Letter: 'Do you maintain . . . ' (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Do you maintain . . . '

Dear Editors,

Of course you are correct: ultimately workers have no state. However, until that reality is widely appreciated, it is surely necessary to rely upon workers’ identification with their (familiar) place of nurture, and “natural” abhorrence to the occupation of “their” land by an invading force – e.g. as in WWII, when many were happy, and proud, to enlist under the Union Jack.

There is, surely, every distinction to be drawn between patriotism and bigotry; the first can incorporate pride in, e.g., Shakespeare, whilst the second may involve the idea that no other nation or country could have “produced” Shakespeare or his equivalent.

Your principles include that “the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party”. Yet you must surely acknowledge that organised workers (trade unions) formed the Labour Party (including Clause 4) precisely because the Liberal MPs vacillated in the degree to which their policies fostered the welfare of the working class/es?

Do you maintain that Labour’s occasional landslide votes had nothing to do with the perception that political support should not be squandered on dilettante, fair-weather or eclectic “supporters” of ordinary people’s interest?

Do you maintain that the election of Labour governments did not directly result in better conditions, social welfare, trade union legality, a minimum wage, the NHS, compulsory free primary and secondary education?

D. Shepherd, 

London NW4

Reply: 

1. We can see why the ruling class in the various different capitalist states into which the world is divided find it necessary to rely on “workers’ identification with their (familiar) place of nurture and ‘natural’ abhorrence to the occupation of ‘their’ land by invading forces” – it helps them build up popular support for their rule and their foreign policy aimed at protecting their interests abroad. But we can’t see why Socialists need to. On the contrary, political nationalism is something we need to combat as it is an obstacle to the understanding that the problems faced by workers all over the world cannot be solved within a national framework but only on a world scale, on the basis of a world without frontiers where the resources of the whole planet have become the common heritage of all humanity.

We can see why, too, ruling classes prefer moderate nationalism to bigotry – yesterday’s enemy can become today’s ally. Thus, the “Huns” and “Japs” of yesterday are now our rulers’ allies and workers who continue to believe what they were told when these countries were our rulers’ enemies are an embarrassment.

Socialist opposition to political nationalism does not challenge cultural diversity. English speakers can appreciate Shakespeare, Dickens, etc without thereby ceasing to be socialists. Again, people living on the big island off the north-west coast of the Eurasian land mass can like warm beer, and fish and chips, pork pies and roast beef, without being nationalists. Maybe they’ll still like these things in Socialism.

2. Yes, we do acknowledge that the Labour Party was originally set up by the trade unions as a parliamentary pressure group to try to get a better deal within capitalism for trade unionists and workers generally. In other words, its aim was not to seek working class emancipation from capitalist exploitation but merely to lessen that exploitation a little. While not of course being opposed to exploitation being lessened, we regarded this as a mistaken political (as opposed to trade-union) aim and so opposed the Labour Party and this reformist tactic from the start. It is true that in 1918 the Labour Party did adopt Clause 4 (nationalisation) as its policy, but this was still not socialism, merely state-run capitalism.

The experience of the last century has confirmed the soundness of the position we took then. Far from gradually changing capitalism, the experience of governing capitalism changed the Labour Party into a party that merely seeks to administer capitalism, into in fact the modern equivalent of the old Liberal Party that used to alternate with the Tories in governing capitalism and which the unions set up Labour to replace.

In fact, we are not sure whether your description “dilettante, fair-weather or eclectic ‘supporters’ of ordinary people’s interest” is meant to apply to the modern Labour Party or the old Liberal Party since it would seem to apply to both.

Nationalisation has been and gone without making much difference to the workers affected.

Some measures, such as trade union legality and free education and health care, can benefit workers under capitalism even if they were introduced for other reasons (such as ensuring capitalist employers with a trained and healthy workforce). And, yes, some such measures were introduced under some Labour governments (though others were introduced under Liberal or Tory ones). However, these governments by no means governed in the interest of the workers. They were governments of capitalism and had to run capitalism in the only way it can be – at a profit – making system in the interests of those who live off profits rather than those who work for wages. So the 1929 Labour government reduced civil servants’ wages and fell over a proposal to reduce unemployment pay. The 1945 Attlee government kept the wartime ban on strikes and used troops to break them. The Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 60s and 70s also imposed wage restraint and clashed with strikers. And we all know about the Blair government elected in 1997—Editors

Has the Labour Party lost its way? (2003)

From the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

With trade unions and left wingers now talking about the re-formation of a Labour party, socialists ask why bother? The history of the Labour Party has been one long disaster for the working class. The short answer to the question of whether the Labour Party has lost its way is, no. Because what is currently the direction of its leaders has been part of its thinking throughout its existence. In power, as now, Labour has been a radical liberal party. This has not been a betrayal of its core principles or “values” but reflects its origins.

New Labour’s obsession with neo-liberal economics might seem like something of a new departure but the early Labour Party was tied to liberalism in a similar way. This argument should not be taken too far, as at least the collectivist currents in the early Labour Party made it feel like it was part of a movement to create a better society and many thought they were working towards a vaguely defined socialism. A collection of anecdotes of life in the Labour Party, Generating Socialism (Sutton, 1997; edited by Daniel Weinbren, foreword by Tony Benn, who else?) shows that many Labour members, however mistakenly, thought that socialism could be reached through Labourism. The optimism which could hold with Labour’s “rise” up to the mid-twentieth century, has turned into a marked pessimism associated with the supposed decline of the working class.

Nonetheless, the Labour Party was established not for socialist aims but to achieve political representation for working men. It was related to class struggle in that despite the trade unions’ reluctance to break away from the Liberal Party, industrial militancy and the Taff Vale decision which put their funds in danger meant that a strong feeling developed on the need for independent “Labour” representation in parliament. However, its socialist credentials were weak, as the Social Democratic Federation acknowledged when it withdrew from the Labour Representation Committee (which became the Labour Party in 1906) in 1901. Its social outlook was informed not by class-consciousness but, on its left-wing, by ethical protest at poverty and inequality as “wrong” and, on its right-wing, by an awareness that social dislocation caused by unregulated capitalism effected economic (capitalist) efficiency.

The Labour Party struggled to gain wide electoral support during its first ten years, gaining around fifty MPs by 1914. Its big break came with the first world war, which split the Liberal Party. Labour was active in the national government, supporting the war, but not tainted being tainted with its results. By the early 1920s, the Labour Party had emerged as the “progressive” party in British politics. While attracting such ex-Liberals at this time as Clement Attlee, it refused the affiliation of the Communist Party.

So why has the Labour Party been associated with the name of socialism? Largely because of its history of supporting nationalisation, often misleadingly called “public” or “social” ownership. This was the major problem for socialism in the twentieth-century—the standard dictionary definition being that nationalisation is socialism. The Labour Party’s commitment to nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange dates from 1905 but was adopted most famously in Clause IV of its 1918 constitution. Its acknowledgment that exchange would continue after nationalisation demonstrated that the wages system, and thus capitalism, would continue after nationalisation, albeit state-run. In effect Clause IV was translated as state ownership of the “commanding heights” of the economy. Quite what was hoped to be achieved by bringing industry into state instead of private ownership was not very clear apart from as a vague and fuzzy means to “greater equality”.

With central planning nationalisation was supposed to transform capitalism into something that could be controlled by the state. This did not happen of course. On transferring coal, steel, iron, fuel, power and transport to state ownership after 1945, the performance of British industry in the world market still continued to decline and the state sector remained an arena of industrial struggle. The remarkable blind faith of the Labour Party in nationalisation was reduced from the Attlee government onwards. Sadly, this decline in the faith of nationalisation has been represented as the death of socialism.

