The Socialist Party and the General Election (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A “snap” General Election is disadvantageous to small political parties lacking the resources and paid workers of the major parties. It is the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s policy to put up candidates for Parliament whenever possible. However, on this occasion we had to consider realistically the problems imposed on us, including that with the Election announced on 8th February to take place on 28th the Socialist Standard could not be produced and distributed in time to support a campaign. It should be borne in mind also that candidates of ours are not “gimmicks” hoping to attract impulsive votes but seek serious consideration of the case for Socialism. In these circumstances we have decided not to attempt an electoral campaign but instead to publish statements of the Socialist position in the press; and we present below our attitude in the Election.

The parties of capitalism had some difficulty drawing up their manifestos for this election. As prophecies of total economic blight and national disaster are uttered, politicians cross their fingers and urge the need for greater sacrifice and a return of the “war-time spirit”. The usual vote-catching promise of jam tomorrow being no longer credible, they are offering you continued inflation, severe “wage restraint”, and rising unemployment in as pleasant a manner as possible. In contrast to all other political organizations, the Socialist Party of Great Britain does not form policies designed to tackle economic crises but exists solely to abolish their cause.

That social conflict and disunity characterize Britain today is apparent to anyone who opens a newspaper; what is not realized is that it cannot be otherwise while society is organized on its present basis. Your life and those of the majority of people are spent running a system co-operatively for the benefit of a minority who own the means of living and all that is produced — the capitalists. It is this contradiction between social production and private ownership which gives rise to our problems. While being the creators of all society’s wealth, members of the working class accept as natural the selling of their energies for wages and salaries which are less than what is produced is worth. In short, you wish to be rationed so that a few can enjoy lives of privilege. Industrial strife, war, unemployment, luxury amidst squalor, homelessness, and endless struggle to “make ends meet” are what human beings vote for at elections. The Socialist Party has always maintained that capitalism cannot evolve into something different or better and tries to induce workers not to direct their resentment against trade unions, property speculators, immigrants or politicians, but against a system which demands that priority be given to profit rather than human need and compels them to engage in degrading struggle to decide the level of their own exploitation.

★

There is no “lesser evil” as far as the major political parties are concerned; they all favour your membership of the working class. When capitalism destroys the best-laid plans of governments it can be taken for granted that politicians will offer you excuses and generally resort to deception. Record inflation will be blamed on world prices, as though profits for capitalists overseas as well as at home could make you feel better. The outcome of serious argument concerning the length of time a miner takes to have a bath, you will be told, can influence an economic crisis. Oil sheikhs acting as all good capitalists should will be accused of “blackmail” and members of the working class, who possess nothing but their ability to work, will be told they have a balance of payments deficit of thousands of millions. The only response can be to mind our own business and leave the problems of capitalism to capitalists. The Labour and Communist parties, however, see as part of the solution an extension, of Nationalization, or letting fewer capitalists mind their own business. This entails transfer of control of certain industries to the State but leaves ownership in the hands of capitalists, who simply receive interest from State bonds rather than company shares. For workers nothing is changed. State control of capitalism, whether in Britain, Russia or China, is not Socialism and cannot lead to it. Labour is again seeking to “eliminate poverty wherever it exists”, something which governments have promised to do for decades. Such an objective is rather like wanting to run a car without petrol: capitalism needs the existence of poverty in order to survive and will destroy the noblest of aims. The Liberals, seeking votes from the disillusioned, present themselves as a party above sectional interest and against the “greed of unions and big business”. They promote this “classless” image with slogans such as “Forward with the People!”, “Liberalism is about people”, and “people count”, offering workers “participation” in industry and housewives “community politics”. What should be remembered is that whoever runs capitalism must do so in the interest of the owners of capital, and that this interest is not your own. Liberalism is capitalism, which is only about people as producers of profit. Giving a man a “say” in his own robbery will not bring harmony to social relations and discussion of such issues as efficient garbage removal and more zebra crossings is irrelevant to the fundamental problems from which you suffer.

★

The Socialist Party and its companion parties abroad stand for Socialism, a classless, moneyless world community in which the means of life will be owned and democratically controlled by the whole of society and where the only motive for production will be the satisfaction of human need. With the abolition of money and the wages system millions of workers now engaged in unproductive work such as accountancy, banking, insurance and selling will have the opportunity to develop their potential for their own and society’s good, rather than restricting their lives in the service of profit. People will freely take part in social production and take freely from the social wealth whatever they think they need. Capitalism has developed technology and industry to the point where an abundance of wealth was possible; it cannot be created where production is limited to what can be sold at a profit. In the process of changing society man changes himself and his relationship to his fellow man. Capitalism is not the “natural order of things” and will be abolished when a majority reject the promises and leadership of politicians and understand what Socialism implies. We urge you to read carefully our Object and Declaration of Principles, and if you are in agreement with us we ask you to come and give active help. Capitalism may produce chaos and apathy, but it also creates the Socialists who will finally free and unite mankind.

Smash! (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A New Election Programme?

The most hilarious buffoonery of the election was the International Marxist Group’s putting up three candidates. At a press conference their representative was reported saying hopefully: “In an atmosphere of confrontation a few hundred votes can turn into tens of thousands” (Times, 13th Feb.). A different view from the one in their leaflet distributed on 1st May last year: May Day — End or New Beginning.

Shorn of all its flowery phrases (like “Mass Action”. “Mobilization”, “Confrontation”, “Counter-offensive” and all the boring old stuff about the failure of the wicked trade-union leaders who won’t “mobilize a united struggle to smash through Phase 2”), what this leaflet does is advise strikers to fight the police. It actually says this explicitly. We quote:

To do this [defend the picket lines] the local Trades Councils have to centralize our resources for fighting the police.

The absurdity of the entire content of this ridiculous document is apparent, for instance, in the first paragraph :

A large majority of the working class are striking work together and coming out onto the streets.

In paragraph 2, however:

Millions of workers feel that this stoppage will have no immediate effect on the Government policies. In this they are correct.

We also would say that the millions of workers are quite right. Not only did the General Council of the TUC know this very well, as they showed by deferring their strike-call date till after the Government had passed the Phase 2 Bill; but we now know that the TUC leaders were having secret meetings with Prime Minister Heath one day before the May-day marches, to be followed by the open meeting to fix a deal.

What concerns us here is the dangerous folly of the baloney being peddled by the IMG. Why on earth they have the insufferable impudence to call themselves “Marxist” only they can know. Everything in this nonsensical and pernicious propaganda is utterly foreign and contrary to all of Marx’s teachings, and especially to his actions in the International Workingmen’s Association, of which he was a founder member and author of its address, or policy statement.

