Lordly Perplexities (1952)

From the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Their Lordships, Beveridge and Beaverbrook, hereinafter called the two B's, appear to be concerned regarding the future. We shall take Lord Beveridge first

According to the Glasgow Herald (31/12/51) he broadcast “A Letter to posterity," the theme of which was the comments he would like to make on life in Britain in 1951 to the people of Britain in 2052, 100 years hence.

His broadcast commenced with the assertion that the abolition of poverty by levelling up incomes has been part of our social policy for many years. In addition, over the past ten years, there has been tremendous levelling down as well, to pay for wars, their consequences and preparation of fresh wars. He said, “ It is not possible for anyone now to enjoy great wealth or to pass it on to his children.”

We are somewhat perplexed, in view of the real facts, to discover how his Lordship arrived at this conclusion. It would appear that be is unaware of the millions of workers whose gross earnings are £6 per week or less. Also the steep rise in the cost of living since 1945. According to government figures the increase is approximately 29 per cent. Again industrial wage rates have not risen as much, production has been greatly increased, approximately 30 per cent. since 1947. This in conjunction with record profits being made in practically all industries can by no stretch of the imagination be called abolishing poverty. It is in fact the reverse, viz. the intensification of poverty. In this regard perhaps we should recommend that he scan the National Assistance Board figures published in the “Economist” 7th July, ’51. He will find that whereas in 1948 the total number of people in receipt of relief, excluding blind and T.B. cases, was about 785 thousand, by 1950 it had increased to 1272 thousand. Possibly this was only a little extra beer and baccy money for some more of the new “privileged class,” the workers. The same paper (24th Feb. ’51) indicates the absurdity of his claims re levelling down. Figures are given showing that 1 per cent. of the population own 50 per cent. of the wealth. The Economist's comments being—”This is an unimpressive result of forty years of death duties.” Figures given in The Tribune (26th Jan. ’51) show that 16 million people are at the bottom of the social scale with estates of less than £100.

A Lordly nostalgia: —We are informed that he had to leave Fuggal Hall and move into a “middle income group house” in order to make ends meet. He states— “The Baronial Hall with troops of servants laying coal fires in every room was giving place to rows and rows of council houses, each with a radiator and a television aerial.” Shed a tear ye privileged idle and pampered proletarians for the poor, poor rich.

His concern regarding future leadership appears to be considerable. In his opinion the men and women on the stage need leaders. "Just from where in our classless collection of men and women the leadership will come . . . I do not know.” Aristocratic tradition, in his opinion, is a factor of major importance in correct leadership and we are faced with carrying on an aristocratic tradition without the aristocrats. It is of course true your Lordship that people “inherit” traditions; they also dispose of useless traditions. Perhaps your wish is for your tradition to inherit the people. We shall deal with this question further in our conclusion.

His Lordship Beaverbrook is well known for his “modesty and wisdom" through the medium of his newspapers, especially the Daily Express. The opinion column of Scottish Daily Express (31.12.51) while moaning of the loss of Abadan and the rising cost of living states that there is also cause for joy—“The joy that Socialism has been discarded and Mr. Churchill again returned to power.” Further joy—We have escaped war and are still on talking terms with Russia; also, peace in Korea is within grasp and Churchill is on the stage directing and lending the wisdom of his council. In general, the war danger recedes as each hour adds to mounting Western strength. May we remind your Lordship of your very frequently published claims in the Daily Express during 1938 and '39 that there would be no war this year, or next year, or any other year. In fact your last statement, in bold headlines, to this effect was published merely days before the outbreak of war in 1939. How very wrong you were despite your, undoubtedly excellent, facilities for information. Every informed person saw the rapid approach of war from 1935 onwards. Again, since when did an arms race result in anything other than war? You are equally confused regarding Socialism. Capitalism administered by the Labour party or any other parties can never be Socialism. Your judgments in these matters do not at all seem to be reliable. In fact they appear to be parallel with the guesses of Old Moore’s Almanac and should be treated accordingly.

Regarding 1952 and the years beyond, you ask— “Is Britain to have peace without prosperity? Is she to remain for evermore a pinchpenny land in which people live meanly and eat miserably.” When during the existence of capitalism has it been otherwise for the great majority of the people? It will always remain so while capitalism remains, irrespective of the government being an Attlee-Morrison-Bevan, or Churchill-Eden combination. Prosperity, with or without peace, is an almost exclusive enjoyment of the capitalist class. Slums and lack of them, blood and tears, and toil and sweat, whether in times of depression, or prosperity with or without peace has been labour’s reward for honest hard work.

In conclusion a word to the two B’s. Capitalism, the present social system which suits you both eminently shall be abolished eventually. The interest of peace, security, culture and the general welfare of mankind demand it, the sooner the better. A new sane and humane system, Socialism, shall take its place. In this regard you need not worry about leadership, aristocratic or otherwise, as leadership shall also go overboard with other lumber. When one reviews the past and visualises the shabby pretentious collection of bombastic people who have been “our leaders;” whose self-seeking blunders have shamefully abused and squandered wealth and drenched the world in blood, then one realises that the end of leadership cannot be too soon. Intelligent working men and women who organise for the establishment of Socialism have no need for leaders. The end or object, Socialism, means the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, the end of idleness and luxury for your class, the ending of stately baronial mansions, likewise the finish of poverty, misery and slums. The Labour Government have been very good friends to your class. It shall be very very different when, for the first time in history. Socialists take control out of the hands of the capitalist class for the purpose of carrying out the revolutionary task, the establishing of Socialism. The Socialist Party of Great Britain carries on its task of making socialists confident that the future belongs to us. Chums, you’ve almost  " ’ad it.”

John Higgins

Notes by the Way: What Wars are really About. (1938)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Wars are really About.

Germany and Britain were supposed to have gone to war in 1914 about the violation of Belgian neutrality and about the respective merits of democracy and Prussian militarism. Now they are supposed to be quarrelling about Fascism and democracy and the merits of the Czechoslovak dispute. In 1914 the Japs sided with “democracy” against “Prussianism” (and, incidentally, strengthened their position in China), but this time they are backing Germany in order, so they say, “to stem the tide of Bolshevism.”

The real reason now, as then, for these international conflicts is capitalist commercial rivalry. The German economic periodical, Wirtschaftsring, according to the Daily Telegraph (September 13th, 1938), “accuses Britain of attempting to throttle Germany’s trade with Eastern Europe and of encircling her in economic fields.”

Britain’s purchases of Rumanian corn, remarks the Journal sarcastically, were made for two reasons. First, she wished to cut Germany off from the Balkans, and secondly, to reduce the amount of corn available in Central Europe in the event of war.

Not content with ruling a quarter of the globe . . . Britain wants to acquire the trade of other countries. The economic strangulation of Germany has been attempted through the Scandinavian countries, it is alleged, and is now to be pursued through Finland and South-East Europe.

Then The Times (August 27th, 1938) publishes an article by its Tokyo correspondent on the reasons for Japanese hostility to Britain. Here is his conclusion: —

Anti-British elements are to be found not only in the Army and Navy but in every branch of the Civil Service and in business. Statistical appraisal of the strength of these elements is impossible, but the general statement may be hazarded that most people under, say, 46 years of age in these various departments of national life who are politically conscious, and even many who are not, are anti-British. These people are anti-British because of commercial rivalry in world markets and political rivalry in the Far East. But they are also anti-British on internal, political, and personal grounds.

The Times' editorial adds:—

Commercially all over the world, and politically in the Far East. Great Britain figures as Japan’s chief rival. That is now the Japanese see it.

The remedy is to get rid of capitalism.

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Our Leaders (from their bomb-proof hide-outs) will ask us to stand firm.

