Correction (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The January editorial “Class Struggle–Back on the Agenda” stated that the working class is currently dominated “by defensive reformist ideas and reformist institutions such as trade unions”. This was a type-setting mix-up and should have read “by reformist ideas and defensive institutions such as trade unions”. We apologise for this error.

These Foolish Things: Who will be next? (1996)

The Scavenger column from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who will be next?

The government’s controversial decision to deport Saudi Arabian dissident Dr Mohammed al-Masari has paid its first dividend. As a direct consequence of the deportation, British Aerospace has won a £160 million aviation contract. 

Financial Mail on Sunday, January 14.

Brain power

Several recent studies have found a link between education and dementia. One published in the British Medical Journal last April reported a fourfold risk of Alzheimer’s disease amongst people with the lowest education status. Another study by Bonaiutu and colleagues found that Alzheimer's disease occurred in 7.2 percent of illiterate people, in 2.8 percent of those whose education had ceased at fifth grade and in 0.5 percent of those whose education had studied in the fifth grade or over.

Not every study has found a link between education and dementia however, and the link between low social status and dementia may arise from poorer physical health and a higher rate of vascular dementia (failing mental powers due to hardening of the arteries, including those which supply the brain with oxygen). 

Alzheimer’s Disease Society Newsletter, December 1995/January 1996.

The Land of Rising Debt

Japan’s budget deficit is now worse than that of the USA. Masayoshi Takemura, the Minister for Finance, proposes to increase government borrowings to Y21,000 billion (nearly £135 billion) in his April budget.

This will raise Japan’s total debt to 96 percent of its gross domestic product.

The old, old story

Exhausted pilots who made basic errors caused the air crash near Coventry just over a year ago, which killed five people including two Britons, a report disclosed yesterday.

The 21-year-old Air Algerie Boeing 737, which had carried veal calves to Holland and France, crashed in fog as it approached the city’s airport—its fifth flight during a 10-hour shift. 

Guardian, 11 January.

That’s the point of it

MONEY—you can’t have enough of it. Do you agree or disagree? I agree. If you’ve known the taste of hard-up days, you'll never forget it was money that gave you the mouthwash. The more I work, the more money I can earn, the more secure I feel. 

Jim Dale, Financial Mail on Sunday, 14 January.

Failing health

A recent survey produced by the Labour Party has analysed the changes in the structure of the National Health Service in the five years between 1989 and 1994. It says there has been a loss of 50,000 nurses and midwives (a cut of 13 percent) but an increase of 18,340 managers (400 percent). In addition, there has been a cut of 31 percent (19,020) in the number of nurses going through training.

Each of the five years saw a reduction of 10,000 nurses and an increase of 3,670 senior managers. The pattern differed strongly across the country: in North West Thames management numbers increased by 1,100 percent; in South Western by 180 percent. Nurses and midwives were reduced by 22 percent in Mersey and North West Thames; in South Western by 5 percent.

The Scavenger

Mustn't Grumble (1996)

The A Word in Your Ear column from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Watcha Ted. Howya doin’?" 

“Not so bad. Can’t complain.”

To which the present writer’s response is “Why not?” if you can’t complain, what the hell are you supposed to do in the face of the insecurities, indignities and discomforts of life as a wage slave? We are taught to applaud the stoical resilience of retired workers who are old, sick, impoverished and treated like dirt, but refuse to mope around feeling sorry for themselves. “Old Charlie had a lousy life, but one thing you can say about him, he always had a smile on his face.” What was Charlie, some kind of a desensitised imbecile who was scared of expressing the misery of the social reality which was crushing him? Why put up in silence with a bad lot? “How’s life with you?”, they ask, waiting for an inaudible half-grin, half-sigh—the greeting of the complacently hopeless slave. “How am I? I’ll tell you how I am . . .  and I’ll tell you how you are while I’m at it.”

Such thinking was prompted by a recent viewing of one of those old black-and-white films about British POWs in the Second World War who, stuck for years in camps and bullied by Nazi thugs, always kept their peckers up and whistled “There’ll Always Be An England” every time their rations were cut. This drab display of abject tolerance for oppression, combined with deference for the officers (whose main role was to send the men to dig holes which invariably led nowhere) and endless tommy grit, sums up a particular strain of working-class acquiescence which is nauseating to view and worse still to live amongst.

In The Captive Heart Gordon Jackson is blinded in the course of doing his bit for King and Country. Asked how he was by an officer he responds with the slave’s motto, “Mustn’t grumble.” Has John Major considered adopting this as his slogan for the next election? “Stuck in a slum with no job . . . insufficient text books to go round the class you’re teaching . . . waiting in casualty for three hours for admission to a hospital ward which they can’t afford to keep open . . . unemployed and been left by your wife and kids . . . well, what we say is MUSTN’T GRUMBLE!”

Give me Basil Fawlty as against George Dixon any day. True enough, Fawlty was trapped in a world of endlessly repeated frustrations and impotent bitterness but, for all his cheerless disdain for his small-business, culturally pointless life as a hotel landlord, at least he knew there was a problem. Old George Dixon whistled while he worked, worked till he dropped and never broke the master’s rules. He was poor but he was happy—it was the happiness of the willing slave: a role model for the millions who viewed his ungrumbling antics.

There is much to be said for happiness (not least that it feels a lot better than sadness), but perhaps the price of becoming free to control our lives is to recognise just how unfree to be happy the vast majority of us actually are—and always will be under this lousy profit system. We are surrounded by endless commodities, the range of which grows by the day, offering us freedom from stress, anxiety and sorrow. The phone-in shrinks offer callers and listeners huge promises of release from misery. Everyone is urged to “talk about it” whether it’s the news that your daughter has been forced to go on the game or you’ve just lost your executive job or you woke up this morning realising that life in the rat race is for rats and not humans. Talk long enough, they imply, and you will learn to smile in the face of adversity. Mustn’t grumble, after all.

Simply grumbling is a waste of time. It’s like endlessly scratching an itch without searching for its cause. But it is one step up from refusing to grumble—fearing to scratch the itch in case it offends anyone. The next step is to grumble with a view to end grumbling, and the one after that is to grumble collectively (rhythmic grumbling; could this not become a future Olympic sport?).

All is far from lost. Last week a Gas Board worker came to fit a radiator. The following exchange took place:

 "Morning. Come to fit the radiator? " “You seen the bloody snow out there? You can bet Cedric sodding Brown doesn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive across town in the snow fitting radiators. All that bastard knows how to do is make fat profits and sack people.”
"You’re right there. That's what this system's all about. ”“System? I call it a bloody racket, not a system.”
"Yet people put up with it.”“They shouldn’t. They should complain.”
"We should complain. And we need to blow what it is we’re up against.’’
“Well, there’s more of us than them. We should overthrow it, never mind complaining.”

Now, there’s an encouraging thought. Mustn’t grumble—unless, of course you’re a thieving parasite who thinks you’ll forever own the earth. In which case large amounts of grumbling followed by much trembling would seem to be your historic fate.

Steve Coleman

Letters: Religion, Atheism and Materialism (1996)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion, Atheism and Materialism

Dear Editors,

The review of Bill Mcllroy's pamphlet, Foundations of Modern Humanism (January) is a history of the movement to break free from the shackles of superstition. It is, therefore, of necessity a history of assorted radicals. Liberals and Tories who, often at great personal cost, opposed religion and the barbaric blasphemy laws of their day.

