Will there be enough to go round? A Dramatic Fragment (1958)

A Short Story from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scene: Speakers’ Corner: 

Time: The present (although basically it could be anytime back to 1904). Socialist speaker addressing audience from platform.

Socialist speaker:  . . . under Socialism, when the means of wealth production and distribution will be common property, all goods will be produced solely to satisfy human needs, and will be freely available to all . . .

Questioner: Rubbish! There wouldn’t be enough to go round.

Socialist speaker: There isn’t enough to go round now because, under capitalism, goods are not produced primarily to satisfy needs, but for sale and profit. A superabundance of any commodity (such as wheat in U.S.A. and Canada) is likely to mean a drastic fall in price and possible ruin for the capitalist; hence production is curtailed and goods even destroyed to keep the price up. Capitalism is not a system of plenty, it is one of organised shortage.

Questioner: But suppose everyone wanted a Rolls Royce car or a yacht under Socialism? You don’t mean to tell me that there would be enough for everyone to have one?

Socialist speaker: It's always yachts and Rolls Royces, never water, wheat, or bricks. Why? Probably because ninety-nine per cent. of workers will never be in a position to own either a Rolls or a yacht; owning these symbols of luxury is a sort of pipe-dream workers indulge in, like winning £75,000 on the “pools.” Rich people don’t waste their time worrying about owning these things—they don’t have to. They may own a Rolls, they may run a yacht, or a magnificent mansion full of servants, but what do a lot of them tell us? Why, that their needs are very simple—they boast of living on orange juice and salads, and ordering their lives like trappist monks. Indeed, some seem only too glad to get away from their Rolls Royces and get about on horse-back. Anyway, why would you want to own a Rolls Royce?

Questioner: Because its the best car in the world, and you yourself said earlier on that only the best would be produced under Socialism.

Socialist speaker: You’ve been reading those classy adverts., I can see! Ignoring for a moment the question of whether Rolls Royces could be turned out like Fords (and there’s no real reason why they could not be), what about owning a car at all? You ask any commercial traveller who spends a large part of his day behind the wheel of a car under modern traffic conditions—I’ll bet he would be only too pleased to wave goodbye to his car for ever, if he could. It’s like the story of the sailor who had spent all his life at sea and was fed up with it: his ambition was to walk inland carrying an oar, and to settle at the first place where someone asked him what it was he was carrying. Luckily people like a change, and not all want the same things.

Questioner: Let’s get back to the point. If goods under Socialism are free, surely people will demand more of everything?

Socialist speaker: Don’t you think that the millions living in poverty throughout the world (especially in places like India and Egypt) should have more?

Questioner: Oh yes, but there are millions of others who are used to better living standards—they would want much more than just having enough rice and a roof over their heads.

Socialist speaker: You mean that in “civilised” countries we are constantly bombarded by advertisements on hoardings, in newspapers, buses, and tube-trains, and on television, all telling us that we must own the commodities they advertise at the risk of social, or even physical, death. You’ll lose your girl-friend if you don’t wash with a certain soap or brush your teeth with the new, pink, toothpaste; and who had heard of “night starvation” before the advertisers told us how it could ruin our career, our marriage, and our life generally? Even in Lambeth the Jones must keep up with the Robinsons; their pram must be as big and shiny, and they, too, must have a T.V. aerial, even if there isn’t a T.V. set at the other end. It is plain that a lot of the “demand” today has been artificially created, and would be non-existent under a sane order of society.

Questioner: But even so, wouldn’t the greedy people take more than their share, after all, it’s only human nature . . . 

Socialist speaker: Human nature! Oh, what terrible crimes have been committed in your name! To answer your question about “greedy" people with a timely example: Christmas is not long past—most workers indulged in a brief orgy as slight compensation for a year’s scrimping and scraping to get along. Houses were stocked up with expensive food and drink—everyone ate their fill, and then? Why, after Boxing Day, turkey became more and more unpopular, and anyone was welcome to the drink. See my point? Take another example—water is vital to life, and it is to all intents and purposes free. But because of this, people don’t go round filling themselves up with water until they burst. Shortages tend to make people scramble for more than they really need—remember the ridiculous rushes at the shops when sweets first came off the ration but were still in short supply? Some people hoarded pounds of sweets, not because they particularly wanted them, but because they were frightened there suddenly wouldn’t be any left. As a matter of fact, there have been recent experiments in American prisons which prove this point—do you read the Sunday Times?

Questioner: I haven’t time to read those big papers—too much in them.

Socialist speaker: In an article about the American penal system in the issue of 8th December, H. Montgomery Hyde, M.P., wrote about this new experiment he had seen working in several prisons he had visited. He noticed stacks of packets of cigarettes to which the inmates were invited to help themselves, free of charge. Mr. Montgomery Hyde wrote: “I was told that this had put an end to the illicit operations of the former “tobacco barons,” and that the amount of smoking had actually declined in consequence.”

Questioner: I don’t see the point of bringing all that in.

Socialist speaker: Don’t you? 1 think we can agree that convicts are less likely to act in a social manner than, say, a group of policemen. . . .

Questioner: Oh! no, we can’t!

Socialist speaker: Well, don’t let’s argue about that. The point is that tobacco is very scarce in most prisons—in fact, most convicts are not allowed any at all. The result of making it freely available was that the men were no longer worried about where their next smoke was coming from: although the cigarettes were free, the convicts apparently smoked less rather than more, as you might have expected them to.

Questioner: Yes, I see your point. But how will we produce enough under Socialism? Who will do the work?

Socialist speaker: Well, that’s another question, and as someone over on this side of the meeting was asking earlier about who would do the “dirty work” under Socialism, perhaps I can deal with both these points together.  . . .

Michael La Touche

Politics in Canada (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The worker of today is so little interested in politics that in all the parliaments of the present day world there is not a single individual who can be said to represent his interests. This is true in Britain where there is a large Labour Party representation and where there have been three labour governments in recent years. It is true in the United States where there is no Labour Party representation and where there has never been a Labour government. It is true in Russia where the government for the last forty years has called itself Communist. And it is true in Canada where Liberals and Conservatives have been changing places and holding hands in governing the country ever since Confederation.

Nothing is more certain than that the workers of Canada are content to give their continued support to the system that enslaves them. At every election there are four major parties and a varying number of smaller parties seeking the support of the electorate, and all of them propose to preserve the present order of society. They have this in common regardless of the features that seem to distinguish them. Leading the list are the Liberals and Conservatives. Behind them a few paces are the Social Creditors and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. And bringing up the rear are the Union National group of Quebec, the Communist Party and occasional new groups or offshoots from existing groups.

The “Old-Liners”

Up until last June, and for 22 years previously, the Liberal Party held undisputed control of the government. Capitalism was in vogue at the time of its rise to power; it was still in full bloom at the end of this period; and at no time in between was there any suggestion by any member of the Liberal Party that it ought to be replaced by another system of society—in spite of the fact that its 22 continuous years in office saw the country pass through the world's worst depression and the world's worst war. This period in office, combined with all the other periods it has held office during the 90 years that have passed since the country became self-governing, show that in spite of a surface radicalism that affects some of its members at times, the Liberal Party is constitutionally incapable of harbouring a single thought that reaches beyond the limitations of capitalist society, no matter how rotten this society may become.

It is true that Liberal governments over the years have brought into effect an impressive assortment of reforms (such as unemployment insurance, family allowances, and so on), which were all supposed to have added up to a better life; but it is also true that life has not improved to the point where people generally, even the Liberals, are over-exerting themselves boasting about it. Tins is a subject to which the reformers could well devote a considerable amount of thought.