The Daily Express (September 15th, 1938) | publishes a description of Hitler’s modest little bungalow at Berchtesgaden.

It began as “just a simple mountain chalet” ; but is now “ as sumptuously equipped as a luxury | hotel.”

In the event of a war it will be an ideal place from which this heroic leader of German cannon-fodder will be able to urge them to be brave and stand firm. In the woods around it “so many anti-aircraft guns are mounted . . . that no single aircraft could survive their fire,” and ”deep down beneath the woods are gas-proof, bomb-proof shelters.”

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Pity the Poor Indian Capitalist.

It was to be expected (and was doubtless foreseen by the British ruling class) that when Indian Nationalist governments came to power in several Indian states the Congress Party would .begin to show signs of internal strain. It was one thing for Indian workers and peasants, landlords and capitalists, to unite in denouncing British rule, but quite another thing for a Congress Party government to please all of these diverse elements. Gandhi, who has never disguised his hostility towards Socialism and his belief in capitalism, is now sharply criticising working-class elements in the Congress Party. Although in the old days he himself advocated the occupation of salt works as part of the campaign against the Indian Government, he is horrified at the idea of Indian workers using similar tactics against Indian employers. In his journal, Harijan, of August 13th, 1938 (quoted in the Indian Labour Journal, August 21st), he writes as follows: —

One complaint is that, in the name of peaceful picketing, picketers are resorting to methods bordering on violence, such as making a living wall beyond which no one can pass without being hurt or hurting those who make the wall. As the author of peaceful picketing, I cannot recall a single instance in which I had encouraged such picketing.

A friend has quoted Dharsana against me. I had suggested the occupation of salt works. But that is wholly inapplicable to the case under consideration. In Dharsana the objective was the salt works of which possession had to be taken and maintained as against the Government. The action could hardly be called picketing, but, to prevent workers from going to their work by standing in front of them is pure violence and must be given up.

Blind worshippers of Gandhi will say that the above remarks are consistent with his advocacy of passive resistance as a means of dealing with all situations. But the next passage in his article shows how circumstances alter cases. He is telling his readers what the factory owners should do if threatened with mass picketing. Should they pray ? —or try persuasion and passive resistance? Not at all, they should call in the police!

The owners of mills or other factories would be fully justified in invoking the assistance of the police.

Another illuminating remark from Gandhi is this:—

I have before me a letter which bitterly complains that, whereas capitalists used to get justice during the old régime, now, under the Congress régime, they not only get no justice, but are even insulted and humiliated.

This is too bad. As any poor Indian millionaire, rich by the sweating of Indian textile operatives or iron and steel workers, might complain: ‘‘What is the use of getting rid of British rule unless India remains safe for exploitation?”

The attitude of Gandhi and his paymasters is easily understood, but what are we to think of the so-called "Socialists" in India, who continue to delude the Indian workers with the argument that Nationalism and independence will rid India of poverty ?

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Bandits or Patriots?

Patriotism has been described as “the last refuge of a scoundrel’’; but everybody does not take that view. Some of those who do not are the London newspapers, also the Liberal, Labour and Conservative parties. They all say that patriotism is a very fine and noble thing, and that we should honour the courage and devotion of the patriot who fights to defend the land he was born in against foreign invaders. There is Abyssinia, for example. The Manchester Guardian reports that widespread guerrilla warfare is still bring waged against the Italians, and the writer in the Guardian (September 8th, 1938) goes to some trouble to explain that the Abyssinian patriots are not just “bandits." But if we turn from Abyssinia to Palestine, where the Arabs are trying by force of arms to overthrow the detested British rule and oust the Jewish settlers, we find a remarkable difference. All the London daily papers, with hardly an exception, habitually report the efforts of the Arabs as the activities of “bandits." Actually the Arab fighters talk the same kind of language as all the other patriots. Here is a sample:—

Were it not for the justice of our cause, the holiness of our demands and the victory promised to us by God, the enemy would have succeeded in its intentions. —(Daily Telegraph, September 8th, 1938.)

Not that we wish to idealise the Arabs, but it would be more fitting if the gangs of patriots in all countries recognised that they are all worshipping the same barbarous ideals in the same bloodthirsty way.

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That's a Commissar—that was!

The Russian dictatorship goes on its way not a bit changed by the introduction of its “democratic” constitution. The Supreme Soviet, which the Russian Press claims to be the "world’s newest and most democratic Parliament," met for the first time in January. It held its second session at the end of August. The Moscow correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (September 16th, 1938) says that: "What could not escape observant eyes when the two Houses met for the first time since January was the absence of a number of faces which had been prominent during the historical first session"—they had been quietly "liquidated" in the meantime. Some leading figures thus removed from the scene had only been appointed in January. One of them, Chubar, had actually been employed then on denouncing "wreckers" to the Members of Parliament.

The Moscow correspondent expresses the opinion that the Government now has difficulty in finding/reliable and experienced men to fill the more prominent positions, but there is no dearth of urgent problems waiting to be dealt with. He only repeats what is widely known when he says, for instance, the Russian railway system is in a "chronically chaotic’’ condition. What then had Russia’s mock Parliament to say about the counties troubles and the way to remove them ? They met almost daily for a period of twelve days and this is what they did :—

The time was devoted almost entirely to hearing reports from Government officials and to discussions of them, which amounted to amplifications of the reports. The discussions never could have been said to have developed into debate, and there was no record of a negative vote having been cast throughout the proceedings.

Yet our Communists, who praise the Soviet Constitution, profess to have a new-found enthusiasm for Parliamentary government. Even Mussolini’s Yes-men dare to open their mouths occasionally in the Italian Parliament, as recently when there was some serious discussion of the Government’s financial policy.

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How Bolshevism discourages foreign working-class movements.

The Communists always talk in terms of Russia helping the working class in other countries, ignoring completely the widespread discouragement that events in Russia have caused. A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in Poland (Manchester Guardian, August 22nd, 1938) describes how the Polish Communist movement has been undermined through Russian events.

Meanwhile Poles—or rather the Polish governing class—feel a certain relief because Stalin has destroyed the Polish Communist movement. The Polish Communists were an élite  in so far as their older leaders played a big part in the Russian Revolution. The immense poverty of the Polish peasant masses is favourable to Communism, which has been kept down by a ruthless terror. But so many Polish Communists have been shot or imprisoned in Russia during the last few years that the Polish Communist movement has been almost completely destroyed from within, so to speak, and a terrible disarray has spread amongst its remaining members.

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An Economist Exposes Capitalism.

Sir William Beveridge may be described as one of the best-informed and least shoddy of the economists who stand for capitalism. He has a respect for facts and for scientific method rather unusual among modern economists; and has on occasion remained firm in his views when the tide of ignorant but influential prejudice was running strongly against him. His study of capitalist industrial crises has now led him to an interesting admission. The following report of his speech is taken from the Manchester Guardian (August 23rd, 1938): —

Besides satisfying himself completely that the trade cycle is a real phenomenon, he finds that there is singular faithfulness in the maintenance on each occasion of the order in which individual industries decline and the degrees of intensity with which the depression affects each of them.

He is sure that the basic causes lie in human institutions.

During the last ten years, the trade cycle had shown a striking disregard for the actions and attitudes of Governments. In 1931 land 1932 Great Britain, U.S.A. and Sweden were alike in depression. All three had changes of Government. The directions of change differed widely, yet all three recovered and prospered for several years and now, with its type of Government unchanged, was entering a new depression. It would be hardly possible to find a stronger illustration of the apparent impotence of Governments in face of the trade cycle as long as they did not abolish the economic system, altogether.