The history of eighteenth and nineteenth century humanism, like the history of the Tolpuddle martyrs, does not deal with socialism because it took place before there was an organised socialist movement.

Unless people can cast off the superstitious beliefs inculcated by priests, shamans and witch doctors then it is impossible to build a more rational society. The Freethinker and Bill Mcllroy's pamphlet, like the Socialist Standard, are first class at depicting the tyranny of religion. And whilst it is true to say that the Socialist Standard provides a socialist analysis of the case against religion which is missing from Foundations of Modern Humanism, surely that is beyond the scope of the period with which the pamphlet deals.

Carl Pinel, 

Stockport

Reply:
Actually, you are wrong. The early rationalist and socialist movements did exist at the same time and the key figure in 19th century rationalism, Charles Bradlaugh, was a notorious opponent of Socialism. For him, there was nothing wrong with capitalism as an economic system. All he wanted was capitalism without religion. So our reviewer was right to point out that Socialists are opposed to such "bourgeois free thinkers" who attack religion and nothing else.

Then of course there is Karl Marx. He had become an atheist in the 1840s (having been brought up as a Protestant Christian) before he became a Socialist. His criticism of religion, however, was different from that of the bourgeois free thinkers of his day since he made the point that the criticism of religion led to a criticism of the social conditions that gave rise to religion. Or rather should lead to such a criticism, and it was precisely because pure-and-simple atheists did not make this step that he criticised them too.

The social conditions which gave rise to religion were not, in Marx's view, feudalism (that only gave rise to a particular type of religious belief) but any society in which the great bulk of the population were denied control of the products of their labour and in which these products therefore confronted them as an outside, alien force controlling their lives. Religion—and its core belief that only some outside super-being, not humans themselves, by their own collective efforts, can bring about a better world—reflects this lack of power and lack of control over their own lives which most people experience. But most people experience this under capitalism too, which is based, precisely, on their exclusion from the ownership and control of society's productive resources and on the subordination of production to blind and uncontrollable market forces.

So, a consistent criticism of religion leads to a criticism of capitalism. In fact Marx’s analysis leads to the conclusion that religion won’t die out on a mass scale till capitalism is replaced by Socialism as a society where people do control the products of their labour and so their destinies generally.

As long as capitalism continues—or at least until there is a mass, conscious and self-confident movement for Socialism— religion, as the anti-human doctrine that we humans can’t control our lives but need the help of some outside super-being, will continue to survive in one form or another. The form changes—traditional religious beliefs are being replaced by New Age mumbo-jumbo—but as long as humans don’t in fact control their lives then religious beliefs will survive.

In not working for Socialism. but just attacking religion, bourgeois free-thinkers and pure-and-simple atheists are in fact hindering the achievement of their own proclaimed goal of a world without religion.

Editors

Based on common sense

Dear Editors,

I am very interested in your statement, in reply to a letter in the January Standard, that “such people [those who believe in an after-life] are ineligible to join the Socialist Party (but they can be sympathisers)”.

Neither the Party’s adverts in the Guardian nor its published aims state that atheism is a condition of membership—in fact, they don't mention religion at all. At the end of the Declaration of Principles it says: "Anyone agreeing with the above principles and wishing to join should apply to nearest branch or Head Office.” If anyone who is a theist, or is at least open to the possibility of the existence of God and an after-life, agrees with the principles, why should he or she not be allowed to become a member of the Party?

I have recently read your excellent pamphlet From Capitalism To Socialism. Apart from the statement on page 12: "Wars are not fought over pious ideals like justice, nationhood, democracy or religion”, there is no mention of religion. Neither is there any mention of Karl Marx. It is based on common sense and nothing that a religious believer or someone who had never even heard of Marx could not agree with.

Have you thought through the implications of your permission for people with religious beliefs to be “sympathisers"? You are, in effect, saying to such people "although we think you are mis-guided fools and although we sneer at you every month, we will gladly take your money, whether it be in payment for our journal or in donations for the support of candidates in the General Election".

Bryan Fair, 

London NW7

Reply:
The reason why the Socialist Party doesn't admit religious people to membership is that we regard their views, on what is after all a key issue (the nature of human existence), as wrong. In the same way, people who want to support the Labour Party or who think that Russia was socialist are not admitted to membership.

Actually, although this is, probably inevitably, how others would classify us, we do not call ourselves “atheists”. The word “Atheism” suggests a concern with opposing religious ideas in particular whereas we are concerned with promoting socialists ideas. (In fact pointing out the mistaken ideas of religious people only forms a small part of our activity, as you have noticed.) We prefer to describe ourselves as “materialists”, i.e. as people who hold that all we humans know, and can know, is derived from the experiences of our senses of the material world that surrounds us and of which we are a part.

The existence of a super-being called god or of an afterlife for humans is theoretically possible, as part of this material world. These can’t be ruled our a priori. However, neither of these hypotheses has been confirmed in accordance with methods and tests of science—the phenomena brought forward to confirm them can be much more plausibly explained in other ways. A rational, logical person ought therefore to dismiss them as disproved hypotheses.

Religious people do not do this. They are therefore thinking illogically. This wouldn’t be so bad (Socialist Party members don’t think logically all the time) if it didn’t concern a key aspect of the Socialist case: human nature.

The materialist approach, which Socialists take, sees humans as the product of biological and social evolution (not the creation of some super-being), that individual humans have brains and minds which cease to exist when they die (and not souls or a spirit that pre-dates birth and survives death), and that the only way humans can improve their lives is by their own collective efforts (not by relying on some outside intervention from some super-being or beings). This life is the only one we arc going to get and we should therefore try to make it the best possible both for individual humans and for the whole human species. Given the present stage of human social evolution, this can only be done within the framework of a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s resources.

This is the, if you like, "philosophical’’ basis of the case for socialism. It follows from a scientific approach to human existence and problems. Religious people don't, and can’t share, this view. They can only see this life as some sort of preparation for a better life after death. Since not all of them are committed to the pessimistic and anti-human doctrine of the depraved nature of humans (though they have to be if they arc orthodox followers of the world’s two main religions, Christianity and Mohammedanism), some unorthodox religious people can find a religious justification for wanting Socialism. We know from experience that such people exist (perhaps you are one). What they then do is up to them. Some subscribe to the Socialist Standard or support our work in other ways. They don’t need our permission to do this. It’s their choice made, presumably, in the knowledge of our views on religion.

Editors

Could Jesus be a member?

Dear Editors,

I read with interest the letter from Max Hess of Folkestone, and your reply, both in the January issue. I am not religious, indeed I am anti-religion when I consider the many problems and bloodshed that religion has caused throughout the ages, but when it comes to being a believer in an afterlife and also a believer in Socialism, I find I have some sympathy for what Max Hess has to say.

I was pleased to read in your reply that you accept that there can be believers in an afterlife who also want socialism. This is the first time I have known you to make this assertion. But I find it difficult to understand how anyone sincerely believing in the necessity to abolish capitalism, and at the same time having an afterlife conviction, can automatically be ineligible for membership of the Party, even though I appreciate your concern about anyone holding membership who could undermine the Party’s claim to rational, logical argument.

Whether God is, or is not, a socialist is not worthy of argument, but it is interesting to note that much of what Jesus taught and did could qualify him for membership.

George Pearson, 

London SW20

Reply:

You say that it is not worth arguing whether or not so-called "God” is a socialist (we agree, but only get into such futile arguments because some people claim that he, she or it is), but you then go on to suggest that another mythological figure could qualify as one!

