Diary of a Capitalist (1978)

The Diary of a Capitalist column from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sunday

Christmas will soon be here again. The problem of presents becomes harder the richer one gets; almost all one’s acquaintances have got everything they could reasonably want anyway, so what on earth does one buy them? I was reminded of my Christmas shopping two years ago by finding a brochure showing some of the things one could buy at Christmas 1976. I bought several of the things illustrated—for despite what I just wrote, there are always various young persons around who are very ready to show their gratitude in return for one’s generosity. One young friend of mine told me she’d taken up cycling for her figure, so I bought her the Austro-Daimler Ultima Superleicht. advertised as the world’s most expensive bicycle, for £600; and to go with it, a pair of gold cycle clips, each inset with a diamond, for £1200 the pair. Along with a Baignoire gold wristwatch, £700, they made a nice little parcel on the handlebars of the bike. For another close friend I got an eighteen-carat gold cigarette lighter with a diamond-studded top. which cost £5000 from Cartiers.

This year, of course, after two more years of inflation, little gifts like that could be quite expensive.

Monday

Talking of inflation, some newspaper and TV commentators speak of it as if it were an unaccountable visitation, perhaps supernaturally inflicted on us to punish us for our sins. In fact our inflation, and its exact degree from year to year, is decided by successive Governments when they arrange how large the money issue will be. An increase in the money in circulation means inflation; a greater increase means greater inflation. If the money issue was held steady, there could be no inflation; while if it was diminished, there would be deflation.

Politicians prefer a certain amount of inflation because they believe it prevents the unemployment figures getting higher still, which would be a drawback electorally.

As an individual capitalist, however, I can see that one of the main benefits of inflation to me and those like me is that it inflicts an automatic wage-cut on every employee every year: 10 per cent inflation, 10 per cent wage-cut, 15 per cent inflation, 15 per cent wage-cut, and so on. The workers try to increase the nominal value of their pay to maintain its real value; so they can always be depicted in the media as greedy, grasping, never satisfied. In the 1920s, there was actually deflation. Employers naturally tried to reduce the nominal amount of wages in order to prevent their real value continually rising. In those days it was easier to depict the employers as greedy, heartless Scrooges. It was one such attempt to cut wages in this old-fashioned way, in 1926, by reducing the miners’ pay and then locking them out when they refused to accept the reduction, which led to the General Strike. (It’s very satisfying, incidentally, to see that many of the history books call the miners’ lock-out a strike; showing that historians like to keep the appropriate ruling-class propaganda in their accounts even when it is easily shown to be factually inaccurate.) We defeated the General Strike, of course, but it was very unpleasant while it lasted. Now we have a way to force a wage-cut on every one, not only on selected industries, every year, even every month; and some innocent "experts’’ wonder why inflation has continued without abatement since the 1930s.

Do they think the ruling class are all fools?

Tuesday

One enjoyable way to spend one’s profits is in buying a boat and cruising our coastal waters. One chum of mine, Byron Alexander, a successful businessman with three companies and a luxurious house in Chalfont St Giles, has bought a £40,000 twin-engined cruiser; it has £6000-worth of electronic gadgetry on board, and he keeps it at Hamble on Southampton Water. Every weekend he drives down there in his Rolls, and acts as a voluntary auxiliary coastguard. "I am in the fortunate position of being able to do what I want”, he told a reporter (Daily Mail, 12.4.78). "Some people in my position would build a model railway or just spend their money on enjoying themselves. I prefer doing this. It’s my hobby.’’

The cruiser costs about £11,000 a year to operate.

Wednesday

Met Lady Compton this morning. She told me she "has rejected London life and men to concentrate on three-day eventing (like Princess Anne)” (Evening News, 31.8.78). She was divorced not long ago from Lord Compton, who has since succeeded as Marquis of Northampton. She was his second wife, and she got a “generous six-figure divorce settlement”. However, the marquis has enough left; he is worth £20 million.

This afternoon went to Sotheby’s, and bought a double magnum of 1870 port for £280. A chap I knew at school got a magnum of 1811 cognac for £520 (Daily Telegraph, 30.9.78). I could never touch some of the cheap wines and spirits that ordinary people seem to buy. I suppose they enjoy them; not everyone can have an educated palate like mine.

Thursday

People have been making a fuss over Lord (Lew) Grade’s pay-rise from £59,500 a year to over £200.000, and Tiny Rowland’s from £70,000 to £80,000. Rowland’s increase has been contrasted with the way Lonrho (Rowland’s group of companies) treated a caretaker. Lonrho sold off 24 of a block of 48 flats they owned in Islington for £128.000; and then reduced the caretaker's pay (he also had accommodation. light, and heat from £25.50 to £12.50 (Sunday Mirror, 20.8.78). Grumbles have been heard that the rises self-awarded to Grade and Rowland don't square with the Government’s guide-lines. Why can’t people realise that the Government was intending to control the workers, not the capitalists?

In my own case, my ostensible income, which I report to the tax authorities, is only part of my real gains from my businesses: the rest comes from all kinds of perks within the company, week-ends at country “conference centres” near grouse moors, travelling overseas to foreign trade shows in say Switzerland or Florida (who knows how often you attend?) and so on.

Friday

The widow of Leo Bodmer has disappeared in unusual circumstances. I knew Leo years ago—he was president of a Swiss newspaper, and a director of an engineering group. Since Leo’s death, his widow Iris has been living at the Palace Hotel in Lausanne (Sunday Times, 23.7.78). Then she decided to go on the QE2. on a cruise it was making from New York via the Panama Canal and Tahiti to Tasmania and Australia, then returning via Hong Kong. Yokohama and Honolulu to San Francisco. She flew to New York, and stayed at the Plaza Hotel while she booked her ticket. Prices for the cruise went up to £88,500, plus extras, for a duplex penthouse; Mrs Bodmer paid only £4700 for the first part of the voyage, to Sydney. She enjoyed it. and paid another £5700 to go on to Honolulu. She had with her 18 trunks for her possessions, including fur coats and jewellery. On special occasions ‘‘she would don a million dollars’ worth of jewellery. Sometimes it was the pearl necklaces, sometimes the rubies-and- diamonds."

