tea Party, Alice in Wonderland)

Mr. Hattersley, Minister of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, tells us from time to time what he is doing and what he hopes the result will be. One such talk was on TV on 18th April (reported next day in The Times and Financial Times).

His overall job is “to protect consumers” against rising prices and for this purpose he was putting through a Prices Bill “much tougher than anything done in the past”. Some simple-minded people thought that this meant that prices would actually be prevented from rising. Not so, said the Hatter:

If we just froze prices, the outcome for many companies would be certain bankruptcy, for others inability to invest, and therefore a reduction in the number of people employed.

He added, however, that his government hoped to get the annual rate of increase of prices down to 13 per cent, by Christmas. This depended, he said, on a continuation of the Social Contract to control wage increases. If not, prices by the end of the year might be rising at an annual rate of 21 per cent.

“I am dreadfully puzzled”, said Alice. “Wasn’t the Social Contract supposed to reduce the rate of price increase; but all you now' hope is to get the rate of increase down to 13 per cent., which happens to be the same rate at which prices were rising in February 1974 when your government entered office?”

“What is more”, said Alice, gaining confidence as she saw the dazed look on the Hatter’s face, “I am told that prices rise because of an excess issue of paper money, and under your government the note issue has gone up from £4587 million to £7062 million”.

“Nobody told me about that”, said the Hatter, “and I don’t believe it. Besides, I am sure that if we didn’t do this we would have a lot of unemployment”.

“But you have a lot of unemployment”, said Alice. “It happens whether you have inflation or not. It is just the way capitalism works”.

“Nobody told me about capitalism either”, said the Hatter. “I am however sure that there must be some answer to the riddle, otherwise what am I doing in my job?”

“Very well”, said Alice. “What’s the answer?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea”, said the Hatter.

Edgar Hardcastle

What the class struggle is and is not (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paradoxically, the militants and intellectuals who preach class struggle with the utmost vigour appear not to know what it is. Their position transferred to a military war would be careering round the battlefield, declaring strategies, uttering heroic cries and calling on all right-minded men to follow them — without knowing what the war is about, or who the sides are.

The impression given by the majority of “left-wing” writers is that there are many class struggles, some more important than others. If a major struggle underlies them, it breaks out sporadically and is confined to productive industry. Some examples are:

On this rising curve [1911-1914], working-class militancy swept into a series of titanic struggles.
   The first effect of the process . . . was a recession of the revolutionary tide in September, leaving militants still struggling forward on the water-mark. Gramsci called the proletariat to battle on 7 June 1919.

(G. Williams, Proletarian Order, 1975)

   During the 1920s there were mass struggles . . . though none with the revolutionary potential of the wartime shop stewards’ movement.

(Hinton and Hyman, Trade Unions and Revolution, 1975)

   Money wages in fact fell 38 per cent between the winter of 1920-21 and the winter of 1923-4; and many of these cuts were not secured without the most fierce class struggle.

(Glyn and Sutcliffe, British Capitalism, Workers and the Profits Squeeze, 1972)

In the musical play Wreckers by David Edgar, performed at the Half Moon Theatre in May 1977, a depiction of the “five dockers” episode of 1972 leads to a song with the refrain “This is class war”. What such statements convey is that some workers, chiefly in factories and docks and mines, find a war has broken out for them in particular circumstances from time to time.

Definitions

The capitalist system is based on the ownership of all the means of production and distribution by a minority of the population. The majority therefore are non-owners, and their only way of living is to go to work for wages. There are no alternatives; these are the two classes of capitalism. The wage may be called a salary, and wages — the price of labour-power — vary as do the prices of other commodities. Nevertheless, all those who do not live by owning are in the same position: the working class.

Contrast this with the type of statement found in Raya Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom, a work which argues a theory of militancy. The writer says:

At the point of production, Automation has compelled two fundamentally different class attitudes, depending on which side of the machine you stand . . . the machine is always on top of you and keeps you isolated from your fellow-workers. In addition, you feel more isolated as more and more of your shopmates are displaced by the monster machine. If, on the other hand, you are the one who drives the men and counts the production for management, you praise the machine to the skies.

This is playing to the gallery as regards the machine operator’s sentiments; but it also implies that those who are not machine operators are not workers, have no such problems and belong in the capitalists’ camp. In reality the factory worker who accepts this has swallowed capitalist teaching which aims at dividing the working class.

