Voice From The Back: Knowledge is power (1999)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Knowledge is power

“Evolution,” says the message from the Alabama State board of education, “is a controversial theory some scientists present as scientific explanation for the origin of living things such as plants, animals and humans . . .” New York Times, 24 November.

The promise—

Mr Raynsford, MP for Greenwich, said that begging was the most disgraceful indictment of the present [Conservative] government’s policies. “Our task has got to be to eliminate begging in London and create a memory of how bad life was in the late 80s and early 90s.” Camden New Journal, 7 July 1994.

—The reality

Beggars who exploit youngsters to raise money face having their children taken into care, the [Labour] Government is warning. Ministers [including Nick Raynsford, Minister for London] are worried about the huge upsurge in street beggars using their offspring in an effort to extract cash from passers-by. Police and local social services departments are being told to intervene in such cases. Sunday Telegraph, 3 January 1999.

Strategic class war

Midland-based engineering giants Rolls-Royce today warned it could move production to America if Britain introduces costly new labour laws . . . Speaking at a business lunch in Sydney, Australia, Sir Ralph [Robins] said that social costs made it 30 percent more expensive to manufacture in Europe. “The last thing we want is the on-costs associated with the social costs of Europe,” he said. “But I don’t see any signs of it happening and the current government is not going down that path. But we will progressively move work to the United States if we find ourselves disadvantaged by those sort of social costs,” he said. Birmingham Evening Mail, 25 November.

How wealth divides the world

Here are some pretty amazing facts from the United Nations Human Development Report of 1998: The world consumed more than $24 trillion in goods and services last year, six times the figure for 1975. Of the world’s 6.8 billion people, 4.4 billion live in developing countries, the rest in rich industrial or transition countries. The three richest people in the world own assets that exceed the combined gross products of the world’s poorest 48 countries. Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, three-fifths have no access to basic sanitation; almost one-third are without safe drinking water; one-quarter lack adequate housing; one-fifth live beyond reach of modern health services; one fifth of the children do not get as far as grade five in school and one fifth are undernourished. Basic education for all would cost $6 billion a year—$8 billion is spent annually for cosmetics in the United States alone. Installation of water and sanitation for all would cost $9 billion plus some annual costs–$11 billion is spent annually on ice cream in Europe. Reproductive health services for women would cost $12 billion a year—$12 billion a year is spent on perfumes in Europe and the United States. Basic health care and nutrition would cost $13 billion—$17 billion a year is spent on pet food in Europe and the United States. $35 billion is spent on business entertainment in Japan; $50 billion on cigarettes in Europe; $400 billion on narcotic drugs around the world; and $780 billion on the world’s militaries. Washington Post, 2 December.

New Labour, old capitalism

On Monday, the new president of the Confederation of British Industry told his members that the greatest threat to British business was red tape. “Excessive regulation,” he said, would “suffocate the golden goose.” He singled out trade union recognition, the minimum wage and the Working Time Directive as measures which would “darken the business horizon” . . . but one speaker went further than most. We need, he told the conference, to hooting applause, “greater labour market flexibility” and “increasing capital market liberalisation”. The government must create “the most business friendly environment in the world”. Even bankruptcy should cease to be stigmatised. The speaker was the [then] Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Peter Mandelson, Guardian, 5 November.

Pollution and profits

British Steel last night urged the Chancellor to exempt it from the proposed carbon energy tax designed to meet the Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gases by 12.5 percent by 2012. It said the tax would undermine its competitiveness, putting plants and jobs at risk. Guardian, 28 January.

How could they!

Companies will be warned this week that they could be subjected to devastating computer hacking attacks from disgruntled employees who face the sack as part of cost-cutting programmes. Experts say that employees with only limited knowledge of computers are now able to download hacking programmes from thousands of illicit Internet sites around the world and use them to wreak havoc on their employers’ computer networks. In one recent case, an employee who feared he would lose his job used a hacking program to wipe his employer’s central computer database after his name was erased from the payroll list. Times, 26 October.

Editorial: A leader gets lost (1999)

Editorial from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

So one of our leaders is to quit. The era of Paddy Ashdown has ended. The capitalist media predictably wailed at the loss of such a fine leader. What a loss to “the nation” the man will be! The man of action seems to have astounded British newspapers by his personal energy levels but such energy hardly constitutes great achievement since it is exhibited by thousands of men and women.