The Conservative Party evolved a few years back into the Progressive Conservative Party. This bit of face lifting was instigated by John Bracken, who had been for many years the premier of a “Liberal-Progressive” government in Manitoba and who rose from the ranks of the Liberal-Progressives to become the leader of the Conservative Party. Mr. Bracken failed to win any elections for the Conservatives and he was hurried out of politics and back to Manitoba, where he became an authority on model liquor legislation; but the “Progressive" prefix which was his historic contribution to Conservatism in Canada is still with us and is still as rich in content as it was in the days before Mr. Bracken found that Manitoba needed his expert consideration to the cup that cheers. Progressive-Conservatism today is still the staunch unyielding upholder of capitalism that plain, simple, unprogressive Conservatism was a generation ago.

To determine the differences between the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Patty would require microscopic perception. And what the electioneering was all about last May and June is something that very few people today could tell about. The Liberal Party didn’t stand for very much except its record. And not to be outdone the Progressive-Conservative Party, too, didn’t stand for very much except the Liberal Party's record. And since they both stood for the same thing they both came very close to being elected. There is no doubt that Mr. Diefenbaker, the Progressive-Conservative leader, was just as surprised as Mr. St. Laurent, the Liberal leader, who in turn must have been just as surprised as the average person to learn that Tweedledee had just nosed out Tweedledum. At any rate, last June saw the passing, for the present at least, of Liberalism in Canada, whatever that was, to be replaced in the places of power by Progressive-Conservatism, whatever that may be that is different, and the workers may look forward to the next four or five years without surprises—at least pleasant ones.

Social Credit

Canada holds the distinction of having given birth to the first government devoted to the idea that money is neither more nor less than pieces of paper identified as money simply (to use its own term) by the scratch of the banker's pen. This group is the Social Credit Party and it now holds control of two provincial governments, the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. In Alberta Social Credit has held office for more than 21 years, first gaining power in 1936. The B.C. group has been in office a smaller period of time.

The theories of Social Credit were originated a generation ago by a certain Major Douglas of England, whose central proposition came under the heading of an A plus B theorem which was intended to explain a condition that Major Douglas described as an absolute deficiency in purchasing power. In depression times this sort of thing sounded good to a lot of people who didn't have enough to eat, and Social Credit gained a certain support in England, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. An amusing thing about this movement is the fact that it gained its greatest support in Alberta, where it was probably least understood. None of the leading members of the Alberta Social Credit group has ever shown that he understood Social Credit Even the late Wm. Aberhart, the first Social Credit premier of Alberta, who was so highly regarded by his supporters that he was once described as a man with God-given guidance, proved many times that he never had the faintest grasp of what Major Douglas was talking about. Not that it mattered. The theories of Majojr Douglas and Mr. Aberhart were equally foolish. Mr. Aberhart, who was a preacher, gave expression to a mixture of backwoods bible-thumping and false, but popular notions on why people were hungry, and he called this Social Credit. Major Douglas was quite disturbed at this and for a time Social Credit in England would have nothing to do with Social Credit in Alberta. But this is old and unimportant history and all that needs now to be mentioned is that the Social Credit movement today makes no effort to justify its existence on a theoretical base. It gives no noticeable lip service to the ideas of either Major Douglas or Mr. Aberhart. It rides the crest of the boom that has come to Alberta and B.C., takes to itself credit for the boom, promises more of the same, and in all respects behaves as if it had never heard of the funny money theories that helped so much to bring it to prominence in Canadian politics. Social Credit has settled down to the comfortable and orthodox behaviour that workers whose brains are politically at ease find so acceptable today.

Jim Milne

(Socialist Party of Canada.)

(To be continued.)

London County Council Election (1958)

Party News from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hackney branch is putting forward three candidates in the Bethnal Green Division in the forthcoming L.C.C. elections, which take place in April.

Canvassing is taking place within the division, and a number of indoor and outdoor meetings are being held, which are advertised elsewhere in this issue.

An election manifesto is being prepared, and it is hoped to distribute this throughout the whole of the constituency, which contains over 60,000 voters. This will necessitate a considerable effort on the part of the membership and all members and sympathisers who are prepared to assist should attend at the campaign headquarters any week-day evening from 7 p.m., from Monday, March 17th onwards. The headquarters are to be 56, Weymouth Terrace, E.2 (near Odeon Cinema).

It is hoped to hold two election challenge meetings just prior to the election, and these will be advertised in the April issue.

50 Years Ago: Socialism or Palliated Capitalism? (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Great has been the abuse levelled against The'Socialist Party of Great Britain because of the fact that from its inception it has steadfastly set itself against the advocacy of palliatives or improvements that "strengthen the existing system of Society." No other party in this country occupies a similar position, and many who were once opposed to it on this particular point have been converted to its views. To those who still persist in such advocacy let us ask: "What are you out for?" Some will probably reply: "We are out for Socialism, but we know the working class cannot understand and struggle for Socialism until they are better fed and better housed than at present." And so they concentrate on feeding, housing, etc. If there were evidence to show that all well-fed and well-housed workers were in the forefront of the revolutionary struggle, one could understand their attitude. But there is none. Does it follow that those who throw off the shackles of religion, or who secure a "clear head" by giving up alcoholic liquors become Socialists? No, in very many cases they are pronounced anti-Socialists. And is the study of Socialism taken up and revolutionary change advocated by the well-fed domestics and flunkeys or by those whose efficiency as wage-slaves is studied by such "model" employers as the Cadburys. Levers, and the like? There is no more justification in arguing that the working class must be well fed, well clothed and decently housed before they can understand and organise for Socialism than there is for the opposite attitude that it is necessary to starve and grind them down before any real consciousness of their position and determination to alter it will possess them.

[From the Socialist Standard, March, 1908.]

Life in a Country Vicarage (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much has been written of late years about the poverty borne by ministers of the Church. How prices have soared leaving the faithful priest to plod along as best he may, while his naughty flock seek bigger and bigger wages to squander on the things of the flesh. We are all familiar with this sort of literature.

But now, instead of a nasty discontented socialist, a Man of God steps forward to explode the myth. For myth it is.

In the Daily Telegraph (25-10-57), a Shropshire parson reports that things are still quite enjoyable. The minimum stipend (basic wage in plain English) is £600 a year.

  “To this figure of hard cash must be added a large attractive house, garden and glebe, which are home” for a wife and two children; a hunter—18 days last season— a pony, a Jersey cow, and two dozen laying hens; fruit, vegetables and hay for the cultivating and collecting; and a power-house where I hope, meetings and fetes can be held, and parishioners entertained, my soul surgery in fact."

And this is not all. Our spiritual superior excels us on the material level too. For be adds that there is a flat which “‘reaps an annual harvest of £91." (How the clergy love harvests). Chaplaincies which enable two children to go to Public School, which of course is a private school. Easter Offerings up to £50. And children’s allowances at both national and diocesan levels of roughly £45. All of which brings the cash aspect nearer £1,000. The Disciple of Christ urges us at the end of his letter to read Proverbs XXX. V.8, and I Timothy VI, V. 6— 8. Where it says:—

1. Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me with food convenient for me.
2. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us there with be content.

The cream of the joke lies in the parson’s choice of reading. For in verse ten of I Timothy, chapter six, we are told that love of money is the root of all evil. And verse two says “the Man of God flees these things, seeking only Righteousness, Godliness, Faith, Love. Patience and Meekness.” 

Amen.