But there is no historical evidence that there was such a person as Jesus. The New Testament was written years after the time he was supposed to have lived, while references to him in ancient non-Christian writings have long been exposed as forgeries by mediaeval monks.

What undoubtedly did exist was a break-away Jewish sect known as "Christians" because they believe in the imminent second coming of a mythical demi-god they called "Christ” who would save them. They were millenarians who believed, rather like today’s Jehovah's Witnesses, that the end of the world was nigh and so attached no importance to human efforts to try to establish a better world down here. In other words, the exact opposite of the socialist approach.

To tell the truth, we can't think of a single thing their mythological founder is supposed to have taught and done that would qualify him as a socialist.

Editors

A brilliant careerist (1996)

Degsy.

TV Review from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outside the circles of orthodox Trotskyism and left-wing romanticism, Derek Hatton [has] been the subject of few hagiographies, especially in recent years. BBC2’s My Brilliant Career (Thursday, 8 February, 8pm) seems to have set out to redress the balance. If so, it achieved its aim with flying colours.

It portrayed Hatton as a Jack-the-lad character always with the interests of the working class at heart, now with his own successful PR firm and flash car since the Labour Party were foolish enough to dispense with his considerable talents a few years back. Perhaps understandably, to his father he could do no wrong— Hatton "could turn his hand to anything” and had never forgotten his roots. A local Church of England vicar—a friend of Hatton’s in his youth—compared him to Jesus, feted one day, crucified the next, but a real saviour nonetheless.

If Hatton’s PR firm had made this film, they couldn’t have done a better job. The nature of Militant (really the Revolutionary Socialist League) as a bunch of scheming elitists bent on power for themselves and their cronies was not touched upon. In fact, it wasn’t entirely clear whether Hatton had been a Trotskyist at all. or merely an errant Christian. Nor was the intimidation, the thuggery and abuse of other Labour Party members and trade unionists mentioned, all of which had been condoned by Hatton.

While Hatton's three-year term as a fire-fighter was referred to, his period as a youth leader in Toxteth didn’t rate a mention. Was this anything to do with the fact that during his time in charge £17,000 went walkabout and Hatton was eventually forced to leave after an internal inquiry found him guilty of incompetence? And why was his time as community development officer in Kirkby overlooked? Surely not because his undemocratic ways and treatment of the local community was such that they held a meeting to protest about his activities and actually banned him from two community centres?

Taxi!
Understandably, the programme centred on Hatton’s role as Deputy Leader of Liverpool City Council in the mid-1980s, together with his various confrontations with the Tory government and the then Environment Secretary, Patrick Jenkin. What perhaps should have been made clearer was the way in which Militant, like other Trotskyist groups, attempts to mislead the working class into believing they can achieve the unachievable as a matter of course. This is, after all, their supreme tactic—one of discrediting existing leaderships which cannot deliver, thereby prompting further turns to the left. It is only in the light of this mistaken tactic that the real failure of the Trotskyists on Liverpool City Council can be understood.

After once initially winning more money from the government—to their own surprise— Hatton and his crew upped their demands for the following financial year in the correct belief that the government would tell them where to get off. As part of their tactic they sent redundancy notices out in taxis to 30,000 Liverpool Council workers, famously referred to by Neil Kinnock in his 1985 Labour Conference speech as "grotesque chaos", and which provoked fury in the city itself. Their miscalculation was that in threatening to sack their entire workforce the Militant leadership of the council only succeeded in alienating large sections of the left-wing that might have otherwise have rushed to their support. Far from setting an example of what other Labour councils should do to put pressure on the Tories and drive them out, it simply acted as an example of what local councils should not do if they wish to stay in power. Moreover, it was no coincidence that the years following Hatton’s ridiculous posturings in Liverpool saw an even further crackdown on the powers of local government in Britain.

If the makers of My Brilliant Career wished to make a valid point about Derek Hatton it would surely have been that his "success", such as it is, has been almost solely confined to his PR business, an occupation where he can arguably do less damage than he did as a councillor. As Liverpool's Deputy Leader he left behind debts, chaos and acrimony.

And to those who say Hatton still has the interests of the working class at heart, take note of this. Hatton claimed on Granada's Up Front programme a couple of years ago that his lasting legacy was that he had persuaded Barratt's and Wimpey's to build five thousand new council houses in Liverpool during his period of office (before the debts got too great and he was chucked out). “No. Derek," replied John Hamilton, nominal council Leader to Hatton’s Deputy in a rare moment of insightfulness, "Barratt's and Wimpey’s didn’t build those houses—the workers of Liverpool did.” So much for not forgetting your roots.

Dave Perrin

A valueless contribution (1996)

Book Review from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Feminist Challenge to 
the Canadian Left 1900-18 by Janice Newton
 (McGill-Queen’s University
Press.)

The Canadian Left from 1900-1918 consisted essentially of the Socialist Party of Canada and the Social Democratic Party. The SPC was the Canadian equivalent of the SDF in Britain at the same time, but there was an important difference. Whereas the SDF had a reformist majority and an “impossiblist" minority (some of whom broke away in 1904 to form the SPGB), the SPC had an impossiblist majority and a reformist minority. The Canadian Social Democratic Party was formed when this reformist minority broke away in 1911.

"Impossiblism" was a term of abuse invented by the reformists in the SDF to describe their opponents. Basically, it was the view that a socialist party should only seek support on the basis of Socialism and the abolition of the wages system and so should not have any programme of immediate demands. It also involved the view that socialism could only come about when a majority of workers wanted and understood it The task of a socialist party was seen as being educational—with a view to get workers to become socialist then eventually, when there was a socialist majority winning control of political power — as opposed to advocating reforms to be achieved within capitalism.

However, this refusal to advocate reforms did not mean that impossiblists thought a socialist party should oppose them. On the contrary, it was recognised that any Socialist elected to a parliament or a local council should vote for any measure considered to be in the interest of the working class.

The SPC, for instance, in its platform (which it published in every issue of its paper the Western Clarion and in its pamphlets) declared:

  "The Socialist Party, when in office, shall always and everywhere until the present system is abolished, make the answer to this question its guiding rule of conduct: will this legislation advance the interest of the working doss and aid the workers in their class struggle against capitalism? If it will, the Socialist Party is for it; if it will not, the Socialist Party is absolutely opposed to it. In accordance where this principle the Socialist Party pledges itself to conduct all the public affairs placed in its hands in such a manner as to promote the interests of the working class alone.”

The SPGB adopted a similar position, but in Canada this was not just an academic matter since the SPC did succeed in getting a few of its members elected to local and provincial councils.

Despite reproducing the SPC’s platform in full on page 23 of her book, Newton persists in equating not advocating some reform measure with being opposed to it. For instance, she claims that the SPC was opposed to giving the vote to women and attributes this to the party supposedly being a men’s organisation. But even the quotes she gives from the Western Clarion show that the SPC was not opposed to this measure, but merely that it did not seek support on the basis of favouring it.

She herself mentions that an SPC member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly brought into a bill to give votes to women. She also mentions a debate between the SPC and the Political Equality League on the subject of "Will Woman Suffrage Solve the Economic Problem?” in which the Suffragette speaker complained that her SPC opponent (also a woman, incidentally) wasn't really opposed to giving votes to women. Of course she wasn’t as the SPC wasn’t. What the SPC was opposed to was the argument that the granting of votes to women would somehow solve the economic problems faced by working class women; in a socialist society women would of course have an equal say with men in the way things were run. As the Western Clarion (as quoted by Newton) put it “every Socialist as a matter of course stands for the enfranchisement of women and equal rights for the sexes in every department of life".