When the QE2 was nearly at Honolulu, Iris Bodmer disappeared. The maid who came to call her one morning found her cabin empty, and her bed not slept in. Most of her gems she had put in a safe-deposit box on board, but apparently not all of them.

No trace of her has been found since. The Swiss authorities have failed to discover any relative who might inherit the Bodmer fortune. Police enquiries have been no more than tentative; Mrs Bodmer was a Swiss national, in a British ship, approaching American waters. None of the three national authorities involved appears to have made a thorough investigation. The ruling classes of different states must obviously be rivals of each other, whether in peace-time economic competition or open war; but surely they should be able to co-operate in a matter such as this

Saturday

Two peers among my acquaintances have both gone into the restaurant business—Viscount Newport and Baron Burghersh. They have both decided to expand, and open new premises in Beverly Hills, California. Burghersh is going to fly over a hundred friends for the inauguration of his new venture some time next year (Evening News, 31.8.78). I’m expecting my invitation any day now.

I saw an advertising brochure for The Times recently, and it claims there were 155,000 Times readers who took three or more holidays every year. If the people who go round making the necessary interviews ever come to me, should I include jaunts like this one in my “holidays”—flying 6000 miles to join in the junketings when a new business venture opens?

I don’t think I would count it. After all. when you look at it carefully, it’s just a business trip to promote a new venture, isn’t it?

Alwyn Edgar

Low Life in High Places: The Political Scandals (1973)

From the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our politicians have recently been looking rather like a man who has found the first flakes of dry rot in his house and who knows that as he crumbles away each piece of dead wood he will reveal more and more damage. The uncovering of scandalous goings on in high places has caused some excited voices to ask whether capitalism is being undermined by its own rottenness. Journalistic fashion, which at other times can be preoccupied with war, or crime, or economic crises, now luxuriates in stories of secret cameras and microphones and boardroom deals.

Watergate, of course, is the hottest piece of scandal, with its insight into the muscle tactics of American politics. Over here we have no Watergate, only Lambton and Jellicoe who show how capitalism’s rulers do not always keep to the standards of conduct they like to lay down for the rest of us. The Poulson case has revealed something of how firms can win contracts and influence people. The News of the World’s tireless muckraking has helped in turning up the BBC payola case, which promises to let us in on the well-known secret that although we may pay our money we do not necessarily take our choice. (America also has a payola scandal, but to the relief of its participants it is crowded off the front pages by Watergate.) Lonrho will go down in the history of British boardrooms as an example of how to succeed in business without really trying.

A big tax evasion scandal is about to break in France, which may involve a couple of hundred companies in accusations of fraudulent operations. In Germany there are rumblings that the hero of the left, Chancellor Brandt, held on to his office last year only by bribing a deputy to change his vote in Brandt’s favour.

We Never Closed

Now the surprising thing about all of this is that it is so surprising. Scandals are exposed only intermittently but the evidence is that they are happening all the time; there is always some group or individual who is trying to steal a march on the rest of the ruling class by bending the rules.

As anyone who has heard of Mayor Daley knows, American politics are almost synonymous with corruption. It was never established whether Kennedy did get his microscopic majority over Nixon in 1960 by virtue of a bit of vote-fixing in Illinois. At any rate, the Kennedys were probably too smart to allow themselves to be connected with any such dealings. Kennedy’s successor Johnson came into power on a cloud of suspicion over his connection with Bobby Baker, whose career included manipulated government contracts, questionable bank deals, diversion of party funds and the employment of the services of call-girls as a gainful investment. Johnson denied any suggestions that he was involved and while his one time protégé floundered in miserable exposures the great wheel-and- dealer president lived to fight and win another day.

How is it with the Empire ?

Rumour has it that things are more gentlemanly in England; or is it that British workers suffer from a different strain of gullibility? Remember, for example, Horatio Bottomley, who swindled his way into and out of several fortunes before he overstepped even the bounds of working class hero-worship. Bottomley’s first swindle was pulled off in the 1890’s but during the 1914/18 war the workers queued in their thousands to join up after hearing one of his famous recruiting speeches. He carried on during the war, while the men he had recruited died in the trenches, and afterwards, rooking rich and poor until it all caught up with him and he went to prison in 1922. Bottomley’s fall was not quite the distressful event it might have been for his admirers, because he had already been through the courts many times. Indeed, it was his success in these cases which made his enemies wary of challenging him; he once tried to bribe someone into taking out a hopeless action against him, to reinforce his reputation for legal invincibility.

Perhaps Bottomley picked up some tips from that other great popular man of the people, Edward VII, who resembled him in many ways — gross, vulgar, audacious and with enough sensual fixations to satisfy the most fervent Freudian analyst. Edward, especially while he was Prince of Wales, gambled, ran up debts, ate massively and indulged a copious and wide ranging sexual appetite, which landed him in scandals in which his only protection was his eminence. On at least one occasion he was the subject of a successful blackmail. None of this prevented him, when he became king in 1902, assuming the leadership of a church which instructs workers that of all sins the deadliest is sexual deviance. It even gave him a mild popularity with some of the workers who suffered deprivation in such bitter contrast to Edward’s vulgar opulence; they thought well of him for his racehorses, for what they called his sportsmanship and — more incredible than all — for his common touch.

Spies and Ribaldry

Under the memory of Edward VII Lambton and Jellicoe are small fry. It was perhaps their misfortune that their exposure, coming just ten years after the Profumo affair, should revive that episode. Profumo, the War Minister who became involved with an expensive prostitute called Christine Keeler, committed his indiscretions at an especially unfavourable time. When Edward VII was stamping the brothels British capitalism was powerful, secure. In 1963 it was a different story and much of Prime Minister Macmillan’s time was taken up with trying to persuade his followers to accept the reality of the decline of British power. It was a popular fantasy, to which the Labour Party was as attached as were the Tories, that British capitalism had secrets which powerful rivals like Russia were itching to steal. That was partly why the Foreign Office spy Vassall got as much as 18 years for allowing himself to be blackmailed into passing information and why soon after there was such a wave of hysteria over Profumo who was said to be, among other things, a security risk.