Certainly many wage- and salary-earners believe they belong to “the middle class”. It is a legacy of the period when the capitalist class had not become dominant and were a section between the feudal ruling class and the lower orders. In capitalism the idea is an anachronism which helps conceal the basis of the class struggle. The question is not simply knowing which class is which and leaving it there. Classes must willy-nilly pursue their interests. The capitalist class has to try to secure its profits; the working class likewise does what it can for its living standards. This is the workaday trade-union aspect of the struggle, and by itself makes nonsense of the idea that machine operators and white-collars are different classes. “Professional” workers have to organize and threaten strikes over pay and redundancies just as if they were dockers — because their position is the same.

It is not a sporadic but a continuous struggle; it is also, in that aspect, a restricted one. Obviously it will go on as long as the wages system lasts and will not stop the system. The more important side of the struggle is working-class interests pressing for a change in society. Throughout history, the classes identified with the forces of production have found themselves shackled by social systems which have gone on too long. When they are aware of their position they move to put themselves in possession of the means of production and distribution. This is the vital struggle for the working class in the twentieth century.

Misleading

The most pernicious word in politics is a plural: “struggles”. Under its influence, any clamour is supposed to be a bit of the class struggle. Thus, the Solidarity pamphlet As We Don’t See It (undated but recent), after pointing out that under “the mindless slogan ‘Support for people in struggle’ ” several left-wing groups support the ira and reactionary National Liberation Fronts, says of other groups: “For instance, when they (correctly) support struggles for limited objectives, such as those of squatters or Claimants’ Unions, they often fail to stress the revolutionary implications of such collective direct action.” What revolutionary implications?

The Nuclear Disarmament movement of the early nineteen-sixties was the first of a series of band-waggons on which the militants claimed to be for “struggles”. It was followed by demonstrations against the Vietnam war, support for civil rights, squatting and tenants’ campaigns, Women’s Liberation, protests against the Industrial Relations Act (curiously, not the “social contract”), demands to fight racism and for the right to work; and there are the “struggles” against hospital closures, education cuts and town-planning schemes. The motive for the political egging-on is said to be “people are changed by struggle”. At the time of the last and biggest anti-Vietnam demonstration in October 1968, the leaders asserted this publicly: that, thrust into conflict with the police, ordinary people would learn first-hand the violence of the state. Less dramatically, it is argued that participation in small struggles “raises consciousness” and gives an appetite for greater ones — even, that it is a preliminary to Socialist consciousness.

All this is quite untrue. If struggle per se does change people, what direction does the change take? The most likely outcome of a whack on the head from a policeman, for a person who does not understand the situation anyway, is a decision not to risk it happening again in future. Beyond these absurdities, incitement to “struggles for limited objectives” does not contribute to consciousness of class interests. It does the opposite. To the extent that people regard (and are encouraged to regard) their grievances as tenants, women, blacks etc. as “special”, they are drawn away from realization of their standing as members of the propertyless wage-working class. What the “struggles” provide is a mirror-image of the idealism of capitalism: that “human problems” precede class relationships. Yet the difficulties of groups and sections all stem from the basic class division. Consciousness of it can illuminate all the other problems — but not the other way round.

Action

Political parties stand for class interests. The major parties all claim — the Tory Party has made it a slogan — that they represent “all the people”. Obviously in a class-divided society that is not possible, and it would be better put that the Tories are wedded to capitalism but have to try for the favour of the electorate. The Labour Party is also wedded to capitalism, but it is seen by a large number of people as somehow embodying working-class interests: it is supported by the big trade unions, and the most poverty-stricken industrial areas have always provided its safe seats. The left-wing parties and militants unanimously become advocates for Labour at election times, on those grounds.

Of course the militants do not consciously set out to give capitalism a hand by recommending Labour to run it. They would say they are against capitalism and want some substantial change. On the surface they are misleading members of the working class by calling on them to struggle against the régime and at the same time to support it via the Labour Party. However, the matter goes deeper than that to non-comprehension of the class struggle. In some cases the doctrine of “day-to-day struggles” leads inevitably to embracing Labour reformism. For example, opposition to the Industrial Relations Act was bound to become vested in getting a change of government; groups demanding this and that have to look for promises of legislation. If it is believed that any and every “struggle” counts, that some workers are more working-class than others, that “class war” is periodic local outbreaks against Tory legislation or the perfidy of trade-union leaders — the outcome will be not only confusion but action which, whatever the intention, cuts across the interests of the working class.