There are still some in the Labour Party and in the various left-wing organisations who claim that vast swathes of British industry should be re-nationalised. This is why many see “New” Labour as a dramatic break with “Old” Labour. Jim Mortimer (an ex-Labour Party general secretary) describes New Labour, in a recent pamphlet The Formation of the Labour Party – Lessons for Today (2000), as apologists for capitalism and the new Clause IV as “a symbolic change to mark the abandonment of Labour’s traditional advocacy of a widening area of social [state] ownership”. However, as socialists, we would prefer to see declining faith in nationalisation and the Labour Party as a positive development. The results of Labour governments are no longer clothed in the misleading garb of collectivism but show what they essentially are—managers of capitalism. Electoral imperatives, present from early in Labour’s existence, have triumphed over reforming rhetoric.

It is often argued that state welfare and social security provision are examples of Labour’s success in “doing something”, legislating against poverty and providing municipal housing and so on. Such measures have no socialist credentials but, on the contrary, were developed in their post-war form by the Liberal Beveridge. Moreover, regulating legislation has been a feature of all capitalist government since the Factory Acts of the 1840s. The simple case is that systems of social welfare do not change the exploitative character of capitalism or even touch the surface of its symptoms. Poverty has not been reformed away and poor housing, unemployment, job insecurity and related ill-health remain very real concerns for the working class. In fact, New Labour, rather than betraying Labour’s welfare extension tradition, has merely continued previous Labour retrenchment begun in the 1970s.

The democratic record of the Labour Party reads equally dubiously. It has always had a very limited acceptance of party democracy. The block vote, for example, allowed the trades unions to dominate the party conference, initially to the advantage of Liberal moderates but more recently to that of the left-wing, whereupon it was replaced. Also, Blair is not new in being a “strong” leader. Before 1922 the Labour party did not have a formal leader but a series of chairmen. After Ramsay MacDonald assumed chairmanship in 1922, however, the party adopted a leadership that exercised strong control over the party, especially as the Parliamentary Labour Party did not, and still does not, have to obey its conference. As has often been observed, the Labour Party has always had a strong cult of personality, of loyalties and bitter rivalries over who was best to lead a passive working class.

At its formation and in its early years the Labour Party had little connection with the growth of a socialist minority or even with the more militant sections of reformists. There were always some trying to build a “fairer” society but what emerged from years of effort was not a slowly evolving socialism but a Labourism which increasingly judged itself on its electoral success, which depended on its ability not to rock the capitalist boat it was trying to steer.

Those who want another century of reformist advance and retreat can go ahead and form a new Labour Party. Those who, learning from the failures of the past, desire the socialist alternative should join those who have rejected reformism and sought instead to make socialists and work for socialism-and-nothing-but.

Colin Skelly

Rear View: From Keir I to Keir II (2021)

The Rear View Column from the October 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

From Keir I to Keir II

The evolution of the Labour Party over 115 years from Keir I to Keir II is a practical confirmation of the theoretical case against reformism. The Labour Party, instead of gradually transforming capitalism in the interests of the workers, has itself been gradually transformed from a trade union pressure group into an instrument of capitalist rule.

Which of these three statements about Keir Hardie is correct?

1.  ‘.. Labour Parties association with Marxism and a little understanding of the Labour Party’s roots, after all its founder Keir Hardie was a Marxist’ (Labour Heartlands, 13 August).
2. ‘A pacifist, Hardie was appalled by the First World War ..’ (en.wikipedia.org, accessed 1 September).
3. ‘.. his efforts to reform society were driven by a deep faith in Jesus and a commitment to the principles set out in the Sermon on the Mount’ (evangelicalfocus.com, 26 August).

Neither Marxist nor pacifist

Hardie stated in his 1892 election manifesto that he was ‘…in agreement with the present programme of the Liberal Party.’ Biographer Kenneth Morgan elaborates: ‘I found him a man who was not only an idealistic crusader, but a pragmatist, anxious to work with radical Liberals whose ideology he largely shared, subtle in building up the Labour alliance with the trade unions and the other socialist bodies, and supremely flexible in his political philosophy, a very generalised socialism based on a secularised Christianity rather than Marxism… He was no economist and was ill-informed on many issues, but he had uniquely the charisma and vision that any radical movement needs.’ Hardie’s ‘supreme flexibilility’ may explain why he is often portrayed as a pacifist, yet told his electorate in Merthyr: ‘May I once again revert for the moment to the ILP pamphlets? None of them clamour for immediately stopping the war. That would be foolish in the extreme, until at least the Germans have been driven back across their own frontier, a consummation which, I fear, carries us forward through a long and dismal vista… I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting; I know too well all there is at stake… If I can get the recruiting figures for Merthyr week by week, which I find a very difficult job, I hope by another week to be able to prove that whereas our Rink meeting gave a stimulus to recruiting, those meetings at the Drill Hall at which the Liberal member or the Liberal candidate spoke, had the exactly opposite effect’ (Merthyr Pioneer, 28th November 1914).

Labour’s dismal record

Labour has supported all major wars, including WWI, initiated the British atomic bomb, sent troops to smash strikes, established the vicious Special Patrol Group, passed racist immigration laws, imposed ‘monetarist’ expenditure cuts leading to the closure of hospitals and other vitally needed services… In the light of such evidence, how can anyone claim that Labour is anything other than a Party seeking to reform capitalism rather than end it through majoritarian social revolution? Not Philip Snowden, Labour MP: ‘The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; it does not accept the teaching of Marx…’ (Manchester Guardian Reconstruction Supplement, 26 October 1922). Nor Arthur Greenwood, Labour’s Lord Privy Seal: ‘I look around my colleagues and I see landlords, capitalists and lawyers. We are a cross section of the national life, and this is something that has never happened before’ (Hansard, 17 August 1945). Labour MP Douglas Houghton was impressed by his Party’s achievements : ‘Never has any previous government done so much in so short a time to make modern capitalism work’ (Times, 25 April 1967). Tony Benn, in a candid confession to the Independent (17 May 1989), wrote: ‘Past Labour governments have always worked within the limits set by market forces (as when the cabinet capitulated to the International Monetary Fund in 1976); have always supported nuclear weapons (as when Callaghan authorised the Chevaline without telling parliament); and have regularly confronted trade unionism (as with rigid wage policies)… We must add… a clear recognition that the Labour Party is not — and probably never was — a socialist party, and its individual members do not decide its policy, nor are its election pledges apparently meant to be taken seriously.’

The rich man in his castle

Did Hardie read Emma Goldman’s The Failure of Christianity, published two years before his death in 1915? Where she wrote: ‘The idea conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest indictment against the teachings of Christ, because it sees in the poverty of mind and body a virtue, and because it seeks to maintain this virtue by reward and punishment…” Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” What a preposterous notion! What incentive to slavery, inactivity, and parasitism! Besides, it is not true that the meek can inherit anything. Just because humanity has been meek, the earth has been stolen from it. Meekness has been the whip, which capitalism and governments have used to force man into dependency, into his slave position. The most faithful servants of the State, of wealth, of special privilege, could not preach a more convenient gospel than did Christ, the “redeemer” of the people…’

Marxian socialism aims at taking from the masters the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen. Its object is to raise the workers from slaves to freemen. It is therefore opposed to Christianity.

Don't Be Misled. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

While attending a crowded meeting held by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in North London the other night, the writer was afforded a glimpse into the mind of a man in the audience who might be taken as representative of the ordinary type of individual.

This man showed by his manner that he was intelligent to a degree, but he also showed that his education was sadly in need of extension.

He asked the speaker (who had referred to the probability of the coming winter being a very hard and

BLACK ONE for the workers) a question, the gist of which is as follows:

  "Don't you think that, while keeping to the idea of bringing in Socialism, the workers would be well advised to agitate for reforms to mitigate the hard times that are undoubtedly in store for them this winter ? Such reforms as getting the Government to give up the campaign in Mesopotamia, to resume trade relations with Russia, to start building houses on a large scale in England, which would put thousands into work, and to take full advantage of countless other ways of economising and making work for the enormous army of unemployed ?" 

It may also be noted here that the questioner declared that he was "in sympathy with the Socialists," in fact he was a Socialist !