M. Brown

Who Remembers Korea? (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

1953, the year in which the Korean war ended, now seems a very long time ago. Really only five years, but in the present system military violence is so common that three years of slaughter in Korea are almost forgotten. It is a frightening fact that capitalism has brought about so much blood-letting in the last five years in various parts of the world that to start discussing the Korean war in any detail is like raking over the dead past, and few would be interested.

But the events surrounding Korea and the East-West propaganda at the time aptly typify wars in general (including the small ones since Korea). A film “The U.N. in Korea” was shown at Head Office on January 12th and a Party speaker used this to illustrate the S.P.G.B. answer to war. Looking back is cold comfort for those who pin their faith in U.N.O. as a means of maintaining world peace. Korea is the blood-soaked ground where U.N.O. was in fact at war.

Liberation Propaganda

It is certainly worthwhile for workers all over the world to ask themselves when threatened with being “occupied" — does it matter whether or not we are “liberated”? Here a grim lesson is to be learned from Korea. In 1945, after about 40 years, the Koreans were “liberated” from the Japanese. The film showed that the workers under the Japanese ruling class were expected to work. They were in fact working before the Japanese went there and have done nothing but work for their own bosses since. It is a great shame that Japanese workers in common with the rest thought it in their interest to don their bosses’ uniforms and go plundering for them, because, of course, workers in both occupied and occupying countries always have to work for their masters. The struggle for existence in terms of wages and conditions is fought with the enemy at home, not with fellow-workers elsewhere who are in the same position. The working-class, it must be emphasised and driven home, do not own any country anywhere. The land, the factories, the mines, the raw material, do not belong to the worker, but to State or private owners. In fact, it is because they own nothing of the country that they have to sell the one thing that is theirs—the energy in their bodies for wages. What then does liberation really mean? Korea once again shows that one ruling class replaces the other and exploitation of the workers continues. It is the need for markets, trade outlets, mineral wealth and strategic points that sets the capitalist groups of the world at one another’s throats commercially and they in turn set the workers at one another’s throats militarily.

More Jargon

Both major capitalist powers in Korea. America in the South, and Russia in the North, tried hard to pass their butchery off as a campaign for ideals. One capitalist mouthpiece, the then foreign secretary of Egypt, called the war “peace action” because U.N.O. was involved. But despite charge and counter-charge, lie and counter-lie, the strategic importance and mineral wealth of Korea could not be disguised. The Chinese rulers also were not slow to see their geographic position, and “aggression ” is an excellent cry to influence workers who do not understand their class position, but think nationally.

Contradiction

The film showed how vast quantities of various materials, industrial plant and buildings were destroyed to prevent their capture. The population were in chronic need of food and all other essentials, but in every war this folly is “normal.”

It must not be forgotten that in 1950, when the Korean war started, the Labour Government was in power here. Those who think changing Tories for Labourites makes any difference must have very short memories.

All wars produce their heroes. A hero is one who though afraid of the boss at work endangers his life to a point which even amazes the boss when fighting other workers. General McArthur, like most good generals, never suffered a scratch, but the film did not mention him as U.N. Commander Perhaps it is embarrassing for those in U.N.O. who try to pass as peace-lovers to recall how McArthur wanted to use A-bombs and, after bombing Manchuria, to extend the war into China.

Is War Worth It?
In preparing notes for the meeting, the speaker found back numbers of the Socialist Standard most helpful. It was pointed out at the meeting that while the so-called communists and the other major political parties supported the blood-letting on one side or the other, the S.P.G.B., with its traditional world working-class approach, opposed it. We said of Korea what we had said of 1914-18 and 1939-45 that there is nothing involved worth the shedding of a drop of working-class blood, that workers' interests lie together, not being at each other’s throats and, having no quarrel with workers anywhere, we extend the hand of Socialist fraternity to all workers and continue working for Socialism. It does not matter who is the ruler, home-grown or foreign, it is against rulers as a class world wide that workers should organise and politically not militarily, to prefer one gang to another is pointless.

Quoting from The Times (28/7/53) the Socialist Standard showed that 3,000 people died for every mile of territory won, not enough to bury the dead. In all, an estimated five million were killed. After being “liberated" there were two-and-three-quarter million refugees and four million destitute in Korea. Having helped to bring about this horrible plight. U.N.O. started a Relief Fund. But the various voluntary donations to aid the stricken population were paltry compared with the nine thousand million dollars spent in three years on ammunition. With the passing of time the political capital to be gained from posing as the champions of freedom in Korea died down. By the time Hungary came along with its promise of political advantage to Western Governments organising charity to the “freedom" fighters, the victims of capitalism in Korea were relying on adverts, in newspapers to collect funds.

What of Socialism?

While the mineral wealth of the world, along with the other means of life are in the hands of the capitalist class, places like Korea with its geographic importance and its mineral wealth of copper, coal, iron, bauxite, and tungsten, etc., will remain the objects of plunder for any gang of rulers who get the chance. The alternative to these continuous thieves' quarrels is obvious. It is to make all the natural and industrial assets of the world the common property of all mankind, to finish with buying, selling, profits and wages, and start producing for free distribution on the basis of people’s needs. This alternative can only be made operative by the workers first understanding the need for it and then organising for it. To bring these necessary conditions about will take a lot of work, but looking at Korea and looking at capitalism today, the need could hardly be more pressing.

Harry Baldwin

Letters: Productivity and the Wealth of the Capitalist Class (1958)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Productivity and the Wealth of the Capitalist Class

A reader in Australia (G. Harigen) comments, on statements made at various times in these columns about the small average annual increase of productivity. He asks: "Where did the capitalist class get the wealth they have destroyed in two world wars; millions of tons of shipping, with their cargoes, wool, wheat, meat, everything ruthlessly destroyed, to say nothing of seamen and soldiers; labour-power, also a commodity?"

Reply.

In order to understand what has happened in production and in the accumulation wealth by the propertied class, our correspondent needs to consider separately the average amount produced by each worker; the rate at which it increases, year by year; the total amount produced by the whole working class; and the amount of this that is accumulated in the hands of the propertied class.

Taking first the average output per worker, it is a fact that this increases very slowly, though in the early nineteenth century when industrialisation was in its infancy the rate of increase was greater (as it now is in Russia). Colin Clark, who has recently re-examined the question, estimates for Britain an increase of about 1½ per cent a year in the later nineteenth century and in the period 1920-1938, but under 1 per cent, a year since 1945. This is based on average output per worker per hour (see "The Cost of Living” 1957, p. 18). Estimates by other economists do not greatly differ.

The above-mentioned rate of increase relates to the average output per worker. The total output of the whole working class has increased since pre-war days at a faster rate because there are many more workers at work (unemployment of 1,500,000 went, more married women go out to work, and the population of working age is larger). Also hours of work are rather longer because more overtime is worked and this has more than offset the nominal reduction of standard weekly hours.

The division of the national income has changed, with an increase of the proportion going to the wage and salary earners from 56 per cent, in 1938 to 65 per per cent, in 1956; a big increase in the income of farmers and a drop in the proportion going as "Rent, Dividends and Interest" (see "National Income and Expenditure," 1957, H.M. Stationery Office). For “wages” alone (excluding clerical workers) the proportion was 38 per cent. in 1938 and 43 per cent. in 1956.

The monetary figure for “Rent, Dividends and Interest” in 1938 was £1,134 millions, and in 1956, £1,937 millions, but as a proportion of national income it has fallen from 22 per cent. to 11 per cent. (In other words it has not kept pace with the rise of prices).

There is nothing final about such changes and it is probable that the proportion of the national income going to property owners is increasing again.

