Two quotations: 1856 and 1955 (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the paradoxes of this century is that while a range of pleasures and diversions, unimagined by the wealthiest aristocrat a few generations ago, is now available to the ordinary man,, it gets more and more difficult to use them in the way pleasures should be used—impulsively. More and more of us possess beautiful new motor cats whose every line expresses the modern poetry of godlike, singing motion, of the marvellous escape from here, of the joyful ability to pierce the horizon-barrier and know the great earth. On some dreamlike Sunday afternoon, suddenly the whispering garden leaves and the bright innocent clouds invite us to rush, with the effortlessness of angels, out into the vast green landscape. And soon we are stuck behind an enormous thing with 84 wheels carrying a section of the Forth Bridge; we are hedged about by motor-cycle combinations containing identical families of one black-leather-coated man, one woman and one pale child; our dream dies among diesel fumes and brick suburbs.”—(Paul Jennings, Observer, 28/8/55).

“In our day, everything seems pregnant with its contrary; machinery, gifted with the wonderful-power of shortening and fructifying human labour, we behold starving and overworking it. The new-fangled sources of wealth, by some strange weird spell, are turned into sources of want. The victories of art seem bought by the loss of character. At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life and stultifying life into a material force. The antagonism between the productive powers and the social relations of our epoch is a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not to be controverted.”— (“ Karl Marx, April 1856.)

Letter: Four questions (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Four questions

I enjoyed listening to your speakers in Hyde Park, in particular their synopsis of the “wage-slave” state we have today. Perhaps you could enlighten me on the following questions.

1. You stress the importance of the working man under Socialism, but do you believe that work alone is the reason for man’s existence? Surely self-fulfilment of the individual and the economic freedom necessary for this are more important. Surely the real challenge of the future is not full employment but the management of leisure?

2. Surely it is a basic desire and right of man to own his own piece of land for himself and his family.

3. You subscribe to the idea of “democratic representation”, presumably this means majority rule. Do you think the majority are ever right? Surely a better system would be for each individual to exercise his freedom with respect to the rights of others based on the inherent good of man and the acceptance that Utopia is impossible?

4. Would not elected Socialist representatives succumb to corruption, just as is evident today in the major political parties and has happened to every governing body since time immemorial?

S. D. Chapman

London W.11.

Reply:

You have obviously not yet fully grasped the Socialist position, but we appreciate your interest and will try to make matters a little clearer.

1. We stress the importance of the working class under capitalism because they are the great majority whose interests can only be expressed by establishing Socialism. In Socialism there will be no classes at all. Of course work should not be the be-all and end-all of existence and individual fulfilment is something all Socialists look forward to. However, bear in mind (a) that comfort and freedom must rest on a solid material foundation — man has got to produce, and (b) that many people can and do find personal fulfilment in creative, interesting work. Leisure and “management” of it is the corollary to dull, unrewarding work to which people are condemned. “Full employment” has to do with capitalism, not Socialism.

2. “Ownership” and “rights” arc not basic human desires but ideas implanted by property societies: they imply a person’s or a class’s having something to the exclusion of others. Socialism means that all the means of living will be owned by everyone in common, and all people will have free access to them — including pieces of land for cultivation — and their products.

3. What else can democracy mean except majority rule? To speak of majorities being right or wrong implies some superior standard of judgement; however, the informed and argued collective view of a dozen or a hundred people is more likely to be sound than an individual’s by himself.

The individual’s freedom is always bounded by his existence among other people. What you term “the inherent good of man” is simply his social nature and consequent tendency always to co-operation and order. Given that, there is no conflict between individuality and democracy.

4. To refer back to no. 3, we do not advocate “democratic representation”, where — as now — a person is elected without being answerable; if we did, we might be in a way to “succumb to corruption”, as you say. In the Socialist Party we appoint delegates who are instructed by those who elect them and have no other powers. Our organization is framed to vest control in all matters in the entire membership; we have no leaders or positions of authority, and all our transactions down to the most trivial ones are open to the public as well as the membership. That is how the administration of Socialism will be carried out.

Running Commentary: Wish we weren't here (1988)

The Running Commentary column from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wish we weren't here

Of course it may have been a trick by the more miserly elements in the Confederation of British Industries but some recent research has thrown doubt on the benefits, hitherto taken for granted, of a holiday. Casting a cold eye on what actually happens to people who are trying to convince themselves that they are having a marvellous time, getting away from it all, has revealed that, such are the stresses involved, they might have been better to stay at home.

In this year of delays in air transport, which condemned thousands of bored, weary, sweaty package tourists to pass hours, even days, of their holiday in airport lounges, nobody will argue about the strains of getting yourself from rain-soaked Britain to a sunbaked paradise across the sea. Those who stayed at home could also face transport difficulties. For them there were many huge, fuming motorway tailbacks, in each vehicle a driver praying that the engine would not overheat in the inch-by-inch crawl towards their holiday idyll.

Before the journey there is the stress of organisation — booking the holiday, buying the tickets, insuring yourself, making sure that things are up to date at work before you go. worrying about whether you can afford it. And many holidays, under an unrelenting pressure to enjoy yourself according to the writ of the organisers, are little better than exercises in self-abuse — excessive drinking, eating, sun-bathing. . . This behaviour is regarded by many holiday-makers as a release, because it is in direct contrast to what they are allowed to do in the everyday routine of wage-slavery. Two weeks with the 18-30 Club Ibiza is a world away from the factory bench, the supermarket checkout, the typing pool stools. It is a fortnight of unrelieved fantasy with an unpleasant reality waiting at the end.

But perhaps even more damaging is the stress which can be observed on many a crowded beach or cafe or coach. One result of a holiday is to take people, who for the other fifty weeks of the year are kept in only distant contact through being at work or school and forces them to spend a lot more time close together for days on end. It starts out being a happy change but then minor irritations become focussed into major provocations; differences in tastes which usually don't matter because lack of contact allows everyone to do their own thing become impassable obstacles. What usually operates as a manageable tolerance for each other changes into active dislike. It is a relief for everyone to go back home, where they don't have to see as much of each other.

Only one social group, however, experiences stresses. People who have to work for their living cannot employ a load of secretaries. maids and valets to smooth their way onto a holiday. The tensions they are under during their brief spell at what is called leisure reflect those which dominate their working lives. It says a lot about working class life, that many of them might well be better off not taking a holiday. Getting Away From It All is. for them, impossible.

Living on tick

One of the iron principles said to have been drilled into the young Margaret Thatcher by her legendary father was never, ever to get into debt.

Like most of Thatcher s professed standards of behaviour, that one has little relevance to what actually happens in the world. To begin with, a great deal of capitalism's commerce would need to be drastically remodelled if every company adopted the principle of never owing any money to any other firm.

That is besides the working class, whose access to things like furniture, household equipment and houses relies on their being able to borrow money. Of course in the long run it is cheaper to buy, say. a house out of your own pocket rather than go cap-in-hand to a building society. But to save that sort of money would need such stringently miserly living standards over so many years that by the time you moved into your newly-purchased home you would be an emaciated, nervous wreck.