Now, as men who have studied the matter from the point of view of working-class interests—and the interests of the only other class, the capitalist class, are in good enough hands— we are able to state most emphatically that agitating for reforms of THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM will not better the material conditions of the working class generally.

It matters not what reform the working class may agitate for or against, the final say as to whether it shall or shall not be rests with the capitalist class and their agents.

The term "capitalist agent" comprises every member of Parliament and a great many who would like to be members. Very few workers, however, have sufficient knowledge to understand that the three candidates who stood for the constituency of Ilford at the recent bye-election were, without exception, agents of the capitalist class.

However, let us get back to this matter of reforms.

During recent years we have had some shining examples of reforms that were or WERE NOT WANTED by the workers being placed on the Statute Book because the capitalist class judged them expedient for their own interests. Take for example the National Health Act.

When that "rare and refreshing fruit" was dangled before the eyes of the workers by the capitalist agent, Mr. Lloyd George, it was a reform strongly objected to by the workers in general, but because it suited the interests of the capitalist class, and because, as at Ilford recently, the workers had blindly given away their power to have things otherwise, that reform went on the Statute Book.

Again, the granting of a pension to aged poor persons was a reform that the workers generally desired.

The capitalist agents examined the idea, laughed up their sleeves, and old age pensions became an accomplished fact.

And now the poor old pensioner knows that he would be better off in the workhouse. We can get what satisfaction we may out of knowing that the workhouses are practically empty (some having been sold), and that old age pensioners—who must have led "respectable" lives—cannot possibly live on the miserable pittance that reform has given them.

Old people without friends or resources did not starve in the workhouse, but now they are COMPELLED to do so on the terribly inadequate sums they receive, while, by way of contrast, a law-breaking criminal, a convict, according to Sir J. L. Baird, Under Secretary at the Home Office, costs the Government the sum of £111 per annum for his upkeep.

Take the latest reform that has come about, the Unemployment Insurance Act that comes into force on November 8th.

Unemployment benefit will be at the rate of 15s. weekly for men and 12s. for women—and not for more than 15 weeks in any insurance year.

According to the "Daily Chronicle" of Oct. 8th, Preston, to take only one town, had a sixth of its population out of work, and "an increasing number of firms are adopting short time and curtailing output."

Our capitalist masters hare seen the possibility of serious trouble arising as a result of the terrible misery, want, and disease that will unavoidably follow in the train of such widespread and lasting unemployment.

They know that it is easier for them to subsidise misery than to meet strife, hence the 15s. per week for the breadwinner to keep himself, his wife, and his children on, and bread costing 1s. 4d. per quarter ! AFTER 15 WEEKS WHAT?

Let the workers gravely consider these reforms, and then reflect that all the material wealth of the world is the result of the application of the workers' energy to nature-given material.

Wealth can be produced in stupendous abundance by the workers, but that production is limited by its profit-extracting possibilities for the capitalist class. When the capitalist sees no chance of disposing of the articles that his employees have produced, for a substantial profit, he curtails production or closes down his works altogether.

To-day the warehouses of the world are filled to overflowing with the goods necessary to life. The capitalists cannot dispose of them; the workers are forbidden by capitalists' property-protecting laws to take what they are so much in need of, although there is plenty for all.

And the worker, in his profound ignorance and general apathy toward these problems that concern him so vitally, is content to starve, or at best to agitate for reforms !

The wonderful knowledge attained up till now by human beings is not sufficient to prevent the vast majority of them being in danger throughout their lives of starving in the midst of plenty—of the plenty created by themselves.

This vicious system that we live under has not always been, and it need not continue. But before it can be superseded by Socialism, which is a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of life, Socialism must be understood and desired by the workers generally.

To agitate for the reform of a system which has such a basis as the capitalist system has, to endeavour to palliate its inevitably harsh bearing upon those who possess nothing, is a waste of energy and time.

Worse than that, the struggle for reform obscures the main issue.

One thing, and one thing only, will change for the better the condition of the workers generally, and that is the OVERTHROW OF CAPITALISM and its supersession by Socialism.

Our friend the questioner, although declaring himself to be a Socialist, proved beyond doubt that he did not understand what Socialism means, and consequently he could not be a Socialist.

He is not alone, however, in labouring under a multitude of disarranged ideas. There are many unfortunately like him who do not understand what Socialism means but who are always ready to assert that they are Socialists.

There are also a great many who, while thoroughly understanding the Socialist position, are satisfied to improve their own position at the expense of the workers whom they mislead—men who make a good fat living out of wearing out the workers' energy and obscuring their understanding by leading them in strivings for reform that, at best, only prolong the life of a system that makes the existence of the worker a long-drawn-out terror.

Some of these paid misleaders of men have actually enough subtlety and bare-faced villainy about them to call themselves Socialists.

This refers to such agents of the capitalist class as the apostles of reform who, a short time ago were strenuously advising the workers to PRODUCE MORE with the result that is plain for any poor fool to see to-day, when, as the consequence of having "produced more" than our capitalist masters can find a ready market for, the workers are unemployed and unable to obtain the things they need to keep themselves alive.

The abolition of capitalism and the inception of Socialism is a work that necessitates knowledge of the system now obtaining, of the system that can replace it, and of the necessary work that shall make Socialism an accomplished fact.

To gain this knowledge the workers must think for themselves !

Socialism will not come until it is generally understood and desired.

Organisation will give knowledge an effectiveness that will sweep want and poverty from the earth.

Such an organisation is to your hand in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Your lot to-day is insecurity of life, misery, degradation and want, but if you will have it.

S.

Reformism (1991)

Book Review from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Left Unraveled. Social Democracy and the New Left Challenge in Britain and West Germany. By Thomas A. Koelble. Duke University Press, 1991.

This is a study by an American academic of what happened to the “social democrats” in the British Labour Party and the German SPD in the 1980's. Koelble describes how in Britain some of them eventually left to form the SDP while in Germany they retained control of the party machine at the price of a few policy concessions.

But what is ’’social democracy"? According to Koelble it is the view which

  accepts capitalism as a desirable economic system, aims to gradually improve the economic position of workers by providing welfare policies (health, education, social security, old age pensions, unemployment benefits), and by so doing alleviating the inequalities and unevenesses of unbridled capitalism.

On this definition, the British SDP may have disappeared without trace, but Social Democracy is alive and well and in complete control of the Labour Party. And, if it comes to power again, it will fail to deliver the promised goods as miserably as it did the last time in the 1970s—which led to the reaction Koelble analyses in this book.

Adam Buick

The Cruel Edges of Capitalism (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism, the argument goes, is not such a bad system. Since Marx’s day it has reformed itself to provide a tolerable existence for workers: Workers used to have to make provision for unemployment, sickness and old age out of their wages. Now these are provided for them by the state, largely out of taxes levied on the rich. Every time that profit-seeking by private capitalist firms has threatened to get out of hand and damage the environment or the workforce’s health the state has intervened. Over the years more and more restrictions — the prohibition of child labour, the provision of free education, and numerous Acts laying down standards for housing, sanitation and town planning — have been placed on the freedom of action of capitalist firms The bureaucracy to enforce this has again been paid for out of taxes that have reduced the wealth of the rich. All this has meant that workers are reasonably satisfied and don’t want to get rid of capitalism. In short, the argument goes, reformism has worked in the past, so why not continue with it?

This was the theme of a lecture given in the House of Commons in November last year by J. K. Galbraith, the American writer and economist, to the Institute of Public Policy. These developments, he said, have “taken the cruel edge off capitalism” and made it “an acceptable economic system”. Those he called the “social left”, he concluded, should draw the lessons from this:

  “We are no longer in search of an alternative economic system. Nor is it clear that one exists. We are concerned with making more effective and more tolerant and equitable the economic system we have. Our claim is not to violent change, certainly not to revolution. It is to a socially better performance by the existing system ” (Guardian, 25 November 1993).

