Editorial: Capitalism and the food shortage (1946)

Editorial from the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE Governments of the world are worried about the food problem. Mr. Herbert Lehman, Director- General of U.N.R.R. A., declares that: “More men, women and children in Europe and the Far East are hungry this winter than at any time in modern history." He calls it “the greatest critical emergency which has faced the United Nations since the end of the war.” The defenders of capitalism do not admit that the existence of the problem and the inhuman and bungling way in which it is being handled are evidences of the inherent defects of that social system, but that is what they are. It is not true that the shortage exists only as a bye-product of war, for in pre-war years, when there were great surpluses of wheat and other products there were, alongside of them, millions of undernourished workers and peasants too poor to buy the food they needed. War is itself an inevitable outcome of capitalist trade rivalries and has, too, a result that is welcome from the capitalist standpoint, of removing for a time the huge unsaleable surpluses of raw materials and foodstuffs. One of the reasons why war propaganda like that of the Nazis was listened to by the workers was that it was linked up with promises that territorial expansion would provide more food. Presumably with this in mind, Mr. Clinton Anderson, Secretary of Agriculture in the United States, demanded, in a broadcast in October, 1945, that: “hunger must be eliminated as a primary cause of war,” and “ the United Nations must not permit the pangs of hunger to bring about the basic fears and greeds which result in war.” —The Times, 15 Oct., 1945.

He went on to say that “two-thirds of the world’s population was undernourished, yet science and technology had advanced to such a point that the earth’s agricultural resources could fill the need of all.”

In a Socialist world, if a general or local shortage of food existed all the resources of the world would at once be available to move foodstuffs to the area where they were needed, or to increase total production if that was necessary. If, as a temporary measure, consumption of food generally had to be reduced to help a locality where shortage existed, there would be no obstacles in the shape of private ownership and the profit motive.

In the world as it exists to-day not even the realisation that starvation or semi-starvation threatens millions of people can prevent capitalism from functioning in its normal way. People in Europe need dried eggs, while in America, according to the Daily Express (8 Feb., 1946), there is “a glut of eggs” and “poultry farmers are facing ruin as a result." In the same country farm output could have been increased, but because farmers consider the price offered for their grains is too low “ they prefer to feed them to their stock rather than to sell" (The Times, 9 Feb.), and they have deliberately kept output below what it could have been (Daily Telegraph, 9 Feb.). American farmers had not forgotten the ruin that faced them before the war because they had produced too much, not too much for the needs of the population, but more than they could sell at a profit. The Times (9 Feb.; says that with the ending of the war the “fears of agricultural surpluses which haunted the United States between the wars were revived. In spite of the golden prosperity brought by the war years, the farmers recollection of the deep agricultural depression of the twenties and thirties is as active a political force as the ghost of the hungry forties was for a long time in the political history of this country. But the fear of being under an avalanche of farm surpluses, attended by a catastrophic collapse of prices, has proved to have been a misreading of the portents, and the miscalculation has been aggravated by the determination of farmers to hoard grain as a protest against the price levels imposed by Washington.”

At the same time that millions are undernourished—in U.S.A., as well as in other countries—because they cannot afford to buy more, there is not a country in the world in which the rich cannot buy the best food; either openly or in the black market, in unrestricted amounts. In every country labour and resources that could be used to supply the needs of the ill-fed and ill-clothed masses of the population are being used, often with the deliberate encouragement of the Governments, on production of luxury articles for the wealthy or goods for the export drive, or armaments. Hundreds of millions of pounds being spent by the leading Powers on perfecting the bomb or building up peace-time armies, navies and air forces. In Britain, simultaneously with the declaration about the need for more food, we read of booming exports of British cars and other products. The Evening News (9 Feb.), under the heading “British Car Exports Booming,” reported that the Nuffield organisation alone will have sent abroad 20,000 cars by the end of June, when its production will have grown to 1,000 cars a week.

Britain is short of food and because we live under capitalism low-paid agricultural labourers are so anxious to escape to the relatively better paid work in industry that the Labour Government—while refusing to carry out the Labour Party’s own oft- repeated demand that land workers should have wages not less than those in industry—uses the war-time emergency powers to tie agricultural workers to their jobs.