We would highly commend to the IMG the statement by Marx in that address which they would do well to deeply and quietly ponder:

One clement of success they [the workers] possess, that of numbers, but numbers weigh only in the balance if united by combination and led by knowledge.

Is there the slightest sign that, amidst all the hysterical outpourings about “smashing Tory governments” and “treacherous trade-union leaders”, the IMG have given one moment’s serious thought to the meaning of what they are spreading?

Read through their leaflet! The workers must centralize their forces to “develop a General Strike to get rid of the Government itself”. The central task in holding the line is to “prepare the counter-offensive in the autumn" because the Government “presented the leaders with a clear choice, either accept pay restraint, or mobilize a united struggle which would smash Phase 2, bring down the Government and so raise the hopes of the working population that the social order itself would be threatened”.

As was pointed out explicitly in a recent Socialist Standard (and even that was re-quoted from 1919 and has been confirmed by history ever since), in every strike, above all the 1926 General Strike:

The masters are in a far stronger position than the workers on the economic field and will beat them, at will, any time they wish.

This is why Marx wrote in the Inaugural Address of the International Workingmen’s Association that

To conquer political power has become the great duty of the working class.

(Selected Works of Karl Marx, Moscow, p. 440)

As for all the other rubbish about smashing (these idiots are obsessed by the word SMASH; it recurs repeatedly in their manifestoes) Tory or Labour governments, this cannot be done by strike action alone. If a government feels that it has lost popular support, as shown in Italy or Denmark, and estimates that it may lose the next election, it may well resign, go into opposition, and laugh its head off at the troubles of the new government trying to grapple with the problems. So far from being “smashed” by resignation, there is every sign that they positively enjoy it.

As for “threatening the social order”, this probably is the stupidest nonsense of the lot. Trades unions are organized on a job basis: the vast majority of trade- unionists are not Socialists and have no desire whatever to threaten the social order — they uphold it. Neither would “threatening the social order” mean any real progress in changing it in orderly fashion. It could merely lead to chaos.

As for all the other tripe about the naughty, wicked trade-union leaders, we have pointed out repeatedly that they operate by the approval and consent of the members.

Let all strikes be called at the most favourable moment — when the bosses are doing allright-thankyou and don’t want them. Let them be short and sharp; if they are not won quickly they won’t be won at all. Let the members decide by democratic vote and, if things go wrong, democratically decide to retreat back to work in an orderly united fashion.

Above all, ignore and reject the dangerous, meddlesome folly of these academic hot-heads and professional hooligans who run about “smashing” everything and call on trade-unionists to “fight the police”. This plays straight into the hands of the authorities and is in fact all they need to crush strike action. On the industrial field the workers’ strength is in the withdrawal of labour. This may get them a rise in wages; but only political action can control the police (and the army) and establish Socialism.

Horatio.

"Revolutionary" Left unite behind Labour (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sham socialists show their true colours

Ever since the SPGB was founded we have at all times resolutely opposed all other political parties. We maintain that political parties are the expression of class interests and that the party seeking working- class emancipation must organise consciously and politically for the capture of political power for the abolition of capitalism, and its replacement by Socialism. The Socialist Party must work only for Socialism as this is the immediate task facing the world working class. No other political party in this country holds this revolutionary position.

The blood-and-thunder left consistently cloud and confuse the clear-cut issue — capitalism or Socialism. Bitter experience has amply borne out the correctness of our long expressed judgement that the Labour Party is a reformist capitalist party and has nothing to do with Socialism. However the period immediately prior to the February 28 General Election saw pseudo-socialist organizations and parties advocating and encouraging workers to vote for the Labour Party. Examples of this confusing and cynical exercise in political futility are documented below.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

(Aim: to achieve a socialist Britain in which the means of production, distribution and exchange will be socially owned).

‘‘Three aims need to be achieved [says the CP Manifesto]: a Tory defeat, the winning of a Labour Government, and the return of Communist MP's . . We need a different type of Labour government — one that would bite into the power and profits of big business” (Morning Star 14 February 1974).

INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP

(Aim: the overthrow of the capitalist system).

‘‘Of course, in any election called now socialists must argue for a vote for the Labour Party where there is no revolutionary alternative. The victory of the Tories would be seen by the working class as a set back and would decrease confidence and combativity. A victory for Labour would have the opposite effect . . . The slogan ‘Vote Labour but rely on your own struggles’ must be the key one for any election campaign” (Red Weekly 8 February 1974).

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

(Aim for independent working class action for the abolition of capitalism. ‘‘The struggle for socialism is the central struggle of our time”).

“KICK OUT THE TORIES VOTE LABOUR”

“No worker should have any doubt about what is at stake in the election . . . The working class has to respond [to the Tory campaign] with a massive anti-Tory vote. And that means a Labour vote . . . Labour is as much committed to keeping capitalism intact as the Tories ... So while fighting for a Labour victory, we have to step up our efforts to build a real alternative, a revolutionary worker’s party, by arguing the full-blooded socialist case” (IS National Committee Statement, Socialist Worker 16 February 1974).

WORKERS FIGHT

(Aim: to build a party which stands firmly for the interests of the working class and which preserves its political independence.)

"Until we have the possibility of a genuine, socialist working class government it is in workers’ interests to elect Labour . . . ACTIVE and unconditional support for Labour against the Tories !” (Workers Fight No. 43, 9-15 February 1974).

WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

(Formerly Socialist Labour League).

“We call on all Labour Party members and trade unionists to vote Labour in constituencies where the WRP is not standing. We call on the electors to return a Labour government. In the struggle to compel the Labour leaders to implement the socialist policies we have outlined, they will be exposed and will be driven out.” (WRP Manifesto).

SOCIALIST CHARTER MOVEMENT

(‘Labour’s Revolutionary Voice’. Aim: to build a new revolutionary leadership in the Labour Movement to defeat the Tories and their system.)

“CAMPAIGN ON A SOCIALIST PROGRAMME”*

“. . . Labour Party leaders must present a programme for their next government which really offers a way forward for society out of its present impasse . . . A production plan based on common ownership . . . For this programme we need look no further than . . . the Constitution of the Labour Party, Clause four, Paragraph four.” (Chartist February 1974).

YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE

“Join in the fight now to rout the Tories and elect a Labour government with Communist MPs to back it up . . . mobilise a great mass movement to sweep away the Tory government and return a Labour government compelled to carry out Left policies . . . This is the great issue of 1974.” (Challenge February 1974).