In spite of this admission that crises do not take any notice of the kind of government that is trying to administer capitalism, Beveridge is, as he always was, a Liberal who holds that we must not “abolish the (capitalist) economic system altogether.”

He is quite right in stressing the impotence of governments in the matter of ridding capitalism of crises, but he has surely had enough experience of politics to know that even if governments can't do anything they have to pretend they can. Ex-President Hoover, of the U.S.A., was apparently one of those who believed that the best thing for the capitalists to do about a crisis is to do nothing, just let it take its course. But it lost him all chance of re-election, and his place was taken by Roosevelt, the persuasive, opportunist, glib-tongued wholesale manufacturer of promises. He affected the crisis no more than Hoover, but he made a show of dynamic activity, and that is what the trustful electorate likes.

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Good Sense from Geneva.

Small organisations from Britain, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Sweden, Holland, Spain, Greece and Palestine recently held a conference at Geneva, presided over by Mr. Fenner Brockway, of the I.L.P., at which it was decided to establish an international organisation for the purpose of preventing the threatening war. A manifesto was issued, declaring that—

the coming war will be neither a war for the liberation of an oppressed people nor a war for the defence of u democracy ” against Fascism. It will be a war in which two groups of brigands will come to grips for a new partition of the earth. The conflict between the Sudeten Germans and the Czecho-Slovakian Government is only the pretext for a settlement of accounts between German Imperialism on the one hand and British and French Imperialism on the other. Our class interests are neither the one side nor the other. Workers of all countries, all races, and all colours, this war will not be our war. Let us unite to bar its way while there is still time. Only our class action can drive it back.—(Manchester Guardian, September 15th. 1938.)

Whatever illusions these organisations, one of which is the I.L.P., may hold about other matters, they have certainly seen through the appeal of the war-makers. They take it for granted, however, that Britain intends to be involved in war with Germany over the Czech question, and this seems to be improbable, to say the least of it. Chamberlain seems to have other ideas as to the best way of protecting British capitalist interests.

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Peace and War at the Marble Arch Front.

The crowds which throng the public meeting place at the Marble Arch end of Hyde Park are becoming more and more familiar with the S.P.G.B. and its message, and they use their opportunity of stating their own case against the S.P.G.B.’s. At one meeting, recently, two incidents occurred which cast a vivid light on the futility of Labourism. The first was an interruption by two German girls: They were enthusiastic Nazis and heil-Hitlered as they left the meeting. But before they went they explained why they are Nazis. It is all because of the glorious things they believe Hitler has done, and will do, for the German workers, which they contrasted with the sorry failure of Labourism, i.e., the activities since 1918 of the German and Austrian Social Democratic Parties. But the tragedy is that these two Nazi girls believed that the plight of the German workers up to 1933 was due to Socialism! They shouted to our speaker: “Look what Socialism did for us!” Of course they are quite wrong, but who taught them that Socialism means the administration of capitalism by a Labour Government ? Nobody but the German and Austrian Labourites.

The second incident was a question thoughtfully put by a member of the audience, who was plainly not a member of any party but was looking round to see what he could best do to prevent war. This was his question:—

In view of the fact that the Left Wing parties are at the present time more war-minded than the National Government parties, would you. advise the workers to vote for the Chamberlain candidate in the next General Election in constituencies where there is not a Socialist candidate, and thus help to prevent war?

All members of the S.P.G.B. will recognise that the question is an old friend, hurled at Party speakers for years, and yet it appears in a strangely inverted form. Always before it was in the form: “Ought not. the workers to vote for the Labour Party candidate in constituencies where there is no S.P.G.B. candidate, because the Labour Party, while not a Socialist Party, is the next best thing?”

So capitalist politics have their revenge on the reformist parties (including the Communists). They all played at the game of capitalist politics, trying to outsmart the Tories, only to find that Chamberlain has manoeuvred them into such a position that great masses of the electorate feel that the only way to avoid war is to vote against the Labour Party and other “Left Wing” groups. What a confirmation of the S.P.G.B.’s insistence on a straight Socialist policy all the time!

It need hardly be added that voting for Chamberlain to keep out of war is about as safe as voting for Hitler to keep out of war, in spite of the fact that at present British capitalism will do much to avoid war.

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The German Tactic in Czechoslovakia is not new.

People who wax very indignant about the German tactic of provoking disturbances in Czechoslovakia, as a prelude to intervention and conquest, should spread their indignation a little. It is the time-honoured tactic of British Imperialism in its dealings with native races. It was used with splendid success against the Boer republics forty years ago. It was used by Italy in Abyssinia, by many governments in Africa and China, and it closely resembles a move made by France only fifteen years ago in the Rhine provinces of Germany. When France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr in 1923 one of their activities was to finance a movement for separating Germany’s Rhine provinces and forming them into an u "independent" State, under French protection. Along with some Rhinelanders who really thought the idea was a good one, were others who were paid hirelings of French capitalism.

The Ruhr occupation is worth remembering for the parallel it provides with the Czechoslovak problem. Then the Labour Party and the Communists were all on the side of Germany, and France was the u "mad dog of Europe" against whom they threatened war. The Labour Party and T.U.C. issued a manifesto on January. 15th, 1923, describing the action of the French and Belgian Governments as an act of war and "an attack on the self-determination of the German people." They demanded that the British Government take  "all possible steps to secure the withdrawal of the Armies of Occupation."

The demands of the Communist Party, in a manifesto issued by them, included “an immediate conference of Labour organisations of the world to put an end to the Imperialist aggression" and “immediate scrapping of the Versailles Treaty." Now that Hitler is duly scrapping the Versailles Treaty the Communists have changed their position and are not so keen.

Edgar Hardcastle

NHS – 75 years of socialism? (2023)

From the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

July 5 2023 was the 75th birthday of the National Health Service. The media celebrated, events were held, paeans of praise for what generally is considered to be the golden public utility. Such was the glister.

All this was tarnished somewhat as medical staff are having to resort to striking in an attempt not just to increase pay, but rather to restore some of the value after years of salary stagnation. As prices have continued rising this has been a period of reducing real wages.

The main story for the media has been and remains increasing waiting lists, the difficulty of securing GP appointments and overwhelmed A & E units. All the while governments of all flavours have pursued an attritional process of privatisation.

However, the NHS is commonly cited, by members and supporters of the Labour Party, as an example of socialist legislation undertaken during the 1945 to 1951 Attlee administration. Even those who now openly admit that Labour is not socialist will use the NHS to convince, perhaps mainly themselves, that it once was.

Certainly there was socialist-sounding rhetoric spouted at the time. Aneurin Bevan, who is usually identified as the politician responsible for the NHS, said, ‘No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means.’

Previously William Beveridge, whose report instigated what became known as the Welfare State, declared, ‘A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolution, not for patching.’ He would go on to be ennobled and leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords.

The context for such sentiments were the previous years of protracted immiseration leading into the Second World War and a recognition that measures were required to prevent social breakdown, a situation inimical to capitalist prosperity.

Bevan made a political statement that, by removing one word, can be assented to by socialists. ‘How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political power to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.’ Subtract the word ‘Conservative’ and the piece poses a question relevant then and now.

Bevan’s myopic political view could see only the Tories as being the problem, on occasion referring to them as vermin. What he apparently could not see was the real problem, why a ‘sick person’, or any person, has ‘a lack of means’.

Despite Beveridge’s imperative his report led not to revolution, but to patching. Wherever the worst traumas of capitalism were diagnosed a welfare state patch could be applied. A hundred years previous to the NHS a Royal Commission into public health identified the need for the state to act.

Appropriately, acting on the Commission’s findings, the Liberal Party played a leading role through the latter nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries. The Welfare State, and the NHS in particular, were further social and political developments of this imperative to develop a functioning capitalist society.