Capitalism is indeed a mad and sorry system, which has long outlived its usefulness

Is this what Labour voters wanted? A world made safe for investors (1946)

From the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a country where the whole adult population have votes and where the overwhelming majority of the voters are workers, the art of administering capitalism is a delicate, tricky business. To attract and keep the support of a majority of voters the party in power must have a programme that promises to introduce improvements in the miserable conditions of the poor; but in order to make capitalism function at all the government must not at the same time frighten and antagonise the rich, whose investment and spending has to go on unless industry is to slacken towards a standstill. Until such time as the workers recognise that their interest demands Socialism, the party that succeeds in persuading the electors that it can both please the workers and conciliate the capitalist will be the party that wins elections. The Labour Party succeeded in doing this, and is now carrying out its pledges, or some of them; but how many of the Labour voters who were attracted by the promises of more work, higher wages, social security, houses, etc., studied and understood the other half of the programme, the half that was directed to the capitalist class? How many of them observed that if wages rise and other things remain unchanged, then profits must fall; and that if profits go on at the old level (or increase), wages can only be prevented from falling if the total output of industry is increased? There has been plenty of Labour Party propaganda designed to make the workers believe that a Labour Government would reduce the wealth of the rich in order to help the poor, though this was not stated explicitly in the literature got out for the purpose of the general election. Workers can already see what is happening. War-time earnings, enlarged by overtime and various temporary bonuses, are now falling, and the changes introduced in the income tax, while decreasing somewhat the amount knocked off wages, also reduced Excess Profits Tax levied on companies, and reduced the total amount of tax levied on surtax payers. Mr. Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer, made two revealing statements in his Budget speech. While declaring that many surtax payers are idlers, he went on to announce that his Budget reduced their income tax. 

“The truth, in fact, is . . . that a large number of the surtax payers do nothing at all. They subsist on very large investment interests. Many of these have been inherited through many generations in the past, sometimes along with noble names, sometimes not. As a consequence of this, there is, in the total surtax income, a great quantity of completely unearned income, conglomerated in huge lumps around people who have inherited it, obtained it by luck, or other means." —Hansard, 19 Nov., 1945. CoL 152.

“ I repeat . . . that in terms of income, next year everybody will be better off, including surtax’ payers . . ." —Hansard. 28 Nov., 1945. Col. 1358.

The principal feature of the Labour programme at the election was the pledge to nationalise certain industries. In some vague way never clearly explained this was supposed to benefit the workers. It will, however, be noticed that since the Government entered office, the theme of numerous speeches by Cabinet Ministers has been that the compensation terms would be "fair" or even "generous" to the capitalist investors, while to the workers the Labour leaders' reiterated appeal is for harder work, austerity, and greater production.

This contrasts oddly with some of their speeches and writings during the war. Two examples, both from Cabinet Ministers, illustrate this. In 1942, Mr. Bevin, now Foreign Secretary, but at that time Minister of Labour in the Coalition Government, made a speech in which he said:— 

"At the end of the war we should be able to buy goods only for goods. The rentier, comfortably living on interest, would certainly be gone. It will mean that we shall have a nation at work, and that will not be an unhealthy thing."

—Daily Herald, 16 July, 1942.

Then there is Mr. Shinwell, now Minister of Fuel and Power. In his book, “When the Men Come Home” (Gollanz, 1944, page 41), he laid down the principle “that any physically and mentally fit individual who fails to make a useful contribution to the work of the community shall not be fed, clothed and housed at the expense of those who do work."

How are Mr. Bevin and Mr. Shinwell, and their Cabinet colleagues, progressing with their healthy doctrine that there should be no non-workers, comfortably living on interest, clothed and housed by the labours of those who have to work? It is only necessary to look at the nationalisation schemes to see that, far from abolishing interest receivers, the principal achievements for which this Labour Government will be remembered is that the “rentier, comfortably living on interest,” is being vastly increased in number and their position consolidated. The so-called epoch-making change brought about by the Labour Government is merely the transformation of some capitalist investors holding company shares, into holders of Government bonds. It was a development already making headway under the Conservatives before Labour came into power. Here are some examples of that nationalisation or State capitalism, wrongly described as Socialism by the Labour Party. The Central Electricity Board has over £50 million of stock outstanding and pays interest each year to the stockholders amounting to over £2¼ million. Port of London Authority, £34 million of stock, paying £1⅓ million interest. Metropolitan Water Board, £58 million, interest £1,790,000 a year. London Passenger Transport Board, stock, £112 million, paying interest of about £4½ million a year.