There remains the question of the accumulated wealth of the propertied class as distinct from their annual income. The war-time destruction of property (estimated at £7,000 million) fell, of course, primarily on the propertied class. Part was covered by “aid” from U.S.A. and some or all of the remainder has been made good out of the surplus value taken from production since the war.

The above figures are not at all inconsistent with the fact that the propertied class, then and now. own the overwhelming proportion of the accumulated wealth of the country, for their accumulated wealth is not merely what they retain out of production each year, but is largely made up of what they have retained in previous years and inherited from the past generation of property owners.

Editorial Committee

Truths and Facts

To the Editor.

Dundee.

The writer of an article which appeared in the January edition of the Socialist Standard under the heading of "Get it Straight in 1958" has given a false analogy between a geometrical truth and a historical fact He writes: "Everyone knows the shortest distance between two points is a straight line: a simple, unanswerable, self-evident proposition. Who, then, could fail to think and act on it ?” What he fails to understand here is that the propositions of mathematics are the outcome of cold calculated thought, while the contrary is the case as regards history, where we have the passions and actions of men to deal with, which, of course, have nothing in common with the abstract truths of mathematics. For the former rules only in the realm of thought, while the latter rules in historical facts, which are not the outcome of rearmed truth. History is not motivated by truth. If it were there would be no history. What is self-evident for mathematics can in no way bear a relation to historical motivation that does move, not exist for truth. It is true that we are all prepared to accept the truths of mathematics, but it is an error to think that because of this, we should all, therefore, be prepared to accept the teachings of Socialism. And from the very fact that people are not motivated by the straight line to Socialism, is proof that history from that point of view is not concerned with moving in straight lines, or truths.

R. Smith,

Dundee.

Reply.

Our correspondent might have been on sound ground if the article referred to had been based simply on analogy; if it had argued that because mathematically the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and for that reason only, therefore there can only be one way of getting Socialism. But the article did not say that. What it did was to point out, on evidence, that the indirect approach to Socialism of the reformists had not arrived at Socialism and is not in process of arriving at Socialism. The argument would stand if the analogy had not been mentioned.

Also in another respect our correspondent misses the point. He writes that the mathematical analogy is no reason why "we should all be prepared to accept the teaching of Socialism.” But the article did not suggest that. It was not dealing with all people and their readiness or unreadiness to accept the Socialist case. It dealt specifically with people who had already accepted the essence of the Socialist idea, but who thought that the indirect, reformist, way would lead to Socialism. They thereby led themselves and others away from Socialism.

Our correspondent tells us that in history we are dealing with men’s passions and actions “which have nothing in common with the abstract truths of mathematics.” This may be true but it is pointless. It misses the important truth that men’s passions and actions can be modified by thought and theory. The S.P.G.B. has always insisted on the practical futility and positive danger of working class actions guided by passion and sentiment instead of by thought and understanding. The more the Socialist case is accepted the less passionate futility there will be and the quicker the progress to Socialism. Men today do not have to go on repeating the stupidities of past history just because it happened.

The study of history has little purpose if it does not enable us to avoid errors of past generations that had not the advantage of being able to study history. We want the present generation to avoid the reformist errors of their fathers. Does our correspondent think we should refrain from trying to do this?

Editorial Committee.

Should We Organize into Political Parties?

To the Editor.

Croydon,

Surrey.

To become party to one idea or aim is to close the mind with regard to all other explanation. We are guided in our ideas by the intuition, and through this the principles of thought. However, "the principle" is to be compared with the hand which guides the torch beam. These "principles" guide every thought and, of course, every action. But, principles are plastic and, as such, can be applied universally.

Parties of a necessity fail, simply because of the negation of this. The “party” restricts the application of any universals, by postulating particular laws of thought and action. Philosophically, rules such as this do not promote plasticity of thought, but restricts the idea (Locke) to inaction.

The parties, because they are viewing “part” of a whole, have rules of conduct which guides the principles; but this is contradictory, for the principles must guide the rules and codes. And, cause to effect, the party ceases to analyse its own rules of conduct; the party-minded are specialists—and like all such, view but a section of the whole.

If the mind is made to concentrate on particulars, it stagnates for want of fresh material. Singular ideas are of little use, unless they are referred to the general principle, remembering that the whole is but the sum total of its parts. All of those particular subjects we know exist, are but of a whole, the universe is made up of particulars, but to try to explain the universe by its particulars would be quite erroneous, but this is the near intention of parties! They erroneously try to explain the whole which exists in the “society" by adopting a fixed opinion, for things are much more than your principles, and they need the plastic mind.

Parties also fail when they insure and secure themselves against expediency—for they fail to see round their narrowness of ideas—that they are expedient in being partisan.

There is a tendency to identify oneself with the ideas which one has, to the point of prestige, and this too, do the parties do and, as a result, they become intolerant of any idea outside their own, and criticise unmercifully any suggestion against the “party-aim”; to observe and study the truth more than often means that the student is unsuccessful in society, and so it is that the party which studies foe truth will anyway never succeed in this society, by that one point; but neither will it succeed among students of truth, for foe truth denies that we become party to it.

Yours faithfully,

M. Nairne.

Reply.

Our correspondent has set out to state what appears to him to be principles of over-riding importance, but in purely general terms and without attempting to examine the consequences of applying them.

His general proposition appears to be that to form a political party involves concentrating on certain aspects and disregarding other aspects. As against this he wants, apparently, that individuals should not form parties but should “study the truth.”

This is all very interesting to those who can live mentally in a void, but what about the solution of the practical problems before us? Capitalism exists. Its machinery of government is controlled by political parties which use their control to perpetuate capitalism. What do unorganised “students of truth” do about this? According to our correspondent they must not form a political party to remove capitalism and establish Socialism, because to do so would require the (to our correspondent) undesirable concentration on the problem of removing capitalism and establishing Socialism.

Since there is no other way to achieve the desired end our correspondent would have us abandon the end— and put up with capitalism. If this is not what he means and accepts, it is for him to come down to earth and tell us.

Editorial Committee.

“Extinguished theologians . . ." (1958)

Quote from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science. As the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not. neither can it forget, and though at present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of “Genesis” contains the beginning and the end of sound science; and to visit with such petty thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those who refuse to degrade nature to the level of primitive Judaism.”

(T. H. Huxley on Darwin’s Origin of Species, “Westminster Review” 1860.)

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Date to Remember. The Annual Conference is being held at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 4th, 5th and 6th. Commencing on Friday at 11 a.m., Saturday at 1 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. Each session ending at 6 p.m. Particular note should be made that the Saturday session commences at 1 p.m., this is to enable the Secretary to prepare the previous day’s notes and it has been found that, as many members work on the Saturday morning, the representation is not usually up to full strength. The Annual Dance will be held on Saturday evening and a Rally will be held on Sunday evening. The General Secretary would be glad to know well in advance from Comrades requiring accommodation and also would like members who can accommodate delegates to let him know as soon as possible.

* * *

Propaganda. April is the first month that outdoor meetings start to get under way, and the Propaganda Committee will, as usual, make the best arrangements possible to “circulate” speakers to the various stations. Also Branches will make their local arrangements for meetings, but a very important factor to ensure a good propaganda season is that members make every effort to support as many meetings as possible. It is most encouraging for speakers to know that they have the active support of other comrades at meetings.

* * *

A Sympathiser at our Tower Hill meetings has presented the Party with a portable platform. This is very much appreciated and will certainly greatly assist Party work.

* * *

Companion Parties. The E.C.’s report to conference contains interesting news of the activity of our Companion parties. The W.S.P. (U.S.A.) and S.P.C. have increased their activities—the members say this is due in some measure to the visit of Comrade Gilmac this summer.