Gwynn Thomas

Human nature (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It’s a good idea, but it’ll never work. You can’t change human nature, you know.” So runs a common argument against Socialism. A society where people would own the world’s resources in common and work together co-operatively to satisfy man’s needs is frequently rejected on the grounds that man’s nature makes it impossible. Selfishness, greed, aggression, competitiveness, are declared to be inevitable human characteristics which render any form of social organization other than today’s unworkable.

What evidence is advanced to back up this view of man? Usually not very much. Generally, some examples of contemporary human behaviour coupled with the vague assertion that Man “always has been" and therefore “always will be” like this. That so many people hold this view of human nature is a striking commentary on the nature of the education most people receive. It leaves them completely unaware of the findings made in the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc., over the last 40-50 years. These all show that “man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired, from his culture, from the man-made part of his environment, from other human beings.” (p.9, Man and Aggression, ed. M. F. Ashley Montagu).

Men and women sleep, eat, drink, and reproduce. The relations they enter into to accomplish these ends and the general organization of society, are social factors. When people are born they have the ability to think and act but at that time they have no views or attitudes. These they can only acquire through interacting with their environment: parents, school, the media, other people, etc. As the Open University social science textbook puts it: “To breathe, eat, drink, rest, are inborn drives; to achieve, dominate, submit, acquire, belong are learned or social drives.”

Looking at history we can see how man’s social relationships, have changed tremendously over time. Behaviour which is now considered to be basic human nature at one time was virtually unknown. Tribal societies who lived by gathering and hunting are the first known form of human social organisation. Anthropologists reckon that Man has lived in that way for all but the last 10,000 years of our 1-1½ million-year existence on earth. These societies had very different values from today’s. Their meagre resources were owned communally, there being no privileged class among them who had more power or wealth than the rest. Co-operation rather than competition was the norm, with the tribe having a harmony of interests. However the development of Man’s productive ability (beginning of agriculture, domestication of animals) and the consequent economic surplus led to the formation of privileged ruling classes who expropriated this surplus for their own benefit. The advent of private property changed Man’s social values. The pursuit of riches has bred murder, cruelty, fraud, enmity and other anti-social behaviour.

Private property society has now reached its ultimate in industrial capitalism. In this system the vast majority can only live by selling their ability to work to the few who own and control the factories, land, transport systems, and other means of wealth production. The driving force behind the production of goods is not the meeting of human need but the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. It is a society of constant conflict. Workers and capitalists are always fighting over wages and conditions. Worker is pitted against worker, first to obtain employment, then in 'the promotion rat-race; rival capitalist firms and countries continually compete against each other for increased power and profits. The organized telling of deliberate lies (advertizing) and the killing and maiming of human beings (the “professionals”) are respected occupations. People tend to be judged by the goods they have managed to accumulate, success being measured in terms of pounds and pence. Greed, selfishness, and ruthlessness are the qualities needed to “get on". Is it any wonder that people, born into such a system and subjected to strong social pressures, should often act in an anti-social manner?

However even under capitalism there are many occasions on which people act in a co-operative, even self-sacrificing, manner. Whenever a natural disaster strikes thousands of volunteers rush to help. People donate blood without monetary reward. And if Man is naturally aggressive its strange that in almost every war conscription has to be used. These examples alone are sufficient to disprove the “Human nature” argument. For if there was a bad human nature as claimed, it would have to apply to all people at all times.

Thus, the Socialist case against the argument that social evils can be explained by some kind of innate depravity or original sin has three main points —

1. Non-Socialist social scientists state that aggression, peacefulness, greed, generosity, etc. are social characteristics and cannot be transmitted genetically.
2. For hundreds of thousands of years Man lived co-operatively and harmoniously with communal ownership of resources.
3. Even under capitalism people continually act in a helpful and co-operative way.

The barrier to a better world lies not in any natural evil of Man, but in a lack of political consciousness which leads the majority to accept today’s private property system. However the contradictions in capitalism — social production and private ownership, great wealth existing alongside miserable poverty — result in more and more of the working class rejecting it and starting to work to establish an alternative.

—From a leaflet.

So They Say: They Pretend Malnutrition, too (1974)

The So They Say Column from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

They Pretend Malnutrition, too

A new addition to saloon-bar political mythology has arrived. It joins the Man Who Gets Twice as Much on Social Security as he does Working, the Black Man Who Buys Kit-E-Kat for his Sandwiches (yes, my grocer told me), the Eight Workmen Who Came and Lolled About Smoking When All I Wanted was a Screw Tightened on my Cooker, and so on.

This happy arrival is the Family Only Pretending to be Homeless. Its career was launched in the London Evening News on 18th January:

A housing chief has announced a clampdown on the “phoney homeless”. Some families are suspected of faking evictions to gain council homes. Only couples with children, facing complete family breakdown, are now likely to get official help in Hertfordshire.

Presumably you must spend a minimum of three nights on the pavement and get down to six stones per adult member of family; otherwise you’re only pretending. A family with a room to itself that wants a whole council house are sheer Epicureans, and we don’t stand for them in Hertfordshire. Take it from me, councillor, my nephew’s milkman knows this lot

No, it's Different Now

One trouble with the working class is its memory. How can you expect to get on and please the government if you forget the right things, like standing up for the Queen, and remember the wrong ones, like unemployment and politicians’ promises?

Thus, the masses have watching TV films about the war in which the Germans are shown as the hateful enemy. In the last week of January Die Welt published an article by its London correspondent Christian Ferber protesting about this. Sure enough, he was supported. A Reverend, among others, wrote to The Guardian suggesting “restoring the balance” with some programmes about good Germans in the war, specially POWS who “were permitted to visit churches and other organizations”,

People must really arrange their memories better. Saying they had to hate the Germans for six years is no excuse. If villains are shown today they should be Russians. But in the war weren’t they glorious allies or something? There you go again.

Please Spare a Copper . . .

Readers of the financial pages cannot fail to notice that profits and dividends show little sign of wilting because of the crisis. Some companies are doing well out of it. A typical example was shown in The Guardian's business section on 6th February. Under the heading blessing in disguise the buoyant position of Central Wagon, the steel stockholding and hydraulic equipment group, was described:

The company’s sales in January this year are 50 per cent up on the monthly average for the previous year . . . When the 1973 results are announced, the profit is more likely to be around the £900,000 mark—well beyond the company forecast of about £670,000 . . . Central Wagon is confident that it will produce still higher profit in 1974 —even after allowing for the miners’ strike.