In his report of 1942 Beveridge costed a health service at £130 million annually. By 1948 the actual cost was £400 million, which, in the present, would be £11.2 billion. This represented a significant investment by the state on behalf of capitalism.

Thirty years on, this annual amount had risen to £5,200 million (£38.4 billion present day equivalent), on its way to £160.4 billion in 2023. The figures seem to indicate that the NHS becomes increasingly expensive.

In the 1950s waste and bureaucracy were being regularly identified as contributing unnecessarily to the cost of the NHS, as it continues to be today. While this may well be correct the significance is probably not so great.

The number of nurses employed in 1948 was 125,000 along with 5,000 consultants for 480,000 beds. At present there are approximately 1.4 million full-time employees in the NHS servicing about 140,000 beds.

Far fewer beds but much higher costs, certainly not explained by bureaucracy. 37% of NHS spending is on staffing. How much greater this would be if nurses’ real wages, for instance, were restored to 2010 levels. Nurses have effectively involuntarily been subsidising the NHS for over a decade.

Then there are the pharmaceuticals and the impressively wide array of technological devices, scanners and monitors etc., plus food, services such as cleaning and equipment like surgical tools and walking frames, not forgetting buildings. All supplied by capitalist industries with ever increasing potential for profits.

The NHS is effectively a market place which is why the forces of privatisation have increasingly muscled in. This is not being facilitated by the Conservatives alone. The Labour government of 1997 to 2010 launched the Private Finance Initiative of hospital building, along with other tendering measures for services.

It is now an accepted commonplace for NHS procedures to be carried out in private medical facilities by staff employed by both. This is by no means a recent development in thinking about the provision of health care.

Talking of medical provision in a 1943 radio broadcast, the then prime minister Winston Churchill used the expression, ‘From the cradle to the grave’, a phrase that can be traced back to the founder of The Spectator Richard Steele in 1709.

What Churchill was referring to was the possible development of social insurance to finance individual medical care. He was not advocating state intervention.

While medical provision remains largely, though by no means entirely, free at the point of use, the figures above demonstrate that from the very outset the NHS was not, and most certainly is not, free. This is not to deny the beneficial worth of the NHS. That is also true of many services and features of capitalist society.

To directly address the question posed in the title, the answer is straightforward, no! The NHS is not, and never was, a socialist organisation. A defining socialist axiom is, ‘to each according to need’, in a worldwide society that does not have money to limit the extent needs can be met.

As medical procedures and technology have advanced so has the amount spent increased significantly from £11 billion in 1948 (at today’s values) to over £160 billion in 2023. A figure that continues to be inadequate and, therefore, a limiting factor in meeting need either by delay or even denial of treatment.

When politicians claim to have increased spending on the NHS they are correct. What they, or any of the parties, do not address is that while capitalism continues there cannot be sufficient funds. Ultimately, such spending is drawn from the overall pot of value created by an economic system prioritising profit making. While income tax seems to be a payment by individual workers’ wages, that simply means it becomes a factor in each person’s salary requirement paid by employers. An extra penny in the pound tax rise for workers is an extra penny in the pound employers have to pay.

A few years ago an otherwise amiable American appeared incredulous that I, and the British in general, could tolerate a National Health Service. Why did we put up with such an obviously socialist, communist, system?

By communist he meant the by-then failed soviet state capitalist system. Inadvertently he had identified something those who equate the NHS with actual socialism have missed. It is the state intervening socially on behalf of capitalism.

There can only be a truly socialist health service in a truly socialist society. For that to be achieved, merely advocating ever greater spending must give way to actively working to abolish capitalism. Then there can be socialism, a really healthy society.

Dave Alton

The “Welfare" State (1965)

From the April 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is sometimes claimed that the case for socialism is now no longer relevant as capitalism has managed to reform itself through such means as universal education and factory and welfare legislation. The underlying assumption behind such claims is that socialists hold that under capitalism the owning class can only be a bunch of rapacious and selfish despots holding sway over a wretched mass of labourers who live in utter destitution amid filth and squalor. This was something like the position in the period between the rapid growth of capitalism in Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the time when the governing classes—then landlord and capitalist got round to tackling the situation in the interests of the further development of capitalism.

The socialist analysis of the so-called Welfare State goes back to the pioneer of scientific socialism,. Karl Marx himself. Capital appeared in 1867. By that time the institutions of the Welfare State were not very advanced. In Victorian Origins of the British Welfare State D. Roberts describes their growth in the period 1833-1854. The Parliament elected after the passing of the first Reform Act of 1832 had to deal with the various social problems which the Industrial Revolution had aggravated: growing rural pauperism, the sad state of education, the utter squalor of prisons and the working class areas of towns, the employment of women and children for long hours in the factories and mines. During this period government inspectors were appointed for factories, schools, health, prisons, mines and railways; the Poor Law and church systems were reorganised. The first Factory Act was passed in 1812; state aid to education was also first given in 1833; the first Mines Act was in 1842; the Public Health Act was passed in 1848 and housing was first regulated by an Act of 1851. By the 1850’s the governing classes had overcome their prejudices against State intervention for social reform.

Social reform came to be accepted as a necessity as conditions changed. This then was the extent of the Welfare State during the period of capitalism about which Marx wrote. Besides the employment of women and children and besides the filth and squalor in which the working class then existed Marx also described, as he says in his preface, “the history, the details and the results of English factory legislation.” Drawing an analogy with soil preservation Marx pointed out that the various Factory Acts “curb the passion for a limitless draining of labour power, by forcibly limiting the working day by state regulations, made by a state that is ruled by capitalist and landlord.” His conclusion could not be clearer: factory legislation, he wrote, was “just as much the necessary product of modern industry as cotton-yarn, self-actors and the electric telegraph.”

From about 1870 onwards the various social reforms were consolidated in a number of measures: the Education Act of 1870, the Public Health Act of 1875, the Artisans' Dwelling Act of 1875, the Mining Act of 1877 and the Factory Act of 1878. In this period also the law on trade unions was reformed. A Workmen’s Compensation Act was passed in 1897. Old Age pensions were first paid in 1909 and the National Insurance Act of 1911 introduced unemployment and sickness insurance for the first time. It was during this period that the SPGB was formed and the back-numbers of this journal contain a very useful analysis of these schemes. The issue for May 1914 explained their character very clearly:

Collective capital is expended through Government departments, with the object of placing at the disposal of individual capitalists an improved commodity on the labour market—workers whose labour will bear richer fruit in the shape of surplus value.

By this time reforms of all sorts were passed by every government whatever its political complexion. The government had now assumed the task of seeing that institutional and administrative arrangements kept pace with industrial changes. In 1925 the pensions scheme was made contributory. A number of Acts—Addison, Chamberlain, Wheatley—were passed granting housing subsidies and allowing slum clearances in the period between the wars. Poor Law assistance was however still administered locally. In 1942 appeared the famous Beveridge Report, Beveridge examined the various welfare services and advocated many changes in the interests of efficiency. The proposal which received the most publicity was that for a national minimum income below which no one should fall, i.e., the transfer of poor relief to the central government. In a pamphlet issued at the time, Beveridge Re-Organizes Poverty, the SPGB pointed out that the Beveridge proposals

will level the workers' position as a whole, reducing the more favourably placed to a lower level and putting the worst placed on a less evil level. This is not a “new world” of hope, but a re-distribution of misery.

After the war many of Beveridge’s proposals were implemented: a National Assistance Board was set up to ameliorate destitution and the chaotic hospital system was co-ordinated into the National Health Service. The much-vaunted Welfare State was complete.