* * *

In Canada members are holding regular meetings and are now sending out 1,400 circulars through the post each month in addition to the distribution of the “Western Socialist” and the “Socialist Standard.”

* * *

In Australia the Sydney Group has been very active, particularly in regard to selling literature. The Comrades have ordered a considerable number of pamphlets and Socialist Standards from London and have continued to run a study group and have maintained propaganda meetings in Sydney. Melbourne have continued to hold meetings in spite of the fact that the building they used was demolished during the year. They also have a Central Branch spread over Victoria and New South Wales.

* * *

In New Zealand the sales of literature are being well maintained and are also gaining new subscribers, this, despite the fact that several of their younger members emigrated to Australia during the year.

* * *

The Socialist Party of Ireland. The year has seen a resurgence of activity which culminated in publication of the “Socialist” by the Belfast comrades. This is the first regular Socialist paper to appear in Ireland and it is hoped to continue its publication monthly.

* * *

Sunday Film Lectures at Head Office. The lectures will continue throughout March; details are given elsewhere in this issue, but the last meeting of the season will be on March 30th. (The Sunday before Conference.)

Phyllis Howard

The Ten Commandments (1958)

Film Review from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amidst much ballyhoo and publicity, with a prologue about “tyrants and freedom.” spoken by the famous Cecil B. de Mille. and a small orchestra to get one “in the mood” by playing excerpts from “Kismet” and other “Eastern” music, a film—“The Ten Commandments” is currently showing at the Plaza, W.1.

Like all other things, this film was made chiefly to create a profit and stimulate interest in the Christian religion, and when you ask the prices of admission you’ll realise that Mr. de Mille must be doing very nicely. The writer would like to warn anybody who may want one of the colourful programmes, that if you tender a shilling, expecting sixpence change, you will be requested (quite politely) to give the usherette another two shillings and sixpence! Of course, you could always take along a copy of the Bible.

One doesn’t have to be a Socialist to realise that if people will believe all that this film portrays, they’ll believe anything! But it did leave the writer of these words asking himself a few questions. How often are we, as Socialists, accused of having “our heads in the sky”? How often, when we put forward the Socialist case, do we hear words like “Fantastic!" — “Impossible" — “Nonsense”? The writer wonders how many critics of Socialism will applaud the obvious trickery of the cameras in “The Ten Commandments”? They may believe that wooden staffs can turn into deadly serpents, but the idea of production for use instead of profit—“Oh no, we must have competition! ”

The Israelites crossing the Red Sea (which, I was surprised to see, has a very dry bed!) is more easily believed than the idea of a world without social, colour or religious barriers!

The striking into rock, by fire, of the Ten Holy Commandments is “divine”—“heavenly,” much more to be believed than the object of the S.P.G.B. printed above the Declaration of Principles, which are probably too “down to earth.”

By all means, see this film which is an experience, although a bit of an expensive one! You’ll hear God speaking in a croaky American accent, yet declaring his Ten Commandments in Hebrew. One is left to wonder how those Israelites could have been so fickle in their loves of various Gods, especially after having apparently seen such marvels of miracles.

Of course, everything about Mr. De Mille’s production is a bit of a wonder, but the biggest wonder so far as I was concerned was how on earth people still believe implicitly that all of this was true. Rameses (beautifully acted by Yul Brynner) came pretty close to the most sensible part of the whole film when, during the plague which was supposed to have been sent down by the “merciful Father ” upon His people, he said. “ Bah, this is not the work of any God, this is the natural order of things! ’’

R. J. Otter

Moonshine and Satellites (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now evident that the science-fiction stories of yesterday are becoming the realities of today. Man is now literally “reaching for the stars” even though his feet still remain embedded in the mire of archaic institutions. Can it be that nauseated, malnourished and diseased—as it is—Humanity feels that its only salvation lies in the vastness of outer space? Does the cold, impersonality of the twinkling Firmament suggest that somewhere. Earth’s children will find ultimate rest on some plane different from that of their native element? This, if it is the case, savours somewhat of the idealistic religious philosophies with which man has sustained himself throughout the ages of his painful conquest of physical environment. Some, there are, who do, indeed, find solace in the constant stretching of the sinews of science out and beyond the confines of Earth for the above-mentioned reasons. This is of course a naive as well as a dangerous outlook.

We agree that it is in man’s nature as a thinking animal that he should continue to drag his way, relentlessly forward avoiding here, overcoming there, moving at an irregular pace, sometimes crawling, sometimes plunging—always with courage—towards some goal which some day will satisfy his dignity. This is no mere speculation. History is the story of the tortuous caravansery of human progress; the countless mirages that have beckoned only to deceive; the countless pitfalls dug with the tools of ignorance. It is a tale of leaders and the leadership cult: The Moses and the Moguls. Popes and Princes and all the fakirs and financiers that ever were. It is the tale of the primitive creature laboriously shaping his piece of stone and the gradual birth of the aesthetic. It is the mural winding its way back through time depicting courage, and above all concern for one’s own kind, the individual and the tribe. It is an examination of what goes to make up the fabric of total existence.

We feel that we must raise our small voice at this juncture. In an age of, among other things, the big lie we ask our readers to pause and think. It is easy to be carried away by the romance of the red satellite and to be over-awed by the destructive force of the hydrogen bomb (both the home and away variety). It is indeed easier for us to stop thinking altogether—to allow others to do it for us. On the other hand, if we are not content that this shall be the age of the last historian, the utter finality of reason the supreme violation of nature and human life, we, the vast majority, must cry “cease.” We must recognise the true nature of what is going on. Divorced of romanticism, we should realise that the various agents of world capitalism have reached the stage of being no longer able to disagree in the old-fashioned way, i.e., to compete with each other at the expense of wars that can be conducted with some degree of assurance; a kind of war where all is not lost apart from the loss of life for which due preparation and allowance is made. The fact now is, that capitalism has resolved itself into large power groups with the Russian and American orbits the most powerful. The next step is, obviously, to find ways and means whereby one or the other is to assume complete control of the world. The answer appears to be that this can be done by means of devices of which the inter-Continental rocket and the artificial earth satellite are the fore-runners.

It is perfectly obvious that Capitalism is not imbued with the romantic ideals that so many workers have regarding the experiments now going on to conquer outer space. Trips to the moon may sound thrilling enough to some people. Capitalism is far more “down to earth” than they give it credit for.

In the meantime we urge fellow members of the working class to see this politic moonshine in its true light and to do a little prospecting on their own account. This old planet of ours is far from finished despite the maltreatment handed out to it of late.

There are plenty of conquests to be made here and now. e.g., disease, poverty, ignorance and subjection. The rub is. that they will never be vanquished by any form of space warfare other than complete destruction of the human race. Our task may not sound as interesting as the work now going on to master space. Never-the-less it is the most important job facing the world’s people at the present time. It is the eradication of Capitalism itself—and we need not go to the moon or anywhere else to do this job.