What memorable summer days they were, with ministers each week awaiting with dread the latest instalment of Christine Keeler’s story, the endless jokes and with the Daily Mirror, feeding the notion that the scandal reached to the peaks of society, suggesting that Prince Philip was involved by the simple ruse of publishing an outraged denial. Somewhere there had to be a halt and in the end the British ruling class took their revenge upon Stephen Ward, the toady who had introduced Profumo to Keeler. Ward was abandoned, then destroyed, by his influential friends — an ending with its own tragic but typical irony.

Privilege

That dirty episode was representative of a social system which cannot come clean. Capitalism has rules which are moulded by the privileged interests of the property-owning minority. It is a society in which there can be no general harmony of interests, in which agreements are signified by the knife in the back, the foot on the neck. Within the privileged minority there are other minorities continually forming, attempting to seize extra privileges and to bend the rules in their own favour. To some extent these are accepted and contained by the rest of the ruling class; it is when they overstep the limits of prudence and become a threat to capitalism’s public face that they have to be dealt with.

Watergate, unsavoury as it is, is no worse than the everyday usage of capitalist politics, which could not continue without a succession of consciously formulated deceptions upon the working class. During the presidential election last year the American workers were aware of a lot of what was involved in the Watergate scandal, yet they gave Nixon an historical vote of confidence — because he promised them, if anything, a more controlled and repressive capitalism and wrapped it all up in the familiar smooth avowals of the used-car salesman.

The Lambton affair has demonstrated little beyond the fact that the privileges of the ruling class extend into all aspects of human life. Lambton himself (Daily Telegraph 21 June 1973) justified it in a predictably audacious way:

. . . men with great ambitions also had a strong sexual urge that was not satisfied easily.

If such men were limited and ordered to be irreproachable, there was a danger of the creation of the power élite. This would undermine the the fundamental purpose of democracy.

And he rubbed in his advantage, when the scandal broke, by holing up in an expensive hideaway. Workers who are caught in similar tangles have no such relief available to them; they have to sort out their personal and emotional difficulties at the same time as they cope with the drudgery of housework, of the office or the relentless production line.

Smoothing it Over

Heath tried to salvage something from the Lonrho affair, which showed up another aspect of privilege, by making his instantly famous remark about the "unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.” There are no reports of him choking on the words. The shareholders displayed their feelings by packing the company’s special general meeting and enthusiastically supporting the management policies, big handouts, tax avoidance and all, simply because they had produced big dividends. That is the normal face of capitalism, much more logical than Heath’s pathetic attempt to humbug his way out of the matter. The Tory leader, like any other politician, can accept any face of capitalism without a thought for the savagery of its exploitation. Beside that, there are no grounds for objecting to some company directors fiddling a few hundred thousand on the side.

In one way Heath was pointing to a danger in the present situation. The working class are continually allowing themselves to be diverted from attending to the essential matter of abolishing capitalism and replacing it with Socialism. They are diverted by the notion that capitalism would he more acceptable, were it organized by one bunch of tricksters rather than the other. They are diverted by the glamour of a princess marrying a man who is rich partly through a family interest in selling sub-standard food for working-class consumption. They are diverted by the idea that capitalism need not be run as a cut-throat, scandalous business, by this sort of assurance:

It was the Government’s prime concern to see that capitalism worked fairly and effectively because it was on that that our prosperity was established. (Geoffrey Howe, Minister for Trade, replying to questions in the Commons about Lonrho; Daily Telegraph 12 June 1973.)

It is instructive to observe how the ruling class as a whole unite in fostering these deceptions. Brezhnev’s visit last month to America signified another stage in the resolve of the Russian and American ruling classes to divide the spoils of world capitalism as peaceably as they can. Not so long ago, in the depths of the Cold War, the Russians could have been relied upon to make the most of something like Watergate. Yet there was Brezhnev, helping Nixon to divert attention from Watergate and look like the weighty statesman so beloved by all workers — and doing it with a deliberate measure of publicity-catching clowning. Seeing those two robbers at the White House, beaming and waving, who would have believed what they are both capable of, both responsible for?

The world working class should match this with a unity of their own. As the scandals put capitalism’s leaders under pressure, they respond in a familiar way. Nixon adopts the mask of a betrayed innocent, Heath of outraged decency. They are papering over the rot, trying to delay the awful moment when the leprous reality can no longer be hidden.

Ivan

Who's on your back? (1985)

From the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the course of the coal strike last year. Margaret Thatcher was quoted as saying that "the country will not be held to ransom by a tiny minority — 200.000 at the most — who are trying to impose their will on the other 55 million. Everyone in Britain tonight knows who the job-wreckers are" (Sunday Times, 15 July 1984). For once she spoke some truth. In Britain today, a "tiny minority" — one per cent — own more accumulated wealth than the poorest 80 per cent put together (Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, 1980). This parasitical minority own and control the productive machinery of society, in industry and in agriculture. If we work, it is for them, and on their terms. When they decide that it is no longer financially profitable to employ us — whether in a pit or a polytechnic — they have the legal and social right, within capitalism, to bar us from even setting foot in these places of work.

Since a small minority own the means of wealth production while the rest of us merely operate its machinery, there is a conflict of interests throughout the world between bosses and workers, employers and employees. This conflict exists just as much in countries such as Russia, where exploitation has been nationalised. Arising out of this conflict of interests between those who have to sell their ability to work in order to live and those who buy it in order to profit, there is a class struggle. We should make no mistake about this: the class struggle involves all of us, however much some may try to turn their back on it. And as in any other conflict where two sets of interests cannot be reconciled, it is vital to establish beyond doubt who or what our real enemy is.

The real enemy of workers is not to be found among the smugly arrogant Thatcher and her cronies, or in their pathetic counterparts who compete with them from the opposition benches in the House of Commons. Neither is our true enemy to be found embodied in "the butcher” himself. Ian MacGregor. These are only representatives of the real sickness in society — the market system. It is the capitalist system of society, which exists in different forms throughout the world, which must go, taking all of its stooges with it.