Then there is the buying out of owners of coal royalties, just completed, with payments of £66 million, available for investment elsewhere. This was a measure backed by the Labour Party though not introduced by them.

Since the Labour Government came into office the Bank of England has been taken over and the stockholders are to receive £58 million of Government stock on which the interest at 3 per cent, will amount to £1¾ million a year.

The Daily Express City Editor (20 Nov., 1945) gave the following rough estimates of the total cost of the Labour Government’s nationalisation schemes:—

Taking interest at, say, 3 per cent., this will involve payments by the Government of about £60 millions a year to the stockholders in exchange for the dividends they are at present receiving on their shares in the various companies. They will on the whole receive a lower rate of interest than before, but will get in return the greater security of bonds backed by the Government. 

As far as the workers are concerned, their position as wage slaves, exploited to maintain a propertied class in luxurious idleness, will not be altered. The State to an ever increasing extent will be the medium through which the exploitation is carried on. The accumulated wealth of the country (the means of production and distribution) will still be concentrated in the hands of the same small minority of individuals, the capitalist class, who own it at present. 

Edgar Hardcastle

The World To-Day — A Socialist Survey (1946)

From the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the corrupted currents of capitalist life the wage slave is never, but always to be blest. Good times are said to be coming, but they never arrive. During the war promises were lavishly spread and the workers looked forward to the cessation of hostilities eagerly, and hopefully, under the impression that the strain would then be over and they could relax to some extent from their arduous toil. They were soon disillusioned however. Exhortation was made to them to resume their weary burden, and when relief was sought through the election of a Labour Government there was no respite. The wage slave gets his fodder barely enough to work on—the difference between the working men who lost, and the working men who won the war-is soon levelled up—amid all the confusion of concentration camps, displaced persons, foes and friends, and the chaos existing everywhere, the commodity nature of labour power manifests itself: the slave must receive sufficient to generate within him what he is called upon to deliver.

The conflict now raging between the more powerful groups of capitalists has forced them to do away with internal competition as much as possible, and this is largely responsible for the growth of nationalisation. There are other causes of course, but this fact should not be lost sight of. A Labour Government puts it over for them, and what is more, fools the wage slaves into believing they are receiving Socialism. The pooling of national capitalist groups has had an effect on the international situation, which is revealed in the quarrel over the proposed loan from the United States, and the squabbles at U.N.O. The recipients of surplus value cannot reconcile their sectional interests; these stand out sharply immediately the war ends. The smaller nations are at the mercy of one or the other of the big three, the mighty economic forces are carrying society along, and forcing the thinking section of the community towards the point when they will be forced to perceive that Socialism is the only way out.

The U.N.O. Conference in London has disclosed the relative decline of European capitalism. Out of 51 nations not a quarter are Europeans.

The veil was lifted for a while during the quarrel between Bevin and Vishinsky, and the real character of Russia was revealed, as also of capitalist Britain. The sudden publicity given by Bevin to the part played by the Communists was not to Moscow’s liking. It looked at one time as if the Bear was going to hibernate, but instead he beat a strategic retreat. Whilst this was going on Molotov was telling the slaves of the Soviet Union that Russian would never allow any other nation to interfere in her internal affairs. A sense of humour is essential at these times even when discussing international bickerings.

The Russians are the victims of their own propaganda ; we are told by them that there is no unemployment in the Soviet Union. There was little unemployment in the slave states of old, or under the feudal system, but this is not saying there was no exploitation. Russian has this in common with ancient Rome and the old civilisations—she allows little or no freedom. The masses are taught and induced to believe what the ruling clique consider it is desirable they should know; their contact with the outside world is restricted; a real knowledge of what exists in other lands might make the Russian workers dangerous from the standpoint of their oppressors. The wage slaves of Russia will grasp the facts underlying their real position eventually: the machine may help to clarify their ideas, and although freedom of association with the workers of other lands may be retarded, it cannot be permanently prevented.