When you look beneath the hype Ashdown’s achievement as a leader was superficial, since he did not achieve the ultimate goal of leaders—power. Ashdown, unlike Blair, was never in a position to flounder around in the anarchy of capitalism’s cesspit trying to control the uncontrollable. The only real power the Blairs of this world have, as leaders, is to create scapegoats for their own failures to control capitalism. So the one-parent family, the unwaged, the homeless, the wage slave, and their demands, all are seen as demons trying to destroy the good work of the leaders of the nation. So they must be sorted.

Of course “the nation” has other sets of leaders; for instance the bishops and the Windsors, who are farcical in their prancings and pronouncements but devoid of any real power to affect the lives of the people. Not so the political leaders. Their fatuous pronouncements often have disastrous effects on those scapegoats they have decided should be picked on for a week or two (usually ably assisted by the capitalist press).

This is not a new phenomenon. It is a mark of leadership wherever it has reared its ugly head. Just like the fox who is blamed for ruining the country way of life and is hounded to death by the leaders of that way of life, so the scapegoats of capitalism are sometimes hounded to death to preserve the nation. Hitler the Leader or, in German, the Führer.

Since Ashdown never reached the dizzy heights of Blair he can only be looked upon as one of capitalism’s failures. His sexual meanderings entertained the wage slaves for a short while (just as randy Bill’s are entertaining now, as long as you are not immediately involved) but it is not a lot to be proud of, since there are far better comedians to entertain.

The only way for humanity is to step aside from the vicious deception of leaders and their telling us what we need. For that to happen the majority need to become conscious of their real interests. A socialist revolution, a democratic revolution without leaders, is an urgent necessity—before leaders lead us nowhere, or worse.

The wasted century (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the UN, now at the end of the 20th century, of the world’s population of some 6 billion, over one billion lack access to safe drinking water while 800 million don’t get enough food.

Why is this? Is it because we don’t have the resources to produce the extra food, pipes and pumps, and health facilities? No, since the resources are there. Here are the views of two prominent scientists:

“Industry’s problem will be to find sources of energy which are inexhaustible and can be restored with a minimum of effort. Until now we have produced steam with the help of chemical energy released by burning coal: but coal is difficult to mine and its deposits decrease from day to day. Man should turn his thoughts to the utilisation of solar heat and heat from the earth’s interior. There is reason to hope that both sources will be used boundlessly. To bore a well of 3,000 to 4,000 metres is not beyond the powers of present-day engineers, let alone those of the future. The source of all heat and of all industry will thus be unlocked and if water is taken into consideration as well, all imaginable machinery on earth could operate, and there would not be any noticeable decrease in this source of energy in hundreds of years”.

And,

“It is the energy of the sun, stored up in coal, in waterfalls, in food, that practically does all the work of the world. How great is the supply the sun lavishes upon us becomes clear when we consider that the heat received by the earth under a high sun and a clear sky is equivalent, according to the measurements of Langley, to about 7,000 horse-power per acre. Though our engineers have not yet discovered how to utilise this enormous supply of power, they will, I have not the slightest doubt, ultimately succeed in doing so; and when coal is exhausted and our water-power inadequate, it may be that this is the source from which we derive the energy necessary for the world’s work”.

These statements, however, are not recent. The first dates from 1894, from a speech by the French chemist, Marcelin Bertholet; the second from the inaugural address to the 1909 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science by Sir Joseph Thomson, physicist and Nobel Prize winner. (Both were quoted by the German Social Democrat [August Bebel] in the last edition of his book Women and Socialism in 1912, part of which was translated into English in 1971 under the title Society of the Future).

What these statements show is that, at the beginning of this century, humanity possessed the knowledge of how to harness natural resources so as to have produced enough to adequately feed, clothe and shelter the entire world’s population. But it didn’t happen of course. Capitalism existed then just as much as it does today, and the aim of capitalism is not to satisfy people’s needs or raise their standard of living.

The driving force of capitalism is to make a profit for those who own and control the means of living so that they can further increase their wealth by accumulating it in the form of additional capital. This does lead to an increase in productive capacity and, in some parts of the world, has led to increased living standards. But nobody can claim—the UN statistics quoted at the beginning show this—that capitalism has been able to produce and distribute enough so that every man, woman and child on this planet is adequately fed, clothed and sheltered.