What is capitalism? Firstly, it is a global system, as will be the socialist system which replaces it. The price of diamonds is fixed regularly on a telephone hot-line between Moscow and Johannesburg, in spite of the hot air spoken by politicians in those cities against one another. Secondly, capitalism is defined by the fact that in each country a minority class own and control the productive machinery — the industrial and chemical plants, the land and farms, the transport and communications . . . Whether it is private or state ownership, ownership through shares or through government bonds, whether this minority class is made up of businessmen or bureaucrats, makes no difference. Production is everywhere geared towards profitable sales in the world market, not towards human need.

Capitalism, then, is based on a power relationship between the boss and the worker. The worker produces wealth for the employer, and on the employer's terms, since production involves the use of the raw materials and machinery which are monopolised by the owning class. But no capitalist can live on a diet of one thousand cars or thirteen thousand video recorders a week. These goods are only of use to him or her if they can be turned into cash, by being sold on the market. The employer has to convert these products into cash in order to be able to reinvest it and expand the scale of operations, and also of course for the purposes of private consumption. This means that employers will only allow production to take place at a level which allows the products to be easily sold. As soon as the market will not bear any further output, production is halted. So from the point of view of the working-class majority in society, there are two things wrong with the present class-divided system. Firstly, it is a system of legalised robbery, in which the wealth we work so hard to produce does not then belong to us. We have to struggle to buy back the shoddy, cheap, second-class goods with ration cards called wages. Secondly, this domination over society by the parasitical minority serves to restrict production, particularly for basic needs such as food and clothing, because the market system dictates that production must cease as soon as it fails to be profitable. And each factory closure signals that the material interests of the employing class are imposing themselves on the rest of us, in the most stupid way. At the moment their "trade cycle" happens to be running through one of its periodic lows and the rest of us are expected to brave out, and even take the brunt of, this "recession", as if it was sent down from heaven to test our mettle.

We should not be fooled for one moment by all of the nonsense about class being a thing of the past. According to the Labour Research Department Fact Service (Vol.45, No.44). the richest 3.2 per cent in Britain today own 84 per cent of listed shares, 90 per cent of private companies and 88 per cent of land. In reality there are two sides to industry, whether workers are militant or moderate. On the one hand is the power of capital, of reinvested profits, which represents the congealed labour of generations of workers, and on the other there are workers, known in business circles as "unit labour costs", units of productivity whose role is to generate a surplus over and above the living costs which workers rudely insist on consuming, so that this surplus can be accumulated by those who already monopolise resources. As workers, we have feelings, problems, human relationships. In the eyes of our bosses, we are unit labour costs, whose living expenses must be cut to the bare minimum and whose productivity must be stretched to breaking point.

Take the example of United Biscuits. Their annual report for 1984 shows a profit of about £75 million and a return on capital of about 19 per cent. Earnings per share (the amount by which the share price had risen) were 15.8p. and a dividend was paid in addition to this of 7.5p per share. Sir Hector Laing, the chairman, has over 2 million shares in the company, so his dividend last year was £156,176 and the overall value of his shares rose during the year by a further £329,011. This gave him an unearned income of over £9,000 a week. The average pay of his wage-slaves was less than that in the entire year. This unearned income would continue to go to Sir Hector even if he left for the Bahamas and was never seen again. For actually turning up to work he receives his "earned" income or salary of £96,000, a mere £1,800 each week. Worth chewing over next time you have a McVitie's digestive biscuit, some KP nuts or visit a Wimpy bar, all of which are in Hectors stable. Meanwhile, his chairman's report does make some reference to his hirelings:

Unit labour costs showed a decline over 1983 and we are now back to 1980 levels. . . In summary, 1984 was a particularly successful year for the Company (page 11).

Another very grateful man who has also increased his hold over the lives of the rest of us recently is Lonrho's Tiny Rowland:

The Lonrho chief executive. Mr Tiny Rowland, splashed out £1.2 million to increase his shareholding in the business yesterday as the international trading conglomerate over which he presides reported a record £135 million profit for its past financial year. The purchase of almost 661.000 shares at 182p each lifted his personal stake in the group to 45 million shares. At current stock market prices the holding representing 17.1 per cent of the equity — is valued at £82 million. (Guardian, 1 February 1985)

The dividend paid out by Lonrho of 11p per share would therefore have given Rowland an unearned income of about £100,000 a week. He expressed his attitude of appreciation for the thousands of people this wealth is squeezed out of in his full-page statement published in the same day's newspaper:

Finally, I would like to thank all employees worldwide for their hard work, loyalty and enthusiasm, without which we would not have been able to report such fine results this year.

This small-print credit, such as is given to the extras who appear in a film extravaganza. is small compensation for the people who are being milked in order to fatten the many bank accounts of this smug parasite.

In fact, on an average wage, the total amount we will receive in an entire lifetime is less than the amount received by some of these employers every two or three weeks. If we put by a fiver a week as savings, then by the time we had saved an amount equalling the current estimated £4 billion fortune of the thirty-year-old Duke of Westminster, 15,000,000 years would have passed.

So much for the claim that we are living in a classless society. But the aim of establishing a classless society is still the only aim which is politically worthwhile. How can it be done? Class is not a question of how you speak or dress, but of whether you own the factory or have to work in it because somebody else owns it. And this can be extended to the office, the schools, the railways, the hospitals and every other field of work. To abolish class division is to abolish the private and state ownership of the world’s productive resources, and to replace this with genuinely communal, democratic control by us all. The active force in creating a classless society must be the working class itself. We are the living, thinking, suffering part of the productive machinery of industry. When a factory is closed down, it does not let out a cry of despair. But the workers who are thrown on the rubbish heap at the same time have the ability to organise for an alternative way of running society. And those who do have jobs, whether they are manual, clerical or "professional", have the same interest as one another and as the unemployed, in working together for such a change.