In this time of so-called boom (Thatcher says it's a boom. Lawson says so. . .) workers widely use the quick-loan facilities of credit cards or the "personal" loans which are so enticingly offered by the banks. Running up a bill with Access can work reasonably well for a worker who wants some of the more expensive bits of wealth produced by their class provided there is no tendency to have nightmares about descending bailiffs, but not so well for those suffering from doubt- wracked insomnia. Then what about the sense of guilt induced by our being told that our high living on all this credit is bringing the British economy to its knees. While before a "weak" pound and high interest rates were crippling problems which all true English folk should do their utmost to solve, with the help of a clever Chancellor of the Exchequer like Nigel Lawson, now the threat comes from a "strong" pound and low interest rates. Law- son's apparent solution to this is to say that he will implement the measures which were so recently themselves the main problem. . .

The most cursory acquaintance with these affairs — these blunders, these U-turns, these false assurances — points to the conclusion that all the Chancellors and all their experts really don't have the slightest idea of what is going on in the world. What is obvious is that none of them have the exact, delicate control over the economy and the market which they claim to have. Any confidence they may display in their proposals for juggling endlessly with the symptoms of capitalism's real sickness springs from the very few occasions when their luck has been in — when events which are out of their control have changed in such a way and at such a time as to suggest that they control them. It is on that kind of luck that Lawson's reputation has so far been based; what will happen to him. now that his luck seems to have run out?

Workers who are struggling to survive under capitalism should pay no heed to the superficial aspects of the system. Every time they pay the mortgage, every time they sign a credit sales slip, they are attesting to the fact that this is a society which denies them access to almost everything except pompous harangues from politicians.

Hunting Quayle

If Senator Dan Quayle s prudent membership of the National Guard rather than take his chances on being conscripted to fight in Vietnam was hypocrisy. how do we describe the exultant indignation which it provoked in the media?

Quayle is a member of the capitalist class — born into that minority who live off the labour of the rest of us and so do not need to be employed for a living. Their income — a lot more substantial than that of the majority — comes from their investment in the exploitation of the other class — the working class. This class — the majority in society — do all the useful work. They conceive, design, produce, transport all the wealth and services. They do the clean work like sitting behind a desk and the dirty work like fighting in a war. Society could not operate without them. In contrast, there is no social need for the capitalist class; in terms of producing and distributing useful things they are redundant.

So it is perfectly reasonable for Quayle to expect that other people — from the other class — should fight in the wars in the same way as he expects them to cook his food, clean his floors, write and print his newspapers which his family own. It is also perfectly reasonable for him to use his class privileges, which confer so many advantages on him. to avoid unpleasant experiences — and what could be more unpleasant than a spell in battle in Vietnam?

Many rich youngsters took refuge from Vietnam in the National Guard, pulling the strings of privileges as they did so. The sons of George Bush and Lloyd Bentsen were among them. In the rush to escape Vietnam the National Guard became over-subscribed.

So Quayle and all those other cosseted young capitalists were only doing what come naturally in a class divided society. They were behaving in accordance with the wealth of their class and with the advantages which that wealth brings. It went with their sumptuous homes, their servants, their private aeroplanes and yachts, their ability always to choose how they spend their lives.

The media stand foursquare in favour of this social system. They eulogise the ruling class as people of unusual abilities, the most trivial of whose life must be lovingly related to us. However they may complain about some of the system's symptoms they never question capitalism in its essentials — the division into classes, the existence of rich and poor, the need of one class to be employed by the other, the principle of political leadership. . .

What Dan Quayle did. as another example of what it means to have access to class privileges, was utterly predictable and. from his point of view, utterly sensible. Of course he is a hypocrite — a hawk who wants other people to do the fighting for him. which makes him especially despicable. But the only people who can fairly condemn him for this are those who oppose the system in which his privilege and hypocrisy are rooted.

Entertainment and Profit (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Theatres, cinemas and football clubs have all recently felt the draught as their support and so their receipts fell. Pubs, Restaurants and Dance Halls have gone through the same agony. Where, they must have wondered, have all our supporters, patrons, clients, gone? Surely not all of them are televiewing?

One football club got so worked up about this recently that they took a census to find out the reason for their falling gates. They discovered some of their missing supporters in the strangest of places; in the local shopping centres, fetching and carrying for the wife. The wife, apparently, is at work all week and so she has to buy as much of the week’s food as she can in one go on Saturday afternoon. Who can blame her for cutting up rough if the old man wants to enjoy himself watching football while she has to push and shove her heavy laden way through the crowds? So no football, no dozing, no telly even for him.

Of course, there are any number of reasons offered for this. Some say that football, or the theatre, or what-have-you, are not what they used to be. Others say that they are not up to the standard of other countries (how unpatriotic!). And there are those who simply shrug and blame it all onto the telly.

These are at best the superficial reasons for changes in public tastes. To find the basic reason we must look at the motive for the birth and presentation of various types of entertainment. Today, we live in a Capitalist world in which all social endeavour in terms of research, invention, culture, service and work is carried on with the object of returning to the Capitalist more from his business than he puts into it. This is assured by the simple method of allowing the working class, who produce all the wealth, to receive only a part of it in their wages. But, sometimes, as we know, there is no profit in certain lines of business. One industry may be undermined by the development of a cheap substitute for its product. Another will fail because it cannot stand the pace of competition. So they decline, sometimes washed down with crocodile tears in the City columns.

The entertainment industry is no exception to this rule. It, too, must have, its profits—and it is often not too particular how it gets them. Jazz clubs, dance halls and coffee bars are not worried whether the working class teenagers who keep them going are missing their homework, or skipping evening classes, to do so. Publicans would rather see us drinking in their bars than attending a Political or Trade Union meeting, or a lecture on archaeology if it comes to that. And entertainment, with its various branches vying with each other for our custom, must keep producing the novel and alleged improvements to keep us interested.

Yet however interested we become, we can never avoid the fact that the biggest and best part of our day is spent in being exploited in the factory or the office to make huge fortunes for the lucky shareholders. This does not leave much time to enjoy our entertainment, however good or bad it may be.

Joe McGuinness

The Parkrun – an Inkling of socialism? (2026)

From the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 13 June this year, the 13 runners and 5 volunteers who set up the first parkrun ever in 2004 at Bushy Park, London, celebrated one million parkruns worldwide since then. On that day runs were taking place in 2,800 places across 23 countries. In an interview with the i newspaper, one of the original parkrun organisers, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, said that the success of the event was ‘clearly down to the simplicity … the fact it is for everybody, inclusivity, the nature of that, the fact that it’s free’. Another of the founders, Andrew Lane, said he’d originally predicted that, if the event got going, participation would peak at 200 runners per time, otherwise the course would be too crowded. But at the 1,000th Bushy Park run in 2024, there were over 6,000 participants.

Clearly people didn’t mind being crowded together with others and, since they weren’t competing with one another as in a conventional race, getting a clear unimpeded run wasn’t a priority for most. At best if people were there to compete, it was against themselves, ie, trying to improve their personal best time. Lane went on to say that he’d also predicted, wrongly again, that there would be a lack of volunteers coming forward to do the organising and this would hold growth back. But, as he put it, ‘I failed to realise … how much volunteering would become a great pleasure and destination in itself’.

Interesting words

There are some interesting words here: ‘inclusivity’, ‘free’, ‘volunteering’, ‘pleasure’, for example. Interesting because they describe a voluntary, cooperative, communal kind of activity enjoyed by large numbers of people and going directly contrary to the ethic of a society, the one we live in, based on me-first competition, beggar thy neighbour and the gaining of personal wealth and status. A society too in which we often hear of how people have become alienated, disconnected from one another (‘atomised’ is the word often used) and bereft of any clear sense of purpose. In the parkrun, however, we have an activity that is entirely cooperative and purposeful, where money doesn’t enter into any part of the equation and which is pursued by increasingly large numbers of people, whether as run participants or organisers. And clearly the ‘non-runners’ too experience a sense of community as well as a perception that they’re doing something useful, as well, no doubt, as enjoying the approbation, spoken or otherwise, of the people around them.