We are beginning to obtain a little more information from Germany about the movement there, and it is pleasing to note that the opposition to the Nazi dictators was stronger than we had been asked to believe. The ruthlessness of the Hitler regime did not prevent certain groups standing out for what they believed to be the real interests of the workers, of which freedom of speech was one. The brutality with which they were treated by the Nazi gang is a sign that Hitler feared them. Many articles have been written about Nazism, but it is hard to accept the statement that the children of Germany were educated and trained by the Nazis against the wishes of their parents. The majority of the wage slaves of the Reich were willing tools and for this reason we should appreciate all the more the courage of those who refused to bow the knee and steadfastly stood, during the whole period of Nazi supremacy, for the unity of the working class of all countries.

There are great troubles ahead; the quarrel over the control of the waterways of Europe is now rampant, with Russia taking the place of Germany. 

How cynically the Russian rulers act: they apparently consider the masses of all other countries to be as backward as the peasantry of the Steppes. They classify themselves as belonging to the freedom- loving nations whilst holding against their will vast numbers of helpless individuals, whose voices they will not allow to be heard. Let the admirers of Russia read the chapter on Pan Slavism in Marx’s “Revolution and Counter Revolution”: let them take stock of the actions of Russia in the Baltic States, and everywhere where she has been able to get a foothold, and they will realise that this totalitarian power is as much a menace to all members of the working class, who are endeavouring to escape the horrors of capitalism by establishing Socialism, as are the rest of the capitalist Powers.

The Labour Government are still continuing their policy of dangling the carrot before the donkey. When anything was wanted during the war how quickly it was brought into being. What a difference when the wage slaves desire something for themselves. Houses, for instance. What a lot of discussion precedes action. The number of samples on show cause hope to spring in the breast of those who live in over-crowded conditions. Swedish houses, Canadian houses, American houses. The specimens are of wood, brick, aluminium or plastic. The women are being questioned as to why they do not have more children. One would think even a Labour Government would get the shelters ready before asking the slaves why they do not have more offspring. The maternity wards are said to be overcrowded. What more do they want? The fact is the God of Profit must be served first, and unless and until a way can he found to enable capitalism’s deity to obtain his pound of flesh, the woes of his victims will be allowed to continue. It is plain to every observant individual that the Labour Party cannot fulfil its pledges to the electorate. There was to be no unemployment. A visit to the Labour Exchange will soon show differently. Capitalism has its own laws and these are more powerful than governments.

To take something from one section of the working class and give it to another does not decrease the amount of exploitation or the amount of surplus value that goes to the capitalist class.

The above is all the Labour Party’s proposals amount to in reality. No expropriation of the recipients of rent, interest, and profit is seriously contemplated, and until that is done nothing is accomplished of lasting benefit to those who produce the wealth of society.

Charles Lestor

Letters: Religion and Socialism (1946)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion and Socialism 

Radlett, Herts.

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Dear Editor,

The article in your December number, under the title “Religion, Ethics, and Socialism,’' seems to me to involve some contradictions. You appear to throw doubt on the attitude of Secularists or Rationalists, who have claimed that the freeing of the human mind from the thraldom of religious superstition is a part of man’s necessary development. Yet, at the same time, you criticise the Church for trying to combine religion with ethics.

I hold that to destroy the religious basis of belief (still unconsciously held by many of those who have no part in the work of orthodox churches) is necessary. As it stands, religion is a valuable instrument of those whose motto is “divide and rule." For examples, see Ireland, India, and Palestine. If some people tend to concentrate on that aspect of the freeing of mankind, why criticise them? There is room in this troubled world for all who assist, in any way, towards the light.

Yours fraternally,

John Rowland.

Reply.