What Newton, as a reformist herself, fails to understand is the logic of the impossiblist position adopted by the SPC. This involved not advocating any reforms to be achieved within capitalism on the grounds that Socialism was the only solution and that absolute priority should be given to trying to achieve it. So the fact that the SPC did not advocate woman’s suffrage is not to be attributed it being against women any more than the fact that it didn’t advocate old-age pensions is to be attributed to it being against retired people. It sprang from a more general position.

To tell the truth, not only does Newton not understand the impossiblist position (she expresses a preference for the confused reformism, where Christianity and temperance reform were mixed up with some socialist ideas, of the Social Democratic Party) but she is profoundly prejudiced against the SPC. She paints a picture of it as a male organisation composed of lumberjacks and miners who smoked, drank, swore, told dirty jokes, used prostitutes and whose conception of Socialism was one where men would continue to go out to work but where women would be confined to working at home, cooking their meals, washing their clothes, darning their socks and serving as objects of their sexual desires.

Needless to say, this is pure prejudice. No doubt the fact that some SPC members smoked and drank at party meetings would have put off women (in those days). It is true also that the rhetoric sometimes used—calling on working men to show their "manhood” and stand up to the bosses who were exploiting them—wrongly suggested that the class struggle was exclusively a male affair. There will also have been individual SPC members who were prejudiced against women. But to claim that the SPC’s conception of socialism was a male-dominated one is an absurd fabrication. We have already quoted (re-quoted from Newton herself, in fact) the statement from the Western Clarion to the effect that “every Socialist, as a matter of course, stands for the enfranchisement of women and equal rights for the sexes in every department of life".

So what evidence does Newton produce to back up her case? Her first line of argument is the same mistaken one as over votes for women. The SPC didn’t advocate it, therefore it was against it. Thus Moses Baritz is quoted as arguing against the view that birth control would allay poverty; Newton twists this into saying that he and the SPC were against birth control. Similarly, just because the SPC did not seek support on the basis of sex reform (abolition of marriage, etc.), she claims this meant it was against this even though the passages she quotes from the Western Clarion make it clear that SPC members had "individual opinions" as to what will happen to relationships between the sexes in a socialist society.

But the biggest distortion comes over the concept of the "family wage", i.e. a wage paid to a man providing him with enough to maintain a wife and family at home. Newton quotes Kautsky and the Western Clarion to the effect that one of the consequences of the entry of women and children on to the labour market is to exert a downward pressure on men’s wages, since, whereas previously employers were obliged by market forces to include in men’s wages an element to cover the cost of maintaining a family, with women and children earning something too this was no longer necessary. Kautsky and the Western Clarion stated this as a matter of fact (a fact, we would have thought, that can’t be contested). But Newton interprets this as a complaint and as a call to keep women out of the labour market so as to maintain male wages.

Some male trade unionists did take up this position, but not the SPC as can be shown, yet again, by quotes from their literature which Newton herself gives. The SPC stood not for a family wage, nor equal wages, nor any kind of wages but for the abolition of the whole wages system. As the Western Clarion put in 1910 (quoted by Newton on p. 68) "for the she worker there is only one issue, the destruction of the wages system". She also records (p. 97) that an SPC candidate in Ontario was called to order by the SPC’s executive committee for including a proposal for equal pay in his election manifesto and "was told he should stand only for the abolition of the wages system".

So how can she claim that the SPC’s vision of the "socialist future" was one where "the working man earned sufficient wages to support a wife and family" (p. 101) and which “would reverse the effects of capitalism on family life, return women to the home and re-establish the male wage earner’s position as head of the household” (p. 155)?

Such patent distortions— there are many others too regarding the SPC—make the book valueless as a contribution to feminist let alone working class history.

Adam Buick

Sting in the Tail: Life Wish (1996)

The Sting in the Tail column from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Life wish

Michael Winner, producer of such gore-fests as the Death Wish movies, now writes for the News of the World.

Surprisingly, he made a reference to Marx in his column (24 December). Unsurprisingly, he made the foolish assumption that Marx had something to do with the Soviet Union:

  "Communism contains a vast, almost religions appeal. Its principal slogan from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' is actually a wondrous idea . . . But it fails to take into account a crucial element. Human beings. They just aren't up to it."

Winnie’s view of “human nature” is best illustrated by his film hero, Charles Bronson “blowing away” muggers in the New York Subway. This is the view of a pathetic money-grubber and not the view of anyone who has studied human behaviour.

To Winner, any concept of human cooperation must indeed seem a “wondrous idea”.

A tale of two mums

The Duchess of York is feeling the pinch these days. Reputed to owe £3 million, she recently changed her Concorde trip to New York to first class on a scheduled flight. She and the kids had to rough it with the plebeian hordes.

Not on the trip was Maureen whose plight was reported in the Observer (21 January):

  “Maureen is bringing up her eight-year-old son alone in her former council flat in Devon on £77.97 state benefit a week . . .  "I might go two days without a main meal—I just eat, like, a sandwich at lunchtime or supper if we have enough bread. Tuesday is my best day. I collect my Giro cheque then. I usually buy something like mince and we’ll have spaghetti or something . . .  Sometimes when he has said to me he's hungry I just feel very desperate and alone . . . and a bit of a failure really. "

Maureen is not a failure. She is a worker who feeds and clothes her child on state “benefits”. Maureen is not a failure. Capitalism is. The gap between the Duchess and Maureen is proof of that.

The big knife farce

What a farce the amnesty on knives was. 40,000 were handed in, but this is a tiny fraction of the number of knives in circulation, and the fact that one individual contributed 3,000 proves that.

Indeed, Watchdog (BBC1, 22 January ) showed that there are hundreds of shops and mail-order firms all selling knives.

Of course, the politicians have their “solutions”, among them labour’s call for a ban on the sale of knives to anyone under the age of 16, but similar bans on the sale of lottery tickets, alcohol and tobacco arc simply ignored by many retailers. If there’s money to be made then there will be illegal sales.

Years ago, when the use of knives was considered un-British, razors, lead piping and bicycle chains were in vogue, and even if knives were eliminated then some other weapon will take their place. Capitalism’s poverty, tensions and conflicts guarantees that.

Arthur’s dead duck 

The launch of Arthur Scargill’s new Socialist Labour Party provided him with another chance to demonstrate what a political muddle-head he is. This was evident when, having accused the Labour Party of abandoning socialism, he admitted it never had been socialist anyway.

Even worse was his absurd claim that unemployment could be eradicated “even within a capitalist society” (Guardian, 15 January). Incidentally, his promise that the SLP will “support all the ‘single issue campaigns’” in order to gain recruits, should mean that the various Trotskyists and anarchist groups will face more competition there!

Left-wing breakaways from Labour have never lasted: the Scottish Labour Party headed by Jim Sillars MP in the late 1970s is an example, and Scargill’s lot will no doubt follow them into oblivion.

Going for the Big One

We are often asked why we don’t join in campaigns for reforms of capitalism. To begin with, reforms rarely achieve their aims—for example, laws against racism haven’t reduced discrimination, assaults, abuse, etc.