Social animals

Should we be surprised? Well probably not, because regardless of the way current society is organised with its massive economic inequality, its ever-present wars, the stresses and frustrations of its employment system, human beings are fundamentally social animals who, given even small opportunities, are ready and willing to work together to carry out activities and achieve ends they consider worthwhile. Apart from our common everyday experience where, in a whole host of situations and pursuits, humans display cooperation and empathy with one another, a plethora of studies, sociological and anthropological, many of which have been discussed in the pages of the Socialist Standard  continue to illustrate and confirm this.

This year’s World Happiness Report by Gallup, which rates countries according to the level of ‘happiness’ of their citizens, concludes unequivocally that what makes individuals feel most happy is ‘being generous and volunteering’, since it gives ‘a feeling of belonging and sociality’. A recent discussion on the Gallup report on BBC radio reiterated this, with the broadcaster Evan Davis, one of whose specialities is business and economics, stating that ‘money matters to a certain extent for the agency and control it gives you’, but that ‘the main individual thing is to be generous to other people and to volunteer [and] you will make yourself happier’.

Another recent study carried out by a team of scientists from American and Australian universities entitled ‘Altruistic, not reputational concerns, drive human prosociality, values and aspirations across the world’, studied anonymous survey responses from almost 1 million individuals spread over more than 100 countries, taking into account different cultural contexts, age ranges, socioeconomic levels, and time periods. The researchers found that the vast majority of people reported performing acts of altruism because they were interested in the well-being of others, not because these acts benefitted them directly. They concluded that people are more likely to want to be remembered for making a difference, helping others, and improving the world, and to value things like caring over status or personal gains. The way a review of this study put it was ‘people really want to be good’ .

Cooperation or ego?

Another new piece of research, this time from the fields of archaeology and anthropology and published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, provides evidence that it has been humans’ ability to empathize and relate to one another that has allowed our species to thrive and build complex cultures over the whole planet. It points to how the archaeological record illustrates the capacity of early humans to make long-term commitments to one another’s well-being, to tolerate frustration, to plan collectively, to make sacrifices, and to trust others. In many instances, for example, archaeologists have unearthed remains of disabled and elderly humans who could not possibly have survived alone.

A review of this study on the IFL Science website concludes that yet again we have evidence that ‘one of humanity’s greatest strengths was never just ego or ruthlessness, but profound emotions and our extraordinary ability to turn those feelings into cooperation’. Of course we see ‘ego’ and ‘ruthlessness’ around us too, we see displays of non-cooperation and lack of sympathy and understanding for others. But, perhaps contrary to appearances, we see this much less frequently than the opposite. But precisely because it is less common, it attracts greater attention and becomes more ‘newsworthy’.

Purpose and enjoyment

What has all this got to do with socialism? Put quite simply, socialism – the moneyless, wageless society of common ownership and voluntary work with free access to all goods and services which we campaign to see established – can only work if human beings are able to cooperate freely and willingly to produce and distribute everything that is needed to provide a comfortable, purposeful life for all. And what we learn from the kinds of research mentioned above, from everyday experience and from voluntary on-the-ground activity such as the parkrun is that we are geared, we have the capacity, to organise ourselves and our society in that way.

We learn too that the dog-eat-dog mentality that we also see around us and can set people against one another, often in ugly and irrational ways, arises not from any ‘natural’ human inclination but from the conditions of life in the society we live in, from the very nature of the competitive, profit-driven system we call capitalism – a system effectively described by one commentator as ‘a scramble to sell our energies under conditions of duress and unfreedom’. We draw from all the evidence that such behaviour and such conditions can be overcome if we are willing to take the bull by the horns and decide, via collective and democratic political action, to establish and organise a society in which volunteering and cooperative, communal activity is the norm in every facet of life. Of course, despite the constraints of capitalism, a vast amount of such activity already takes place, not only in parkruns but across a whole range of endeavours. But socialism will provide the opportunity for us to fulfil our potential for cooperation not just in our spare time but as a way of organising the whole of society efficiently and effectively and giving us all lives that are enjoyable, meaningful and fulfilling and satisfy our deep-seated need for social interaction.

Howard Moss

The Forum: From Capitalism to Handicraft. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some Open Discussions.

Statements of difficulties, criticisms of our position, contributions upon any question of working-class interest, are invited. Members and non-members of the Party are alike welcome. Correspondents must, however, be as brief as possible, as bright as possible, and as direct as possible to the point.

Dear Sir,

The first of the Kautsky pamphlets published by your Party under the title of “From Handicraft to Capitalism,” treats in a masterly manner with the earlier stages of capitalist development, with the transformation of the sturdy handicraftsman, owning and controlling his own implements of industry, and producing for his own use and enjoyment, into the stunted, anaemic, flat-chested, narrow-gutted wage-slave, tending machinery which, although produced by labour, belongs to the master class, and turning out commodities for the world’s market, being permitted to consume a small fraction of the value of what he produces. Most of us are aware of recent developments in machinery, and can see quite easily the extent to which it is not only rendering it possible for the necessary labour to be performed by women and children instead of by men, but also making it easy to displace human labour, a displacement which is largely responsible for the acuteness of the unemployed question at this moment. Probably the time is not very far distant when such improvements will have been introduced as will make it quite easy for trained monkeys to do very much of the tending, and then—what is to happen to the bulk of the human race may perhaps form the subject of a discussion at a later date.

My object in writing now is to draw attention to a matter upon which I think some of your members as well as others claiming to be Socialists are taking a wrong turning—like the girl in the play. I know that, as a rule, they are wise enough not to be drawn into giving forth schemes or plans as to how this or that will be managed under Socialism, but content themselves with advocating the principle and pointing out that a people intelligent enough to declare the Socialist Republic will also be intelligent enough to settle in their own way any little questions which may seem difficult problems to some folk to-day. But I have sometimes heard it said that under Socialism we shall utilise the most scientific machinery for producing wealth, thus reducing the necessary human labour to the minimum and giving ample leisure to all. Now it occurs to me that there is here just a danger that under Socialism the people may be even greater victims of machine domination than they are to-day, and that all the joy in labour which William Morris so beautifully describes in your pamphlet “Art, Labour, and Socialism” will be conspicuous by its absence. Obviously, if under Socialism the test of the value of an improvement in machinery is to be its utility as a saver of human labour, many machines not now in use, because they are not savers of wages, will be taken advantage of. As no machinery can be run without organisation and strict discipline on the part of those concerned in its manipulation, it would seem that under Socialism there will not only be perpetuated that fetish of punctuality by which the profit mongers very naturally set such store, but that it will be seated upon even a higher throne than now. (The metaphor may be mixed but I think my meaning will be clear.) Now, is this desirable ? Are we to be “the touch the button” automatons which Edward Bellamy’s ”Looking Backward” depicts, or are we to be free men and free women, securing our livelihood in our own way ? Are we to be called to do our turn of machine minding by the shriek of the Government’s hooter, or are we to be allowed to have a “lay in” if we want it, pleasing ourselves as to how, when and where, if at all, we shall delve and spin?