Modern capitalism demands that the State spend capital on maintaining and improving the wealth—and profit—producing capacities of the working class. The NHS, the State education system and even the NAB are State capitalist organisations which work with labour power as their raw material. Although expenditure on such services is an economic necessity under modem capitalism it is not suggested that the relationship between the economy and the Welfare State is direct and mechanical. As a matter of history the present structure of the welfare services is the product of political struggles of varying intensity for over a hundred years. A great deal of idealism and devotion as well as a great deal of calculated self-interest has gone into all the campaign for education, factory and welfare measures under capitalism.

And indeed some aspects of the health and physical environment of the working class have improved considerably: infant mortality has been cut, some killer diseases eradicated, housing and factory conditions bettered. On the other hand, as well as putting more into the worker, capitalism has demanded more out of him more intense work as well as the faster pace of life generally. Aneurin Bevan used to refer to the NHS as “pure socialism” as it gave people free access to medical treatment. However there is nothing to be gained from seeing welfare services as something which they are not. They do not give the worker something for nothing. They are not free handouts.

Reforms—social, economic and political—are necessary all the time to keep the capitalist system running smoothly. They do not represent a challenge to the system or a concession from the system, rather are they demanded by the system. All such reforms, in education and welfare, have left the working class propertyless and non-owners of the means of production. They do not challenge the basis of the capitalist system which is this non-ownership of the means of production by the working class. Poverty is the negation of ownership. Thus the working class still live in poverty.

Today, proposals for the reform of the welfare services are once again being mooted. Douglas Houghton, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the present government, has been given the responsibility of reforming these services. Like Beveridge he has the task of reorganising poverty, that is, of seeing that expenditure on the welfare services is spent as effectively as possible from the point of view of the productive efficiency of the working class: no one must get too much and no one must get too little. He also has the task of working out more efficient ways of dealing with those whose labour power is either worn out or of such low quality as to be useless : those who used to be called the “aged poor" and others who live in destitution pure and simple.

The working class should not be interested in reorganising poverty. Their aim should be to end the present degrading status of those who work. Under capitalism the producers are treated as mere productive instruments. This is a necessary consequence of the ownership of the means of life by a minority, which means that the producers are propertyless, owning nothing but labour power. Only under socialism where all will have free access to the means of life will people be able to live and treat each other as human beings.

Adam Buick

Beveridge Deals with the Birth Rate (1943)

From the July 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

And We Deal with Beveridge

Sir William Beveridge, being the noise of the moment, has been taken up by the Sunday Observer, who have been paying him for a weekly article on the editorial page. As Sir William is a public figure, it is to be presumed that he receives no mean payment for these articles. In the issue of April 11th, he deals with “The Problem of the Birth Rate.” The title itself is interesting. Why is it a problem, and to whom? Let us now examine this problem.

In dealing with present-day society, certain basic features have to be borne in mind. These are the fact that society is divided into two classes—those who, by virtue of their non-possession of wealth, are compelled to sell their labour-power to some firm or organisation which is willing to buy it, and those who, by virtue of their ownership of the factories and the general means of production and distribution, are able to buy the energies of the first group for so many hours per week. In relation to the second group, the first group stand as slaves—wage-slaves. Perhaps they might even be termed “free slaves,” because in peace time they have the theoretical right to terminate their employment by a week or a month’s notice. But should they do this, they are not entitled to unemployment pay, and being without wealth, they are compelled immediately to seek another master. This is the extent of their “freedom.”

As is to be expected, Sir William ignores this feature, and for the moment we will ignore Sir William.

At this stage we might well ask whose birth-rate is it that Sir William is concerned with—is it the birth-rate of the wage-slaves or the birth-rate of the owning class? It must be fairly obvious that it is the birth-rate of the wage-slaves which is the problem, because numerically the owning class represent such a tiny fragment of the population that, even if they had sixteen per family, it would still not alter the birth rate. Evidently it is the birthrate of the wage-slaves which is the perplexing problem.

The next question is who is it that is concerned with the workers’ birth-rate, and why? If Mr. Jones told Mr. Brown that he was not satisfied with Mr. Brown’s birth-rate, we should imagine that Mr. Brown might feel a little bit annoyed, especially if Mr. Jones hadn’t done anything about it himself. Now it must here be pointed out that there is a distinct difference between the “birth-rate problem” and the desire to have children. If a worker wishes to have children, it is not out of a desire to increase the birth-rate; but simply and solely because that is a natural human desire. In reproducing himself, therefore, the worker does not make a prior study of the birth-rate statistics. As Sir William points out, most marriages result in one child; if second and third children are not born, it is because they are not wanted, and in most cases the reason they are not wanted is that the workers cannot afford to rear them decently—not because they do not want them. There is a further tendency which may be noted in passing. As wages tend to follow the cost of living, and as the cost of rearing a small family is less than that of rearing a large family, wages adapt themselves accordingly, so that before the war, owing to the low level of “real” wages, it was becoming increasingly the practice for both married partners to be working. Here the change from relative comfort to the poverty of one partner supporting three represented such a big change that there was less disposition than ever in such cases to have children.

Now the question of the birth-rate is this. If the birth-rate is increased, it means that there will be a large increase in the number of workers (and fighters)—for in wartime it is the workers, the wage-slaves, who do the fighting; even if the whole of the owning class did all the fighting, their numbers are so small that they would soon be overwhelmed. Now we are beginning to understand why it is that the problem of the birth-rate is so serious—for the owning class, and we can return to Sir William Beveridge at the point where he quotes Winston Churchill as saying : “If, therefore, this country is to keep its high place in the leadership of the world, and to survive as a Great Power that can hold its own against external pressure, our people must be encouraged by every means to have larger families.” Thus both Churchill and Beveridge desire that there should be a continual good supply of workers (and fighters). It is not possible to deal with this aspect of the question more fully at the moment, but it may be well to ask whether, if Britain lost the war, the British owning class would not lose a very large proportion of their wealth.

Beveridge twice makes the statement that “people will not have children for pay,” yet this is precisely the nature of that one of his suggestions which might, be described as practical. He says : “If children’s allowances are to be effective in remedying this inequality” (as between children in small and large families),” they must be adequate; they must be enough for subsistence in every case, and should be supplemented by special schemes for particular occupations.” He also recommends free comprehensive medical service for maternity, with provision for its special costs. His other idea, which might be described as the impractical or the imponderable one is a “change in public opinion”—i.e., that workers should be induced to have children as a result of pronouncements by members of the owning class that they should do so in order that “Britain’s role of leadership” should be maintained. One would hardly have thought it necessary to point out to an economist like Sir William Beveridge that workers are not going to have children for such imponderable reasons as this. If Bill Brown told Tom Jones that he had had a baby in order to help retain Britain’s role of leadership, would he not be greeted with ribald laughter?

Ramo.

Some Socialist points on the Beveridge Report (1942)

From the December 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time does not allow a thorough examination of the Beveridge Report in this issue, but a few preliminary remarks may be made on aspects of particular interest to Socialists.

First we may ask why all this fuss about proposals which even the Times—not remarkable for its generosity towards social reforms—admits are “moderate enough to disarm any charge of indulgence”? (Times, December 2.) The spokesmen of capitalism are already preening themselves on the score that the Report shows what a generous and progressive country this is. They might pause to notice Beveridge’s claim that everything he proposes could and should have been done decades ago. All that time they have been boasting of the numerous reform measures they have introduced, yet the sum total of them all is so niggardly and displeasing in the eyes of its beneficiaries, the workers, that the latter can be impressed by the seemingly important advance the Beveridge scheme represents by contrast with the evil condition of to-day.