Surely no contradiction is involved in exposing the fallacies of both clergy and secularists, notwithstanding they are in mutual opposition. In the article our correspondent refers to, we show that in general the ethics practised in a period correspond to the social conditions prevalent; while the Church clajins them as part of the gospel and uses them to bolster up its superstitious beliefs, the secularists, on the other hand, accept the ethics, but deny the beliefs

They not only accept the ethics, they accept also the conditions that determine them. The class ownership of the means of life and the resulting poverty and enslavement of the working class.

If our correspondent reads the article more carefully he will find it difficult to substantiate his statement that we appear to throw doubt on the necessity to free the human mind from the thraldom of religion. On the contrary, we combat religion whenever it cuts across our path. The article he complains of is proof of this, and our criticism of the secularists is that they claim that Socialism can make no headway with the workers until religion has been eradicated from their minds. We deny this claim completely. The bulk of the workers are quite capable of understanding Socialism when it is clearly explained to them. Being indifferent to religion, it follows that they are not influenced by it when considering economic questions. If they have a basis of religious belief “unconsciously" held, why should they be jerked out of it only to be dragged into the futile and endless controversy on the question: God or no God?

Our correspondent's example of ruling-class policy "divide and rule’’ is typical of the secularist attitude. One section of the ruling class dominating less powerful sections of the same class is, to them, an outrage. But if the workers of those countries understood Socialism they could not be dragged into a conflict over the interests of their respective masters.

Our correspondent may chose to concentrate on freeing mankind from religion, as others concentrate on intemperance, gambling, or even Fascism, but this “troubled world” will remain troubled and confused until the workers understand Socialism. The need for this understanding becomes daily more urgent. The terrific struggle for markets that is on the way, and the threat of atomic warfare stresses the urgency.

Because it is urgent, because it is the only way, those who already ”see the light” should ignore the carrots dangled under their noses, or the red herrings drawn across their path, and get on with the Job of making Socialists.

F. Foan

"Wellwisher."

We are grateful for some useful suggestions on the leaflet, but your suggested improvements of the wording of the Declaration of Principles would seriously distort the meaning.

Ed. Comm.

"Nationalisation or Socialism?" (1946)

Party News the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

This pamphlet is doubly important now that the programme of the Labour Government has been announced. Is nationalisation a Socialist measure? Is it in the interest of the workers? If not, who will benefit by it? These questions are answered, and the Socialist alternative to nationalisation explained.

Order from Smith's Bookstalls, 68 pages, price 6d., or 7d. post free, from the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain, 2, Rugby Street, London, W.C.l.

SPGB Meetings (1946)

Party News the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Slaves of the Farm U.S.A. (1946)

Book Review from the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Seldom do town workers have an opportunity of seeing for themselves the conditions of life of their fellow beings, the farm' workers. Mr. C. McWilliams, in “Ill Fares the Land” (Faber and Faber), gives valuable information regarding the conditions obtaining in rural U.S.A., that great land of “opportunity, freedom and democracy.”

The author was a member of the La Follette Committee, which was self up to investigate the disclosures of another book, “Grapes of Wrath,’ by J. Steinbeck. That book was fiction, whereas this one is an authoritive statement on the effects of large-scale big-business farming on the agricultural community.

Until the development of the internal combustion engine had made its mark on agriculture, it was possible for the small farmer and share cropper to compete with the great bonanza farms, because the methods and tools of production were identical. The small farmer, together with his usually large family, toiled long hours, and if there was a hired labourer or two, they lived as members of the family. It is true that after paying mortgage interest or rents the return for their labours was little more than subsistence level, but they had a sense of independence.

In the early twenties it was possible to observe a gradual change taking place in farm production methods with the advent of the “ armall tractor ” in 1924, and other new machinery. following closely in its wake.

An industrial revolution in agriculture had taken place and farming was clearly being drawn into the vortex of industrialism. Big business was taking a hand in this hitherto backward section of the producing community and it was now possible to establish factories in the fields with mass-production methods.

With the depression of 1929, banks, insurance companies and other lending agencies foreclosed on thousands of farms and, in consequence, a large proportion of American farming became highly industrialised by the creation of large-scale enterprises, equipped with the most efficient technical brains and modern machinery.