But when times are bad, are they not bad for the owning class too? Were there not tales in the nineteen-thirties’ depression of ruined rich men queueing to throw themselves from high buildings? Untrue. Britain in the Nineteen Thirties by N. Branson and M. Heinemann (1972) says:

True, profits fell in the slump years (by 30 per cent at the lowest point, in 1932), but since a higher proportion of profits was paid out in dividends, shareholders’ incomes fell much less than this, while income from rent and fixed interest stocks remained more stable in spite of the fall in prices.

. . . Figures in the British Association’s Britain in Recovery, based on Colin Clark’s estimates, suggest a fall of 9-11 per cent in consumption expenditure of those with incomes over £250, from 1929 to 1933—which was almost certainly less than the fall in prices.

. . . for the Clerical Hat

Reach for your handkerchiefs. The Guardian of 8th February told the harrowing story of Britain’s underpaid vicars.

The [Church] commissioners, in a report to the General Synod, the parliament of the Church of England, say the average pay of the 9,000 vicars last November was about £35 a week. In addition, they are provided with a house free of rent and rates, but many have to meet the expenses of doing their job, which can be as high as £4 to £5 a week.

How sad for the clergy to have to put up with the austerity they urge on others. The world is too materialistic.

Socialism Mondial (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our French-language companion journal published in Quebec, Canada. Number 2/3, Volume I, available now, contains in French: 

• MANIFESTO OF INTRODUCTION TO WORLD SOCIALISM
• IL PROGRAMMA DEL PARTITO SOCIALISTA DEL CANADA (an Italian translation of our Object and Declaration of Principles)
• FROM THE FILES OF WORLD SOCIALISM MAJORITY CONSCIOUSNESS AND VIOLENCE (reply to an article in the French “Lutte de classe”)
• REFORMISM OF THE “PROGRAMME COM- MUN” IN FRANCE (updated version of a recent “Socialist Standard” article)
• OUR DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES (translation of a joint SPC and WSPUS leaflet) 
• THE RISE AND FALL OF SALVADOR ALLENDE
• LETTERS FROM READERS including a letter on the Socialist Labor Party (De Leonist) 
• ARE YOU A WAGE SLAVE?

Special edition on Russia and Bolshevism  

“Socialism Mondial” will publish shortly a special edition containing a translation of the SPGB pamphlet “Russia 1917-1967” (a selection of articles from the “Socialist Standard” over that period) and a biographical article on Julius Martov.

These publications are obtainable from “Socialisme Mondial”, Case Postale 244, Pointe- aux-Trembles, Quebec, HIB 5K3, and from the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

SPGB Meetings (1974)

Party News from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

There is actually an audio recording of the advertised Annual Conference meeting, featuring Hardcastle and Barltrop, available on SPGB website. Though I believe there are earlier recordings of SPGB meetings out there . . . somewhere, this is the earliest recording on the website. Enjoy!

Letter: Incentive to work (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Incentive to work

In the event of the establishment of Socialism in this country or any country; whereas people would take a job preferential to his ability and aptitude, how would one influence a person to mine coal (taking into account that machinery could not be put to this work) as the work is held in much disfavour, unless incentives were given to do the work?

Yet in a Socialist society, every person would take what he needed to sustain life, including creature comforts. For that matter how would people be encouraged to do any job held in his or her disfavour?

P. W. Ralphs, 

Stoke-on-Trent

Reply

We do not envisage a Socialist society existing solely in any one country. The question of carrying out work which is necessary to society will rest with the members of society. If the supply of coal is considered a necessity, it is logical to conclude that those who have brought Socialism into being will take steps to ensure that the supply of coal is maintained.

Apart from the enormous changes which will become possible to make the physical conditions of labour more pleasant, work will be viewed in the new light of usefulness to society. The incentive to carry out work will therefore lie in the personal knowledge that one’s efforts are meeting a social need. The maintenance of Socialist society where starvation, the threat of warfare, unemployment and poverty with all its implications are things of the past, and where men and women are free to work in harmony for the sole purpose of satisfying their social requirements, will be the over-riding incentive.

The pre-supposition that machinery will not be available to carry out certain work is dubious. Professor Meredith Thring (mechanical engineer at Queen Mary’s Hospital, London) has recently been complaining in the press that his coal-mining machine with caterpillar tracks, television eyes, and diggers, which could be operated from the surface by “a man in an armchair” and could work in currently “unworkable” coal seams, to produce four times the amount of coal now produced, has been rejected by mining engineers [whose] theories, according to Professor Thring, are out of date.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: ". . . enlightened use of the ballot box"? (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

". . . enlightened use of the ballot box"?

I read Socialist Standard No. 832 and although I enjoyed it and learned from it I must say I totally disagree with the “enlightened use of the ballot box” sentence. Unless you mean the MPs etc. are in the public eye hence able to reach the people. Otherwise you must mean that MPs have the ability to change (politically) things which is spurious. Lenin says that the system is such that even if every seat is taken by a socialist-minded person nothing will change. It is fail-safe. However, maybe I misinterpreted the sentence.

Keep up the good work!

Karl Buckie, 

Edinburgh.

Reply

No, we do not propose that “socialist-minded” MPs have the power to change the system. The condition for establishing Socialism is an electorate — i.e. the majority of the working class — that understands and wants it. This is what we mean by “enlightened use of the ballot box”: sending delegates to Parliament with the mandate not to administer capitalism but to abolish it. And this was what Lenin rejected.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: The Basis of Socialism (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Basis of Socialism

Dear Sir,

Perhaps I may be permitted to make one or two observations in your letter columns on the Dec. issue of your excellent paper. I am mainly concerned with the wriggling by ALB in his otherwise very fine article on the question of Marx’s reference to payment by labour vouchers in the early stages of socialism. ALB says that Marx was writing at a time last century when the powers of production had not yet reached the pitch at which abundance of wealth could be created and it may well be true that had be been writing now he would not have talked in these terms. It remains a fact, however, that socialism is a society of abundance or nothing. Shared poverty may be viable for a few idealistic settlers on a kibbutz but this is not the meaning of socialism. Surely, therefore, it is clear that the circumstances of Marx’s day were such that socialism was not possible and that Marx was not correct in suggesting that it was. I suggest that Marx’s contribution to socialist thought was sufficiently great that it could stand the observation that he was not infallible and that socialists do not accept the possibility of establishing the new society except in conditions of abundance. The wriggling is really unnecessary. Perhaps I could add that the concept of labour vouchers or whatever is rather ludicrous anyway. How could even Marx have computed the correct number of time vouchers for a coal miner and a Shakespeare?