I know, of course, some will say that in view of the leisure for all, possible only under Socialism, the slight restrictions upon individual liberty involved in punctually responding to the Government’s factory bell will be quite bearable and few will be found to grumble. Well, I think I shall be one of the few. After all, what is leisure and what should be employment ? They should both be synonymous terms for enjoyment. I take pleasure in pushing a plane and handling other implements associated with carpentry and cabinet-making. I may take three or four days to make a door which, with the aid of the most up-to-date and scientific machinery which is to be employed under Socialism could be produced, no doubt, in less than an hour. Am I to be compelled to forego the pleasure of producing my door by handicraft so that I may have “leisure” to do something I may be less inclined to ?

In my own particular case I know that when in health I require an outlet for my physical and mental powers. If I feel unfit for say, chopping wood (a favourite pastime of mine, but, of course, a waste of time when wood could be much more easily and expeditiously prepared for tho domestic hearth by machinery), if I don’t feel up to arguing with a Tariff Reformer or a Total Abstainer I know I’m not well, and I am certain I should feel damnably unwell if, under Socialism, I should be compelled to enter the Government factory at a particular time and to assist in producing articles by machinery which, if produced by handicraft would probably be superior in every respect, and which would certainly mean real leisure, that is, enjoyment to the producers.

Under Socialism there will be no parasites. There will, of course, be dependents. But as all the able bodied will be producers and as all useless labour will be avoided, the effort required to satisfy human needs will be so small that very little machinery will be needed. The tendency will be toward the “simple life” in production, in other words, as Society passed from Handicraft to Capitalism, so, in my opinion, it will revert to Handicraft after the transition stage from Capitalism to State Socialism. But I should like to hear the views of some member of the S.P.G.B.

Yours, etc.,

Kendrick Johns

_____________

Reply:

As the great Artemus has very forcefully pointed out, it is unwise to prophecy unless you knew. We do not know the precise form of organisation that will control industry in the Socialist Republic, nor the exact details of the working. We do not know whether the worker then, will be summoned to a factory by a State “hooter” or aroused from his slumbers by a direct electrical current established between the workshop and his bedpost. Not knowing, we do not prophecy. We only hold it highly improbable that the elimination of the conditions governing present day production for profit will leave the worker the slave of the machine. The manipulation of machinery in an atmosphere of comparative industrial liberty may well provide the manipulator with as great a joy as our correspondent can derive from the sight of a door growing slowly to recognisability under his hand—in four days. The machine is often a marvel of ingenuity, a veritable fairy story told in mechanics. Its control may easily be a dear delight. At the same time it is probable that the people of the Commonwealth may prefer a form of production, in special cases, that will allow the character of the worker to express itself more or less adequately in the work of his hand. Generally, however, we do not suppose that the worker then, will be prepared to relinquish the advantages of greater leisure that the machine offers—although he may occupy that leisure in some form of handicraftsmanship. Doubtless the present revolt against machine work is due to the crushing sense of the domination of the machine over the man—an inevitable result of the capitalist mode of production. Given the subserviency of the machine to the requirements of the man, and the whole aspect changes.

However this may be the subject is one we may well leave to the society of the future. A broader, saner view of productive processes and their relation to the life of the community will inevitably result from the removal of the restrictions that at present cramp the soul of the worker, and will reflect itself in the character of the product. It is a pleasing subject for speculation, anyhow, although the question of far greater and more immediate importance to us has to do with the education and organisation of the workers for the control of the means of their own livelihood. As to what they will do after then we do not pretend to have any particular knowledge. Nor is it a matter to worry about. They will doubtless make mistakes, but if they do they will have to bear the result of the error. Out of their experience they may be relied upon to, sooner or later, devise a means of satisfying their own desires within the means of their development. Then, at any rate, they will have the opportunity of profiting to the full from the lessons of their mistakes.

And that is all there is to it.—Ed. S.S.

The Future of Leisure (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The phrase “working for a living” suggests a distinction between working and living which most people accept. But if “working occupies five or six days a week and fifty weeks a year, how much “living” is left?

That was the challenging question put to readers of the “Radio Times” some little while ago, in describing a programme on “What is Work?” The question is of particular interest to socialists, who advocate a form of society in which such a distinction between working and living (or the division of living into work and leisure) will no longer be recognised.

The present division which exists for most people between their work and their leisure is the product of historical conditions. Probably the concept of leisure as something apart from and opposed to work was unknown in societies in which there was no privileged class. Some primitive people have no word for “work” —work is for them the expression of living. And even the class-divided Greek civilisation evolved no separate word for leisure—the word they used also meant “school.”

The handicraftsman and artisan received a certain satisfaction from the work they did. They made whole articles, and used their skill and inventiveness to overcome the difficulties which arose. They were really educated by their labour. But the manufacturing division of labour under Capitalism has changed all that. A large proportion of workers are relegated to monotonous machine-minding and office routine, and few are able to gain real satisfaction from their work.

Even those who do make things that are useful to people often do not gain the pleasure of a good job well done, because of the tyranny of clocking-in, speeding-up, and down-to-a-price quality of products. Capitalist and worker alike are dominated by the need to compete successfully with others, since failure means an end to their “living"—yet success is bought only at the price of orienting one's life to goals that are trivial and artificial instead of basic and real.

Leisure Class

The emergence of a class in society that is not compelled to participate in production coincided with the beginning of private ownership. A leisure class was the outgrowth of an early discrimination between employments, some being considered worthy (“exploit” by the males) and other unworthy (drudgery by the females).

“During the predatory culture labour comes to be associated in men’s habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of inferiority and, therefore, comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out. . . . In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence. . . . A life of leisure is the readiest and most conclusive evidence of pecuniary strength and, therefore, of superior force; provided always that the gentleman of leisure can live in manifest ease and comfort.”—(“The Theory of the Leisure Class” Veblen, p. 36-8.)

Yet the fact remains that work is the foundation of any society. Hence, the value of work to society should be its prime consideration. But because, within property society, the dominating ideas arise from people who need not toil, and because a substitute for satisfaction from work must be found for millions who know it only as an evil necessity, leisure becomes the supreme goal.

Employment is a necessity imposed upon all but a privileged few. Consequently there comes to be a divergence between the conditions of working “for a living” and the kind of life which is held out by supporters of the system as desirable. The message preached is that the end of life is idleness and enjoyment. But workers, having absorbed the message, must return to the factory or office to earn the money without which they cannot live.

Machinery of Amusement

The means of mass influence—press, cinema, radio and television—all focus attention on those aspects of our lives that have nothing to do with everyday tasks. People figure in the “news” who are notable only for having money and time to spend. The constant display of wealth and leisure as desirable ends influences the standards of those who seek an outlet to express themselves which the conditions of their work deny them.

Various factors have combined to oust the old family-gathering type of popular leisure—doing has given way to watching and listening. Probably the Victorian party-piece was not as happily endured as many would have us believe, nor is the advent of television the unmitigated evil that some suppose. Nevertheless, leisure has largely taken on the form of a commodity that is passively consumed rather than an experience that is actively enjoyed. As Henry Durant writes in “The Problem of Leisure":

“All forms of leisure have become commercialised, endless devices are offered to the idle person, each to be enjoyed only on condition that he has money to pay. Without money he is condemned, unable to share in the pleasure and pastimes which press on him from all sides. But commercialisation does not merely erect a gate through which only those with the necessary fee can pass. It has a profound effect also on the nature of the fare offered. The ’machinery of amusement’ is run by business men actuated by business motives. Their concern is not primarily with the character of the entertainment or amusement they provide, for it is merely the means to the end of making profits.”