The dispossessed farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers were not allowed to carry on as managers for the farm factories, because they might be swayed by personal and local considerations in the management of affairs, so “Professional Farm Managers” came into being. These men were thoroughly trained in the new farming technique, and to them the profit motive justified any amount of human suffering.

Here are two examples of the companies that operate throughout the U.S.A. producing fruit, cotton, grain, sugarbeet, etc. Earls Fruit Co. operates under central management, and as one unit, 27 farm properties in California, and lease 11 additional properties. It also owns 11 packing houses, the Klamath Lumber and Box Co., two vineries, one of which is the largest in the U.S.A., the Baltimore Fruit Exchange, and has important holdings in auction houses in Chicago, New York, Cincinatti, and Pittsburgh. Through subsidiary companies it owns 13,833 acres in other states. In 1938 the book value of lands and improvements was 10,955,418 dollars. The type of corporation which obtained land by foreclosure is California Lands Inc., a subsidiary of the Bank of America. The company boasted in 1936 that it had the largest diversified farming organisation in the world, owning and operating 600,000 acres of land.

In 1937 the company’s income from farm operations was 2,511,643 dollars. The figures do not include farm mortgages held by the Bank of America on 7,398 farms, totalling 1,023,000 acres, amounting to 40,340,000 dollars, nor do they include finances to crop pools and marketing programmes, which give them a large measure of control over agriculture generally.

What of the dispossessed farmers and their families, the army of farm workers no longer required under the new order of things? These became the mobile rural proletariat, moving from nowhere lo nowhere in search of casual work on seasonal crops, ft was estimated in 1940 that from one to two million men, women and children move from state to state seeking farm jobs and that 8,500,000 people in American agriculture are trying to struggle along on an average income of 2 dollars per week each.

The migratory workers are usually recruited by labour contractors in excess of the number required, so that wages can be kept down. They are herded into labour camps, mostly shack towns or squatter camps, by the roadside, under the most appallingly squalid conditions. Disease is rampant and the mortality rate for young children is very high, with pneumonia, diarrhoea and enteritis being common among them.

In one instance thousands of cotton pickers poured into a district and cold rain set in, so picking could not proceed. These families had no means of shelter and the growers would do nothing for them as they couldn’t earn money until the rain stopped. The official report said that it was never known how many children died from exposure. Workers do not sing in the cotton fields, except in the mind of the film producer.

The growers have a strike-breaking organisation known as the Vigilantes, which deals very ruthlessly with any attempts by the workers to improve their conditions. One occasion, when the workers attempted to organise themselves, they were set upon by mounted Vigilantes, armed with rifles and shotguns. The strikers battled with fists and stones, and, needless to say, were beaten down and made to walk like cattle ten miles to the gaol.

Although few were actually charged, about 200 were imprisoned from August until the following spring.

In his summing up, the author points out that, although the committee took thousands of words of testimony from the best of experts in every field on the question of what should be done about agricultural migration, the six volumes of testimony are likely to stand as an enduring monument to the bankruptcy of ideas.

Nearly every witness confined his suggestions to what is possible within the existing framework of society.

He concludes that our economic order—industrial, agricultural, financial—is neither owned nor administered democratically. It breeds poverty and want, scarcity and insecurity, not by accident, but by necessity. It can no more eliminate unemployment than an engine can run without fuel. We agree, but what of the solution? The author says we need to refashion society to a more democratic one, but there he leaves us to form our own conclusions.

Finally, we must emphasise the fact that the slave of the farm, no matter what country he may be in, will never change his status until the slaves of industry in general have changed theirs. Workers on land and in industry are enslaved by the capitalist system and will only attain their freedom when they have replaced the present system by one in which the land, machinery and other means of production are commonly owned and administered for the equal benefit of all mankind.

A. E. P.

By The Way: The “Jolly Old Empire" (1946)

The By The Way column from the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Jolly Old Empire"

The Monarchy is a great institution and the Labour Government is not going to “preside over the liquidation of the British Empire,” Mr. Herbert Morrison told a group of journalists to-day, soon after his arrival here from Canada.

Mr. Morrison was replying to a newspaperman who asked whether the Labour Government would take the same stand as Mr. Churchill, regarding the preservation of the Empire.