A couple of small points in connection with “So they say”. The author, RAHB, makes an excellent point when he shows that the Church, as property owner, need not charge 11 per cent mortgage interest and that the professional financial journalist of the Observer could not be expected to see the obvious. On the other hand I suggest he is wrong in his next paragraph to decry protection to the consumer on the grounds that all interest is extortion and only socialism will get rid of it. But some interest is more equal than others and it must be useful to the borrower to know if he is really paying 15 per cent or 50. As to the usefulness of the proposed cooling-off period, it is not true that a second mortgagee would never get the benefit as his creditors are breathing down his neck. He may well be borrowing to buy something new and if he finds the rate is too high it would clearly be important to him that he should be legally enabled to back out.

S. Gamzu, 

London, N.W.11

Reply

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has never regarded Marx as infallible; on a number of points, e.g. his taking sides in some nineteenth-century wars, we have frankly stated that he was wrong. However, S. Gamzu is virtually claiming that to have advocated Socialism in the nineteenth century was wrong. This we cannot accept.

The basis of Socialism is the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. This was possible in Marx’s day, and indeed would have provided a framework within which the means of production could have been developed much more rapidly than under capitalism to the stage where abundance and full free access was possible. What would not have been possible, perhaps for a generation, would have been the full implementation of the principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. This, however, does not mean that there would have had to have been “shared poverty”. Certainly, the former members of the capitalist and landowning classes would have had to suffer a drop in their standard of living, but for the great majority Socialism, even without full free access, would have brought a vast improvement compared with their lot under capitalism.

The labour-time system mentioned by Marx certainly would have had many anomalies, some of which he himself pointed out, but since it never has been advocated by the Socialist Party (see, for instance, the Socialist Standard, October, 1920, republished in “50 Years Ago” in October 1970) we are not called upon to defend it.

Further, as our article pointed out, today, in this age of potential abundance, this is a discussion of academic interest only: full free access could now be very rapidly introduced once Socialism was established. This is the position of the Socialist Party, whatever Marx may have advocated in the last century and irrespective of whether he was then right or wrong.

On the question of protecting borrowers of money, our contributor’s point was that the protection can only be marginal to the real problem. If, as Mr. Gamzu says, a borrower is contemplating a non-urgent purchase he may well have time to change his mind and wait. Few borrowers, we think, are in that luxurious position; to the degree that they need the money quickly, their ability to be choosy about it diminishes.

Editorial Committee.

The Futility of I.S. (1974)

Pamphlet Review from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The policies of the “International Socialists” have been set forth in a pamphlet, The Struggle for Workers' Power by Roger Rosewell. The pamphlet appears to be intended for the information of members of I.S., as well as for the general public.

The Labour Party, I.S. recognize Labour to be a non-Socialist party, and indeed provide ample evidence to show it. But they nevertheless support the election of a Labour government — in order to point to the anti-working-class nature of its policies. Those dim workers, you see, have to be led through this experience. This is itself a non-Socialist standpoint: since all previous Labour governments have shown that their function is to administer capitalism in the interests of the capitalist class, it is a waste of time encouraging workers to vote Labour only to shout “betrayal” when the results of doing so become apparent.

The “Workers’ State”. This chapter makes a Socialist squirm. In little over two pages Rosewell manages to pack in all the Leftist garbage on this topic. The “Workers’ State” is to be completely democratic. However, capitalist parties and newspapers are to be banned, and former capitalists and their supporters are to be disenfranchised.

Now, at present the majority of workers support capitalism in one form or another, and presumably after the I.S. “revolution” many will continue to do so. What will the “Workers’ State” do with them? Perhaps, following their masters Lenin and Trotsky, such workers as oppose the new régime will be thrown into forced-labour camps.

A “Workers’ Militia” is to be formed for the protection of the new State and all workers are to be given part-time military training (in other words, conscription). Will workers carry rifles on their backs as they travel to and from work? The Workers’ Militia will defend the “right” to work (why not the right to leisure?) and the “right” to strike. Rosewell has already told us that under the new régime the means of production will be owned by the working class, so against whom would strikes be directed? We can only wonder, as no answer is forthcoming in the pamphlet.

All remaining British Colonies are to be declared free. “Free” is used without any explanation as to what is meant by it. Free from British imperialism, but in the clutches of, e.g., Russian or Chinese imperialism? Most likely, because Rosewell naively states that British capitalism’s overseas property will be handed over to the native workers.

The Communist Party. We are told that the CP was at one time a revolutionary organization, but sadly this is no longer the case. What is meant by this is that the CP advocated the violent overthrow of the Establishment (to be replaced by State capitalism on the Russian model, though Rosewell does not say this). Nowadays the CP advocates a peaceful road to "Socialism” (again State capitalism): I.S. claims that this is a departure from Marxism, and that Socialism can be established only after a violent revolution. For I.S. to claim that Marx never thought Socialism could be established by peaceful means is either very ignorant or very dishonest. Speaking to the Congress of the First International at The Hague in 1872, Marx expressed the view that in countries such as Britain and the USA where democracy had been established, the Socialist revolution could do without violence.

Reformism. This statement of policy boldly claims that I.S. is for “Revolution, Not Reformism” — then proceeds to advocate reforms: the repeal of the Industrial Relations Act, the repeal of the Housing Finance Act, reform of the education system with more money to be spent on education and the abolition of private schools, exams and corporal punishment. It even demands an end to-the teaching of ruling-class ideas. How naive can you get? Do I.S. seriously expect the ruling class to subsidize subversion of themselves?

I.S. participates in “the Fight against the Fascist Menace”. Readers of the-pamphlet should have been in Edinburgh on 15th October last, when I.S. (with others) broke up a debate at the University Union because they objected to the presence of the National Front. They are opposed to free speech for their opponents; apparently it is permissible for the Left to use “fascist” methods (breaking-up meetings) against fascism.

Socialism. The pamphlet’s summing-up says: “Mankind is faced with the alternatives of Socialism or barbarism. Only the Socialist revolution can change this.” We would certainly agree with that, but The Struggle for Workers’ Power does not point the way towards the new society. Claiming to be a Socialist pamphlet, it does not even hint at the nature of Socialism — a world-wide classless society, with an end to all markets and with production to satisfy human needs.

R. Battersby

Who Governs Britain? (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

By the time you read this Socialist Standard the Election will be over. On 10th February The Observer listed slogans used by the Conservative and Labour Parties in General Elections since the war. A collection of phrases of such fatuousness and irrelevance would be hard to find: questions which should never be asked, appeals which might as well be in Linear B for all the meaning to be found in them.