There is only one struggle. The industrial part of it has to and does go on all the time. It is to the political part that working men and women must attend to solve their overriding problems. The solution must be to end the wage-labour relationship: the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a classless social system, Socialism. Since it must be based on common ownership of the means of living, the movement for it can only be a political one. The state is the key to class rule, and hence to its overthrow. This is the vital struggle. “Struggles” get in its way.

Robert Barltrop

From America: The Hospitalization business (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

When considering a subject such as the dispensing of health care to the working class a Socialist begins with a basic assumption, one which fits the real world of our times: The working class, generally, must be kept in some sort of adequate health if it is to function reasonably well and so requires a degree of medical attention along with the other items that go into producing and maintaining labour power—food, clothing, housing, transportation, luxuries of a sort. And it need hardly be stated that the well-being of the capitalist class dictates that the costs of producing and maintaining labour-power be constantly monitored and held in check. Hence, the continual hue and cry in the USA over the question of a national health programme.

As it is, today, there are various types of plans, some privately operated, with their own hospitals and staffs, by large capitalist industries and by some labour unions. There are also the state-regulated Blue Cross-Blue Shield Plans in which many employers of labour offer their help, totally or in part, as a “fringe benefit” (or equivalent plans sold by private insurance companies). And there are the Federal and State-operated Medicare (for 65-and-over) and Medicaid (for the indigent). But these plans are all expensive to operate and, in some cases, not too satisfactory in coverage and seem to invite a large element of graft and corruption. So, because the central organs of capitalist power are deeply involved, as it is, it is all understandable why opposition to some form of national health plan in this bulwark of “Free Enterprise” is steadily eroding.

In the meantime, the Carter Administration has stepped into the hospital picture and announced that it will seek to legislate a 9 per cent, per annum ceiling on hospital rate increases. (The going in-patient rate in Boston teaching hospitals, for example, hovers around $175.00 per day plus the various extra medical and surgical charges, and steadily rising. The costs of out-patient care, too, because of the sophisticated new equipment and highly trained technicians available, reach astronomical heights which can easily cause the uninitiated in other lands to believe that American workers are indeed wealthy). And hospitals, generally and understandably, are reacting unfavourably. The dispensing of health care might be their business but the proper balancing of books is equally important in a capitalist society, even for “non-profit” institutions. “We will have to cut back on patient care”, scream the administrators. And there are some interesting observations that can be made about the business.

For hospital administrators must steer a hazardous course between what to them are twin horrors: government “interference” (excepting when such interference is requested) and unionization of their personnel. Unions have made some inroads into American hospitals but they are by no means general and their strength is certainly limited. So, it is all but impossible for administrators to blame rising fees on union demands. But this is only half of the story.

There has sprung up a lucrative business of “union busting" public relations firms that has been meeting with much success in the hospital industry. In a column in Boston’s Real Paper for Oct. 16, 1976, we read:

Last spring, Massachusetts Hospital Workers began union drives . . . The hospitals responded by calling in heavy- duty outsiders, the Chicago-based labour relations firm. Melnick, Mickus and McKeown. which three years ago at B.I. (Beth Israel) helped defeat another organizing attempt. The Hospital Workers . . . added that the consultants cost the hospitals $150.00 an hour at a time when hospital rates are soaring . . .

Certain local politicians introduced a bill in the Mass. House aimed at such practices. The following quote from Vol. V, No. 13, of the MHA (Massachusetts Hospital Research & Educational Assoc.) Monday Report tells the story:

MHA membership reacted quickly and sharply last week, helping to thwart a bill outlawing certain labour relations expenses. The association had testified before the Health Care Committee in mid-March, opposing House 2889 which aims to remove from reimbursement any costs a hospital incurs when coping with union organizing efforts . . .

The member hospitals were alerted, the Senators contacted and the bill defeated, at least for the time being and the Health Care Committee promises to “follow it closely.”

Now the problems of hospital workers will not be solved by union organization notwithstanding certain advantages. Nor will workers, generally, be benefited if and when hospitals can no longer charge off union- busting costs to operating expenses. Hospital administrators are, primarily, business people and will always fix rates at what the market will bear. They are sellers of the commodity health care and that’s how it has been and will be until the working class gets rid of the commodity society—capitalism.

Harmo, WSP, Boston.