"As a matter of fact, we are great friends of the jolly old Empire,” Mr. Morrison said. This feeling, he added, had been greatly strengthened by his trip to Canada, where he found deep loyalty to the Crown. —Associated Press.

—Mr. Herbert Morrison, M.P., interviewed in New York. Manchester Guardian, 12 Jan., 1946.

Production for Profit Not Use 

Mr. Herbert Morrison

"It is,” he said, “sound common sense. Some of those industries, such as coal, iron and steel, and transport are in bad shape.

"They are definitely a drag on other industries and hamper the efficiency and enterprise of trades and industries to which we look for rapid, bold and private development. They were not even making a sound margin of profit. Whether an industry is run publicly or privately one measure of its efficiency is its solvency; another measure is its service.”

—Speech in Montreal. Daily Herald, 8 Jan., 1946.

Labour Government for Bankers!

Net profit of Barclay’s Bank for 1945 was £1,740,594, highest since 1939, and comparing with £1,673,351 in 1944.

Dividend on the "B” and “C” stock is maintained at 14 per cent. Reserve for contingencies gets £250,000 (same), premises reserve account £350,000 against £250,000. Balance forward is £714,052 against £656,577.

North of Scotland Bank profits, £238,275 against £234,921; dividend 16 per cent. (same). Union Discount dividend 10 per cent, (same); net profit £245,671 against £235,004. 

—Dally Herald, 4 Jan., 1946.

More Then Before!

"Fighting to regain her place as the leading maritime nation, with the smartest and fastest ships in the world, Britain now has the tremendous total of nearly 3,000,000 tons gross of merchant shipping on order at yards throughout the country.

In the design of all ships the lesson of 1939 has not been forgotten. They will be more readily convertible to war purposes than ever before.

—News Chronicle, 4 Jan., 1946.

"They are Damp but We Like Them"

"Life has moved on at The Bungalows, Poynders Road, Clapham, since Mrs. Hiscock, Mrs. Shea, Mrs. Ashford, and their neighbours moved into their new 'pre-fabs.'

"A year ago they were ‘just getting straight. The News Chronicle called to ask how they liked their bungalows then, after being bombed out of their flats into two-room attics. They liked them pretty well. I called yesterday to see if they liked them still.

"They are damp. 'I’m told it’s condensation,’ said Mrs. Hiscock, 'but I call it damp.’

"In some of the bungalows the water runs off the walls and gathers in little pools on the floor.”

—News Chronicle, 4 Jan., 1946.

Food, Health and the Death-Rate

"Reporting an increased death rate, Dr. Oscar Holden, medical officer of health, in his annual report to Croydon Corporation, says: ‘There seems to be evidence that the restrictions and rationing of foodstuffs may be having some adverse effect.’

"Dr. Holden says: 'It would be an exaggeration to say there is a general state of sub-nutrition, but it is not unlikely that the restriction of such articles as milk, butter and meat is not helping to maintain high nutritional standards among all sections of the population.

" 'You do not find it reflected in death-rate statistics; it is something you cannot put into figures.

" 'Doctors who see large numbers of the population are finding that people go down much more easily than they used to. They may look fairly well nourished, but their inherent resistance to illness is not as good as before.

" 'They are more likely to succumb to infection, they suffer more from lassitude, irritability, weariness and are more susceptible to ailments like colds than they were six or seven years ago.’

" 'If there is a virulent flu epidemic similar to the one after the last war, we might get 1918 all over again.’

‘‘The antidote? Better variety in our diet, more fresh fruit, milk, butter and fats. ‘Ask any general practitioner,’ said Dr Holden. 'He will agree.’ ” 

- Sunday Express, 30 Dec., 1945.

Cripps on Compensating the Capitalists

"If we are really going out for a planned Socialist State we have definitely to take up the point of view that the capital value of industries has been created by the workers of this country, and they are not going to pay for them when they take them back into their own ownership.”

—Sir Stafford Cripps (Labour Party Conference Report, Southport, 1934, p. 194).