W. Brain

Russian Imperialism (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

In these columns we have many times answered the empty claim that Russia is a Socialist country. Those who propagate the Russian myth usually claim that private enterprise has disappeared there, and that private ownership of land and houses does not exist. None of these statements is completely true, for a whole lot of small businesses have recently sprung up in Russia, especially for house repairing and the supplying and servicing of radio and television sets. Wealthy Russians own country houses, not to mention the fact that there are the millions of peasants who own land and farm it in competition with the state farms. But all this means little, anyway, when we consider that Russia has a gigantic army (the world's largest), navy and air force, whose real purpose is to preserve property, even if it is the collective property of the ruling class. The police force, whose function it is to preserve the state (the executive committee of the ruling class), and the immense system of secret police and internal spies which has been in existence since Tsarist days, and still performs the same function—that of preventing the ruling hierarchy from being exposed or overthrown—all testify to the existence of two classes in society, and indicates that nothing of the nature of Socialism can exist there. On top of all this, there was a law laid down by the Stalinist constitution of 1934 and still applicable today, that every factory in Russia must make a profit! Where factories fail to accomplish this it has always meant serious trouble for the managers.

The making of profit is a fundamental of the capitalist system; socialism, of course, will not busy itself making profits and extracting wealth from the workers. This fact alone is enough to show Russia to be a capitalist state. All over the Soviet Union they have a monetary and wage system. Marx, in Value, Price and Profit, and elsewhere, made it clear that for him Socialism involved the abolition of the wages system, and showed that it is in the wages system that exploitation is veiled. Our pamphlet Russia Since 1917, and the many articles in the Socialist Standard make it indisputable that Russia could not be considered a socialist country.

During last November the Soviet Union celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Millions of words from the Moscow radio, and millions of words in the Soviet Press have publicised what they call the “success of Socialism." Pamphlets and books have poured out all over the world and broadcasters in many languages have been shouting themselves hoarse with the achievements of the Russian state. But nowhere do they define Socialism.

Alongside of all this jubilation they have been attacking what they call “Imperialism"—the imperial war mongers of America and England. Again they do not tell us what they mean by imperialism. Fortunately Lenin wrote a little book on the subject—one of the few that he penned that is really worth reading—and which differs from his usual rubbish in that it is not one long attack on Kautsky and others, although even here he cannot completely refrain. Lenin's usual defamatory vituperation gives place to some figures of capitalism’s development, especially in Germany, and, above all, he tells us what Imperialism is in no uncertain language.

The subtitle of Lenin’s Imperialism is "The highest stage of capitalism," and in the text he defines Imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism. In the preface to the French and German editions (1920) Lenin states:—

    “Private property based on the labour of the small owner, free competition, democracy—all these catchwords with which the capitalists and their press deceive the workers and the peasants are things of the distant past. Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world by a handful of 'advanced’ countries. And this ‘booty' is shared by two or three world-dominating pirates armed to the teeth (America, England, Japan) who embroil the whole world in their war over the division of their booty."

Today, we could put Russia in place of Japan. In the body of the book Lenin gives five facts that make up Imperialism, and these constitute the headings of the first five chapters. The first is the "Concentration of Production and Monopolies." In this he points out the enormous growth of monopolies in Germany and the elimination of the small producer. This, of course, applies to Russia today. Chapter II is "The Banks and their New Role." Here he states:—

    “In proportion as banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of institutions, the banks grow from modest intermediaries into all-powerful monopolists having at their command almost all the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen, as well as the greater part of the means of production and of the sources of raw materials of a given country or in a number of countries. This transformation of numerous small intermediaries into a handful of monopolists is one of the fundamental processes of the growing of capitalism into capitalist imperialism. For that reason we must first deal with the concentration of banking.”

Again, all this applies to Russia today. Consider the financing of the five-year plans and the last war.

Chapter III is headed "Finance, capital and financial oligarchy.” Here Lenin quotes Hilferding as writing:—

    "An ever-increasing portion of industrial capital does not belong to the industrialists who employ it. They obtain the use of it through the bank, which, as against them, represents the owner of the capital. On the other hand, the bank is forced to leave an increasing share of its funds in industry. Thus, to an ever-increasing degree the bank is being transformed into an industrial capitalist. This bank capital, i.e., capital in the form of money which is thus transformed into industrial capital, I call finance capital. . . . Finance capital is therefore ‘capital controlled by the banks and utilised by the industrialists'."

Lenin remarks that this definition is incomplete, because it is silent on one of the most important points which is the growth and concentration of production and capital, otherwise he endorses it.

Chapter IV is "The Export of Capital.” This is almost too well known to need emphasising. Although Russia’s export of gold and of loans may be small compared to that of England in the past, loans have been made by Russia to China, capital invested in many Eastern European countries under Russian domination, and recently we have witnessed Russia’s loan to Egypt which has brought her directly into the Imperialist branch of the money-lending business beyond any dispute. Now comes the drive for the controlling interests in the Middle East with its oilfields, all clearly connected with the export of capital. A Financial Times correspondent (27/1/58) gave particulars of Russian aid and loans to foreign countries totalling £673 million.

Chapter V is "The division of the world among the capitalist combines.” Here the Soviet monopoly combine already controls Hungary, Rumania. Bulgaria. Czecho-SIovakia, a large chunk of Germany. Latvia. Lithuania and Estonia. Northern Korea—not to mention her enormous controlling influence in China and other territories in the Far and near East. If this isn't full-blooded Imperialism—then what is?

Chapter VI is an extension of the fifth with the heading, “The division of the world among the great powers." Witness the way Russia and Germany divided Poland in 1939 and Russia and America divided Germany and Korea since the second war, and Syria, Jordan and Egypt are all being pigeon-holed by the Imperialist vultures.

Towards to the end of the book Lenin writes:—

    "Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the domination of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world by the international trusts has begun, and in which the partition of all the territory of the earth by the greatest capitalist countries has been completed.”

According to Lenin’s Imperialism, Russia is therefore a full-blown Imperialist state, and the giant powers are now about to re-divide the world. Russia is no longer a backward agrarian and semi-feudal land, but a highly developed and powerful capitalist state.

Horace Jarvis

Editorial: The Same Old I.L.P. (1958)

Editorial from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

From time to time the I.L.P. makes proposals for uniting itself with the S.P.G.B. and various other organisations. One such approach to us was made early in 1954. and at the end of 1957 the I.L.P. in conjunction with several small groups, repeated the proposal. The S.P.G.B.'s attitude is always the same. We are not prepared to associate with organisations which carry on propaganda for the reform of capitalism, recruit members on that basis and seek the votes of reformists. Our case is that work for Socialism is the essential end and it cannot be combined with reformism. The I.LP.'s answer to this is to claim that since 1932 they also have accepted this principle. They say so, but their activities and propaganda belie the claim. In 1954, for example, their unity scheme was a manoeuvre to detach the local Labour Parties from the Labour Party, on the plea that the “well- meaning Socialists who are members of the political section of the Labour Party are continually frustrated . . .  when their ideas and resolutions are voted down with soul-destroying monotony," by the block vote of the trade unions at Labour Party conferences. The reply of the S.P.G.B. pointed out that the membership of the local Labour Parties is no more Socialist than the rest of the party. This was illustrated at the time from the list of resolutions put on the Labour Conference agenda by the local parties, all of which were for reforms of various kinds, all assuming the continuance of capitalism.

Kelvingrove

The I.L.P. has been in the news with its candidate at the Kelvingrove by-election, running in opposition to Labour and Tory. The I.L.P. claimed that their candidate was fighting for Socialism. against the Tory “ political gangsters of the ruling class," and against the Labour politicians who on all issues behave no better than the Tories.

The editorial of the “Socialist Leader” (1st Feb., 1958) ended with a declaration of “socialist” independence:—

“The party of Keir Hardie and James Maxton enters the fray with a song in its heart. It has nothing to fear from the charlatans and lick-spittles of the other parties. It will seek to convince the men and women of Kelvingrove that only by Socialism can the challenge of these stupendous times be met. And it will not compromise its policy and programme to win votes."