The latest addition, in this election, is the Tory call “Who governs Britain ?” That is, of course, the question of every election, but its implication on this occasion has been of a vital conflict between representative government and attempts by agitators in trade unions to supplant it. In his first speech of the election campaign, Heath said:

Are moderates going to sound a call loud and clear that we have had enough of the extremists in our society and the danger and disruption they cause, these few who put so much at risk by their abuse of power? . . .  The future of Britain depends on this election.

Wilson has kept out of this argument for the tactical reason that he cannot accept at election-time that there is any alternative to Tory government except Labour government. But, in office, he has sounded the same cry that Communists and other “extremists” have been disrupting the work of running the country — notably, in the seamen’s strike of 1966.

Apparent awareness of the vacuity of election appeals did not stop the Observer a week earlier, on 3rd February, publishing grist for Heath’s mill in an article on the insidious scheming of left-wingers in the trade unions. Two things need to be pointed out at once on this subject. First, the complete failure of the “extremists” — the Communists for fifty years — to achieve what they set out to do with the unions. And second, that discontent with wages and poor living standards is not an agitators’ invention. As the satirical columnist “Yaffle” wrote in 1947 (in the Labour Reynolds’ News, under a Labour government):

No working man ever knows his wage is too small until some professional Fomenter strolls up with a microscope and tells him to look at it.
   No working-class mother ever knows that her children are under-fed until some salaried discontent-monger calls round with a pair of scales and a tape measure and asks her to examine her offspring closely.
   . . . Take warning from the past. Remember the last war and recall how easily a “hero” becomes a “work-shy” and a public nuisance.
    All he had to do was to discover he hadn’t enough to eat, and say so.

Head Against Brick Wall

Does the possibility exist that industrial action on a large enough scale could damage capitalism and governments’ ability to govern? Undoubtedly this is the dream of several left-wing groups. In the speech quoted above, Heath “reminded” the miners’ union that its action “threatened the whole country”, and went on: “That is why we called this election.” Such a statement is likely to give delusions of grandeur to anyone who believes he can “threaten the country”, but it is absurdly untrue. A General Election had to be called before long, and the question for Heath was finding an advantageous time.

The fact is that capitalism and its means of rule, the state, cannot be overthrown by industrial action. Of course changes of government can and do take place — but only at the behest of electoral majorities. Since 1970 (but by no means for the first time) a lot has been heard of “political action” by the trade unions. It should be known that no strike has ever succeeded in unseating a government or even getting one to change its mind about legislation. Certainly from time to time militants are gratified by seeing a change, though it has resulted not from their actions but from a General Election. And what does it amount to? The new administration is committed to run capitalism as the old one was, and by the same means.

Capitalism is not the government but the social system. It means the class ownership of the means of production and distribution, in the modern world. Whether industries are in private hands or under state control makes no difference (as the miners and railwaymen should know). In one case ownership is vested in private individuals, in the other in the capitalist class as a whole. Both ways, the sole purpose of production is profit, and the economic pressures and consequences of capitalism are there. The immediate concomitant of class ownership is the non-ownership of the rest, who are thereby condemned to wage-labour.

The function of the state is to upkeep this system. Before anything else, it is capitalism’s self-provided sanction. It gives class ownership its fortification, through law supported by police and prisons and, in the end, armed force. This is the simple fact which makes the idea of confrontation between militants and the state ridiculous. Before the modem state arrived, mediaeval kings could be overthrown by whatever barons raised stronger armies. It is that world, romanticized, that the confrontationists and Heath both seem to be invoking; the good knight topples the evil one, and the peasantry applaud. Twentieth- century politics is nothing like that.

Seat of Power

What has to be understood also is that this function of the state rests on the support of the electorate. The truth against which militants shut their eyes is that the majority of the working class remain, to date, in favour of capitalism; that is, they have been led to believe it is the natural order or can be brought round on their behalf. (Indeed, it is impossible to grasp how left-wing organizations dc see the working class. Their publications show the workers on one hand duped and doped by the big parties and hypnotized by the Spectacle; on the other hand, permanently seething with revolt. Which is it ?)

Obviously there are rival versions of how to run capitalism. There have also been — not any more, however — groups and individuals who have gone to Parliament believing the system could be reformed out of existence; in these cases, foreseeably, the man was oblivious to the bite and the dog it was that died. The main factor in administering capitalism is finance. Discussing aspects of government in an article in The Guardian on 6th February, Dr. David Owen wrote:

The democratic process as it is represented through our parliamentary system has traditionally focussed on the control of expenditure and this remains the central control mechanism whether the policy issue is related to the EEC or is purely domestic.

The position is that the state is provided with money by the capitalist class through taxation. The differences between the major parties are therefore largely differences over how this money shall be collected and spent. Two important points immediately arise. The first is that taxation, so often used to inflame or allure the electorate, is not a working-class issue at all. The second is that these differences all stand on the assumption that capitalism must be kept in good running order. It is tempting to believe that Labour measures for “soaking the rich” are steps to equality, and to blame their failure on mismanagement; but their basic futility is that they are conceived within the taken-for-granted frame work of capitalism. 

How to use Parliament

There is no hope, then, for reform to undermine or confrontation to overthrow the established order of who governs Britain and every other country. The strength of capitalism’s legality has been demonstrated again and again. Recently there has been the case of the local council which refused to implement an Act of Parliament, and had its powers removed and its members penalized; the same thing happened in the nineteen-fifties in attempted local rebellions against Civil Defence. In 1972 there were the ineffectual demonstrations against the government’s Industrial Relations Act and, later in the year, the disposal of the Angry Brigade group who claimed they could change society with bombs.

“Who governs Britain?” is a non-question. But Socialists have been putting forward for seventy years the means to get rid of the problems over which some workers fume and others think they must be resigned. The capitalist system continues because the majority support it. The day that support ceases, the situation will alter completely. What the majority have to understand is the nature of capitalism, including that a change of government is no change at all, and that only Socialism will be different.

The course of action then is easy. Delegates will be elected to Parliament with a mandate — which no industrial militant or reformist politician has ever had — not to administer capitalism but to abolish it. This is the state put to its final, and for the first time fruitful, use; instead of confronting the coercive machinery, the Socialists’ representatives take possession of it. Class ownership then falls to the ground, and the new world of common ownership can begin.

Robert Barltrop

Obituary: William Travers (1974)

Obituary from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist movement has had some grievous losses in recent months. From Glasgow we hear of the death of William Travers, the oldest member of the branch there. He was 90, and died suddenly at his home in Mace Road.