The ways in which leisure is spent are unavoidably influenced by the prevailing conditions of employment. Take, for example, the workers on a belt system in a factory who, in the course of their work, use only a small part of their brain capacity and nervous system. To stave off monotony their off-duty hours are mostly spent in such feverish pleasures as speedway and the more hectic forms of dancing—and their nervous systems inevitably suffer.

When work lacks interest it is either forgotten altogether on “knocking off” or else it is the subject of grumbling. It is not complimentary to be told that you can never forget your work; and those who do take their socially useless work seriously often develop boring personalities and have few interests outside their daily occupations.

Self-expression

Here we can do no more than touch upon the various ways in which people search today for something different, something outside of their own drab existence. The cinema is an obvious example that springs to mind, but there are others that are not so often considered. All the preparations, the plans, the excitements and the ballyhoo that surrounded the recent Coronation surely demonstrate the emptiness of most people's everyday lives. And what of the weekly football pool coupon that excites study and comment out of all proportion to its importance? The punters are members of a Happy Circle, so they are told—and the atmosphere of mock geniality is shattered only when a court action is brought over winnings. Then it is admitted that the “Happy Circle" is just an advertising circular.

Some imagine that the socialist revolution either will or ought to bring a state of affairs where all will spend their leisure as the wealthy do now. Certainly the atmosphere in which they move is one to which the adjective “drab" hardly applies. Yet if you ask those who minister to the “needs" of the élite whether the latter really have the control over their environment that is the mark of free men, then the answer may surprise you. According to one writer, for instance, the rich take up gambling more or less because they are driven to it—they find they are “out of it" unless they join in roulette or whatever happens to be in vogue. And so they drift from one aimless diversion to another . . .

Whilst the first onset of mechanisation has taken all the joy from work, it may be predicted that its final result will be to return to human activities a freedom that is absent today. Man will then possess the machines and use them selectively, thus restoring dignity to all human occupations. Labour, in Marx's words, will be not merely a means to live, but itself the primary necessity of life.

Stan Parker

The Passing Show: Holiday Reckoning (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the July 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Holiday Reckoning 1.

The residents of Clacton had hardly gathered their wits after the Easter punch-ups, when Whitsun brought fresh outbreaks of teenage violence, but this time at Margate, Brighton and that paradise of retired army officers—Bournemouth. Margate was the worst afflicted, as hoards of “Mods” and “Rockers” descended on Dreamland and other parts and laid into each other without pity, egged on by their girl friends.

One aspect of these outbreaks which has alarmed the authorities is the contempt in which the warring youngsters held the police. “Here come the coppers; let's do ’em! ” was heard at one point and seems to sum up the prevailing attitude. It’s little wonder, then, that the coppers got just as tough and waded in with truncheons swinging. Neither is it surprising that heavy penalties were imposed by the courts on practically all those who were caught.

Just about as sickening was the spate of comments, excuses, call them what you will, in the press and elsewhere. Some people had blamed the poor weather and the lack of teenage amusement facilities at Clacton for the trouble there, but the same excuse could not be used for those which occurred at Whitsun. Nobody seemed to have any real grasp of why the violence had broken out and everybody was shocked and angered by it, forgetting that this was not the first trouble of its kind—neither is it likely to be the last.

When it came to suggesting ways of preventing it, we were treated to a rich variety of uselessness. The Evening Standard featured brief impromptu interviews with people in the street One young woman thought that confiscating their scooters and motorbikes would “immobilise the little horrors and soon put a stop to them,” as if there were no such things as buses and trains. (Anyway, what is to stop them from fighting at home if they want to?) Stiffer penalties, prison, birch and the inevitable “put ’em in the army for a spell’’—all were trotted out, and all equally futile. The army, after all, exists to do just this sort of thing, only on a bigger and more highly organised scale. There is another difference, of course. The army has the sanction of the government in particular, and society in general. When it knocks other people about, it is done in “the interests of peace” or “to establish the rule of law” or “to protect the territorial integrity ” of some puppet state or other. Yobbos do not enjoy such privilege.

We hold no brief for the Whitsun wild ones, but at the risk of being told to turn the record over and play the other side, we say again that they are the ugly product of an equally ugly society. In the main, they are members of the working class—that much is obvious, despite some of the inane suggestions about their supposed riches. Their homes are usually in the drabber and meaner parts of the big towns, and their everyday lives are generally in character with their surroundings. Like most of us, they have to face a monotonous, unfulfilling and insecure existence of going to work for a wage packet.

This faces them with all the associate problems, boredom not least of all. Not just the boredom of “nowhere to go in the evening” but the greater boredom which is part and parcel of the uninspiring life of a wage slave and which does, in fact, colour his every waking minute. If we are honest with ourselves, we will all admit this.

The remarks of some of the “ Mods’ birds” to Daily Mirror reporter Paula James the day after the fights, are illuminating.

Listen—it gives you a kick, a thrill. It makes you feel all funny inside. You get butterflies in your stomach and you want the boys to go on and on . . . You’ve got to get your kicks somehow. You’ve got to make up for all that boring time you're going to spend at work next week.

This, then, sums up their attitude. This, they think, will solve their problems— and the “kicks” have got to be extra hard to give them any pleasure at all. No use telling them that their problems will still be with them long after they are too old for kicks any more. Reefers, Purple Hearts, violence and noise are the empty pleasures they seek. No use telling them either of the broken health which lies only a short way ahead for many of them. The Mods’ birds have a reply to that, too:

We like life the way it is now. We want it to go on and on like this. . . . We want to live today. For here, for now, not next week.

They have yet to realise that they are really at the receiving end of the biggest kick of all, one that lands fairly and squarely on them, so long as they are members of the working class. All the bust-ups in the world won’t alter that. That is the real lesson they have to learn and until then Capitalism has the laugh which really matters.

Holiday Reckoning 2.

Whitsun was warm and sunny, the roads hot and smelly—and dangerous. It was estimated that about six million cars were on the move over the four days, mostly rushing to and from the holiday spots. A record number of cars and road deaths. At least eighty-four people lost their lives. In France the number was one less. Sweden, with seventeen, had its highest total for years.

There were the usual warnings and appeals from motoring organisations and Ministry of Transport Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chesham. Strange though it may sound, these might have had some effect. Apparently overall driving was better, but the relentlessly increasing volume of traffic has a counteracting effect. As The Guardian pointed out: “ The ultimate effect is that we are marching slowly backwards.”

This trite little statement seemed to illustrate neatly the mockery behind the whole problem of road traffic. In this and other countries, a great deal of motorway building has been going on, but the fastest road building does not seem to keep pace with the mounting number of vehicles. It is typical that only capitalism could produce such machines as the motor car, inefficient and unwieldy when viewed from the viewpoint of human interests and then plonk it onto a road system completely unable to cope with it. In addition, only Capitalism would have us all on a ball and chain, and then release us all at once for “a much needed break,” half of which is spent rushing “to get away from it all ” only to find that we have not really escaped, because everyone else has had the same idea.