Unfortunately, even if the Editor meant what he wrote to be taken literally, it is evident that other members of the I.L.P., including their candidate, Mr. William Park, do not

“Cross-Bencher” in the Sunday Express (9/2/58) reported that the Labour Party leaders were worried about the I.L.P. intervention because they feared that the I.L.P. candidate would filch from the Labour Party its “pacifist" voters. Was this imputation of I.L.P. vote-catching unjust? Mr. William Park, the I.L.P. candidate, made it clear that it was not. While reiterating his refusal to “indulge in vote-catching” he hastened to inform the Press that he did not mean it:—

“In a statement to the Press . . .  William Park said that among the main points in his campaign would be a demand for unilateral disarmament, as well as the abolition of the hydrogen bomb.”—(Socialist Leader, 1/2/58.)

There you have the never-changing I.L.P. “Socialism is the only hope they say, and they only want the votes of Socialists: but if you happen to be a non-Socialist with pipe-dreams about Capitalism disarming and British capitalism disarming on its own, or if you think that Capitalism would be all right but for the H bomb (like it was in two world wars or in the slump between the wars!) Mr. Park wants your vote.

This disarmament policy was elaborated a week later in a resolution passed by the Annual Conference of the London and Southern Counties Division of the I.L.P. It demanded that British Capitalism should “at once” bring home all troops from abroad, and disband the armed forces, and also that it should at once take the action of “denial of British bases to all other countries.” Could political ineptitude go further than this! Just how do unarmed civilians “deny" bases to the armies occupying them? Do these amateur policy-makers for British Capitalism really imagine that the other Powers would leave a strategic vacuum unoccupied? Does the I.L.P. not remember how two years ago large numbers of Hungarian workers tried to “deny” to Russia capitalism its occupancy of bases in Hungary?

The Keir Hardie-Maxton Tradition

When their editor called the modern I.L.P. the “party of Keir Hardie and James Maxton” he was certainly right, for between them these two used every conceivable form of vote-catching. Hardie, the arch-compromiser, was the originator of the I.L.P. policy of building up a reformist Labour Party with trade union backing. In his “Confession of Faith” he claimed that achievement as the measure of the success of the I.L.P.

One of his vote-catching side-lines was the advocacy of coal nationalisation "in order that the country should have a supply of the coal without which the navy was helpless and powerless.” (Manchester Guardian, 4/3/1912).

Maxton was a fitting successor to Hardie. At the 1923 General Election, for example, when, as usual he fought as candidate of the Labour Party, he combined a pledge to overthrow capitalism with vote-catching demands for government action to raise wages, to fix maximum prices, to reduce rents and to give Scotland "a Parliament of its own” (this to catch the nationalist vote).

On occasion Maxton, like Keir Hardie. could, with some lucidity, state the case against his own reformism, but it never cured him of it. In August, 1930, he was writing that a quarter century of reforms had convinced him of their uselessness because “before these reforms have been fully operative such advantages as they seemed on a superficial examination to offer were eaten up by the development of new evils or by a further extension of old ones” (New Leader, 15th August, 1930). but within a few weeks he had become unconvinced again. He introduced a particularly stupid bill in the House of Commons designed to make capitalism pay a "living wage.” The amount was to be determined by a government committee which, among other things, was to have regard to the need for “replacement and extension of capital.”

But for the I.L.P. times have changed. A quarter of a century ago it had been so successful in building up the reformist Labour Party that 200 members of the I.L.P. were able to sneak into Parliament as Labour M.P.'s. and had all but destroyed the Liberal Party. Now. while the I.L.P. vote catcher at Kelvingrove was filching reformist votes from the Labour candidate, over at Rochdale it was a slightly revived Liberal Party whose candidate was doing the same.

News From Wales (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

For many generations the manufacture of steel and tin-plate, together with coal mining, has been the means of livelihood for the vast majority of South Wales workers (see article “How to attract workers" Socialist Standard, May, 1957). Now, thousands of men with years of accumulated skill in the production of steel and tin-plate and not without a certain pride in their craft, despite the notorious arduousness of the industry, find themselves redundant.

At the time of writing, approximately 7,500 are out of employment—with more to follow. The reason given is that the industry is going through a process of modernisation. Automation is, of course, inevitable under a system of mass production and it is not a question of whether we approve of it or not. No Socialist would support a system of manufacture which takes the maximum toll of flesh and blood as the tinplate industry in Wales has done throughout the years.

The concentration of production now taking place in four super factories has improved in some respects the lot of a much smaller labour force. This smaller army, geared to high speed machinery, has already created new records in steel tonnage. Stocks are mounting quicker than they can be sold.

It is obvious that the Steel Company has been forced to increase its investments in modem plant whilst attempting to decrease the labour force. The snag is, of course, that more and more invested Capital needs to be utilized in the attempt to capture markets by means of quantity and cheapness, whilst this very method tends to decrease their rate of profit, compared with the old days of cheap flesh and blood with a minimum of machinery. In the meantime, even their super factories have had to slow down.

Sometime or other demand will no doubt rise again, but these ups and downs present a problem that is insoluble within capitalism.

The army of the unwanted grows. Once again we are back to the dole queues. Once more the pot of jam is making its appearance more frequently on the family table to the exclusion of more sustaining fare. Once more the working class house-wife is forced to deny her family in order to pay the rent Only this time the rents, especially on the Council Estates, are very much on the up and up.

There is, of course, no way out of such a situation apart from taking over the means of production. When this happens the shiny new factories will be really utilized. They will be manned by workers with a new interest in their work. Work will be a necessary task shared by all so that all can obtain the benefit of leisure and product The product itself will be freely distributed so that surpluses and unemployment will no longer arise.

In the meantime, the Welsh steel worker is issuing distress signals to his Union leaders. Councillors and MP.’s, all of whom are scuttling around interviewing Government Ministers, etc. The clergy are praying for the workers too. Congregations suffer when there are upheavals in the community pattern as occurred during the last depression when thousands emigrated to other parts of the country.

The members of the Socialist Party in Wales continue to put forward the case to the best of their ability. It is up to the workers to analyse it. They are going to have plenty of time on their hands in which to do so.

W. Brain

The Uses of Monarchy (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Quite a thing has been going on recently concerning a picture of the Princess Margaret. This is virtually a repetition of what went on over the same painter’s portraits of the Queen and her husband, and there is no need here to add comments or repeat arguments. What is of greater interest is the trend of which this tiny storm is part: that is, that the Royal Family to-day is as constant a news-feature as football or film-star gossip and is, in fact, more popular than royalty has been since the nation-state began. When you consider that fewer than ninety years ago the reigning monarch was tipped as the last, and a vigorous republican movement was being led by prominent politicians and writers, it is obvious that the British monarchy has somehow had a boost in recent times.

Kings and Queens, traditionally, are romantic figures, the subjects of an inculcated mythology from everybody’s childhood. Every fairy tale revolves round them: once upon a time there was a Beautiful Princess or a Handsome Prince or a King who was Also a Magician. Elementary-school history devolves upon them: Merry Monarch, Good Queen, Peacemaker, Bluff King (never hooligan or wife-beater). For all that, the fact is that only for the last twenty years—if as long—has the Crown been really popular in Britain, and for a large part of the time it was very unpopular. Some idea of the change in the climate of opinion was given last year by the frenzy against critics of the Royal bearing and diction: the young Queen Victoria was ridiculed by cartoonists, and George V openly disparaged in the Press on his accession.