In a socialist society, the population will not be divided by class. Obviously, some people will be delegated to perform organisational or administrative tasks, but they will not have a socially privileged status or a condition of life dependent on the deprivation and subordination of others. It is in any case a fact that the current owners of the world at present rely on their employees to perform all such tasks on their behalf. The social role of the employer has become entirely redundant, so that all a socialist transformation will involve is changing the basis of production itself. Instead of organising production to be geared towards market sales, as they reflect the minority interests who profit from such sales, we shall instead gear production towards satisfying human needs, without the hindrance of the profit obstacle and its demand for profitable "viability".

It is only on this basis that we can even begin to solve the absurd contradictions which have been a hallmark of capitalist society, such as the market "surpluses", the mountains of butter and the lakes of wine, in a world in which millions die of hunger. But before we can get rid of capitalism and replace it with the sane alternative based on common ownership and democratic control of resources we must first understand capitalism clearly enough to firmly reject it in all of its many guises. We must unite in a clear recognition that the employing class is on our backs, holding society back through their outdated system of the market, of profits and prices. They are suffering bouts of indigestion from their indulgence in the proceeds of our work, but it is we who pay the price. We must not expect the employing class to behave otherwise. Workers must, in the words of the first Socialist Party Manifesto, published in 1905, "give up the superstition that the robbers can be friendly to the robbed".

Clifford Slapper

Observations: Oily Shore (1982)

The Observations Column from the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oily Shore

Peter Shore does not usually have the effect of confusing and splitting his opponents. A more familiar experience for him is to unite them in a common contempt and irritation at his transparently ambitious suggestions for the more efficient exploitative operation of British capitalism.

So perhaps Labour's Shadow Chancellor was surprised at the effect of his recent talks with the big brass of the employers’ organisation, the Confederation of British Industry. Many Tories were angered at what they saw as the CBI consorting with the enemy. Taylor Woodrow, the building firm which is a hefty contributor to Tory funds, resigned from the CBI in protest.

In fact Shore’s talks were all very proper and necessary. If there is ever another Labour government. Shore will hold a very high post in it; indeed, as a likely future Labour leader he may even become Prime Minister. The Labour Party will presumably eventually lose patience with Foot’s unerring instinct for losing votes and look around for a leader with a slicker, craftier approach.

It has always been a preoccupation of Labour governments to promote the greater profitability of British industry and commerce, and this has fashioned their policies of contesting with the workers over wages and conditions of work. They have also gone to great lengths, in both words and deeds, to reassure the British capitalist class that there is absolutely nothing for them to worry about in the event of a Labour government in this country. And in power they have been as good as their word. Under Labour the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer.

As the employers’ trade union the CBI is naturally interested in such policies. That is why they are concerned to discuss and negotiate with Shore, perhaps to make promises and pacts for the more intense exploitation of the British working class if Labour gets back to power. It might all have saved the need for those embarrassing speeches, aimed at giving comfort to the City of London, soon after a clutch of Labour ministers have gone to kiss the queen’s hand or whatever they do before they get down to the business of making her even more secure in her class dominance.

And while the Tories and the CBI members were protesting, what of the Labour Party? What outrage seethed in their ranks at this blatant example of fraternising with what is supposed to be their bitterest class enemy? It was all silence. Are the Labour Party so paralysed at the prospect of losing yet more votes? Or are they so keen to have Oily Shore as their leader?


Loose Nott

There was no perceptible dejection in the ’bus queues, supermarkets and factories when the news came out that will soon give up being Defence (sic) Minister and go back to being a busi(sic)man.

Neither was there any apparent gratitude for Nott, who in 1966 generously left the lush pastures of merchant banking to toil in the bleak fields of trying to run the Armed Forces, order new weapons, send workers out to fight in the Falklands and so on.

Merchant banks are strange, if often wildly prosperous, organisations. Strange because they are prone to criticism from public supporters of capitalism on the unlikely grounds of their excessive appetite for profits. Names like Lonrho (the cheekbones in Ted Heath’s '‘unacceptable face of capitalism”) or London and Counties sit uneasily on the City of London's memory.

Prosperous because they are often adept at taking advantage of the complex financial machinery which capitalism has made essential as one of the shackles on human progress and security. Taking this advantage can involve unpopular operations like asset-stripping, which usually stripped a lot of workers of their livelihood. But the merchant banks are devotees of their own sales talk. They regard their role — really as one of the band of robbers who share in the proceeds of working class exploitation — as vital, for which all workers should be grateful.

Nott is a lean man with a citric face and a smile like a Falklands winter. His public devotion to the exploitative, repressive disciplines of capitalism’s class relationships is as rigorous and relentless as a Dickensian schoolmaster. In his very person he demonstrates the connection between “business” and “politics”, that it is natural for someone who has made a lot of money from realising some of the results of surplus value to want to have a say in how the robbery is organised and legalised.

He will not be missed, and whoever his successor may be will not be welcomed, by anyone who is concerned to end the exploitation and cynicism of this miserable society.

Cooking the Books: Acceptable capitalism? (2005)

The Cooking the Books column from the January 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Addressing a press dinner in London in November, the head of BMW in Britain, Jim O’Donnell, attacked the behaviour of the four businessman who BMW sold Rover to in 2000 for £10. Apparently, they paid themselves an average of £3 million each in 2002 as well as setting up a generous pension scheme for themselves, despite MG Rover still making heavy losses. This, said O’Donnell, was “the unacceptable face of capitalism” (Times, 12 November).

Edward Heath, when Prime Minister, had famously said the same thing about Tiny Rowland and Lonrho in 1973. But this criticism implies that there is an acceptable face of capitalism. If so, what is it? Is it acceptable that capitalist firms (such as BMW, for instance) make a profit out of the difference between the value of what their workers produce and what they are paid as wages and salaries? Is it acceptable that capitalist firms should direct their investment to producing what is the most profitable, while essential human needs are left unmet? Is it acceptable that governments should support and encourage all this?

Apparently so. Supporters of capitalism only get worked up when some capitalist lines his pockets at the expense of other capitalists. But the four businessmen can easily reply that they did nothing illegal, and that in fact they were following the economic law of capitalism by taking money out of an unprofitable line of production and investing it, or making it available for investment, in some line that is profitable.