If the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s resources had been established at the turn of the century—and there was no reason why it couldn’t have been had a majority in Europe and America so wanted—then the production of food and basic amenities would soon have been increased and no one would have died this century from starvation or poverty-related disease.

Instead, capitalism continued, and not only did millions die of starvation and preventable disease but millions more died in two world wars and a non-stop stream of smaller localised wars, fought out between capitalist states over trade routes, markets, investment outlets and sources of raw materials. Millions more died as victims of colonial oppression or in concentration and slave labour camps run by dictatorial regimes such as those of Stalin and Hitler.

All this was unnecessary. It could have been avoided. But it wasn’t. The big question now is: will humanity waste the 21st century in the same way that the 20th century was?

Adam Buick

American “prosperity” (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are most Americans prosperous? Are they “middle class”? Is the United States “a nation of shareholders”? Do most Americans actually have a stake in the country?

Despite popular belief, most Americans—members of the working class—are not rich; and, over the last ten years, their living standards have deteriorated quite dramatically. John Schmitt, economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC, writing in the Guardian (18 January) exposes the myth of American prosperity. For example, he mentions that despite the hype, most Americans do not own any shares:

“According to most recent available data from the Federal Reserve, 60 percent of households in 1995 did not own shares, directly or indirectly, including the US equivalent of unit trusts and pension funds. Many of those who do own shares own very few.”

About 72 percent of American households had direct or indirect ownership, or holdings, worth less than 5,000 dollars. During the 1980s, shareholdings rose quite dramatically, but from very low levels. Professor Edward Wolff has suggested that between 1989 and 1997, shareholdings more than doubled; but “the typical US household held only $7,800 in all forms of investment. And in 1997, the top one percent owned shares worth $2.5 million, while the next nine percent held shares valued at $275,000”. However, a typical household’s assets (such as the house in which they lived, and its contents) were worth about $90,000.

Against this Schmitt notes that:

“Debt levels have rocketed. Between 1989 and 1997 the typical household’s debts rose $8,200, after adjusting for inflation. The increase in debt exceeded the total value of the same household’s shares at the end of the period.”

Furthermore, against the apparent assets of many American workers, their liabilities in the form of mortgages on houses and apartments, car loans and numerous credit card debts, demonstrate that they are not only largely propertyless in the means of living, but are permanently in debt. With the recent crisis in world capitalism, and its increasing effect in North America, the situation for most American workers may well get worse in the near future.

Prosperous they ain’t!

Peter E. Newell

City of despair (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Japanese city of Osaka looks like a scene from a grainy black and white film about the Great Depression,” writes Leeroy Betti in the Western Australian (6 January). “Scores of cardboard and plastic shanties line the footpaths for block after block.” Thousands of men stand around open fires, many offering all kinds of rubbish for sale; others arrive as early at 5am outside the Imamiya Labour Centre, hoping to find jobs for building projects.

Officially, unemployment in Japan is 4.4 percent, or just on three million, but, says Betti, “the real jobless rate could be closer to 12 percent, according to some US economists”. And, he continues, “as the worst recession in Japan’s postwar history bites deeper, construction jobs, like those in other sectors, have dried up”. Moreover, many company executives are concerned at losing their jobs.

Betti concludes:

“As Japanese authorities search optimistically for signs that the economy will bottom out in 1999, its ninth year of stagnation, they could be caught unprepared for a burgeoning social crisis among those for whom time, hope and money already has run out.”

They may be whistling in the wind. Production in Japan, as elsewhere, is not geared for the satisfaction of people’s needs (Japanese workers need new homes while construction workers stand idle in Osaka), but with a view to profit for those who own the means of production. And without the likelihood of a profit, production will be curtailed or, ultimately, cease altogether, resulting in a surplus of the means of production and commodities on the one hand, and a surplus of unused labour-power, and mass unemployment, on the other. Indeed, in Japan, again as elsewhere in much of the world, too many commodities have been produced, not as compared with the actual needs of the overwhelming majority of the people but compared with their purchasing power. And workers in Japan, as well as Korea, Malaysia, Russia, and now Brazil, are discovering the hard way.

Is it not more than time that they organised to replace the chaotic, planless, society of capitalism with one in which rational planning, and the satisfaction of needs, social and individual, are paramount?