The idea of the monarch as head of the nation is a modern one, belonging to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and depending on the Crown’s holding no political power. Mediaeval kingship was a different thing. The king was supreme overlord, apex of the pyramid of feudal owning interests; his power was actual, deriving from and integral to the feudal system. This kind of monarchy declined as feudalism declined; as rival interests grew, the king became merely head of one of the contending factions. Edward IV, Richard II, Henrys Four, Five and Six were dependent on their factions, and their successors reasserted monarchy and appeared strong kings for a time only because the factions had exhausted themselves fighting.

The struggle against the monarchy was a vital part of the struggle of the rising commercial class. For half a century it held back for the struggles against the Papacy and Spain, but the storm was gathering before Elizabeth I’s reign ended. The bourgeoisie was a revolutionary class, needing control of the powers of government: the execution of Charles I was, in fact, the decapitation of an epoch.

After the swan-sang of the Restoration and James II's short, pitiful reign, the Whigs had one political aim above all others: to keep the Stuarts, with their feudal traditions and their Papal associations, off the throne. Even William III, brought and maintained by the Whigs as mere figurehead, was never pushed too far by them for fear he should name a Stuart as his successor.

Thus, the Hanover family was imported to be the new Crown dynasty, with nothing to commend them and the populace not prepared, as the 1715 and 1745 Rebellions showed, to lift a finger to support them. Drunken, stupid George I, of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote “Our customs and laws were all mysteries to him, which he neither tried to understand, nor was capable of understanding if he endeavoured it.” and Lord Chesterfield said: “The King loved pleasure, and was not delicate in his choice of it. No woman came amiss to him, if they were very willing and very fat"; George II, full of senseless cruelty; George III, shaking hands with the trees in Windsor Park. Of the whole bunch, indeed, Sir Charles Petrie wrote in his Monarchy in the Twentieth Century: “There had clearly been a streak of abnormality . . . from the beginning.” A nineteenth-century poet, Landor, expressed it more feelingly:

“When George the Fourth from earth descended.
Thank God the line of Georges ended.”

However, it was with the Georges on the throne that the modern concept of monarchy developed. Bolingbroke’s Idea of a Patriot King, published in 1749, proposed (although Bolingbroke had the Stuarts in mind) the monarchy as the embodiment of national ideals, and after the final collapse of Jacobite opposition, this became accepted as the real function of monarchy. In fact, there were no interests now that the monarch could represent other than the “national” ones—that is, those of the propertied classes as a whole. No longer an overlord, removed from control of armed forces, set up in maintenance of bourgeois interests against those of the old order, the king had become King Capital’s torch-bearer.

Whatever remained of royal power and prestige sank to rock-bottom in Victoria’s early years. Her predecessors had shown as much interest as they were permitted in government; Victoria’s acquiescence established the convention that the Crown did not take part any more. The working class had little reason for enthusiasm, and the ruling class no longer had to support this dynasty in case something worse came along. When Victoria withdrew from public life after her husband’s death, a strong movement headed by Thackeray, J. R. Green. Morley. Joseph Chamberlain, Bradlaugh and several more asked if the monarchy were necessary at all. The movement faded, principally because the Empire-builders found the Crown too useful a figurehead, but the Crown had learned that it ought to show itself in public.

For that reason, the last years of Victoria's reign had royal display in plenty, and Edward VII gained still greater benefit from pageantry. It is doubtful if the monarchy became much more popular in Edward’s time, except among the beer-swilling and odds-laying sections, but he did open an important new field for the ruling class by carrying regal display—and with it, British interests— abroad. His visit to Paris, starting with compliments to actresses and ending with cheering crowds in the streets, in 1903 prepared the ground for the Franco-British Entente. Lansdowne and Grey conducted the negotiations, but the French President spoke of the “happy impetus” given to them by Edward's window-show. Subsequent monarchs and their families have done as much and more.

There has been one other important influence in the twentieth century in securing the position of the British monarchy: the rise of rival nations with other kinds of figureheads. First the Kaiser, then Mussolini. Hitler and Stalin caused the thought that, if this kind of thing were the modem alternative, there was something to be said for the British monarchy after all. George V was never greatly popular, but in the nineteen-thirties he was almost the only national figurehead in Europe whose public utterances were not inflammatory harangues on war and encirclement.

The real reason why the King never did so. apart from whatever personal inclination he may have had, was simply that it was not his place to speak as a leader or to state foreign policy. The monarchy in modem times is devoid of political power or autonomy. The last time a British monarch expressed himself independently on a political matter was when Edward VIII showed concern over the slums of Glasgow and South Wales; few people believed that the King’s wish to marry Mrs. Simpson was the only issue in the constitutional crisis of 1936. However, many people must have been given food for thought by the fact that potentially the most popular of all British monarchs was dismissed, as summarily as a worker from a factory, when he refused to toe the line laid down by the Cabinet on behalf of the ruling class.

If there was doubt among pro-capitalist politicians in the nineteenth century of the usefulness of monarchy, there is none today. The Conservative Party has never wavered in supporting monarchy, of course; and, since the first Ministers in the first Labour Government made their low obeisances, nor has the Labour Party. Indeed, in the Abdication crisis the Labour Party was solidly behind the Conservative Cabinet, and the Daily Herald's commentary was undistinguishable from that of the Mail or the Express. And since the war there has been ample opportunity—a royal wedding, an accession, a coronation, and a great deal of subsidiary display—to see the cap-touching and sycophancy which make plain the allegiance of a party which initially gained support by big talk about the abolition of privilege.

The only Labour criticism of royalty in fairly recent times was made from the viewpoint of what was good for Capitalism. Shortly after the coronation of George VI, Mr. Attlee spoke of the need for the Crown to come down to the man in the street a bit more—and found Conservatives agreeing heartily (“For them he must be no mere king in a gilt State coach.” wrote Wilson Harris in The Spectator). That policy was pursued with a vengeance, less with George VI himself than in the preparation of his daughter for the throne. No monarch ever started off so well for popularity: a popularity favoured by youth, romance and motherhood and skilfully fostered by every newspaper in the land (most of all, incidentally, by the pro-Labour Mirror and Pictorial).

The present Royal Family comes as close as any capitalist politician could desire to the modern monarchical ideal. No interference in politics, but a worthy interest in science; admirably suited to gather prestige abroad; most of all, a continual and absorbing attraction to the working class. There have been hints recently that the publicity has been overdone, that there have been too many chambermaids’ reminiscences and news items like the Sunday Pictorial’s announcement that the Queen's bust-line had improved to maintain the essential dignity of royalty. Nevertheless, the Crown today as never before embodies the national ideals—the ideals, that is, of the national ruling class.

But does monarchy serve any interest for ordinary people, beyond giving a holiday and a pageant now and then? It may be said that if it does them no good, it does them no harm either. If it were true that to fill people’s heads with nonsense did no harm, that might be so; and most of it is nonsense. There is no reason for thinking that the Queen and her husband are not pleasant decent people. If things were otherwise, however, the truth is that they would still be presented as paragons. Some monarchs have been cruel, irresponsible and contemptibly low, but their subjects have still been asked for reverence. Within a week of Edward VIII’s abdication his shortcomings were common knowledge, and Sir Charles Petrie (in the book already quoted) hinted at a strain of abnormality in Edward from the Hanover ancestry; would those things have been said if Edward had remained the King?

It is not the monarch that is at fault in all this, but the social system which needs a shining symbol; where there is no monarchy, something else has to be held up to dazzle the dispossessed. The man with the flag and the girl admiring the pictures in her magazine have the light full in their eyes just now—but they need only look away for a moment to see who holds it up, and why.

Robert Barltrop