Majorcan Holiday

Situated in the Mediterranean about five miles off the Spanish mainland, Majorca has become tremendously popular in recent years as a holiday centre. With its warm climate and beautiful rugged mountain scenery, it attracts tourists from many parts of the world. It is noted, amongst other things, for its cultivated pearls, its cathedral at Palma, and the Valldemosa monastery where Chopin stayed for just a few unhappy months.

Many workers manage a fortnight there by travelling tourist class on a “package holiday,” some spending most of the daylight hours lying on the beach frying themselves in the sizzling sunshine, concerned less with the benefits of sunlight than with getting a tan to take back home and show their friends. They may get heatstroke for their trouble, but the prestige of a golden brown skin is obviously considered worthy of the risk.

Despite the warmth and the comparatively relaxing atmosphere, it is interesting to note the number of people who, even there, never let down their guard for a moment. Here is the woman with pointed sunglasses and a loud affected voice, trailing an enormous dog behind her. Over there is the man who boasts constantly about his “good job” and high income and, most laughable of all, some of them even get patriotic about the English weather.

Their hotel is quite well appointed and perhaps this is what has gone to their heads a little. They seem to miss the point that it is by no means as exclusive as they like to think. For exclusiveness you go to another part of the island, such as Formentor, where the cheapest hotel room will cost you about six guineas a day, where the beaches are superb and serene in their peacefulness. It is the playground of royal families and other rich types.

Some of the better-off have settled in Majorca and live the usual life of ease associated with their wealth. But for most Majorcans it is the usual story of working for a wage packet as a means of living. This is the lesson which stands out just as much among the beauty of the Balearics as it does amongst the dirt and bustle of London.

Eddie Critchfield

Blogger's Note:

A short Panorama video about Mods and Rockers from 1964 gives you a flavour of the period. Failing that, you can always check out Sting as a Bell Boy.

Progress perverted (2024)

Book Review from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Work. A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time. By Helen Hester & Nick Srnicek. Verso, 2023. 282pp.

A key concept in this book is ‘social reproduction’. What the authors mean by this is work in areas such as healthcare, education, catering and social services, as well as the essential, ‘unpaid’ work people do outside of the workplace and largely at home (cooking, caring, cleaning, etc.). They examine the contribution of this kind of work to keeping human society operating across the whole range of other work taking place in the production and distribution of goods and services. Their approach to this is to trace the evolving history of that social reproduction, in particular as it has operated in the domestic sphere over the last century and a half, the influence on it of advancing technology (eg electricity, gas, sewerage, running water, waste removal), and the changes in attitudes and expectations this has brought about. Referring to themselves as ‘socialist republicans’, they devote the final chapter of their book to examining what the future might hold for social reproduction and the home generally, especially in an imagined new social context referred to variously as ‘post-work’, ‘post-capitalism’ or ‘post-scarcity’.

This is a detailed many-faceted exposition which draws upon multiple sources and studies. They point to how capitalism forces many workers ‘to waste precious hours of their lives on work that is neither stimulating, creative nor productive’, how much of the ‘free time’ spent at home is taken up with unsatisfying chores, especially for women, and how wasteful (‘a colossal squandering of human time, effort and labour’) is the organisation of people into atomised individual housing units which makes each person or family continually repeat activities such as cooking, laundering, washing up and cleaning rather than save energy, time and trouble by making communal activities of them. In their analysis of how the organisation of work and home in capitalist society presents obstacles to activity that satisfies individuals’ needs and talents, they also point tellingly to how, in ways we will all recognise, technology, ‘rather than reducing the amount of time spent on work …more often than not … seems to lead to more work’, while, if the social conditions were different, that same technology could ‘serve as an ally in the quest for temporal autonomy and for the recognition, redistribution and reduction of reproductive labour’.

It is in their final chapter, entitled ‘After Work’, that they put the most detailed flesh on what they consider could, given the right social conditions, constitute truly fulfilling non-coercive progress for human society. After offering a thoroughly recognisable picture of work under capitalism (eg, ‘the majority of us must give up forty hours or more per week in exchange for survival, typically selecting from a narrow range of possible jobs where decisions over what we do on a daily basis ultimately lie outside of our hands’), they talk about how ‘real freedom requires the absence of domination’, which currently workers are subject to both from their bosses and from impersonal market forces, while what is needed is for work to become ‘the focus of more freely chosen commitments’. What do they envisage? While not claiming to offer a ‘sketch’ rather than a blueprint, they look, for example, to ‘a free time infrastructure’ where ‘people have opportunities to develop their capacities and pursue collective projects’ with ‘infinite possibilities for human interaction’. They look to provision of ‘non-nuclear living arrangements’ with ‘more experimental models of early years care’. They look to communities being ‘turned from passive recipients of technologies into networks of active creators’. And, commendably, all this is envisaged as being within a framework of ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’.

There is, however, is a key criticism to be made of the way this ‘imaginary’ (a word frequently used by the authors) is presented, in that it all seems to be seen as doable within the framework of the current society of money and wages, buying and selling and government control – in other words within the market system which the book has previously and quite rightly condemned as drastically limiting personal and social freedoms. So, for example: it expresses support for ‘government policies’ aiming ‘to provide support for public and community-based systems of care; ’it talks of ‘a free time infrastructure’ that provides ‘free museums’ and ‘free school meals and breakfast clubs’ for children’ – implying of course the continuation of overall social transactions via money; and, even more explicitly, it advocates ‘decent wages and better conditions for domestic workers’. In other words everything it commends is envisaged as happening via government action within the money system and without – or at least prior to — the establishment of the society of voluntary work, democratic control and free access to all goods and services that is the very essence of socialism. This seems to indicate a failure on the part of the authors, despite their obviously positive intentions and explicit aspiration for the ‘construction of a better world’, to accept that, so long as we have a system of governments overseeing the money and wages system, that system itself will not allow well intentioned reforms to come to fruition willy-nilly and any reforms that do get enacted can just as easily be reversed if those ‘impersonal market forces’ they refer to dictate it.

So, while there is much to reflect on here in terms of the kind of life that might be possible if workers were set free from ‘the realm of necessity’ that capitalism imposes, a good deal of that will only be feasible once workers in a majority take the necessary political action – ideally via the ballot box – to do away with governments and with money, wages and profit and cooperatively organise society. The Socialist Party is sometimes – unfairly — called ‘utopian’ for advocating this, but the true utopianism lies in trying to somehow see as possible true freedom in work and association within the framework of a social and economic system that by definition cannot allow it.

Howard Moss

Sting in the Tail: Perm x from No. 11 (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perm x from No. 11

It has recently been reported that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a keen football pools investor.

We can only hope that he is a little bit more gifted in his pools forecasting efforts than in his budget forecasts.

For example in his budget of 1988 he confidently forecast that the inflation rate over the coming year would be 4 per cent and that the balance of payments deficit would be £4 billion.

In fact the inflation rate has turned out to be double his forecast and the balance of payments was more than treble his forecast.

Mr. Lawson received a terrible drubbing from his critics so his latest forecast is a little less confident. According to The Independent (11 April):

But Mr. Lawson was less certain of his predictions that the current account deficit would remain at £14.5 billion. The forecast, he said was "a genuine best guess" but "we Just simply don't know" whether It would be achieved.

In Mr. Lawson's defence it can be argued that the vagaries of form of Fulham or Partick Thistle are models of consistency compared to the unpredictability of the capitalist market place.

Libertarian?