Following Tony Blair’s election as leader of the labour Party in July, David Marquand echoed this view. The only realistic choice today, he said, is not between capitalism and socialism but between two kinds of capitalism which he called “free market capitalism” and “social market capitalism”. (The World Tonight, BBC Radio 4, 27 July). As a Labour defector to the now-defunct SDP, he favours the latter form of capitalism by which he means the profit system mitigated by a few social reforms and limited state intervention.

So, should we lower our sights and try to make the best of capitalism? Has capitalism become an acceptable economic system that we should try to merely humanise, not abolish?

Only a die-hard reformist could choose the present moment to argue this case. On the world scale, capitalism is still going through one of its regularly-occurring slumps (which, incidentally, reformists once claimed to be able to eliminate). The resulting increased competition on the world market is forcing all states and their governments to cut back on their social spending and to de-regulate the restraints on profit-making by capitalist firms. In other words, the measures which the reformists see as having taken the “cruel edge” off capitalism are being undermined — and undermined by the normal workings of the capitalism they see as the only possible economic system.

Capitalism has rolled back their reforms and all they can recommend is that we start again. That we begin to push the stone back up the slope, even though we know that in the by no means certain event of success it will roll back down in the next slump. In Ancient Greek mythology that was the torture imposed on an unfortunate king called Sisyphus. Galbraith, Marquand, Blair and the others may be masochists. But we Socialists, we are not. We don’t regard endlessly rolling a stone up a hill only to see it roll down again time after time as a useful or satisfying activity.

When these people say we must accept that there is no alternative to capitalism what they are saying is that we must accept that the only way in which the production and distribution of wealth can be organised today is on the basis of production being in the hands of separate firms all competing to sell their products on the market at a profit.

Their whole strategy is based on accepting that profit must be the motive for production and that profits should be made, and then taxing away some of these profits for socially-desirable purposes. But this limits their field of action considerably. It means they must refrain from doing anything that might undermine profit-making.

They must allow the profit-seeking private firms that will continue to dominate economic activity the leeway they need to pursue maximising their profits. They must discourage, and actively oppose when it occurs, workers going on strike for higher wages or better working conditions as these cost firms money and eat into their profits. But, more serious since taxes are central to their strategy, there are definite limits as to how far they can go in taxing profits. They must not kill off the geese that lay the golden eggs by increasing the tax burden unduly — and they must defer to the judgement of the geese, the capitalist firms themselves, as to what level of taxation is due and what undue.

Under these circumstances you need a microscope to tell the difference between “social market capitalism” and ordinary capitalism, which is largely only window-dressing anyway.

It is clear that, given the profit system, only a limited amount of money is ever going to be available for social measures especially those aimed at achieving a fairer, less unequal society rather than linked to increasing the productive efficiency and so profit-producing potential of the workforce.

It is also clear that when, as at present, profits are under pressure from competition from abroad then the amount of money available for state benefits is going to be squeezed. So that, far from the government being able to increase social spending, it has to reduce it. This of course is what has been happening in all countries since the early 1970s when the post-war boom came to a final end and is the practical disproof of the reformist theory that the cruel edges of capitalism can be permanently removed. 

Adam Buick

The Tory Reserve Team (1989)

From the October 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Would you buy a load of worn-out policies from Kinnock, Hattersley and their gang of reformist politicians? Socialists would sooner buy a secondhand motor from Arthur Daley. The Labour Party has never stood for socialism. But now it has come out in its true colours. Its pathetic Policy Review documents leave nobody in any doubt: Labour is out to run the Profit System.

There is nothing new about Labour trying to do the dirty work of managing capitalism. We have had eight Labour governments. They had as much to do with bringing about socialism as the Sun has with bringing you the news. Labour governments have brought in incomes policies to keep our wages down; they have smashed strikes, using police and troops: they have passed racist immigration laws; they have built new bombs—they were the ones who brought into being the British atom bomb; they have supported wars; they have made cuts in essential services, like the NHS; and all of the last seven Labour governments have left power with unemployment higher than when they came in. Above all. Labour has seen to it that profits can be made by the capitalists who own and control Britain. Under the last Labour government the richest 1 per cent increased their share of wealth ownership from 24 to 25 per cent. Labour has a long record of keeping capitalism in "safe'' hands. Just like Mitterrand's phoney 'socialists" in France and the Australian Labour government which is Torier than Thatcher. Kinnock's crew are a bunch of errand boys for the bosses.

Making Capitalism Work
What is new about the Policy Review is that Labour has confessed to the crime. In times past they stuffed their manifestos with pious rhetoric about “democratic socialism" Now they are telling it like it is: Give us your votes and we ll run capitalism better than the Thatcher mob. As Kinnock told the 1988 Labour Conference. ‘. . . the fact is that the kind of economy that we are faced with is going to be a market economy. It will be the one that we have to deal with when we are elected. We have got to make it work better than the Tories make it work . . . " Making capitalism work well means making sure that profits are high; that means milking the workers for as much as they can get out of us.

The millionaire-parasites need have no fear of a Labour government. The Policy Review makes clear that it will serve them well. Profits will be protected: international investors will be free to make money out of a stable economy: the bombs required by the NATO generals will all be kept in readiness for war: the workers will be disciplined, with most of the Tory anti-union laws kept in force. In short, Labour will act as efficient substitutes for the Tories while they take a rest after their long years of holding the harness.

Workers and capitalists do not have the same interests. They are legalised robbers—we are the robbed. It does not take a genius to see that the Tories are on the side of the capitalists. The Labour Party talks as if it is on the side of the workers. But read the new Policy Review and you will discover that:

We shall make it clear throughout the economy that our emphasis is on investment rather than consumption, and that money spent too generously on consumption today could prejudice jobs and services tomorrow.

Now. ask yourself the question: Who invests in the economy? The capitalists do. And who needs to consume? We. the workers. And Labour's "emphasis" will be on assisting which class?

At this year's Labour Conference the delegates will adopt the Policy Review. It will be presented as Labour's secret key to power. Some of the delegates will be asking themselves what it is that Labour is asking for power to do. Many will compromise and convince themselves that anyone running the profit system will be better than the present lot. But is that really so? At least with the Tories we can see the enemies clearly. But under a Labour government of capitalism workers will be asked to put up with all kinds of suffering so that Neil and "our government" can do the job properly. "Back us or sack us" is what Callaghan (now Lord Callaghan—payment for services rendered) told the unions. The workers in the unions went out in 1979 and sacked him. Why elect Kinnock and have to sack him five years after the election? He has told you in advance what he is out to do. Why not deny him your backing before he gets to the top of the greasy pole?

Cartoon by George Meddemmen.

Reformist Time-wasting
Countless numbers of Labour members and voters are feeling desperate. Even if they have not read the Policy Review they know that it is blatantly a manifesto for the profit system. They do not want to support this tasteless stew of half-cooked Harold Wilson peppered with some stale David Owen. Vast numbers of Labour supporters—decent, caring, concerned people—can smell the stinking scent of compromise in the air. The wider Kinnock smiles the more they know that their radical hopes are being betrayed. What can they do?

Should they elect a new leader? Kinnock is not the cause of Labour’s anti-socialist outlook any more than it was the captain’s fault that the Titanic sank when it hit the iceberg. The Titanic was not constructed to overcome the hazards it met— and Labour is certainly not constructed to overcome the profit system. Maybe John Smith could do a better job—maybe Gould could, but what matters is the product, not the front-man for the ad. And the fact is that the product is useless. Labour left-wingers say that Kinnock has betrayed them. Just as every previous Labour leader has done. So they need to find a new leader, like Tony Benn. Apart from the fact that Benn was overwhelmingly defeated when he stood against Kinnock last year, what is the point of adopting a lot of second-hand policies for nationalisation (which is State Capitalism) when these have been tried before and failed? State capitalism has been a disaster in Eastern Europe and China and the nationalised industries in Britain have not benefited the workers in them one little bit, as the miners have discovered. So. why change Labour's support for private capitalism for the state-capitalist line?