"Mellor is a politician as well as I am. But he is in principle a confiscationist, and he finished up upon that note. I agree he is willing to give annuities for a period of years as a matter of expediency. The whole blessed thing a matter of expediency and not much else ”

—Herbert Morrison (Ibid, p. 198).

Cripps on the Fate of Labour Governments

"It was mentioned yesterday that when we started on the next Labour Government we should proceed with a number of measures of social reform. It is impossible for the capitalist system to give to the workers the rewards that are promised under a policy of social reform. It is impossible, and if we attempt again, as we did in 1929-31, to carry out a policy of getting as much as we can out of capitalism, it will lead to a fresh crisis in capitalism as arose in 1931 itself, and we shall find that the force, of economic power still residing in the hands of the capitalists will again he called in to defeat the workers’ Government.” 

- Stafford Cripps (Southport L.P. Con., 1934, p. 159).

Horatio.

The withering away of the State: From Marx to Stalin (1946)

From the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists from Marx and Engels onwards have always held that with the establishment of Socialism the State will disappear. The State, which exists where society is divided into an owning class and a propertyless class, and is a coercive institution through control of which the dominant class imposes its will on the subject class, would lose its function when society ceases to be divided into classes. The Marxian view was put by F. Engels in his "Socialism, Utopian and Scientific":—

"The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society—the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society—this is, ay the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not 'abolished.' It dies out."

—Sonnenschein edition, 1892, p. 76.

(The phrase "dies out" has sometimes been translated "withers away.")

Claiming to be Marxists the Communists have repeatedly tried to explain away the continued existence of the coercive State in Russia, long after the alleged establishment of "Socialism," when, according to the theory, it ought to have withered away. Before dealing with these "explanations," it may be useful to point out that Socialists are in such quandary. Socialism (which, of course, will be international—"Socialism in one country" in the midst of a capitalist world is a myth) will see the withering away of the State. Russia is not Socialist are therefore no Socialist imagines that the State could wither away there.

The earlier Communist line was to claim that the Russian State was withering away. Thus the Communist "Labour Monthly" (Sept., 1931) wrote:—

"There are, in fact, in the Soviet Union to-day . . . elements of this 'withering away' already perceptible . . ."

Some six months later Molotov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, admitted that the class struggle in Russia had not ended, and of course the existence of a class struggle means that the State must still exist. He said:—

"Not only does the class struggle not end, but in some sections and at some periods it may and will become considerably sharpened."

— Labour Monthly, April, 1932.

The Labour Monthly went on to summarise Molotov's further observations. "The Thesis also considers the question of the 'withering away' of the State, but points out that while the establishment of the proletariat dictatorship has already transformed the State into a semi-State, the conditions of internal and external class-struggle demand a strengthening of the State in the immediate future . . ."

Now comes the last chapter of this tortuous attempt to explain away an inconvenient truth. Having said that the State is withering away, then that it is not a State but a semi-State (whatever that means), and that it was getting stronger before it could get weaker, we are now told that the whole theory has been thrown overboard.

The Times correspondent in Moscow sent to his paper (1 Feb, 1946) a report of a speech made at a Lenin Memorial meeting by Aleksandrov, chief of the propaganda department of the Russian Communist Party. Referring to the Stalinist theory of "Socialism in one country." he said:—

"There were two aspects of this policy. There were internal obstacles to be swept away and dangers from aboard to be met. To-day there was no force within the Soviet Union capable of preventing the further development of Socialism and its gradual transition to Communism. Vigilance against attack from without had necessitated the rejection of the Marxist theory of the withering away of the State, based on the assumption of international Socialism, and the adoption of the Stalin theory of building a strong State with a powerful army and its own military science capable of winning in war and of achieving the military and diplomatic consolidation of victory."

It will be noticed that whereas in the earlier explanation the State was said to be necessary in Russia because of the internal class struggle, the reason now given is vigilance against attack from without.

In conclusion, it is interesting to see that the Marxian view of the State as essentially a coercive institution is shared, though from an opposite angle, by Mr. Winston Churchill. General Spears, in the Sunday Express (28 Jan. 1945) quoted Mr. Churchill as saying: "You cannot have a State without some sort of a national army."

Edgar Hardcastle