And reforms which do benefit workers will inevitably provoke demands for them to be scrapped when capitalism’s economic situation worsens, and an example of this is provided by Warwick Lightfoot of the think-tank Politcia, who urges the Tories to

  ". . .  repeal existing rules on redundancy payouts and unfair dismissal, arguing that they damage the labour market" (Guardian, 8 January).

What kindly Mr Lightfoot and many others want is a “flexible labour market” where employers can do whatever they like with workers.

Of course, this would depend ultimately on whether the working class would accept it, but the fact is that even the crumbs we get at present are under threat, hence our insistence that socialists must demand the bakehouse and nothing less.

Living it up in Palm Springs

A party member had occasion to rush to the hospital where his mother had been admitted only to be informed that there was a ten hour wait until a bed became available (in the event it was only six-and-a-half hours).

Whilst perusing the usual jumble of magazines in the waiting room, he happened to pick up a colour supplement which features a grizzled, old chimpanzee, and revealed that this was none other than the original “Cheetah” who could be seen swinging through the trees with Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s.

Now aged 63, this hirsute thespian is apparently living the life of Riley in a retirement home in Palm Springs!

It wasn’t lost on our comrade that in capitalism, even elderly animals, with the right financial credentials, are treated with greater regard than poor members of the working class, retired or not.

The Making of History (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Contrary to what ill-informed writers on the history of socialist thought and activity invariably say about the Socialist Party being a small, unimportant sect, the history of our party is one of theoretical innovation and politically holiest dedication to the interests of our class

It has become common over the years for political writers and academics to characterise the Socialist Party as an exclusive Marxist club or a moribund sect, that is when they haven’t chosen to ignore us completely. Historian Walter Kendall in his work on the early revolutionary movement in Britain claimed that the SPGB has “retained its political virginity only at the expense of not reproducing anything at all”, and this comment is fairly typical.

That the Socialist Party is a living organism will be obvious to virtually anyone who has been a member of it— furthermore, we do not dogmatically make assertions against the evidence and have shown ourselves capable of making real contributions to the development of political and economic thought. Of course, the Socialist Party has not worked in a vacuum—our core ideas were bequeathed by the early anti-capitalist revolutionary movement, and, in particular, by Marx and Engels who developed a theory of social development and an economic analysis of capitalist society which forms the bedrock of the Socialist Party’s position even now. But this doesn’t mean that real developments have not been made or that the Socialist Party has been repeating an inflexible mantra ever since our formation.

Sometimes the Socialist Party has developed quite original and distinctive arguments in response to developments within capitalism—we were, for instance, possibly the first political party in the world to contend that the Russian dictatorship was “state capitalist” rather than socialist, a contention later taken up by many others. On other occasions the Socialist Party has developed new distinctive arguments in that we have effectively blended existing strands of political and economic thought into a completely new mix. This is most notably the case with our views on the “reform or revolution” question where two seemingly incompatible theories were entwined into a unique new political position.

There are a number of distinctive arguments the Socialist Party has developed since 1904 and while socialism has not yet been achieved, we have helped make some serious contributions to the development of socialist political and economic theory — weapons for battles now being fought and still to come. Here are eight of our most significant contributions:

•  The Socialist Party helped solve the “reform or revolution” dilemma which had plagued the early labour movement by rejecting reformism but not democratic political action to capture state power, two views which had previously been associated with one another. An early forerunner of the Socialist Party, the Socialist League of William Morris, Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx, had been taken over by anarchists in the 1880’s largely because it combined it opposition to reformism with anti-parliamentarianism, specifically a tendency to view elections as a bourgeois diversion and parliament as merely the “talking-shop” of the capitalist class. The founders of the Socialist Party learned from the mistakes of the Socialist League and other groups, and contended that opposition to elections and Parliament did not logically follow on from opposing reformism. For a socialist revolution to be as peaceful as possible, the state machine and armed forces would have to be democratically captured from the control of the capitalist class and converted from being “an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation”. This would also mean that the capitalists’ appeals to democratic legitimacy would be thwarted by the majoritarian political action of the socialist movement.

•  The Socialist Party resolved that modern wars are fought over issues of concern to the owning class and not the workers; specifically being disputes over spheres of influence, trade routes, sources of raw materials and sometimes markets. When war broke out in 1914 the Socialist Party was the only political organisation in Britain to unequivocally oppose the conflict. Other parties purporting to uphold the interests of the working class took sides, having identified anti-militarism, “national liberation” and other causes as goals worth pursuing before socialism.

•  In the nineteenth century socialists like Marx and Engels supported so-called “progressive” wars against feudal reaction at a time when capitalism had not yet become the dominant world system. They thought that sweeping away feudal restrictions and the power of reactionary regimes like Tsarist Russia would help pave the way for socialist organisation and eventually revolution. Their position in the period of capitalist ascendancy over feudalism was taken by some supporters of war in 1914 as justification for their own actions. The Socialist Party maintained that, whatever Marx and Engels’s views in the nineteenth century, there could be no question of socialists taking sides with any section of the capitalist class once capitalism had become the dominant world system and socialism the pressing alternative to it. When capitalism has advanced far enough to create the material conditions for socialism the capitalist class becomes socially useless and all nation states reactionary, needing to be swept aside and not bolstered.

•  Unlike most of the “left-wing”, the Socialist Party opposed the establishment of the dictatorship in Russia under the guise of “workers’ control” or “socialism”. The Socialist Party argued that Russia under Bolshevik rule would be forced to take the capitalist road as the only one open to it. Socialism in one country (an economically backward one at that) and without popular majority support, was impossible. The Bolshevik “Revolution” was in fact more of a political coup d’etat by a self-appointed elite of political conspirators with no respect for the wishes of the majority. For decades the Socialist Party has maintained in distinction to Bolshevism that minority action can never lead to socialism or anything like it.

Socialists have affirmed that Soviet Russia was capitalist and could only have been so given the nature of its political birth. It exhibited all the principal features of the capitalist mode of production in one form or another, notably wage labour, capital accumulation, commodity production, class division and exploitation of one class by another.

 

•   In the 1920’s and 30’s the Communist Party and Independent Labour Party (ILP) argued that capitalism was going to collapse, with socialism arising phoenix-like from the ashes. The Socialist Party contended that this was nonsense and that capitalism would not pave the way for socialism without majority political action. This contention was repeated in the years after the Second World War to Trotskyists and Left Communists who took up afresh the mantle of “capitalist collapse”. In particular, the Socialist Party denied the claim that capitalism would collapse because of an in-built lack of purchasing power, with the workers and capitalists combined unable to buy back the entire product of industry. This claim was based on an entirely fallacious view of the relationship between productive labour and effective demand in capitalism — that somehow there is a permanent mismatch between the value of the mass of commodities produced at any one time and the income derived from this production in the form of surplus value (unpaid labour) and the value of workers’ labour power (paid labour). This “deficiency of purchasing power” claim, sometimes called “underconsumptionism” and wrongly credited to Marx, is a myth and has been disproved both on a theoretical level and by history. The Socialist Party has argued that enough purchasing power exists in capitalism—it is how it is used which causes difficulties, as its relationship to production is not planned. This is the phenomenon which gives rise to periodic (not permanent) crises and slumps and the trade cycle which has been a characteristic of capitalism since its infancy.