Even so the scheme should be viewed in proper perspective. The Times reads into the Report the “confident assurance that the poor need not always be with us,” but this is merely a misuse of terms, and one incidentally for which Beveridge appears not to be responsible. He talks all the time of abolishing “want,” by which he avowedly means something quite different from abolishing poverty. By want he means the condition into which the workers fall when their wages stop, not the condition in which they always are because they are carrying the capitalist class on their backs. Beveridge is quite clear about the distinction and says so. Did he not make a statement on December 1 (reported in the B.B.C. news broadcasts but apparently not in the Press) that it had always been his view that want could be abolished within the ranks of the wage-earners without any inroads into the wealth of the rich? He is saying in effect in his Report want could be abolished without interfering with capitalism, but neither he nor the Times want to abolish poverty. But for the poverty of the poor there could be no riches for the rich—a state which he and they find quite acceptable.

The Report has had a good Press, and already it is claimed that the Liberals and half the Conservative Party view it with favour. A characteristic and intelligible capitalist comment was reported in the Daily Worker (December 3, 1942) from Captain Somerset de Chair, who is a’ Conservative M.P. He is reported as follows : —

“I welcome it as a comprehensive plan to remove insecurity without resorting to the uncertain hazards of social reconstruction, he said.

This plan promises what we young Conservatives have always demanded—a square deal for the working man within the existing social and economic framework, instead of some utopia on the further side of an economic torrent.”

The Report is mistakenly referred to as a measure of insurance for the workers against the evils of capitalism. It would be more accurate to see it as a measure of insurance for the capitalists against the (for them) desperate evil of working class discontent with capitalism. Better far to give something away in time than to risk losing all.

The Report has been criticised by the Insurance Companies whose profits would be affected by the proposal to hand over their industrial assurance work to a Government Board. This was to be expected, but it gives rise to some interesting speculations. The Insurance Companies, with their enormous investments in all kinds of industrial and commercial enterprises, wield great influence, not excluding influence in Parliament and the Press. Fifteen or twenty years ago it was common in so-called Labour papers to see bitter attacks on the Prudential and other companies. What has happened to change all this, so that nowadays the clamour against them has almost disappeared? The Daily Express (November 28) had a curious little reference to this in an article on a book by the late Sir Arnold Wilson in which he attacked the insurance companies. According to the writer of the article. Sir Arnold was struck by the way in which the economists had ignored the problem presented by the “concentration of financial power” in the hands of the companies. “The oracles,” he found, “were strangely dumb.” “He searched libraries. He found little. He consulted the experts. And chief among them was Sir William Beveridge, who explained why the London School of Economics, on grounds of expediency, had ignored the subject.” (Daily Express, November 28. Italics ours.)

Sir William is, of course, no longer with the London School of Economics, and perhaps finds his hands less tied. In one fundamental respect, the scheme is a gamble, and Socialists can be certain that the gamble will be a losing one, for it is based on the expectation that unemployment will be permanently reduced after the war to a level less than it was before. If this optimistic assumption proves wrong, then the whole of the financial provisions are undermined and either the benefits would have to be reduced, or the high contributions raised still more or a large further deficit made up from taxation. This optimism of Sir William Beveridge is too much for the City Editor of the Times He points out (December 3) that Beveridge assumes that unemployment will not exceed an average of 8½ per cent. of the insured workers, but

“Only in one year, 1927, in the 14 years before the war was the average below 10 per cent.; in 1932 it was over 22 per cent. It is right to hope that unemployment can be reduced to below 8½ per cent. . . . But it is clear that a corollary of the social security plan must be a plan for full and efficient employment. Without it the social budget will be thrown out of gear.”

The Labour Party who gaily went into office in 1929 with a pledge to deal with unemployment and a hope that things “were on the up grade” should not need to be reminded that what happened to them (unemployment soon mounting to three millions) may well happen again even in the best of all possible capitalist worlds.

The Labour Party might also reflect on another incident in their experience. When the crisis occurred in 1931 it was a common theme with them that capitalism was for ever bankrupt and never again could there be any question of trying to make capitalism palatable to the workers by offering social reforms. Capitalism, they said, would never again be able to afford reforms. Socialists pointed out the absurdity of this belief that capitalism, choked with its own surplus products, could not afford to surrender some of them to alleviate the workers’ miseries. What have the Labour Party to say now that they are hailing Beveridge and allowing themselves to be manoeuvred into defending his scheme ?

One of the major purposes of the Report has already been served, its use as war propaganda. Both from the point of view of offering the workers at home some more or less concrete hope of benefits to come and from the point of view of offsetting Nazi propaganda for a new European Order the Report can be described as an instant success for the Government.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Anticipating Beveridge (1942)

Editorial from the December 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing in advance of the issue of the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance, amidst the deafening clamour that has heralded that much boosted publication, we confidently predict that from a working-class standpoint it will be one of the ripest political red-herrings of our generation. It is one of those occasions when the Socialist prophet cannot go wrong.

In justification of this discordant note in the almost universal harmony we can point to the limited scope of the inquiry, and the well-known anti-Socialist views of the author. The outstanding social problem of our age is the poverty of the working-class. It is not the result of unemployment or of illness, or of industrial accident, or of inadequate powers of wealth production. It exists side by side with great wealth and affects the employed as well as the unemployed worker. It is the result of the private ownership by the capitalist class of society’s means of producing and distributing wealth. The facts of this concentration of ownership in the hands of a small minority of the population are well enough known, and Sir William Beveridge is, of course, quite well aware of them. Nor is it a new story. To go back no further than 1904 we have the telling statement of Sir Leo Money: “It is probably true that a group of about 120,000 people who with their families form about one-seventieth part of the population, owns about two-thirds of the entire accumulated wealth of the United Kingdom.” With perhaps some slight modification, that estimate is still true as other, later, investigators have shown. Sir William Beveridge and others like him may answer that they do not believe it necessary or practicable to abolish the system of society which rests on that foundation, but why is that fact about the basis of the capitalist system excluded and deliberately excluded from this and every other official “investigation” into the poverty problem of the working class? And why should the workers allow themselves to be side-tracked by inquiries into poverty which start off by excluding the major factor in the case? In an address to the Fabian Society on November 21st, 1942, Sir William, according to a press report (Sunday Express, November 22) urged the need for “thorough unbiased investigation and discussion,” but he had already stated the scope of the inquiry so as to exclude any investigation into capitalism itself. The problem, he said, “is that of discovering how to combine the proved benefits of private enterprise at private risk . . . with the necessity of national planning in the aftermath of war.” In short he, and those who selected him for the investigation, are only concerned with the problem of alleviating some of the secondary evils of capitalism.

Those who chose him knew what they were doing. They took no chances. Throughout his public career Sir William Beveridge has been a defender of capitalism, confining his diligent inquiries to fields which exclude the question of a frontal attack on the capitalist system. His concern has never been with the problem why are the working class poor, but always with the problem of providing for the periods when the worker’s income from the sale of his labour power ceases. As he wrote in 1924 in his “Insurance for All and Everything” (published by the Daily News, Ltd.) :

“The problem is not that of guaranteeing an income at all times to everybody irrespective of his work and services. That way lies Communism. The problem is the narrower one of giving security against all the main risks of economic life to those who depend on continuous earning, of arranging that part of what such persons earn by their work shall take the form of provision for themselves and their dependants whenever their work is interrupted or stopped by causes beyond their control.” (Page 31.)

In other words, Sir William, accepting the system which gives the privileged class their property-income without the necessity of working, limits his examination to the problem of legislating for the propertyless class. It is all right though for the capitalist to have an “income at all times irrespective of his work and services.”