Some workers will leave the Labour Party. They are right. It is crazy to support an organisation if its policies betray all that you stand for. The new-look Labour Party of open support for the market and the nuclear bomb will be more than many can put up with. As they tear up their membership cards socialists will be cheering.

But where will the workers who abandon Kinnock's team go to? Some will look towards the Greens. They are making radical sounds. But the Greens have no class analysis and think that robbers and robbed should co-exist in harmony: we should all pull together and look after the ozone layer—never mind the profit motive which makes it economically rational to destroy the world. Green capitalism will still be capitalism. What about the Communist Party? Not many will join that: these days even the CP itself does not know what it stands for. The SWP? But why join a party which spends half its time exposing the Labour Party for being just like the Tories and the other half telling us all to Vote Labour? The sad fact is that many ex-Labour members and supporters will drift into apathy. They will vote for no- one. They will give up on making the world decent for its inhabitants to live in. Just think how many active men and women who wanted to change society the Labour Party has demoralised in its eight decades of reformist time-wasting! 

Join the real Socialist Party

However depressed many workers feel about Labour's abandonment of its few remaining principles, socialists say that now is not the time to give up. We should not allow a few pink-rosed careerists to tell us that the time for advocating socialism is over. The truth is that Labour never did put forward a case for socialism—all that has changed is that they have admitted what they stand for. Their admission proves just how right the Socialist Party has been from day one to treat these Labour fakers with complete and utter hostility. It shows how right we were stand our ground and say to our fellow workers: There is more to win than a few welfare reforms; we have a world to win.

We, the Socialist Party, have never betrayed our principled stand for the working-class interest and nothing less. And now. while the Labour Party stands exposed like a bad trickster with the pencil marks showing on the back of its playing cards, it is time to show that you are serious about socialism by joining the ranks of a party which is not out to run the profit system, but to end it. It will be the most momentous and militant political move of your life. The more who make it, the sooner will we be able to tell the Tory reserve team that they will not be required to play because the rules of the game have been abolished and the ground closed down.

Steve Coleman

Cooking the Books: The Magic Money Tree (2017)

The Cooking the Books column from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the leaders' debate on BBC1 on 31 May, the Tory substitute, Amber Rudd, kept on accusing the Labour Party of relying on a 'Magic Money Tree' to conjure up the money to finance their election promises. She was repeating a Tory mantra designed to get people to believe that Labour's attractive reforms were impossible as there was no money there to pay for them.

In fact, there is plenty of money there, in the form of accumulated profits which, in theory, a government could tax or borrow. It's just that the Tories are against this as they want to protect profits (or want to spend it on vital things for capitalism like weapons of war). But, more importantly, to overdo this would disrupt the workings of the capitalist economic system.

Capitalism is a system of production for sale on a market with a view to profit. Profits are what makes it go round as an economic system. It is driven by investment for profit. If the prospects for this are good, then there's expansion and a boom. If they are not, then there's an economic downturn; which happens quite normally from time to time as part of the way capitalism works, when a boom leads to overproduction in a key industry whose fall in investment then has a knock-on effect on other sectors.

This can also happen through government intervention. If the policy a government pursues threatens profits or makes conditions for profit-making worse, this will have an economic effect – investment and so production and employment will stall. Capital will go on strike.

Left-wing governments that have set out to increase popular consumption have experienced this many times and have attributed it to a 'bankers' ramp', a 'wall of money', or 'gnomes of Zurich'. But there is nothing they were able to do about it and in the end they had to capitulate to the economic forces of capitalism and give priority to profits and profit-making. Two examples within living memory would be the Wilson government of 1964 and Mitterrand in France in 1981. Both demonstrated the limits of reformism.

A Corbyn government would have come up against these forces too and failed, not because the money wouldn't have been there, but because it can't be used to improve people's life at the expense of profitable investment. Profits are the forbidden fruit on the Money Tree – one reason why it makes more sense to end the whole capitalist system rather than try to make it work in a way it just cannot.

In one sense it's capitalism that is a Magic Money Tree – for the capitalists. They invest money in production – buy premises, machinery, materials, hire workers – and sell what it produces, and end up with more money than they started with. Magic. But, like all magic, it's an illusion. What happens away from appearances is that the workers they employ produce goods of a greater value than what they are paid as wages. It is this surplus value that is the source of profits and, further down the line, of the interest of bankers, the ground rents of landlords, and what governments spend. To stop this workers need to take an axe to the root rather than merely trying to get back some of the fruit.

Editorial: "But Humbly Regret —" (1911)

Editorial from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Labour Party stands pledged to the Right to Work as a fundamental principle, and every member is in honour bound to do all he can to fulfil the pledge.”

So says the official organ of the Independent Labour Party on Feb. 17th, in the midst of a wail that only thirty of the Labour M.P.s (including the tellers) supported the Right to Work amendment, while one of them actually voted against it.

Why did the Labour members hesitate to support their “fundamental principle”? Why did they not dare move an amendment to the Address, nor introduce their “fundamental principle” in the last Parliament?

It is because the Labour Party in the House only exists by permission of the Liberals, as the last three general elections have proved. Any suspicion of a vote of censure upon the capitalist Government (however necessary such bluff may be to quiet the murmuring rank and file) is consequently fraught with grave danger to Labour M.P.s.

We know how these adjuncts of Liberalism obtained their votes. And Mr. Russell Williams, in a communication to the Labour Leader (Feb. 17th), states in reply to a Labour Conference denunciation of traitors who took Tory gold:

  "Why a distinction between Tory gold and Liberal gold? There are members of the Labour Party in the House of Commons who make no secret of having received Liberal gold with which to fight their elections—and from Liberals who were fighting Labour men, fully endorsed by the Labour Party. Do these men come under the category of cowards and traitors? ”

We pause for a reply.

The need for making at least a show of independent existence caused the Right to Work amendment to be moved this year; but how apologetic were mover and seconder, how they cringed before the Government! Their amendment "humbly" regretted that no promise of a Bill had been made. Said Mr. O'Grady in moving (we quote from the official report):

  "Had we not been unlucky in the ballot probably this amendment would not be moved. . . . I know that every single member of this House is as sympathetic towards the unemployed as we are ourselves, and I am sure that this motion will be considered not merely with sympathy but with fairness’’

And he also said that there is 

   ". . upon the Statute Book one of the finest pieces of legislation in any civilised community in the world, and if it were put into operation it would effect the purposes contained in our motion. I speak of the Development Act. That Act contains every proposal of the Labour and Socialist movement for the last 25 year, proposals about afforestation, erosion of the coast, light railways, and reclamation of land."

Thus do the decoy ducks of Labour repay the Liberal support they obtain, and demonstrate their identity with Liberalism. Nearly every subsequent speaker complimented them on their “moderation” and “fairness.” Mr H. Harcourt particularly referred to Mr. O'Grady’s “moderate and friendly speech.”

But no "statement of the barest truth” can be “moderate” in capitalist ears; no champion of the working class can be friendly to the capitalist class. The fulsome capitalist flattery of Mr. O'Grady sets the seal upon his utter worthlessness to our class. But what of the Bill in question ?—is it any good?

Except that, owing to the hostility of local bodies, the State is to be made mainly responsible for its working, it is the Bill brought before Parliament by the Labour Party three years ago. Then even Labour members admitted that no effective remedy for unemployment is possible under capitalism, yet they claim that their Bill would deal effectively with that question. Such is the "logic” of their position.

To really provide reasonable work or maintenance for all workers would make the wage-labourer master of the labour-market and disrupt capitalism. How childish it would be, then, to beg the capitalist class to be so kind as to commit suicide!

If effective and useful, therefore, the passing of the Labour Party’s Bill would require a social revolution; but it is neither.