•  The Socialist Party, in response to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, resolved that bourgeois democracy, with elementary political rights, is the most favourable condition for the overthrow of capitalism. In addition, we maintained that workers living under dictatorships should struggle to establish basic political rights, though without ever giving support to capitalist organisations, including those professing bourgeois democracy as their aim. This is not only because of the general reformist and anti-socialist nature of such organisations, but because these organisations in government are compelled to use the might of the state machine against the working class in the interests of capital.

For similar reasons, the Socialist Party resolved that socialists cannot support allegedly “democratic” countries fighting wars against dictatorships. In addition, socialists are aware that wars are never fought over such lofty ideals and that history has proved that “democratic” states will prop up and assist dictatorships if it is in their interests to do so. The Socialist Party position was vindicated after the Second World War when the Allies carved up Europe in such a way as to hand half of it to the wretched Stalinist dictatorship while leaving Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal, among others, to persist as neo-fascist regimes.

•  The Socialist Party argued that the setting-up of the “welfare state” in Britain and other countries after the war would not solve the problems of the working class, which are integral to capitalism. To the extent that the welfare state represented a gain for some workers on the previous arrangements, we noted that it was always dependent on the maintenance of a low level of unemployment and destitution—a situation capitalism is incapable of sustaining for long. In recent decades unemployment, the rise of the so-called “underclass” and demographic change have undermined welfare provision as it came to be  built up.

Over time the burdens on the welfare state have increased just as the capitalist class finds it increasingly difficult to finance it through taxation of profits. These increased burdens have led to a squeeze on the rate of profit after tax—the bottom line for the capitalists—which is the main factor determining the pace of future investment and growth, and also whether firms or entire nation states sink or swim in the competitive world economy.

•  In distinction to the main political parties, the Socialist Party was never taken in by the claims of Keynesian economics, which promised low unemployment, steady growth and stable prices for the post-war period on the basis of government borrowing, “easy money” and redistributive taxation, especially when slump threatened. Unlike most of capitalism’s economists, socialists argued that Keynesian policies could not prevent unemployment and crises as the major determinants of these—production for profit, the anarchy of production and capitalism’s antagonistic system of income distribution, are integral features of the market economy.

Sure enough, everywhere Keynesianism was attempted it proved disastrous and eventually provoked the return to “laissez-faire” economics in the 1980s Its lasting legacy—still with most of the capitalist world—has been persistently rising prices. This has been brought about by the mistaken belief—exposed by the Socialist Party from the standpoint ofMarxian economics—that an excess issue of inconvertible paper currency would act as a stimulus to production and trade.

•  In Anti-Duhring Friedrich Engels had written of production in socialism being guided “on the basis of one single vast plan”, but given the complexity of modem society, this is not possible. The Socialist Party realised that socialism could not be built on the basis of a centralised allocative plan which would be, by definition, antithetical to local decision-making, and which would be unresponsive to changing needs. Instead the Socialist Party suggested that socialism would operate a system of production for use operating in direct response to needs, these needs arising in local communities. The operational basis for this system would be calculation in kind (e.g. tonnes, kilos, litres, etc.) instead of monetary calculation, combined with the responsive system of stock-control outlined in our pamphlet Socialism As A Practical AItentative. Such a system would be able to allocate resources much more efficiently, responsively and democratically than a pre-determined allocative plan which has proved next to useless for state capitalist regimes and is no model for a real social democracy.

That the Socialist Party is no sterile, unthinking organisation full of dogmatists should now be clear. Socialists are not content to sit on the sidelines of history—we are original thinkers and are open to innovation and new ideas—providing, that is, that they are sound. We are willing and able to co-operate with men and women the world over to bring about a better society, and we are proud of the small contribution we have already made to the movement that will sweep away capitalism once and for all. Our message to those who can see no future so long as the market economy remains is join us— and help make history.

Dave Perrin

Problem Solved? (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

"A crime against humanity" is how The Ecologist in 1991 (May/June) described the depletion of the ozone layer, caused by chemicals (most notably CFCs) used in the production of fridges, air conditioning systems and solvents. Yet with the arrival of CFC-free aerosols on British supermarket shelves the problem is now widely thought of as solved. This view, aside from its willingness to forgive capitalism for over thirty years of avoidable ozone depletion, is complacent. A global solution to the problem is far from secure.

In 1992 in Copenhagen an agreement was reached by 37 nations and the EU to speed up the phasing-out of four major ozone depleting chemicals. CFCs would be banned in these counties from 1 January this year. Yet many developing countries did not sign and had only agreed to a phasing-out of CFCs by 2010. Global CFC emissions still totalled 360,000 tonnes in 1995. This was a significant reduction from the 1 million tonnes m 1985, but still represented an important problem. Meanwhile, some CFC producers, for example in Russia and China, were prepared to by-pass international law, as CFC smuggling started.

The HCFCs now being widely used as replacements for CFCs are also ozone depleters, albeit less intense and with a shorter atmospheric lifetime than CFCs. HCFCs are also powerful greenhouse gases. A report from the United Nations Environment Programme advised that HCFCs are "best reserved for applications where there is no other technically feasible substitute" (The Science of Ozone Depletion, Friends of the Earth. June 1991).

There are useable alternatives to CFCs and HCFCs. Ozone-friendly hydrocarbons are now widely used in European-made refrigerators and air conditioners. Mixtures of soap,water and other harmless chemicals can replace CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances in cleaning solvents. ICI and Du Pont, the world’s main producers of CFCs and now of HCFCs, have attempted to discredit these ozone-friendly alternatives over the past twenty years but they are now widely agreed to be viable (Back to the Future—CFC Alternatives, Greenpeace International, December 1994).

Du Pont and ICI, like any company, need to get a return on their investments. But, as The Ecologist pointed out in 1991, an immediate introduction of ozone-friendly substitutes would have caused DuPont and ICI to "lose the huge profits they hope to make from patents and licencing fees on HFCs and HCFCs". This was why, according to Environment magazine (July/August 1993), these multi-national corporations argued the need for a slower phase out of HCFCs "so that businesses would be able to recoup their research, development and capital investments”.

The Copenhagen agreement was committed to reducing HCFC emissions by 99.5 percent by 2020 — this slow phase-out suited the producers of HCFCs, especially the US who use HCFCs to produce most of the world s air cooling systems. Meanwhile, developing countries are free to increase their use of HCFCs until 2016 when, according to the Vienna Convention, they will freeze their HCFC use at 2015 levels. The Treaty’s technology assessment panel had wanted a freeze from 2006 to discourage industrial nations from dumping obsolete equipment that use HCFCs in poorer countries. The New Scientist pointed out that this concession could result in a massive increase in the use of (HCFCs) over the next few years before a ban comes into force so as to maximize the 2015 limit" (December 16 1995).

Achieving even this target will be no easy matter. The commitment of developing countries such as India and China depends upon whether developed countries pay for them to introduce ozone-safe technology. This could lead to further problems because there is no agreement on how much money would be sufficient. It remains to be seen whether developed countries honour their pledges of funds. There is certainly room for doubt — only 85 per cent of their pledges to help phase out CFCs have been met so far.

The international response to the ozone problem is seen by many as a success. This assessment tells us more about how little real global co-operation we can expect under capitalism, where belated, partial solutions are all that, at most, ever emerge.

Dan Greenwood

China - Mouthing it again (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The eyes of US foreign affairs experts will be fixed firmly on Taiwan during the coming weeks. For this is when nine months of tension between Taiwan and China is expected to come to a head. Taiwan is not fully recognised internationally as an independent state and has no seat at the UN. Many in Taiwan believe this will end during March when the island holds its first all-party elections—elections that could sour Taiwan’s relationship with China to the point of a military strike by the latter should the former opt for independence.