On occasion Sir William Beveridge has attempted to justify his bias for capitalism and its inequality. He did so in a speech on November 10, 1942 : “To concentrate on absolute equality of incomes for all men is an unpractical and a wrong aim. It attaches excessive importance to material things and treats envy as our master passion” (News-Chronicle, November 11, 1942). Of course nobody ever suggested anything so unpractical as trying to build a social system on private ownership of the means of production and “absolute equality of incomes,” but we need not here go into that caricature of Socialism. What is of interest is the slick defence of our millionaire-pauper system with the ethical argument that to aim at equality attaches excessive importance to material things, and treats envy as our master passion. It was ever the trick of those who have material things monopolised in their control to deprecate the sin of envy in the dispossessed. What, we might ask, of the greed of those whose motto is “What we have, we hold”?

In conclusion, we may quote a passage from Sir Leo Money’s “Riches and Poverty” (1904). Commenting on the way in which reformers of his day ignored the facts about inequality, he used a description which might well be applied to Sir W. Beveridge and othere of his kind : —

“Our most ardent reformers discuss their plans without reference to the economic framework of the society which they propose to reform. As a result we get a vast amount of misdirected effort, a dreary outpouring of vague and empty rhetoric . . . and a succession of timorous proposals for reform ludicrous in relation to the nature and magnitude of the problems with which they seek to deal.”

Something will perhaps result from the Beveridge proposals after they have been discussed elaborately to the exclusion from many workers’ minds of the real poverty problem, and after being scaled down in the customary way. Thus they will serve the main purpose of those who instituted the inquiry, but unless the workers themselves speedily attack the problem of the achievement of Socialism, another ten years will find a new and vain inquiry being started to clear up the mess left behind by Beveridge.

Historic error (1998)

Book Reviews from the May 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Historical Dictionary of Socialism. By James C. Docherty, Scarecrow Press, 1997.

This book follows academic convention by saying that socialism defies precise definition and then proceeds to give emphasis to the policies and actions of Labour, Social-Democratic and “Socialist” organisations and individuals around the world. One result of this viewpoint is that Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton (1953- ) gets over twice as much space as Morris, William (1834-1896).

A common thread uniting many of the self-styled “Socialist” organisations has been a defence of the welfare state, although as Docherty points out the idea can be traced back to Thomas Paine who suggested comprehensive welfare benefits to combat poverty in Rights of Man (1791). But the welfare state has also been pursued by non-Socialists and anti-Socialists. For example, in late nineteenth century Germany, Bismarck introduced a number of welfare measures, such as unemployment insurance, in the belief that he was fighting socialism.

In Britain the Liberal Party was the first to establish the principles of the welfare state in the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 (based on the German model) and then in subsequent legislation, and it was the Liberal MP William Beveridge whose Report in 1942 coined the phrase “welfare state”. And now in Britain we have the spectacle of Tories leaping to the defence of the welfare state against Labour government cuts in spending. Confused? Well, if you take the viewpoint that socialism is what “Socialists” do, then you should be.

Docherty claims that Marx’s labour theory of value “was used to justify the argument that labour should be paid more than simply a subsistence wage.” Marx did indeed argue that workers should get more than a subsistence, but not a wage. His whole point was that the wages system (including salaries, employees and employers, workers and bosses) was the means whereby we are legally robbed of what we produce. This leaves many begging for crumbs off the rich man’s table via the welfare state.

Socialism, as originally used by the followers of Robert Owen in the 1820s and later made famous by Marx , will be a system of society where production takes place directly for human needs. This is still the only sensible way of understanding socialism, and not the Alice in Wonderland world where words mean whatever anyone says they mean.

Lew Higgins

Giants Unslain (2021)

From the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1942 Sir William Beveridge published a report under the unexciting title Social Insurance and Allied Services. It has become famous as the founding document of the post-war welfare state, and has supposedly led to major improvements in the lives of most British citizens. In fact, it achieved very much less than this, as the report itself just referred to ‘a redistribution of income within the wage-earning classes’, and stated that its proposals for social insurance should merely ‘aim at guaranteeing the minimum income needed for subsistence’. The following year the Socialist Party published a pamphlet Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty, which concluded that the proposals would ‘level the workers’ position as a whole’ and so would indeed be ‘a redistribution of poverty’.

Beveridge identified ‘five giant evils’, which were capitalised as Want (i.e. poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. How has the battle against these fared in the nearly eighty years since the report was produced? On its 75th anniversary, Stephen Armstrong wrote in The Guardian (10 October 2017) that, after the period of relative prosperity that lasted till the late 1970s, the giants were now ‘creeping back into the mainstream of our daily life’. Not very much has changed in the short period since then. Let’s look at each giant in turn, combining general points and statistics with specific examples.

At the end of last year it was reported that more than a million of the UK’s poorest people are regularly struggling to pay for food. Independent food banks reported a doubling of the number of emergency food parcels handed out in 2020 compared to the year before. The Trussell Trust stated that ‘half of all households visiting food banks struggled to afford essential goods such as food and clothes because they were repaying Universal Credit debts’ (Guardian 1 December). This is a welfare system which is supposed to keep people above the level of going without, ensuring that they do not have to choose between eating and heating. But it clearly fails to provide even ‘the minimum income needed for subsistence’, in Beveridge’s words.

Covid has increased the numbers in poverty, but it is not the underlying cause. According to one analysis, an extra 700,000 people had been thrust into poverty by the pandemic. In all, over 15 million people (nearly a quarter of the population) were living in poverty, and for the great majority of those the disruption caused by Covid was not responsible.

Turning to disease, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has stated that, among the poorest and second poorest fifth of the population, more than one in four children between ten and fifteen experienced moderate or severe mental health difficulties. The poorest fifth have at birth a healthy life expectancy around fifteen years less than the least deprived fifth. More generally, life expectancy is increasing in Western Europe, but in the UK the rise slowed dramatically between 2011 and 2015; austerity and reduced spending on health services are at least partly to blame for this, according to a 2017 article in the British Medical Journal. The same article noted that there were major disparities between health care in the north and south of England, with economic disadvantages being responsible for the north being left behind.

A 2019 report from the World Health Organization noted that five-year cancer survival rates are worse in the United Kingdom compared to other high-income countries in the EU. Over a million people experienced ‘catastrophic spending on health services’, primarily on over-the-counter medicines.

Last year the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health published a report State of Child Health 2020. This noted that there had been improvements in some areas, such as better health checks for those with diabetes, and improved oral health, but in other areas there were problems. The rate of infant mortality increased slightly in England in 2017, while over a third of children aged 10 or 11 in England were obese or overweight. And again it was the poorest areas that had the most problems. Further, it was recently reported that black women in the UK are four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth, with those in deprived areas more likely to die.

Ignorance was described by Beveridge as something that ‘no democracy can afford among its citizens’; after all, capitalism needs a reasonably educated workforce. In the 1930s the vast majority of children left school at age fourteen with no formal qualifications, and the proportion of the population attending university was well below that in other countries, such as Germany and the US.

Things have changed since then, of course, but many problems remain. The National Literacy Trust states that one adult in six is functionally illiterate, with ‘very poor literacy skills’, and so has difficulty reading on unfamiliar topics. In England in 2019, one in thirteen of those aged 16–64 had no qualifications. Many students from poorer backgrounds struggle with parts of the education system, especially the transition to university.

By squalor was meant primarily housing conditions. Shelter reported in 2019 that 280,000 people were recorded as being homeless in England, i.e. one in every two hundred people (and one in 52 in London). And 220,000 had been threatened with homelessness that year. It is generally accepted that these figures are an underestimate, as so much homelessness is undocumented. People are forced to sofa-surf or live in dire hostels or B&Bs. Living on the street has an appalling effect on a person’s mental and physical health, reducing their life expectancy by many years.