As far as Socialists are concerned, capitalism has no acceptable face. Everything about it is unacceptable. Its accumulation for accumulation’s sake. Its exploitation of wage-labour. Its putting of profits before satisfying people’s needs.

Running Commentary: Today’s Technology (1987)

The Running Commentary Column from the August 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Today’s Technology

The Today newspaper, notable for its fuzzy colour and its equally fuzzy comment, has been sold to News International — another title to add to Rupert Murdoch's ever-expanding collection. It is perhaps an ironic consequence for a paper which, when it started, was seen as symptomatic of a trend towards a wider range of newspapers made possible by new technology and lower production costs.

In fact, Today was very quickly sold off to millionaire, Tiny Rowland, whose Lonrho company already owns the Observer, prior to its recent sale to Murdoch. The promise of a plethora of new newspapers has not been fulfilled. The concentration of ownership in the hands of a few media tycoons continues unabated. Once again the laws of capital have been more than a match for the potential benefits that could be obtained from advances in technology.


To a Labour Supporter

So, the Tories are going to be in power for another four or five years. Four or five more years of handouts for the rich and poverty for the poor. Four or five more years of official praise for money values, competition and the profit motive. Four or five more years of "that bloody woman" preaching in her horribly affected voice the survival of the richest in this rat-race society of ours.

An appalling prospect, isn't it, the only consolation being the failure of the shamefaced Tories of the SDP? But we should not forget that what we are up against is not the twisted attitudes of one insufferable individual. What we are up against is a system which forces governments to give priority to profit-making over satisfying needs, whatever the personal attitudes of their members.

We've seen other governments — Labour governments, to be precise — composed of ministers committed to improving the lot of ordinary people being forced by the economic laws of the system to do just what the Thatcher governments have been doing: attacking wage and salary levels, cutting benefits, closing hospitals, charging for health care, wasting resources on arms, presiding over growing unemployment. The only difference has been that whereas Thatcher has been unrepentant about doing these things, Labour ministers have been apologetic about it but the end result has been the same. Living standards and social services have been cut to give priority to profit-making.

So what can we do to achieve a better society, one geared to meeting needs? An understanding that we are up against an economic system operating according to blind economic laws which not even governments can control or alter suggests that, to be effective, we should direct our energies at getting rid of that system rather than changing the personnel who preside over it.

At one time the Labour Party did claim to want to replace this capitalist system of production for profit by a socialist system of production for use even if this manifested itself more in words than in deeds. Now it merely claims to be able to administer the system in a more caring way than the Tories. Against the better inclinations of many of its ordinary members, it has employed the slick publicity tricks it once despised to present itself as a more acceptable, alternative government of capitalism. The Nice Party as opposed to the Nasty Party.

But this superficial approach to politics is self-defeating because, as experience of past Labour governments has shown, accepting to govern within the system means accepting in the end to govern, reluctantly or otherwise, in accordance with its economic laws. All governments end up being uncaring not because they are composed of uncaring people but because they are presiding over a system which, being based on putting profits before needs, is by nature uncaring. If we are to change things, then the whole profit system must go. In other words, socialism remains the only solution. Socialism — common ownership, democratic control, production for use and distribution according to need — is therefore an urgent necessity.

The best way — the only way — to advance the cause of socialism is to concentrate on advocating it. presenting socialism, and nothing but socialism, as the only solution to the problems ordinary people inevitably face under the present system in such fields as housing, education, health care and the environment. In other words, to get at the cause rather than seek to deal with effects; to advocate fundamental change rather than mere defensive action within the system.

In this way we work to build up the strong and determined body of socialist opinion without which the present system cannot be abolished and a better society achieved.


Disenfranchising the Poor

The poll tax, which received such little attention during the election campaign, has now rocketed to the top of the political issues charts as people begin to appreciate its implications.

The plan is to replace the present system of rates — a tax on property — with what the Tories have chosen to call a community charge — a tax on people. It is scheduled to come into effect in England and Wales in 1990 and in Scotland in 1989. The poll tax will be levied on every adult in the country irrespective of their ability to pay. The theory is that it will increase the number of people contributing to the cost of local services which, it is argued, will be beneficial both economically — 35 million poll tax payers as opposed to 18 million ratepayers — and politically. The political argument is that those who are at present not liable to rates have little incentive to vote for local authorities that will reduce public spending. In other words the government sees the poll tax as a means of increasing support for local Conservative politicians.

During the election campaign the actual consequences of the introduction of the poll tax were hardly discussed. Instead the focus was on the more appealing idea of the "abolition of the rates". In fact for many people the poll tax will leave them substantially worse off. Those who will benefit will be those who are most wealthy since, within any local authority area, everyone will pay a flat rate poll tax. So. for example, an average household in which there are two adults in Liverpool currently pays £500 a year in rates whereas on present figures the poll tax per person will be £301. The presence of a third adult in the household will mean that the total poll tax bill will increase by a further £301.

Those on low incomes will be able to claim a rebate of up to 80% of their poll tax charge and those living on social security benefits will have their income support (due to replace social security from next April) increased to cover the 20% which everyone must pay. However, they will receive 20% of the national average poll tax charge so they will be substantially out of pocket if they live in an area where the poll tax exceeds the national average.

The financial costs of the poll tax may well be so high that many people will attempt to avoid paying it. That shouldn't be too difficult: the problems of administering a system of poll tax on a highly mobile population are likely to be enormous and it has already been estimated that the new system will cost twice as much to administer as the rates. But the cost for those who do decide to opt out of paying their poll tax could well be disenfranchisement. The most reliable list of local adult residents is the electoral register which is likely to be used as a checklist for the collection of the poll tax. Many people faced with the prospect of paying community charges which they can ill afford, may decide that it is worth sacrificing their vote to avoid paying. Is this the increased choice that Thatcher promised us if she achieved her third term?