Willie Travers was one of the most lovable of comrades. Bright-eyed and full of almost boyish zest, he had worked enthusiastically for the Socialist Party for many years. He often came to London and spoke as a delegate at our Conferences, and his small neat figure and trim white beard were well known among members. He was a scholarly man who imparted knowledge to everyone he met: it could be Marxian economics, or a discourse on the Book of Kells. Willie had a lively relevant wit, too. It was he who rose to say to a ponderous speaker: “Let’s call a spade a spade, and not a metallic implement for penetrating the earth’s crust.” 

He continued selling and talking about the Socialist Standard to people in his area until his health became impaired by bronchitis. There are many besides the Glasgow branch members who will wish to extend their sympathy to his two daughters; and the Glasgow branch wishes also to express to them its great appreciation for their generous gift of Willie’s extensive library.

Tory and Labourite agree (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

To say that large numbers of workers who endured six years of Labour government from 1964 to 1970 and five years of Tory government since 1970 are not enamoured of the ugly face of capitalism is an understatement; it has the two larger parties worried. To see voters falling away from both parties at the same time calls for some dramatic re-vamping of policies, and both parties have given thought to it.

Simpletons in the Labour Party who take at its face value what the Party says about the Tories and about itself will expect the outcome to be, on the Tory side, a publicity campaign to prove that capitalism is really quite all right as it is, and, on the Labour side, a promise to end capitalism. Barbara Castle tried to comply a few months ago by asserting that Labour was the only party “committed to remove capitalism” (Times, 3rd July 1973). But the reality is quite different, as will be seen from two speeches by party leaders published in The Times and the Financial Times on 2nd February. One speech (Times) was by the Tory, Mr. Peter Walker, Secretary for Trade and Industry. The other (Financial Times) was by Mr. Edward Short, deputy leader of the Labour Party.

The interesting thing about the speeches is that most of Walker’s speech could have been put over by Short, and vice versa. The speeches have a common theme — a promise to keep capitalism but to give it a facelift. First the Tory:

A transformation of the capitalist system in the next 25 years was forecast yesterday by Mr. Peter Walker. Secretary for Trade and Industry . . .  He said that in Western Europe a big part of the system consisted of free enterprise and private capital. A dramatic period of change was beginning. In Britain, the government had done much already to transform the basis of capitalism, yet it had passed almost unnoticed.

Now the Labourite:

He warned that the next Labour administration must arm itself ‘to act decisively’ when any company or industry fell short of what the national interest demanded and this would involve ‘a major change in the capitalist system’.

The two had no disagreement about the method. “Much greater public control over industry would be necessary’’ (Short). “We are doing this . . .  by the power of the State — a new kind of interventionism’’ (Walker).

Both indicated that there was no intention to end capitalism, but with subtle differences of emphasis. Walker intends to make capitalism “more responsible, more responsive, and therefore stronger”, while Short said that “the assertion of control would be partly by an extension of public ownership where it was absolutely necessary . . . and by planning agreements between the Government and some of the major companies”. Lest this should sound rather too drastic, Mr Short reassured his listeners by explaining that the latter means “a system which has been very successful in France”, and that “most industrialists [are] public-spirited people who would co-operate”.

Both talked about controlling inflation and maintaining “full employment”. Both talked about the so-called “mixed economy” (i.e. private and state capitalism), but Walker claimed that the Tories are better at it:

Fortunately for Western Europe . . . the moderate Conservative had been able to appreciate the rationale for a modem mixed economy far more rapidly than the socialist. [For “socialist” read “Labour Party”.]

And it all adds up to nothing at all. In the past century Liberal, Tory and Labour governments have passed hundreds of Acts of Parliament “reforming” capitalism, and the sum total is the shambles we see around us.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialist Economics: 3. Money and Prices (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Economics Series

The whole financial edifice of capitalism at first sight appears incomprehensible to the average person. Ignorance concerning the financial and monetary system has given rise to many unsound theories, and consequently has prevented a proper understanding of what it is, how it came into being, and the circumstances which will make the monetary system unnecessary. This is not an intellectual exercise but a vital element in exposing the nature of capitalism.

The monetary system has evolved gradually and has been in existence as a system for about 250 years in England and for a much shorter period abroad. We make a distinction between the ancient coinage of Greece, Carthage and Rome, which although used to effect the exchange of commodities was at that period incidental to the main stream of an exchange system which was based on surpluses and barter. As a general social form, money developed alongside the development of commodity production, and at the point in history when all wealth was produced in the form of commodities money became the universal medium or equivalent through which all exchange transactions were carried out.

The  first condition for the introduction of a monetary system is when social products become commodities, i.e. articles produced for sale and exchange. It is quite obvious that commodities cannot go to the market on their own. As they are owned by someone or other, he is the person who will take or send them there. Likewise, there are other owners of commodities carrying out a similar function. Each will recognize the other as a private proprietor — that is, they respect each other’s rights to dispose of the social product to their own immediate advantage. Eventually they embellish their right through a set of legal relations:

This juridical relation, which thus expresses itself in a contract, whether such contract be part of a developed legal system or not, is a relation between two wills, and is but the reflex of the real economical relation between the two. It is this economical relation that determines the subject matter in each such juridical act. (Marx, Capital Vol. I, p. 96. Kerr edn.)

The capitalists who are the owners of commodities have to appropriate the wealth of society before they can sell it. Once having done so, they create a juridical system backed up by the State machine which politically safeguards their position and consequently the whole institution of private property.

When exchange becomes a normal social practice, and the volume of transactions is being constantly repeated, inevitably one commodity emerges — either through custom or the stamp of legality — in which all the others can represent their value or express their price, which is the money-name for Value. This one commodity, which is historically acceptable, becomes the recognized universal equivalent: it becomes money — it becomes the measure of Value.

All commodities will therefore express their price through the agency of this single commodity, whatever it happens to be at any given point historically. Gold became the universal equivalent and still is for international transactions. Gold evolved as such because of the facts that it had a certain amount of social labour in it; that it was relatively durable; easily divisible; and kept its value for a long period.

The fact that currency notes without gold backing have replaced gold as the means of circulation within individual political states, does not materially alter the function of the universal equivalent. Symbolic money, introduced by state compulsion, can only circulate within the political sphere which created it. We are not concerned here with the interminable international squabbles between capitalist powers who refuse to take each other’s bad money. The fact that symbolic money is now used does not remove gold as the measure of Value, as eventually all symbolic currencies will require to be related to one another at some point, and are finally adjusted through the medium of gold.