Here's an interesting little publication from the Libertarian Alliance: Brian Micklethwait on Why I Support The Contras.

When it comes to fighting Communism, the most important rule is: win . . . it may well, for example, be unwise for the Contras to get caught torturing people, on the grounds that this hurts their support In Congress. But the answer is not for the Contras to surrender: It is for them to fight smarter and not get caught torturing people. If they can fight successfully without torturing people at all, then they should do that as well.

In Sickness and Health

In an attempt to generate funds the Mid-Glamorgan Health Authority has come up with a nice little earner.

According to a report in The Independent 11 April:

After shopping mails and one-armed bandits, contraception machines and the sale of puzzles and games to placate patients during the long wait in casualty, the NHS Is about to add another wheeze to the ranks of Its schemes for generating extra income — the car salesman.

Health is just another commodity Inside capitalism. If you have the money you can afford the £1,000 per night London Clinic, If not you can take your chance In the queue at some under-funded public hospital.

Red Sales in the Smart Set

Andrei Fyodorov lives in Moscow and his ambition is to become an old fashioned capitalist. He is all for the freedom of market forces, and is a real Russian Thatcherite. 

At present he is merely the manager of Moscow's first co-operative restaurant but he is about to branch into sales of computers and imported liquor. He also has a joint venture with Spanish businessmen to open a Spanish restaurant in Moscow and a Russian one in Barcelona.

His answer to complaints that his prices are too high is that he is in a monopoly situation and, like a good free marketeer, will charge whatever he can get away with.

Yet he is not a happy man, for although his workers have some shares in the business they don't work any harder than the ones he knew when he managed a state-controlled hotel.

But Fyodorov is no fool. He recognises that Russia is a long way from becoming a western-style economy because the workers cannot throw off overnight the anti free market history of the last 70 years.

He explains in The Guardian:

Millions of people in this country are against the market. They're afraid of prices going up. They fear inflation. They're against private enterprise because it’s a violation of socialism. Yet we don’t know what socialism is. It certainly doesn't exist here.

As we said, Andrei Is no fool.

Fyodorov and his like are as yet an insignificant force in Russia, but unless the die-hard central planners within Russia's ruling class manage to topple the dominant Gorbachev faction then these would-be capitalists will surely grow in wealth and seek a share in political power.

Holiday Planning

Last year the package holiday operators drew up their brochures for 1989. Thomson's, the biggest operator with 40 per cent of the market, estimated that the market would grow by 10 per cent but now find that It has SHRUNK by 10 per cent.

So Thomson's and its subsidiaries have cancelled around one million of their advertised holidays and some trade estimates put the number of cancellations by all the operators at two million, about 16 per cent of the total market.

Why did this happen? Well, the mild winter means that people don't have the same determination to "get some sun” when the holidays come round, and the big increase in interest rates for mortgages and personal borrowing ensures that many people will simply be unable to afford a holiday.

What it adds up to is that the anarchy of the market has triumphed once again. When the brochures were drawn up interest rates were much lower and the consumer spending spree was in full swing. Also, no one could forecast with any certainty what kind of winter we would be getting. True, the operators have their "experts" who try to take these and other factors into account but really, all they can do is make a guess and then hope.

But now that they've cancelled all those bedrooms in Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, etc., what if we get a cold wet June or people make a late decision to get away after all? They will be clamouring for a holiday in the sun but the operators will be unable to supply them.

What was that about the perfectability of the market?

Work and Leisure (1955)

From the June 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Leisure," he said, “if people only knew: Its the most precious thing a man can have and they are such fools they don't even know its something to aim at. Work? They work for work's sake. They haven't got the brains to realise that the only object of work is to obtain leisure."

“Most people, the vast majority in fact, lead the lives that circumstances have thrust upon them, and though some repine, find themselves square pegs in round holes and think that if things had been different they might have made a much better showing. The greater part accept their lot, if not with serenity, at all events with resignation. They are like tramcars travelling for ever on the self-same rails. They go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards inevitably till they can no longer and then are sold as scrap iron.   . . ."

(From “The Lotus Eater," by Somerset Maugham.)

Clubbable (2024)

Book Review from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clubland: How the Working Men’s Club Shaped Britain. By Pete Brown. Harper North £10.99.

The author describes working men’s clubs as ‘the biggest ever working-class social movement’. He provides an entertaining description of their history, enlivened by accounts of visits to specific clubs. One of these is the Red Shed in Wakefield, where the Wakefield Socialist History Group has hosted talks by Socialist Party speakers.

Clubs originated under paternalistic attitudes of people who wanted to provide male workers (industrial workers, originally) with an alternative to the pub. The Club and Institute Union (CIU) was established in 1862, and had a number of rich and often aristocratic patrons. Gradually, though, clubs became more democratic, run by committees of their own members, and in many cases it was the members who maintained and refurbished the buildings, without being paid for this work.

Clubs benefited from the licensing laws that applied to pubs but not to private clubs. They were not just about serving beer, as they also provided facilities such as snooker tables, reading rooms, concerts and lectures by invited speakers. In 1887 William Morris spoke on ‘Monopoly’ at the Borough of Hackney Club, but was taken aback at all the coming and going in the audience, waiters serving food and so on. Brown describes the Bloody Sunday demonstration that year, which was attacked by the police, as being held by ‘the London radical clubs’ (though some accounts mention others that contributed to organising it). Political activity gradually shifted to other locations, however. Many well-known names began their careers performing in clubs, such as singer Tom Jones, racist ‘comedian’ Bernard Manning and snooker-player Steve Davis.

An obvious question is the status of and attitudes to women in these working men’s clubs. Women were originally not allowed to join, but gradually things began to change and by the 1950s most clubs had ‘lady members’. The clubs could hardly survive without the income from and practical contributions by women, but it was only in 2007 that women achieved equal rights in clubs, after various campaigns and shortly before the 2010 Equalities Act. Bingo made clubs even more appealing to women.

The clubs have of course had their ups and downs over the years. The breathalyser and the smoking ban hit attendance and bar takings. Musical styles such as glam rock and punk were hardly suitable for them. In 1922 there were 1,150,000 members in over two thousand clubs. Nowadays 1500 clubs are affiliated to the CIU, with around a million members, though there are also clubs which are unaffiliated. The north-east of England is ‘the undisputed heart of clubland’.

An informative account of an institution that figures little in most social histories.

Paul Bennett

Mass Production and Mass Minds (1954)

From the October 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Have we developed a mass-mind as a result of the development and extension of mass production? There certainly seems evidence to support the contention. Mass-production has not only affected the factory worker but also the office workers, who now normally specialize in one small part of the accounting system, as invoice typists, comptometer operators, filing clerks, etc. Again with the extension of the multiple shop and departmental store the assistants now spend their working lives handling a very limited range of commodities. This trend towards greater degrees of specialization is consistently the case throughout society and seems to keep in step with the development of mass production.

Fifty years ago, a man’s occupation could be fairly accurately guessed by a glance at his clothes. The navvy wearing corduroys and with his lunch wrapped up in a spotted red handkerchief, the workman with a choker round his neck, the farm labourer with his distinctive dress, the cab driver, etc. Their occupations could be easily seen. But with the development of mass-production it would seem as if our tastes are similarly affected. Choice of clothes, for instance, seems to have become standardised. The felt hat, collar and tie, are worn by men irrespective of whether they have a “white-collar job.” Even the differences of dress between national groups have largely been obliterated. When we are in the cinema we find difficulty in guessing the nationality of men and women we see' in the new films by reference to the clothes they are wearing.