Peter E. Newell

Trouble at the mill (1999)

Theatre Review from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hindle Wakes by Stanley Houghton. Royal Exchange, Manchester

When first produced in 1912 Hindle Wakes soon found itself the centre of controversy. Watch Committees up and down the country censoriously voiced their disapproval; the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University tried to have the play banned from Oxford theatres, and failing this he succeeded in placing theatres “out of bounds” to the university population. As against this the Suffragette Movement took the play to their hearts and famously interrupted a production attended by Lloyd George.

It is easy to understand why the play should produce such reactions. Given the intense feelings of the time for and against women’s suffrage, any play which affirmed women’s right to choose was likely to be contentious. And this one, which used commonly spoken Lancashire speech rather than standard English, and which suggested that women as well as men might occasionally fancy a sexy weekend, was always likely to produce an exceptional furore. Still it was good for business. The programme reveals that in its first year it received over 2,000 separate productions in Britain and America alone. By this standard Lloyd Webber’s mind-numbing musicals will have to play for decades to reach the same number of people.

The story is simply told. Fanny who like her father works at the local cotton mill, spends a wakes week (holiday) weekend in Llandudno with the owner’s already engaged son, Alan. Their tryst is discovered, and the boy’s father insists that his son does the “right” thing and marry Fanny; a sentiment which is echoed by his disappointed fiancée who even concedes that Fanny now has more “right” to be his wife than she does. All seems settled when, out of the blue, we are presented with one of those wonderful dramatic moments when against expectations the plot line is turned on its head. Instead of talking about Fanny’s interests someone is bold enough to ask her what she thinks. Consternation and surprise: Fanny has no intention of marrying her errant swain. She likes him fine, but only as he liked her: as a casual lover.

It is always fascinating to monitor the reaction of audiences to “slice-of-life” plays like this. Things which might have offended or unnerved grandparents and great grandparents are seen as comic and absurd. Most people watch plays about the past conscious only of their own beliefs and opinions, little understanding that—given the spirit of the times—their own long-dead relatives were in fact behaving much as they themselves would behave today. Many in the audience laughed comfortably. How odd these people from another age seemed—what extraordinary attitudes. Yet although things have changed, much is still the same. Certainly women have the vote, but by almost any measure they still suffer institutional discrimination. And men continue to be demeaned. They are still seen as largely out of control of their sexual emotions; powerless in the face of their untrammelled sexual desires, victims of women of easy virtue.

The play has some powerful things to say about life in Britain at the turn of the century, and it says them engagingly and amusingly. Both its use of vernacular language and its examination of the cant and hypocrisy of contemporary sexual mores make for an entertaining and stimulating couple of hours. And in the light and airy Exchange Theatre, now delightfully restored following the IRA bombing of Manchester, the cast achieve a honesty of characterisation that adds conviction and credibility to the action.

But at the end, with Fanny triumphant, I imagined another play dedicated not so much to the independence of women as to the emancipation of the whole human race. I saw some latter-day Fanny, and her comrade Freddy, telling those who wished to continue to exploit and diminish them, that they had no intention of remaining the willing victims of their continuing imprisonment: that instead of deferring to their economic lords and masters they were intent on taking their own decisions, in their own interests, and in the interests of the generations still to come.

Now there’s a play that needs to be written. A play for today and tomorrow, showing evidence of a clear understanding of the past and the present.

Michael Gill

Greasy Pole: Byers Market (1999)

Byers before New Labour called.

The Greasy Pole column from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps it was because he feared that Blair is coming across too effectively that William Hague complained in Prime Minister’s Questions about whether a British Prime Minister should spend time solemnly discussing a barmy football coach’s religion. Perhaps it was because Blair realised uncomfortably that the Tory leader had a point that made him react so sourly: he could scarcely believe, he snarled, that Hague had raised the matter—ignoring the fact that he had been the first to try to exploit that particular piece of mind-numbing triviality.

This may have been entertaining to football obsessives or students of the techniques of spin doctoring but it obscured the fact that this government came to power on promises to be something new, to so change the capitalist system that it actually worked in a way which had never been experienced before—that is to say in the interests of the majority of its people. That is what politics should be about; it is what should concern people when they vote at an election. On that basis, a more interesting and significant statement was recently (on 2 February) made by Stephen Byers, who took over as Minister for Trade and Industry when Peter Mandelson had to resign over the little matter of borrowing a lot of money to buy an exceedingly posh house.