In spite of denial, it seems no more than systematic relief works. Its principle is that of the workhouse stone-yard. And there is nothing to prevent men being engaged, as in the post, at exceedingly low “relief" rates to do work which would otherwise occupy the same men at full rates of pay.

It is true, as Mr. Forster said in the House during the recent debate, that it ”must cause more unemployment.” . And he went on to say, with equal truth:

  "I am verified in that view by a statement contained in the report of the Poor Low Commission. They say that work and wages provided by local authorities is in practice either diverted from the ordinary employees in the localities, or extracted from what would otherwise have gone to regular workers, with the result in either case of creating, sooner or later, larger unemployment ”.

And what are the other essentials of the Bill? Its clause 3 is sometimes held to provide work at standard rates, but its wording is fraudulent. As Mr. J. R. Macdonald confessed in the Commons when the Bill was brought forward, the clause "may be badly worded," but “it did not mean that the local employment authority must provide work at, trade union rate of wages". No, the rate is only such as the capitalists may consider "reasonable,” and that means hell for the workers.

And if a man refused the hellish conditions that may be offered to him?

The authority is empowered under clause 7 to get an order "to enforce control of the person named in the order for a period not exceeding six months, which period must be passed in the performance of reasonable work under the control of the local employment authority.”

Now you have it. The capitalists as a class hardly dared go so far. It means that you must accept any conditions, however bad, in the labour market. If you cannot get even this, then the employment authority will give you work under still worse conditions. If, however, you decline to be still further degraded, they may give you six months penal labour!

This they call the Right to Work!

It is superfluous for Messrs. Clynes and O'Grady to say, as they did, that they are not defenders of the "won’t workers." This Bill speaks for itself. But their talk about loafers at both ends of the scale is shown to be the veriest clap trap, because they would allow the well-to-do loafer to go free, but would provide a further punishment for the poor one.

No, the most unhappy victim of capitalism finds no defenders among the Labour Members. On the contrary, they would all one more scorpipa to the scourge of scorpions inflicted by capitalism upon the most miserable and unfortunate of men.

It is not the Right to Work that is needed by the workers, but the opportunity to live; and Socialism alone can grant them this. The legal Right to Work imposed upon the proletariat would only emphasise the “right” of the non-working class to be idle. The "Right to Work,” indeed, excludes the right to live. It means only our "right” to our chains! And the Labour Party, in its characteristic work of legalising the right of the slave to his slavery, at the same time consecrates, to the greater glory of capitalism, the "right” of the wealthy parasite above to his ill-gotten gains and his laziness.

Words and Deeds. (1923)

From the January 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The time for words is past: now is the time for action.” This is an indispensable aid to the Labour speaker. Introduced with fervour at an appropriate moment by one of the "Billy Sundays” of the movement it never fails to bring the roof down. Any novice at a loss for something useful to say, on any Labour platform, in any quarter of the globe, can depend upon it for “loud and prolonged applause.” The effect of its delivery to an open-mouthed audience of several thousands in the Albert Hall, by that platform acrobat, Tom Mann, is truly wonderful. Don’t imagine, however, that it is something new. George Lansbury has been saying it as regularly as clockwork for twenty years for more; Tom Mann is now over seventy, and it must have been a commonplace with him in his early twenties; and no doubt Moses, by whom he sets his course, was hurling it at the murmuring Israelites in Egypt and in the Desert. Throughout the ages, and in any place where glib tongues have had foolish listeners, this shabby half-truth has been doing service.

Its very use is a denial of its accuracy; for if words were valueless these orators should not orate, and Tom Mann ought to give his gymnastic displays without marring them with speech. Again, to be precise, speech is a form of action. However, let us consider what is intended by those who use this phrase.

Do they mean that any action, just action itself is desirable? Obviously not, for the “actionists” are particularly loud and wordy in their denunciation of those workers, who as police and soldiers, under Government instruction, break the heads and scatter the brains of unemployed demonstrators. Clearly the kind of action is important, and we immediately find that the “actionists,” apart from numerous subdivisions, are divided by a theoretical difference into two main groups. On the one hand are the "realists,” the painstaking, sane and safe plodders of the Labour Party, whose "action” takes the form of administering capitalist laws on national and local governing bodies. They are oppressed with a sense of their responsibility and the need to go slow. They have heaps of fine ideals, but relegate them to the distant future, and devote themselves entirely to “practical” politics.

The other group are the Communists. They are in a hell of a hurry. They are incurably romantic, and aim at living dangerously. They scan the political horizon anxiously, searching for a cloud “the size of a man’s hand” which shall be the sign of the revolutionary crisis. They are like the Adventists, living in momentary expectation of the second coming of Christ; and they have some hopes. They resemble the other group only in this, that both of them are believers in doing things, and are infinitely contemptuous of mere theorising. Their actions, judged by results, are not brilliantly successful. They are always “turning over new leaves,” “formulating new programmes,” ‘‘moving with the times,”' and “learning from past mistakes.” The second of their immutable principles is summed up in another misleading saying, that “people who never make mistakes never make anything.”

The chief activity of the reactionary actionists, between 1914 and 1919, was supporting the war. They didn’t want the workers to have knowledge of Socialism, they wanted them to have practical skill in bayonet thrusts and the like; but there was a curious unwillingness to lead on the part of the hot-air leaders. Almost without exception, they were busy telling the workers to go and fight; but were not able to go themselves. Perhaps, this was due to their modesty.

In fact, on closer examination, the activities of this school appear to be mainly talk. They talk on Parish Councils, on Borough Councils, on County Councils, and in the House of Commons. The Labour leaders talk war in war-time, and peace in peacetime ; they talk big to their office staffs and they talk small at the King’s Garden Parties, they talk slop at brotherhood meetings and wildly at Congress. They never talk Socialism.

The other actionists took the field in earnest when the Russian upheaval occurred. They saw red revolution everywhere. They talked about it, and urged other people to begin it; except when they were run in. Then they assured his honour that there was a mistake somewhere, and appeared to be trying to give the impression that they were only collecting souls for Jesus, or something equally harmless. This they call tactics. Some people believe that the workers will be emancipated by tactics.

There was a constant stream of them travelling to Moscow to tell Lenin that England was hovering on the brink of revolution: none of them ever thought of doing a good deed by pushing her over. This may have been more tactics.

In those days they used to tell the tale about Communism in Russia. As this didn’t quite square with theory, and although they don’t believe in theories, they condescended sufficiently to try to show how Russia unaided could jump from Feudalism to Socialism. They did this in order to explain the fact. Of course, the fact never existed, and in due course Moscow permitted them to say so. Then they laid the blame on the apathy of the workers in West Europe, but Zinoviev has now unkindly exploded. this. A correspondent of the Observer writes (November 19th, 1922) :—

“Very significant also was Zinoviev’s speech at Petrograd at the opening of the Congress, which contradicted the popular Bolshevik theory that the New Economic Policy is due chiefly to the postponement of world-revolution. ‘We are now aware,’ said Zinoviev, ‘that the New Economic Policy was inevitable for Russia, even despite a successful world-revolution.’ ”

Nevertheless, these actionists are still “proving” their unsound theory. 

In practice, all the actionists talk and write just as we do. They do not act, because the capitalists won’t let them. They have, however, two distinct ways of looking at this fact. The Communists pretend not to see it, and by keeping up a terrific clamour of words they succeed for a time in persuading those who don’t know, even many of the master class, that they are making things hum.

 

The Labour Party, somewhat wiser in its generation, only chooses to do those things the capitalists permit. This keeps them frightfully busy, and although the products of their activity are nil, because the concessions they get are only those the capitalists would give anyway, they appear to be getting somewhere. This kind of people, now in the Labour Party, and previously as Liberals, have been doing their practical work for half a century, and except that the workers' position is getting steadily worse, they don’t seem to have reached anywhere in particular.