China claims that Taiwan is a Chinese province and has no right to seek independence. Many argue that such a claim ended in 1949, when the Kuomintang took refuge in Taiwan under the protection of the US following defeat by Mao’s forces. Military rule soon followed and was only lifted in 1989, with something resembling liberal democracy appearing during an election held in 1992.

Taiwanese capitalists, many recruited by President Lee Teng Hui, believe Taiwan’s economy is incompatible with that of China and that the years of prosperity they have experienced since the Vietnam war will flounder if the two are re-unified. For Taiwan’s capitalist class, the status quo must be maintained, not least because China is Taiwan’s second biggest export market after the US. Tight import restrictions also mean China in return experiences difficulty exporting to Taiwan. This has resulted in a 1995 trade surplus of $24.20 billion.

China’s sabre-rattling began many months ago and seems to coincide with international calls for Taiwanese independence. In the past six months, China has tested missiles, carried out military manoeuvres and announced that a region of coast feeing Taiwan is a "war zone". In recent weeks it has announced plans to recommence nuclear missile tests.

Taiwan, though overly “confident" it can hold the People’s Liberation Army at bay during a conventional war, nevertheless takes China's threats seriously and has appealed to the US for arms.

The US, which established a military base on the island in the 1950s, has been ambiguous in its response to pleas for help from its former “unsinkable aircraft carrier". When US/Sino relationships soured in 1979, the US withdrew from the island and abandoned a joint defence treaty. However, the US is still, committed under the Taiwan Relations Act, to providing arms of a “defensive nature".

Chinese sabre-rattling appears to be aimed as much at the US as it does Taiwan. With presidential elections coming up in the US later this year, China is hoping that the US will not risk coming to the aid of Taiwan for fear of upsetting US voters— the desired result being that this realisation will force Taiwan to succumb to Chinese calls for re-unification.

In early January Chas Freeman Jr, the US Assistant Secretary of Defence, returned from a trip to China with news that the PLA was making preparations to launch one missile per day for 30 days at Taiwan. In all probability this is hype, aimed at intimidating Taiwan and forcing the US to re-think its policy on Taiwan.

Freeman went on to relate how one Chinese official pointed out that the US care more about Los Angeles than Taiwan, and how another asked if the US were prepared to sacrifice the "millions of men" and "entire cities" over Taiwan that China would.

Not wishing to have been seen internationally as having turned the other cheek, the US responded by sailing the US Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and five support ships through the Taiwan Straits—the first time a US warship had been near the Chinese coast in 17 years. The upshot has been a slump in share prices in Taiwan, though nothing yet near the 40 percent stock exchange dive when China first began its threats.

All of this might sound familiar—it should. Last March it was the Philippines who were on the receiving end of Chinese threats when China vented its spleen over the disputed Spratley Islands, or rather the oil reserves beneath its reef. Neither is Taiwan alone in trying to extricate itself from China’s territorial claims. The island is in fact one of ten neighbouring states upon which China has irredentist claims.

While the world awaits the outcome of all, this in the Far-East, Socialists remain aware that none of it is to be taken lightly. All, too often small territorial claims—which at the end of the day mean big profits for the real disputants—lead to war. The 20th century is punctuated throughout with such instances, none of which has benefited the working class, the primary casualties in the globo-political search for profit.

The fact that the Chinese capitalists have threatened to expend three million lives over a tiny island, when all China could have a share in a world of abundance and free access with no cost to life, shows that the case for Socialism has never been more pressing.

John Bissett

Countdown to Murder (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent resumption of violence by the IRA has brought forth the predictable, worn-out denunciations and justifications. For socialists, the twin ‘issues’ of nationalism and political violence are surrounded on all sides by capitalist hypocrisy and nonsense

Some time before the 9th February, the Army Council of the IRA met somewhere in Ireland. These seven people, representing the minuscule Irish Republican Army, decided to recommence their war with a massive bomb in London. Effectively, this decision resulted in the death of two men and the injuring of scores of people none of whom had any power of decision in relation to the political situation in Ireland.

The seven members of the Army Council based the legitimacy of their right to kill other human beings on the result of elections held in Ireland in 1918 when, with a minority vote of the people of Ireland, Sinn Fein won a decisive electoral victory and an endorsement of its claim to speak for tile people of Ireland. Even the name that the 1996 Army Council used in its statement ending seventeen months of ceasefire was a throw back to the twenties and as fictious as the historical myths on which tlie IRA and Sinn Fein base their claim over the lives of others.

According to the IRA and Sinn Fein the results of the 1918 election remain valid today — more than three quarters of a century later — because the British government of the time used violence to frustrate the establishment of a politically independent Ireland by Sinn Fein who, in accordance with the peculiarities of what passes for democracy in capitalism, had been given a mandate to establish an Irish republican state.

Transfixed in time

Based on this logic the IRA and Sinn Fein see the changing population of Ireland as transfixed in time without the right to waver from the decision of its dead generations. Those dead generations were essentially conservative and reactionary; largely Catholic, they would have bitterly opposed womens’ rights, abortion, divorce and many other issues that Sinn Fein supporters currently espouse.

As for Sinn Fein itself, in 1918 a primary object of its vision of independence was the legislative right to afford trade protection for a fledging southern Irish capitalism. Again and again, from its establishment in 1905, Sinn Fein leaders had reiterated the importance they placed on the question of protecting the south’s nascent capitalist industries. Indeed it was the implications of this very policy for the northern capitalists, whose highly developed industries were dependent on the British home market and Empire Preference that fuelled much of the conflict and which was translated by the politicians into nationalistic and religious bigotry.

Sinn Fein might still emphasise its national capitalist credentials for its American backers but at home it uses the lexicon of the Left. In essence, its strategy for employment, housing and education is to demand — ironically, from what it sees as the British occupying power in Ireland — massive financial intervention. In other words, it has reserved the right to change completely the policies on which it fought the 1918 elections and yet insists that the people of modem Ireland have to abide by the electoral decisions of their grandparents!

The Army Council

Given the power which the IRA reserves for its Army Council, the power over life and death for anyone on these islands — or indeed, further afield, if these mysterious seven people so decide — it is fair to ask who are they and how did they come by their awesome power.

The secret lies in the interpretation Sinn Fein and the IRA put upon the results of that famous election in 1918. Sinn Fein became the government of a mythical Irish Republic, a new 32-county independent Irish state and the IRA became the army of the Irish republic. The new ‘government’ reserved the right to delegate its powers to the army’s controlling body, the Army Council of the IRA. With the luxury of perpetual power without the inconvenience of accepting any of the subsequent electoral verdicts of the people of Ireland, north or south, the IRA, which, at some points in its history has numbered only a score of largely inactive members, can elect seven people, unknown to the general public and even to republican supporters, who have power over the lives of people and power to repudiate any democratic decision of the people.

It is the current Army Council, seven people who can seriously believe they have rights over and above the whole people of these islands or of Ireland alone, who have decided to revert again to the bomb and the bullet. That people who can accept such nonsense can wield such power is frightening but, despite the selective and blinkered condemnations of politicians and opinion formers — whose grossly undemocratic powers are, also, frightening — what passes for freedom and democracy in capitalist society has usually been founded on force and, always, capitalist peace is, at best, an accommodation between conflicting interests.