Millions choose the same leisure-time occupation of filling in football pool coupons. Holiday camps where many of the amusements remind one of a factory are becoming the thing for a growing number of people. The most widely read newspapers are those that could be criticized most. Book-printing has become a mass-production business turning out large numbers of escapist publications with a mushroom like existence. In this trade an author has a number of noms-de-plume. Under each one he writes a constant stream of books which are but variations of a single theme which his readers have come to expect

All of which seems to underline the charge that the last 50 years of technical development have succeeded in creating a population who think en masse. This is not merely a national phenomenon but applies to the whole world of capitalism. It would seem at first sight as if the group herd instinct of primitive man has developed into a world-wide herd instinct

But further examination of the subject may make us form a different diagnosis of this developing pattern of human behaviour.

There was a time when primitive man was unable to identify himself apart from the herd. Then there were taboos. Experience in the form of continual sickness or death of the members of a tribe living in a certain place might indicate that such an area was unhealthy and, without understanding the reasons for such calamities, the tribe would institute a taboo preventing their people from living in the area. The reason for this prohibition would in the passage of time be forgotten and the taboo would then assume a magical significance. By the method of trial and error taboos were enforced without the need for thought. But contrast this state of affairs with what goes on to-day. Ask any worker why he is interested in football pools and he will probably make a reasoned and logical statement to the effect that he could badly do with the prize money that is offered and that this is about the only chance he has of acquiring such wealth. Moreover interest in football results create a hobby for him, perhaps the only one he considers he can afford. It will also be apparent that an individual decision was made to “invest in” the pools in each case and that that decision was reached only after some thought. The mass-produced newspapers clinch the argument of the existence of the mass-mind as far as some are concerned but if the contents of the papers that were read 50 years ago were compared with those of today perhaps different conclusions would be reached. For instance, the argument used then to rally working-class support for war was crude and jingoistic. But now the workers are called upon to defend trade union rights and democracy against the dictators who are represented as enemies of the working-class. The ruling-class, in the arguments that they use now today in their newspapers, pay tribute to the advanced level of working class power of thought.

As regards the books that are read, while it is true that a vast quantity of escapist material is printed, it may come as a shock of surprise—and pleasure—to learn that the classics have a popularity nearly as great, as The Times of 28/11/52 points out. This trend has been stimulated by the reprints that mass production has turned out at low prices. There is in addition a great sale of scientific and instructional books of which many have been best sellers. Even popular magazines, which are so criticised by the pessimists, are found to contain instructional and scientific articles covering a wide range of subjects. Fifty years ago such articles would have appeared only in the technical journals of that particular field of science. These popular magazines, which look like proof of a mass-mind, are really evidence of spreading interest among the people.

If 100,000 people are ready to buy a book on the nature of the universe, there is a mass demand at the bookshops. This mass demand is not a proof of falling standards; it means that thousands are being educated, who, 50 years ago would have been left in the illiterate mass.

Minds are creative, mankind today thinks, and thoughts cannot permanently be suppressed by dictators, concentration camps or lying ruling-class propaganda. People are educated primarily to think for the purpose of making them more efficient wage-slaves but the process does not stop there.

Fifty years of technical development have surely had an effect on the mentality of man, but the change that is taking place may well encourage the efforts of the Socialist movement.

Frank Offord

Life and Times: Nice twist, keep them happy – and screw them at the same time (2023)

The Life and Times column from the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

As summer drew to a close, an open-air concert was held in the large park in South Wales close to where I live. The star of the show was the singer and social media personality, Sam Ryder, who last year represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. Sam is popular and the tickets, some of them costing £70, went like hot cakes. The trouble was that the crowd didn’t get quite what they expected.

Squashed like sardines

First of all it poured down, so torrential rain and umbrellas made it difficult for fans to get a proper view of what was happening on stage. And then, even in the sheltered VIP area, people, so the local paper reported, were ‘squashed in like sardines’, with one fan quoted as saying: ‘This half-baked shelter resembled an emergency station rather than anything remotely resembling a VIP marquee’. It was an extra £50 if fans wanted a ‘sunbed’ there, from which, in the words of one of them, ‘you got insane views of the stage – you could barely see it’. And the price of refreshments shocked some – £10 for a can of flavoured vodka, £12 for a bag of chips and £40 for a bottle of wine (you couldn’t buy a glass). The only concession – don’t laugh now – was that entry was free for children under two.

A substitute for life?

So it was essentially a money-making enterprise, or, as one soaked-through, disgruntled fan put it, ‘profiteering plain and simple’. But why did people go? And why do people keep going to these events put on by the ‘entertainment industry’, which so often result in disappointment and dissatisfaction? One commentator has said that it’s an integral part of a system that sells ‘weekend thrills’ to people who have to spend most of their working hours engaged in activity (ie, employment) that they find neither fulfilling nor meaningful. On that reckoning, it’s an attempt to substitute for the lack of interest, meaning and satisfaction workers derive from the job they’re obliged to do to survive where they’re regarded as a resource in the money-making machine rather than appreciated as a social asset.

And, if this is the case for music gigs, the same could be said about the various sports events, again mainly organised at weekends, where baying crowds shout their lungs out and seem almost to lose their heads when the team they support plays well, scores a goal or a try or wins a match. An extreme example of this was the wild celebrations that took place in Naples at the end of the last football season after its team won the Italian league title, which led to over 200 people ending up in casualty units, more than 20 of them with critical injuries.

Is this all a foil for the normal docility, the unquestioning acceptance associated with the subservient lives most people lead, tied as they are to the absolute necessity of spending most of their waking hours in a job despite the fact that the income it gives them will very likely be peanuts compared to the pay received by those they worship on the stage or sports field?

A substitute for God?

Or another explanation may be one that a former work colleague of mine used to proffer, which was that going to the stadium on Saturdays to support your local football team is a substitute for something that had now gone out of fashion – going to church. The argument went that it offered people the same kind of oblivion past generations found in worshipping a god or a divinity, with the star footballer or the pop musician a replacement for this. This also stood in as a replacement for lack of opportunity to express their own talents freely in their daily lives and offered some kind of exhilaration that was not available in the existence they were tied to. My colleague usually added the less negative point that this weekend activity also served the purpose of bringing people together in a common pursuit and even giving them some kind of spiritual focus. Not of course that there seems to have been very much that was spiritual in the debacle of that concert in my local park or in the rivalry between opposing fans often played out both in and around football grounds.

Do we need celebrity?

Of course, there’s no reason why people shouldn’t take pleasure in and appreciate the artistry involved in producing music (of whatever kind) or the skills exhibited by talented sports people. And it is possible to do this – and many do – without the displays of worshipful admiration for their heroes shown by pop concert goers or the near fanatical passion of fans at sports events. Only a pity that, under the system we live in, many others are unable to see beyond attachment to heroes, to fanatical fandom, to worship of celebrity.

In a different kind of society, the kind that we advocate and campaign for, it goes without saying people will have the freedom of choice and the ability to use their talents to the full without being prey to the whims or the dictates of a boss, a production target to be reached, or the next twist and turn of the market. In that society there will no doubt be respect, even admiration, for the special talents and abilities of others. But celebrity there won’t be any need for, since people will be their own celebrities.

Howard Moss