The capitalist class are able to prevent any action useful to the workers and dangerous to themselves, because they control the force which is the deciding factor. The Army and Navy, the police and the law are at their disposal. The power to control these forces is theirs, because their agents are elected to the House of Commons, the central governing body. These agents are elected by the workers. The workers elect capitalist agents because they want Capitalism and not Socialism. They do not want Socialism because they do not understand it. Conditions produced by capitalist developments are preparing the minds of the workers, but they will not obtain an intelligent grasp of socialist principles except through the spoken and written word.

We, and both schools of actionists, are engaged mainly in talking and writing; but we talk Socialism, they do not.

When the workers understand Socialism they will take the direct and simple steps necessary to give them control of the political machinery of society for the purpose of introducing Socialism. Until that time, the only useful action possible is the act of speaking and writing about Socialism.

We are Socialists.

We preach Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Diary of Labour Government. (1931)

From the March 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Here in Great Britain, about twenty-seven years ago, there was a sharp difference of opinion. There were those who held that there was but one cause of working-class poverty, and one only, and but one way to end it. These formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain, with the aim and object of capturing political power and achieving Socialism. There were others who denounced this as a dream, too far removed from present needs to be practicable. What was wanted, they said, was something now, something tangible, something realisable, something which we could see in our time. These supported immediate reforms, palliatives, and the Labour Party. They have been wonderfully fortunate. In a mere twenty-five years they have achieved their practical object and seated a Labour Government in Parliament. That Government has been there nearly two years, and we think we may be doing posterity a service by setting down a rough diary of what life for the workers means under a Labour Government. Something now was their object; this is the something.

On January 1st, 1931, two and a half millions of working men were unable to find a master. On this day, also, 161,300 miners were locked out in South Wales.

On January 2nd the railways of the country announced they contemplated spending £30,000,000 on improvements. Meanwhile, they were negotiating with their employees to slice £11,000,000 off their wages.

About this time, some thousands of cotton workers were locked out because they protested against an intensification of their work, and more thousands of boot and shoe operatives and agricultural workers were threatened with wage cuts. Labour was still in power.

A man named Lansbury, a high Labour official, wrote to the Press suggesting that what was really needed was more prayers and Christian spirit.

A feeble-witted Christian, known as Jix, hurried to assure the people that Mr. Lansbury was quite wrong, and that Christianity had nothing to do with politics.

On January 12th the Daily Herald, Labour’s own newspaper, announced that "business men realised that the Daily Herald is a magnificent business-building power.”

On January 13th the papers announced that 27,000 tinplate workers were to be thrown out of work. Labour was still in power.

On January 16th, such was the poverty of the nation, ground down with the burden of taxation, and such the need for national economy, that the two Royal Princes started out with a shipload of accessories on an 18,000 miles tour.

January 19th.—The official attack on the railwaymen opened. Official figures of unemployed, 2,608,406. Labour still in power.

January 20th.—Miss Ellen Wilkinson, one of the Labour Government, hard at work solving the workers' problems by touring America, writes that she is astonished at the bread-lines in New York. What says the Bible: “The fool has his eyes on the ends of the earth.”

Speaking of the Bible recalls that on January 20th an article in the News Chronicle records the appalling poverty of the clergy. It seems that their average salary is only £350 per annum—nearly £7 per week. How do they live, poor men? The railway companies suggest 38s. per week for their rapacious hirelings. Yes! Labour is still in power.

There was a tremendous happening about this time. The Labour Government was defeated. In the midst of this poverty, unemployment and slaughter of working-class wages, they made a determined stand on one phase of the question of religion in schools. The Roman Catholics, perhaps the most fanatical opposers of Socialism in existence, represented that the Government’s Education Bill would cost them £1,000,000, and wanted a guarantee that it would not come out of their own pockets. Labour members rallied to the Catholic standard and defeated their own Government by 33 votes. Did the Government resign? Of course not; they must continue the good work of getting something now.

January 20th.—Ramsay MacDonald (re Princess Royal) “moved a humble address to assure His Majesty that this House will ever participate with the most affectionate and dutiful attachment in whatever may concern the feelings and interests of His Majesty.”

January 23rd.—Another determined stand made on the Trades Disputes Bill. The great question was, whether the Labour Party shall have the power to grab the coppers of uninterested trade unionists or not. A Second Reading was obtained with a majority of 27. They breathe again. The poor remained poor, the unemployed remained workless, and the victims of wage cuts remained cut. The Labour Government was still in office.

On January 26th the Labour Government, friends of the poor, the downtrodden and the helpless, released an agitator named Gandhi (whom they had held in prison very much like Capitalist Governments do), but overlooked 60,000 of his pals who had been awaiting trial since May 5th.

January 30th.—Whitehaven pit disaster; 26 miners killed. The News Chronicle suggests, in view of frequent mishaps at this pit, that an enquiry be instituted. They are twenty years late. We commented upon a worse happening in the same pit as long ago as that. Those in favour of “something now,” please note.

Just to wind up the month, on January 31st Mr. Graham indicated (according to the News Chronicle) that the Government accepted the Liberal proposals for unemployment. He is credited with saying: “The simple truth is that the industrial problem is now so grave that the old division of parties becomes' meaningless.” An equally simple truth is that the old division referred to has never been more than simple eyewash. Mr. Graham is thirty years behind the times. He should give his newsagent an order for the regular delivery of The Socialist Standard.

However, this has not been an entirely dull month. There were 300 guests at the Hunt Ball held at Newnham Abbey, and Lady Houston offered £100,000 so that Great Britain should be able to compete for the Schneider Cup. She gave this to implement her belief that one Englishman was still worth three foreigners. Our engineers —also worth three foreigners—were told that their wages—average 58s. 1½d.—were too high, and would have to come down to a level that would enable us to beat the foreigner. No! not altogether a dull month. The poor remain poor, the unemployed remain workless, and wage cuts are as regular as a bacon-slicer.

Of course, space is too precious in our little Standard for diaries of this description, but—unless one takes a tragic view of poverty and unemployment—they can be quite amusing. For instance, on February 3rd the House of Commons engrossed itself in the Representation of the People Bill. The question of the City of London retaining special representation was discussed. Mr. Clynes, a Labour man, said “ it was inconceivable that it should not be represented in the House.”

Inconceivable, mark you! Those who are still looking for “something now” will be relieved to hear that under the heading, “Business Done,” for this day appears “A Bill for the better protection of trout in Scotland, read a first time.” No doubt this is the Bill that caused a drop of 27,000 in the unemployed this week. On February 4th it was stated there were only 2,592,650 without a master in the week ending January 26th. This was before the Trout Bill was passed. 

On February 5th Mr. Lansbury, ever practical, ever a realist, brought us back to the facts of working-class life by intimating that he had finally approved of the Haig statue. The Engineering Employers; somewhat more out of touch with reality, delivered their ultimatum to their workers, worsening hours, wages and conditions, and threatening “if you or your members fail to make your contribution . . .  to take what steps they consider necessary.”

“Something now” is a curious policy, isn’t it! Why not try the other way? Socialism, next year, if we can’t get it before, but—nothing less! 

W. T. Hopley

The Socialist Party versus The Labour Party (1937)

From the March 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the so-called Socialist League was recently expelled from the Labour Party it was stated in certain sections of the capitalist Press that the expulsion was effected by the “National Executive of the Socialist Party." But we of the Socialist Party emphatically deny that statement.

Sir Stafford Cripps and his “Socialist League" have never been part of the Socialist movement in this country and, therefore, could not have been expelled by our Executive.

It was from the Labour Party that these people were expelled, and that organisation is no more Socialist than the old Radical-Liberal Party, whose political position the Labour Party inherited, extended and has largely practised throughout its history. In point of actual fact it is only within recent years that the Labour Party has taken to use the name of Socialism. For many years it openly repudiated any allegiance to Socialist principles. As recently as 1934 the National Executive of the Labour Party, in its report to the Annual Conference at Southport, said: —

It considers no useful purpose would be served in changing the name of the party to “The Socialist Party,” because an enormous amount of goodwill and propaganda had been built up round “The Labour Party,” and it has become honourably known to the electorate at large.