The Face of Capitalism (1977)

Book Review from the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lonrho — Portrait of a Multinational by S. Cronjé, M. Ling and G. Cronjé. (Pelican)

The book attempts to document the growth and activities of the Lonrho Company over the last decade or so. Lonrho has more than 500 subsidiary and associate companies and the range of its overall activities is huge. The ownership of mines, cattle farms, railways, newspapers, pipelines, sugar refineries and commercial properties are some. This makes the writing of a coherent account a difficult task and added to this the authors appear to have derived a great deal of their information from the mass media. Their Notes section at the end of the book quotes articles from several hundred periodicals and newspapers as sources, and their Introduction states that they found it largely impossible to obtain information direct from the highly secretive Lonrho board. For these reasons the book never attains more than that level which interests newspapers, particularly the financial pages.

The result is a complicated record of years of wheeling and dealing which Lonrho and its associates have engaged in, both with other companies and with political leaders — notably in Africa. The increase in profits which Lonrho had shown, from £14.44m in 1969 to £46.44m in 1974 for example, is explained in terms of astute deals, successful takeovers, clever share manoeuvres and so on. There are vague references to the output of various subsidiaries increasing, or of others expanding significantly and becoming more profitable, but the credit for this is placed firmly on the Lonrho board’s foresight, and on occasion, their luck. The chief executive director, “Tiny” Rowland, is given particular prominence and much of the company’s success is attributed to his ability to make personal contacts with men in high places, who in turn gave Lonrho preferential treatment. They quote Roland's own statement:

  When I’m abroad, I am entertained and do business with Rulers, Presidents and Prime Ministers, who entertain me and look after me. (p. 242)

Virtually no attention is focussed on the fact that while Rowland and his board members are busy being entertained, they, and their hosts are supported in their privileged position by thousands of property-less workers. One idea that this is the case is given on the cover design where a cigar-smoking model of Rowland is seen astride a black man and a white man who have both been harnessed. Rowland is holding the reins. When the book was published recently he was annoyed at the inference.

The issue which was provoked by the more hypocritical shareholders over the low wages paid to workers in Lonhro’s South African mines is dealt with briefly. The official Lonrho line was deliberately evasive; though the parent company owned almost 97 per cent. of the offending mining companies, fixing of wage levels at the mines was a matter for the local puppet company, Lonrho South Africa Ltd. The book notes that “South Africa was not the only place where Lonrho paid low wages” and gives the example of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) which in 1974 was the subject of a War on Want pamphlet stating that severe cases of malnutrition were common among its workers. Lonrho’s personnel manager “admitted that conditions were a matter for ‘concern, but said that the company was making hardly any profit in Sri Lanka' ” (p. 86).

The authors repeat the suggestion that Lonrho has been engaged in “sanctions busting” through subsidiaries in Rhodesia — a suggestion leading to the resignation of Angus Ogilvy, and claim that the Rhodesian and South African interests have proved embarrassing to Lonrho when they have been courting “black” African governments — they give several instances — for franchises, concessions and contracts, because of an alleged ideological difference. Again the Company line was ingenious if nothing else; should they sell up these interests the! new owners might prove to be simply a gang of ruthless capitalist exploiters — unlike Lonrho themselves! In this connection the authors casually refer to African states “with a commitment to some form of socialism” (p. 248) who are going to pose what the book concludes is the issue, “whether capitalism is going to have an acceptable face in Africa at all”. The suggestion is that the emerging black leaders who wine and dine men like Mr. Rowland and his “respectable” cohorts have something else in mind, although they offer no evidence for this.

With the virtual absence of Socialist understanding among African workers, and the determined action by the governments of rival nation states to exploit greater masses of the African population in order to accumulate capital for the ruling minorities, it is a naive suggestion to make.

Alan D'Arcy

New Zimbabwe—old story (1980)

From the March 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

After that great epic series, the Lancaster House Saga (sub-title the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia talks), with its deadlocks and diplomacy, its cliffhanging and imminent walk-outs, Rhodesia now faces the prospect of some kind of limited democracy for all and a build-up of the economy with a largely African government. Since the agreement was signed in December leaders of the Patriotic Front, Nkomo and Mugabe, and many of their guerrillas, plus many Rhodiesians who have been living in the UK, USA, Europe, USSR and other parts of Africa, have returned to ‘their’ country. Many of them are under the illusion that the forthcoming election will bring about changes which will enable them to live freely in a democratic society. The extent of the democracy rather depends, however, on who wins the elections, as some leaders appear to favour “one man one vote” only as long as they are victors. There are numerous reports of intimidation in some areas of the country by Mugabe’s ZANLA forces and Muzorewa’s auxiliaries.

Even though legally sanctioned discrimination by white against black—which for many years was enshrined almost along the lines of apartheid—will no longer exist, tribal conflicts are certain to continue. In any case the freedom to buy large, expensive houses in previously white areas will be of small consequence to the average African worker, except as an abstract notion. The returning heroes will be subject to the dubious privilege of being employed and therefore exploited by a predominantly black capitalist class rather than a white one or unemployed as the case may be. No doubt they will be urged by their leaders to work hard and harder, as are workers the world over. If things go badly they may be put in prison for disobeying capitalism’s laws or even for disagreeing with the ruling party—and it is hard for even the most avid enthusiast for black liberation to convince us that incarceration by a black government is more comfortable than by a white one. The 71 former supporters of Mugabe detained on his instructions in Mozambique until recently could perhaps enlighten us as to whether their imprisonment was more pleasant than that imposed on Nkomo and Mugabe by the white regime.

There is no doubt that the Africans of Rhodesia have suffered immensely at the hands of the European settlers, who have treated them as inferior beings with a vastly lower standard of living than the whites. So many Africans, wishing to rid themselves of their oppression, took to their guns in what they regarded as a legitimate war of liberation. It is tragic that so many have offered and given their lives for a vain cause; despite the belief that true liberation is round the corner (at least if their favoured leader wins the election), they face inevitable disillusionment.