Let us assume that 1 oz. of gold contains 100 hours of social labour, and that 40 gallons of wine also contain 100 hours. In that case 1 oz. of gold would be equal to 40 gallons of wine, or ½ oz. equal to 20 gallons of wine, or ¼ to 10 gallons — and so on. The same thing would apply to every other commodity. For example, if 4 washing machines also contained 100 hours of social labour, then 4 washing machines would be equal to 40 gallons of wine, or 1 washing machine to 10 gallons of wine or ¼ oz. of gold. The change from one universal equivalent to another does not, nor cannot, alter the exchange value, or the proportion in which one commodity exchanges with another. Gold, as the money commodity, or currency, as the recognized legal form, are really external factors. Different products of labour are being equated with one another, and the function of money is to facilitate this equation for practical commercial purposes. The law of Value, like the law of gravity, is not subject to amendment by Acts of Parliament. Currency is not Value.

The amount of currency notes needed to carry out exchange transactions depends on the number of transactions, the speed with which they are conducted, and the volume of commodities to be exchanged. If for example £5 million (currency) was required to circulate £50 million worth of commodities, and the Government decided to print £10 million, then the purchasing power of the £ would have fallen and it would take £2 to purchase what would previously be purchased for £1: prices would rise accordingly. The value of the commodities has not changed, but merely that their standard of measurement has altered. You do not alter temperature by changing the numbers on a thermometer. Prices will rise because the measure of price has fallen. Prices will rise higher, and in direct ratio to the depreciation of the symbolic standard of measure. This is the main factor in rising prices. The exchange of commodities is not based on legal promises to pay or arbitrary standards which alter according to political expediency. Therefore they will express their value, as they have always done, on the amount of socially-necessary labour contained within them.

Supply and demand do not determine prices, although they influence them. A shortage will create higher prices, a surplus low prices. But invariably, throughout most fields of production and distribution, through repetition the supply of commodities becomes equal to the demand for them and the two therefore cancel each other out. These are accidental factors and do not determine value, any more than a train driver can determine the route between London and Glasgow.

Other factors which influence price are monopoly and subsidy. Monopoly action by certain groups of capitalists with-holding supplies of a given commodity can cause prices to rise. The Arab oil sheikhs demonstrated this recently. Monopoly does not add to the surplus wealth but merely redistributes it. Capitalism cannot run on the basis of permanent monopoly anymore than it can run on the basis of permanent subsidy. Subsidy is the action which is carried on by certain governments to keep prices below the current market level, from time to time. For many years the prices of food and housing were kept artificially low deliberately in order to keep wages down.

The introduction of an excess of currency notes over and above those required to circulate will undoubtedly cause dislocation not only in the marketing process but also in the productive process. This we are now witnessing. You cannot print Value. If governments could only follow the example of King Midas how happy they would be. Like the old Canadian bum, they have the button of inflation if only someone would sew a shirt on to it.

Jim D'Arcy

The Strike Situation (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

In every action of resistance by the workers against their exploitation the Socialist Party of Great Britain is on the side of the workers. The Miners and Railwaymen have all our sympathies in their efforts to get more pay - but we as Socialists have a lot more to say than that. We hold, with Karl Marx:-

At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing the direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought therefore not to be exclusively absorbed in those unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market.

It is a tragedy of the present situation that the two strikes are not at all part of a carefully planned and organized working-class movement to defend or to raise the standard of living of the working class as a whole, but predominantly sectional efforts; by the miners to get a pay level above that of the workers in other countries, and by ASLEF to widen the margin between their wages and those of railway workers in other unions. In this the two unions on strike reflect the sectional outlook of the 450 unions into which trade unionists are divided.

And what of the TUC, supposedly a co-ordinating body for trade-union struggles? Representing as it does the political leanings of its affiliated big unions, and working hand in glove with the Labour Party leaders, its preoccupations has not been seriously to organize working-class industrial action but to manoeuvre to secure the return of a Labour government at the next election.

For their part the Heath government has likewise been using the strikes as a platform for the election campaign. "Standing up to the unions" helped them to win the election in 1970, and they hoped to do it agin this time.

The background to the strikes is that British capitalism is in difficulties, partly because of the monopoly squeeze organized by the oil producers, but mainly because of the thirty-year rise of prices, now approaching six times the pre-war level. That inflation has been the direct and inevitable outcome of a policy shared by the Tory and Labour Parties and solidly backed by the NUM and ASLEF and other unions - the fallacious Keynesian belief that it is possible to humanize and regulate capitalism on a course of steady expansion, rising living standards and full employment. Average earnings of men in manufacturing industry have risen since 1938 from about £3.50 to £40 a week, but all except a very small fraction of the rise has been lost running faster and faster on the cost-of-living treadmill.

Whatever the strikers may get out of the dispute to offset the loss of pay and hardship caused to themselves and other workers is being eroded all the time by rising prices.

The National Union of Mineworkers has in its programme "abolition of capitalism", and other unions have paid lip-service to the same slogan. It does not mean a thing, and neither the NUM nor any other union has ever done anything to promote it. Instead, they worked for half a century to get industries nationalized, and have now had a quarter of a century seeing its utter futility. Nationalization is state capitalism and solves no problem whatever for the working class.

In our generation the unions have been fighting over and over again the same battles they were fighting in the nineteenth century, without ever achieving their aim of "fair wages" and security. They have ignored the advice given to them by Marx: -

Instead of the conservative motto 'a fair day's wages for a fair day's work!' they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword 'Abolition of the wages system'.

This is of course not an aim that has application inside capitalism: it means working for the replacement of capitalism with Socialism. Socialism cannot be achieved or even brought nearer by following the traditional trade-union policy of supporting the Labour Party. From the working-class standpoint it makes no material difference whether they are exploited under a Labour government or a Tory one - both are committed to the continuance of capitalism.

Nor is Socialism advanced by strikes to unseat governments, still less by the dangerous folly advocated by so-called left-wingers of engaging in violence against the police and armed forces.

The trade unions in their long history have, as Marx said, been fighting with effects; they and the rest of the working class need to change course and start dealing with the basic problem of the class ownership of the means of production and distribution. The only road to Socialism, a world-wide social system based on common ownership and democratic control, is through dislodging the capitalists and their agents from power -  that is, from their control of the machinery of government including the armed forces.

This is the road of political action. When the working class grasp that Socialism alone is in their interest the road to emancipation is open to them. In this country they command nearly ninety per cent. of the votes but so far, while doggedly fighting the defensive struggle on the industrial field, they have never got round to using their votes in their own class interest.

Edgar Hardcastle