That statement is symptomatic of many things. If it were in reality a Socialist Party, why does it shirk the title? We suggest that those who really run the Labour Party know well enough that its past political history has been so much enmeshed in capitalist politics, upon which it has gained much of its support, that it has thus become “honourably known" as a party aiming at no fundamental change of the present form of society. As Socialists, we prefer that the Labour Party should not only refuse the title of Socialist but likewise should drop its false claim to be striving for Socialism. The rise of the Labour Party has been largely conditioned by its exploitation of the political and economic ignorance of the workers, as this in turn has expressed itself in the workers finding nothing fundamentally wrong in the capitalist form of society. Let us take a glance at the position. The condition of the working class, despite its traditional persuasion to the contrary, is that of a slave class. Its dependence under existing conditions upon the permission of the capitalist class for its livelihood is a fact. Class economic dependence means class subjection, no matter how much freedom may be apparent on the surface of the lives of those enslaved. It is a law of history that a class subjected must, if it is to win its emancipation, gain power, political power, from those who hold it in subjection, so as to build up a set of social conditions in harmony with its own interest. In other words, a dominant class simply does not run human society to suit the interests of those whom it dominates; to attempt to do so would result in its social suicide. But a ruling class does, because of its desire to retain its supremacy, placate its subject class with measures of “social amelioration." And this is one of the most potent forces for obscuring the basic cause of the class division. What is ambiguously styled as "the inertia of the human mind," when taken to mean the slowness of the human mind to move along lines of social change, is also one of the contributory causes of the persistence of class society. But how does the Labour Party, an organisation which claims to represent the interests of a slave class, respond to the facts of the situation? As indicated above, it finds, in the first place, a working class ready to “kick against the pricks” of class oppression. But instead of insisting upon a basic understanding of the root causes of class subjection and exploitation it proceeds upon the principle of dealing with the effects of the system instead of with its causes. Hence, instead of the workers being trained to think along lines of the abolition of the private property institution they centre their minds upon unemployment, low wages, high rents, war, bad housing, relief schemes, etc., all of which, no matter how they might be dealt with by the capitalist class, leave the source of working-class evils intact. Thus a valuable opportunity of exposing the foundations of the class division is lost and a consequent perpetuation of a “capitalist mentality" among the workers is maintained. The failure of the Labour Party to stress the class struggle feature of real working-class interest marks it off as an organisation unsuitable to the emancipation of the working class, and one which can only end in class collaboration and compromise. There is nothing like ignoring an elementary and basic principle as a means of distorting the real issues of the social problem—or any other problem for that matter. Thus does the Labour Party give us the key to its “mind" in the following pronouncement. Speaking of its appeal for support from all and sundry, the National Executive of the Labour Party has declared : —

Its call is to all men and women of goodwill and understanding to rally to its ranks as the one sure way of converting class antagonism into true community of spirit.—(Italics ours.)

This is after saying that "Labour's creed is based" not on any “narrow class appeal." Goodwill and understanding! Community of spirit! As though the problem were on a par with the mission of the Charity Organisation Society. The goodwill of the capitalists will never dissuade them from being capitalists however much they may be inclined to soften the effects of their exploitation of the workers. Whilst the "community of spirit" is something with which nearly all capitalists will agree and is, in fact, what they have always hankered after. It seems that it is entirely beyond the vision of the Labour Party to appreciate the science of class distinctions at all. Hence their entire outlook is vitiated by the illusion that they can build within the framework of capitalist society a state of affairs favourable to the workers. But the thing cannot be done. And we suggest that many a Labour leader knows this to be a fact, but other “reasons" compel them to “think" otherwise. For various reasons, personal and otherwise, they shirk not only the facts of the present situation but also the lessons of history. Yet, tragically enough, they are permitted to persist in this through the immature class understanding of those upon whose backs they have advanced to "social prominence."

Were it otherwise we would not have experienced the latest utterance of one of their leading lights, Mr. Ernest Bevin. Speaking at a luncheon (how these Labour blokes do like their luncheons) of the Foreign Press Association, Mr. Bevin said: “If there is a resort to war for dominance do not take the Labour movement too cheaply; we would defend our country. Labour wanted a planned world, but if that meant breaking up the British Commonwealth in a mad scramble of war amongst the nations they would oppose it. If, however, it meant a world movement with all the nations co-operating they would support it. As a means towards world stability raw materials should be socialised all over the world. They should be placed under public ownership and control and obtainable by all by purchase instead of conquest." (News Chronicle, February 5th, 1937.)

The vagaries and confusion of this statement would be hard to beat, apart from the fact that Mr. Bevin did not disclose his authority for partly pledging the Labour movement in the event of a war. But we take it that Mr. Bevin knows the supporters of the “Labour movement." Anyhow, what does the British Commonwealth mean to the working class except as a name to be worshipped? It doesn't belong to the workers but to the capitalists, whose sole interest in it is one of profit. We contend that if Mr. Bevin and his associates are so much concerned with the British Commonwealth (that word “Commonwealth" does make us laugh) then they should be compelled to face the guns of those who want to steal it. But we fancy that Labour leaders would be far removed from the danger zone. They are more likely to be found in the Government, as they were in the late European War. And what does Mr. Bevin mean by the raw materials being socialised, to be obtained by purchase? Does he know what he is talking about? Buying and selling is impossible under socialisation, for both imply the exchange of things which are privately owned. We can only presume that Mr. Bevin has in mind the State-ownership of things, each State buying and selling from the other. But that is totally different from socialisation, and is in reality nothing more than State capitalism. The workers employed in any State concern, such as the British Post Office, will fail to see the advantages of the so-called socialisation except to the capitalists. It is this theory which the Labour Party has spuriously called Socialism and which we have exposed time and again. Even supporters of capitalism have exposed the shallowness of the Labour Party’s "socialisation'’ and "public utility corporation" schemes. When the London Passenger Transport Act, which was introduced by a Labour Government, was passing through its final stages under the control of a Conservative Government, the Times (reputable organ of British capitalism) had to say of this so-called "Socialist" Act:—

The principal objections which have been raised may be grouped under three main heads—namely, that the Bill is a “Socialist” measure; that it creates a dangerous monopoly; and that it will raise the cost of transport. None of these criticisms will really bear very prolonged examination. It is true that the Bill in its original form was produced by a Socialist Government, and that the then Minister of Transport, Mr. Morrison, nearly succeeded in damning it for ever by claiming it as a triumph of Socialism. But where in fact does the Socialism come in? In what point of principle will the new transport undertaking differ from the Central Electricity Board or from Imperial Communications Company, both of which were created by a Conservative Government? Like them, indeed, it is a statutory monopoly, and therefore subject to a certain degree of public control; but it is privately, not publicly, owned.—(Italics ours.)

Thus, Lord Ashfield and his class can well enjoy the "public utility corporationism” of the Labour Party and well may they sigh with the Victorian statesmen who declared "we are all Socialists now." The workers have got to learn the distinction between the Labour Party and the Socialist Party if they are to be rid of the evils which afflict them. They have first to learn that they are the producers of the world's wealth and that this is in no way due to the so-called superior intelligence of their masters. Next that their position of poverty and insecurity of existence is due to capitalist control of the means of life. That this class can only be removed from power by the workers themselves gaining power and changing the system completely. This is no purely national affair but an international one comprising practically the whole world. Upon their own efforts must the workers rely for their emancipation from wage slavery. For "trust" in the Labour leader is but a substitute for trust in the capitalists, their Press and their priests. The Socialist Party urges the workers to think below the surface of things and they will find that many of the ideas they have are but based upon the mere appearance of conditions instead of upon their underlying causes. If they will do that they will see the barren nonsense of the Bevins, who talk of defending "our country" and preserving the "British .Commonwealth." The world can be theirs if they will it. Not the Labour Party but the Socialist Party points the way.

Robert Reynolds