The African population inside Rhodesia has also suffered cruelly from the guerrilla war waged over the past seven years. On the one hand, people have been tortured and killed, their shops and homes have been raided, and they have been forced to feed “the boys” regardless of their own sympathies and needs, with always the threat of a bullet to discourage them from informing the government forces. On the other hand, they have been subject to extreme pressure and violence from a Rhodesian Army determined to discover the whereabouts of the “terrs”. The appalling predicament of ordinary African people caught in this trap is aptly described in an article in the Evening Standard of January 22. A white farmer on police reserve duty describes how he

“. . . came on a village minutes after a party of terrs . . . had left it. Two girls were lying untended beside a hut, bayonetted in the chest . . . I worked on those girls for an hour, to keep them alive until a truck came. Nobody in that village spoke a word or did a thing.
   Then I turned to a man who was watching: ‘Who is this girl? Your daughter?’ ‘Yes’. ‘Where did the terrs come from? Where did they go to?’ ‘Don’t know’. ‘Don’t know?’ That man said nothing until we took him to the police station.
   We did the usual—left him without food until evening then beat the hell out of him. He told us where the terrs had gone but it was too late to track them. His daughter died. Tell me what kind of creature is it that will stand there and do nothing when his daughter is dying?”

All this is complicated by the existence of the Selous Scouts, a particularly brutal crack-force of the Army, who have often been suspected of perpetrating atrocities while posing as guerrillas. The situation has been so confusing and so horrific that thousands of people have been forced by the government into protected villages (like concentration camps) and thousands more have fled to the towns. Their abject poverty and over-crowding has been seen on British television—a particularly moving example, a few weeks ago, was of people picking over the municipal rubbish dumps in Salisbury with large sacks, looking for anything to sell, as a means of livelihood. Others, not lucky enough to be living in appallingly overcrowded houses in the towns, were living on the streets with only plastic bags as shelter against the rains.

After 14 years of UDI, why has the British Capitalist class finally reached agreement round a conference table? Partly because the war has frightened out many white Rhodesians and had dire effects on the economy; partly because of pressure by “front-line” states on the guerrilla leaders to end the war and negotiate—since the economies of those countries had suffered from the effects of the war and of sanctions on Rhodesia. Machel of Mozambique, for example was reported in The Observer of January 20 to be

". . . anxious to see Rhodesia return to normality as soon as possible since a prosperous and stable neighbour would provide a much-needed boost to his country's lagging economy.”

while Zambia had

“. . . enough maize to last only until late February or early March, nearly three months before the first of this [i.e. 1979] year’s harvest will reach the millers.
   The problem might not be so serious had not the Rhodesians cut landlocked Zambia’s two lifelines, the Tazara Railway to Dar-es-Salaam and the southern line which runs through Zimbabwe-Rhodesia to South Africa.”

If the single-track line from Zimbabwe-Rhodesia to Zambia were to break down

“Dr Kaunda would then not only face a food crisis but would also have difficulty exporting the copper on which his country depends for more than 90 per cent of its foreign earnings.”

(Guardian, December 11 1979)

Also, it is possible that nationalist leaders like Nkomo of ZAPU and Mugabe of ZANU, who were detained for many years, may have felt that their chance of power might slip from their grasp if they didn’t act soon.

Who will benefit?

So who is really going to benefit from the newly established “democracy”, from the holding of elections, from the lifting of sanctions and the expected stability and boost to the ailing economy? There are rich pickings to be had: Rhodesia is the fifth producer in the world of gold; one of the few producers outside Russia of chromium; the top grower of Virginia tobacco after the United States; Rhodesia is also a main producer of asbestos, copper and industrial diamonds. It is clear, therefore, that Britain’s interest in Rhodesia’s independence is not merely a technical matter of “loyalty to the crown”. Different capitalist groups have lent their support to different leaders in Rhodesia according to which one they judge will best serve their own interests, and the business community in general is taking a keen interest in developments there. Tiny Rowland, for example, chief executive of Lonrho, has consistently backed Joshua Nkomo although, according to the Observer of November 11 1979, he would

". . ally himself with whichever nationalist politician eventually becomes leader of Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Lonrho’s enormous assets there include a million acres of ranchland, besides commercial and industrial operations. These are operated by independent companies, but will revert to Lonrho when sanctions end and the new State is internationally recognised.”

What of the politics of the politicians in Zimbabwe? Do they really plan to bring socialism to that country? Hardly. There are nine black parties fighting the election but effectively only three main contenders, none of whom offers a genuine alternative of any kind: the message from all of them seems to be a general list of platitudes about peace, prosperity and racial harmony. Bishop Muzorewa is openly committed to free enterprise capitalism; Nkomo has adopted a conciliatory, pragmatic approach without reference to either capitalism or socialism and talks of increased wages and redistribution of land. And Mugabe? His image has been that of a hard-line “Marxist”. Perhaps this is demonstrated by the rally of his supporters where he “gave triumphant clenched fist salutes to the crowd and led them in the chanting of nationalist slogans” (Times, January 28). According to the Sunday Times, January 27, Mugabe’s election platform, although cautiously phrased,

“. . . is still the nationalisation of industry, the radical redistribution of land, the introduction of sweeping state controls, and above all, what he terms ‘the collective ideal’, the public ownership of the country’s natural resources, land, minerals, water and forests.”

Whether or not he wishes to establish a “communist” regime such as that in China, it would seem that he is trying to be all things to all men, to be moderate and capable of compromise as well as a “genuine socialist”, for at the same time his party policy-makers

“. . . now encourage the continuity of private enterprise in Rhodesia and accept the need for a close commercial and logistic relationship with South Africa.”

(Guardian, 28 January) 

It has long been fashionable among some Rhodesian Africans to label their political opponents ‘sell-out” for cooperating with the Smith regime, for supporting Muzorewa’s opportunistic government, for making too many concessions to the British government at Lancaster House. But they fail to recognise that the whole thing is a sell-out and a sham. On one prognosis, a limited type of democracy, typical of the development of capitalism, will prevail; on another, civil war will rage. But whoever gains power, we may be sure he will be hell-bent on building up the capitalist economy and on training his citizens to become hard-working, obedient wages slaves, regardless of whether his advice, investment and technical assistance comes from the Soviet Union, Great Britain, South Africa or wherever. The hollow phrase “Victory to the Patriotic Front”, beloved by the left-wing, means for African workers the victory of a different style of exploitation.

Jack Bradley