John Major and his pompous representative in Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew, were indignant about the decision of the IRA Army Council to end the ceasefire. Both pointed out, as we have so often done in the past, that the Provisional IRA have no democratic mandate to wage war. This, of course, can not be challenged but when Major and Mayhew make the claim it is on the back of the assumption that Britain has a democratic right to wage war in Ireland — for, of course the role of the British Army in Northern Ireland has been to resist a challenge to British power in Ireland. When, it is reasonable to ask, did a British government seek a mandate from the people of Ireland, or, even, the people of the UK, to rule Ireland and to wage war in pursuit of that rule?

Violence

Pressed to a defence of its violence, the IRA draws analogies with its opponents and, of course, the British and the Unionists have been as ready as the IRA to use violence, or the threat of violence, when it suited their interests. To the socialist, however, the claim that you are no worse than your opponents seems a poor defence!

Britain’s role over the centuries has been brutal in Ireland and at times almost genocidal. Neither the Irish nationalists nor the unionists have been shy about using violence and in the present century it was the threat of illegal armed violence by the Unionists and their friends in the British Conservative Party that presaged the nationalist violence of 1916 and 1919/22.

The ceasefire broke down because of the utter hypocrisy of the British Government and the Unionists and the absurd strategy of the seven people who form the IRA’s Army Council. The argument that they will not negotiate with men of violence used by interests that are themselves no strangers to violence is hypocritical and when viewed empirically, shown to be nonsense. When Unionists use this form of cant it simply means that they see the IRA as militarily defeatable; if they envisaged the IRA as having the potential for a military victory, ‘common sense’ would gain a new fashion within Unionism!

Unfortunately the politicians in Northern Ireland have learned little over the past twenty-five years, especially the Unionists — apart from ‘loyalist’ spokespersons thrown up by the paramilitaries. Paisley was rabble-rousing and Trimble was looking over his shoulder and trying to compete with Paisley and both were intent in translating the IRA ceasefire into a victory for old-style Unionism. Ironically, Unionism’s potential victory was in the willingness of the IRA, for the first time ever, to discuss the establishment of agreed and stable institutions in Northern Ireland which the whole of nationalist Ireland had traditionally proclaimed to be an ‘unstable political unit’.

Decommissioning of illegal weapons became the peg Unionism decided to hang its policy on — as though the problems that created the desire for weapons would disappear if the guns were out of the way. There was no ‘decommissioning’ of angry tongues; Paisley bellowed the sectarian nonsense which is his political stock-in-trade and, when wiser council was called for, Trimble was competing with Paisley at Drumcree!

Of course the IRA are murderers; killers of innocent men, women and children. But they are not alone; they are part of a grand conspiracy against real peace and democracy in Northern Ireland and the components of that conspiracy are the self-interested politicians who see in the possibility of peace the eclipsing of their squalid political careers.

And after the recent killings by the IRA, the predictable reaction — indeed the nearest thing the IRA may have had to an excuse — was the latent hatreds which its actions re-awakened especially among prominent politicians and journalists. It was hard to believe that the baying voices with the quite proper accusations of senseless slaughter and challenges of right were around a few years ago when Major and his ‘army council’, without any recourse to democratic consent, undertook the slaughter of the innocents of Baghdad.

Behind all the ideologies and conflicts that underlie all wars and all violence are the contradictions created among peoples by the divisive interests of capitalism. It follows that the only real ‘peace process’ is the struggle to end capitalism and institute a democratic system of social equality in which such interests could not exist. 

Richard Montague

The Case Against the Profit System (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are living in a world which has the resources to satisfy the material needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. We could produce enough food to feed everybody adequately and enough houses to house everybody properly. We could have a fully-comprehensive health care service, pollution-free industry and pollution-free towns.

All this is technically possible. The resources are there. The factories are there The people with the skills are there. But it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen because we are living in a class-divided society where the aim of production is not to satisfy people’s needs but to make a profit.

The basis of present-day society is the concentration of the ownership and control of productive resources into the hands of a small minority of the population, no more than 5 percent in any of the countries into which the world is artificially divided. They form a privileged class, since they are in a position to say to the rest of the population: “This is my farm, or my factory, or my office, and you can’t use it unless there’s something in it for me.”

That “something in it for them” is profit, financial profit, which is a tribute levied on labour by property. It is in fact the basis of the whole economic system that exists today. Making a profit—for the privileged few who exercise a class monopoly over productive resources—is the overriding purpose of production. It is the reason why production is undertaken. It is also the reason why production is not undertaken.

The basic economic law of the Profit System is “no profit, no production”. Defenders of profits see profit-making as an incentive to produce, as what makes the economic system go round. To a certain extent this is true, but it also restricts and distorts what is produced to what is profitable.

The reason why there are tens of thousands of homeless people in Britain and why there are millions of others who are living in accommodation which is regarded even by the government’s own low standards as “unfit for human habitation” is not because we couldn’t build or upgrade enough houses for them. It is because it is not profitable to do so.

The income of those facing an acute housing problem is too low to allow them to be able to afford even minimally adequate housing. And no building firm is going to build houses or flats if it can’t sell or rent them out at a profit. So the homeless and the badly houses go without— despite the fact that the resources to solve their problem exist. In fact, at the moment, there are huge stockpiles of unused building materials lying around and well over a quarter-of-a-million building workers who are unemployed.

On a world scale, it is for the same reason that there are millions of people who are starving or suffering from starvation-related diseases. This is not because enough food to feed them can’t be produced. After all, in Europe farmers are being paid millions to take their land out of agricultural production; in other words, not to grow food. It is, once again, because it is not profitable.

It is not profitable to produce food for people who desperately need it but cannot afford to pay for it. If you haven’t go any money, or enough money, your demand doesn’t count. You don’t constitute a market, so your needs are ignored.

That’s the way the capitalist system works and there’s nothing that can be done to change it. At one time there were people around who used to say: “the government can intervene; it can provide the things that the market won’t provide”.

To a certain extent the government does do this. It does pay for services—like roads, education and basic health care— which are essential to the smooth running of the capitalist economic system. But what these reformists overlook is that the government has no independent source of income. Every penny it spends has to come from taxation or from borrowing. And, in the end, taxes fall on property and profits.

But profits are what makes the economic system go round, so the government must allow them to be made. This places a severe restriction on how much they can raise by taxes and so on how much they can spend. This is why governments are always short of cash; why they are only able to spend minimum amounts on public services and welfare payments.

So, a crumbling health service and under-the-poverty-line payments to the old, the unemployed and the sick is another aspect of profits coming before needs under capitalism.

Profits First, People Second is not an aberration of the system. It is the system working normally. And it is why Socialists say that it is pointless trying to patch up and reform capitalism. It must be abolished altogether and replaced by a new system, founded on a completely different basis—common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit.

Adam Buick

Obituary: Albert Grayson (1996)

Obituary from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Albert Grayson joined the SPGB in 1953 and was active in the Manchester area, supporting meetings, selling literature at outdoor meetings and demonstrations, and patiently explaining the party's case wherever he went. He did not seek the limelight, but will be remembered by Manchester members of that time for his reliable and steadfast support at all party activities.

In 1971 he left to live in New Zealand where he joined the SPNZ and became an active member of the Wellington Branch.

Albert will be remembered as a loving father and grandfather, a good friend, and a comrade.

50 Years Ago: Is This What Labour Voters Wanted? (1996)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

(from an article by ‘H’ in Socialist Standard, March 1946)