It is not just being without a home that causes problems. A recent article in The Guardian (12 January) dealt with a block of flats in Islington where residents went without water for four and a half days after the mains pipe exploded and the PFI consortium that managed it simply failed to carry out the necessary repairs. More widely, an estimated 8.4 million people in England are living in a home that is unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable, according to the National Housing Federation.

But squalor (or unsafe living conditions) need not just be a matter of housing, and the growth of large cities is another factor. It was recently ruled by a coroner that the death of a nine-year-old girl in London in 2013 was partly caused by air pollution, specifically nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter pollution in excess of WHO guidelines, mainly the result of traffic emissions.

Idleness, Beveridge said, ‘destroys wealth and corrupts men’. The depression that began in 1929 had led to mass unemployment, with one-fifth of the workforce being unemployed in 1930. Reducing this was widely seen as essential for the health of the economy.

Unemployment figures go up and down over time. In the three months to October 2020, the UK unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, 1.2 percentage points higher than a year earlier. The rise is partly due to coronavirus, of course, and there were a quarter of a million fewer vacancies than a year before. The annual decrease in employment was the largest annual reduction since 2010. In all, 8.6 million people were economically inactive, and a record number had been made redundant. Moreover, many jobs nowadays are zero-hours. So idleness has certainly not been overcome.

The point here is not to over-emphasise the dire conditions so many face now, or to understate the appalling situation in the 1930s. Rather, it is to show how little has been achieved in nearly eight decades despite the best efforts of reformers, and to point out how many problems remain. The giants of the 30s and 40s still haunt present-day society, and it will take a revolutionary change to do away with them completely.

Paul Bennett

The Miners’ Problem (1942)

From the April 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

On all sides are heard the suggestions that to win the war it is necessary to emulate the system of German “total” organisation. The New Statesman carries a leading article (March 21st) dealing with the coal question, and among other things it says—

  “The mood of the men has been, and still is, desperate and embittered; they agreed when war came to suspend the class struggle—but the root of the trouble is psychological. The owners who spoke in the debate drove home their case against the men on the score of absenteeism. The men on their side have a devastating answer.

   It is a frequent, and may be, in some coalfields, a general practice, to work the worst seams during the war in order to conserve the richer seams for the unchecked and unlimited exploitation to which owners look forward—when peace returns.

   Here rather than in any lack of military talent lies our inferiority to the totalitarian regimes. Two things are necessary, the first is to banish the profit motive from the pit; the second is to associate the men in its management. The only way to achieve these ends is to bring the industry under national ownership.”

Some of the difficulties of management that the writer speaks about with regard to individual ownership could be solved by State control, but management by Government experts, with an eye for efficiency—the owners being bought off with Government bonds—does not imply the end of the profit motive.

The miners would still be paid an “economic wage,” with the probability of their bargaining power for higher wages being curtailed. The wages question would have very little chance of being discussed in any “association in the management” that was set up. Assuming that no major change takes place in society—a fair assumption—the industry will have to face the problem of competition of foreign producers after the war, when the Government, acting as owner, would be forced to use all the usual owner methods—cutting costs by lowering wages to pay the bondholders. Credit must be given to the New Statesman for not calling this arrangement that it proposes by the title of Socialism, but not so “Cameronian” in Reynolds’ News (March 22nd), who, dealing with the same subject, puts it like this: —

  "Sir William Beveridge, in the august columns of “The Times,” has sounded a clarion call for Socialism to beat the Nazis. We must nationalise the national income, he says. We must recognise the fact—so frequently expressed in this column—”that bribery by price or wage is often an ineffective spur to output.” Now that the case for Socialism has found such a spokesman on such a platform, is it too much to expect that it will be given voice by Labour Ministers in the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street?”

Sir William’s voice, we might inform “Cameronian,” would be a mere addition to all that collection called the “left” which sees nothing wrong with a “Socialism” that has for its ingredients State control of industry coupled with the wages system, with the erstwhile owners sitting pretty waiting for the period to come round for the pleasure of collecting the State dividend.

For ourselves, it appears that we are still the only Party of the working class that holds that Socialism means a complete change of society economically—yes, and in outlook too; for common ownership of wealth and its democratic control will produce a different man, who will need no bribe to induce him to work, who will adhere to the ethic that he gives his all in a society that has neither owners, nor wages, to buy him, where the spur to output is his and society’s welfare.

L.D.

Shaw on Beveridge (1944)

From the January 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Capitalism will be very lucky if it gets off as cheaply as Mr. Beveridge proposes." 

George Bernard Shaw, "World Review," November 1943.)

The Beveridge Plan (1944)

From the January 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an interview with Maurice Webb of The Daily Herald (July 22nd, 1943), Sir William Beveridge says: " I would not make any important change in my Social Insurance plan, and I am hoping the Government will go ahead with it.”

This was in answer to Webb's query whether, in the light of seven months' public debate on his report, he still stood by its essential principles.

He went on to say that if the plan has any defect it is that it costs the Treasury too little in the early stages, and not too much, as some people allege.

“I do not think any Chancellor of the Exchequer will ever again have the chance to do the same thing so cheaply as now,” said Beveridge.

What an indictment out of the Capitalists' own mouths. Simply thinking in terms of HOW CHEAPLY THEY can try to patch up their old outworn system of society which is as full of holes as a sieve. No thought of human happiness at all.

Sir William said he regarded the operation of his plan as a quite simple and easy matter which ought not to embarrass us or present any insuperable difficulties. “I would like this problem of Social Insurance GOT OUT OF THE WAY,” he said, "so that we can get on to the much more difficult problems of reconstruction which call for attention." 

When asked what he thought the chances were of the Government proceeding to operate his plan, he said he was confident it would do so. And so are we. At any rate it is certain that the Government would not have commissioned Sir William to investigate these matters had they thought he would do it unfavourably to the system to which they so tenaciously cling.

Sir William is now about to begin (as a private venture?) his investigation of Unemployment. He does not expect the Government to be unfriendly to his own personal efforts. Nor do we. For if his findings equal those of his security plan, the Government have nothing to be afraid of at all.

He emphasised that the provision he would make for social security is contingent on avoiding MASS unemployment after the war. "But maintenance of employment doesn’t mean the elimination of all unemployment.” he said.

"In a free society industrial changes and development are bound to cause a small amount of unemployment for which adequate insurance provisions should be made.” But he is quite convinced that given proper direction of resources it will be possible to avoid the grave mass unemployment we had between the wars.

According to Beveridge, then, no real solution has ever been bothered about before to reduce unemployment to the minimum. And even he, the new Saviour of Mankind, openly admits that under Capitalism unemployment must remain, while so many millions are without the means of making life comfortable for those who produce everything and own nothing.

When he talks about adequate insurance provisions, we can be sure that they will be well below what a worker will earn when at work, and for the majority of workers, even in these piping times, that only amounts to subsistence.

Then again, his glib phrase, "proper direction of resources.” And who is going to give proper direction to the resources of the other countries which are bound up with our daily life? And does he think that his family allowances will induce young working-class couples to raise families of cannon fodder “BETWEEN THE WARS" just in time to be old enough to fight those wars?

To Mr. Webb he said it will take about six months to complete his enquiry; at the end of which he will issue a report to the public (on his own private responsibility) setting forth such proposals as seem adequate after a completely objective examination of the whole problem.

Socialists can save him that six months’ enquiry. We can tell him the cause of unemployment. We can also tell him that, short of SOCIALISM, involving as it does the abolition of Capitalism and the Wages System, he will never find the solution.

Samuel Phillips