When Byers got his promotion there may have been a few traditionalists in the party still clinging to the delusion that their party in power really could change how this society operates. They may have hoped, remembering that Byers was once well known as a stroppy leftist local councillor, that he would regard it as a priority to use the power of his new job to bring about that redistribution of wealth which the Labour Party were supposed to stand for. They would have been as disappointed.

“The reality [said Byers] is that wealth creation is now more important than wealth redistribution . . . Governments should not hinder (entrepreneurs) but work to ensure the market functions properly and contributes to creating a strong, just and fair society . . . I firmly believe that the best way to address inequality and social exclusion is to create a more affluent, more successful Britain with opportunities for everyone to fulfil their potential.”

Byers was sharing his thoughts on how to make everyone rich—although some rather richer than others—with a gathering of business people in the Mansion House, in the very heart of the City. We must also understand that this latest exponent of the “trickle down” theory of wealth distribution has recently been through the familiar process which renders the wildest and most romantic left wingers tamely compliant to the demands of capitalism as soon as they get a sniff of power.

But what happened when, a few days after making this speech, he had an opportunity to put into practise his new-favoured theories about leaving the market to work its own way without any interference from the government? On 5 February the news broke that the German car manufacturer BMW, which also owns the Rover car company in England, was considering the closure of the Rover plant in Longbridge which would put about 14,000 people out of work and affect tens of thousands in ancillary firms largely dependent on Rover as their market. The Rover plant is under threat because it was heading to make a loss of up to £400 million this year, after an investment by BMW of £2.5 billion not to mention the buying price of £800 million.

Rover

With the market for cars looking close to saturation it seems good sense for BMW to close Longbridge; after all, like any other company they are in business to make profits and not to give charity to thousands of workers or to make life easier for a minister in the British government. As an admirer of the way market forces operate Byers should have greeted this news with enthuisism. But tens of thousands unemployed workers are not fertile electoral material. And what kind of start would he have made in his new job if his message to those unemployed was that they were the inevitable victims of economic forces which, they would eventually agree, work to the benefit of us all?

So Byers forgot what he had said at the Mansion House and he intervened with BMW, to try to affect the way in which the car market is operating. “I intend to talk to Professor Milberg (the new chairman of BMW) this weekend,” he droned, “to stress to him the importance that the Government attaches to Rover and Longbridge. The Government has a very constructive relationship with BMW . . .” If BMW agreed to keep the plant open Byers will provide financial help to modernise it. Then he will be free to make another speech, stressing how vital it is for governments to be always ready to intervene if they are likely to get some bad publicity—and antagonise a lot of voters–through the closure of a factory which is losing money.

And if he does speak like that we may be sure he will not mention another way in which the market operates. Many recent surveys on the effects of poverty in the family have highlighted the fact that parents often go without food in order to make sure their children have something to eat. Almost without exception they say that they can rarely afford meat. The Guardian of 6 February had something to say about another side of this. Their reporter John Vidal went to see how hill farmers, who raise sheep, get on with the market for their produce. One farmer described the situation as “all doom and gloom” because prices are so low that he can hardly give away his animals. He had just tried to sell some at rock bottom prices only to be told that he would have to pay to have them taken off his hands. Another farmer told Vidal that in some cases sheep were being slaughtered and buried rather than trying to sell them. So while families suffer through being unable to afford perfectly good meat, edible sheep are being wasted—and all in the service of the market which Byers thinks is such a logical, useful safeguard of our welfare.

Even in the face of this we should not assume that Byers does not understand how capitalism works—how it can only operate on the basis of producing wealth for sale at a profit and not on meeting the needs of human beings. We should not assume that he is unaware of the fact that if profits cannot be made production stops and workers are thrown out of jobs. We should not assume that when he was drivelling on about the importance of creating wealth as distinct from its redistribution he was in ignorance of the fact that the wealth creators are the working class, who need to be employed in order to live and who in their jobs are exploited and degraded and then, if the wealth they have created cannot be sold at a profit, are deprived of that livelihood. Any militant leftist will have discussed these issues to the point of exhaustion. Byers now behaves as if he was never concerned. This may be seen as his achievement. Or it may turn out to be his insuperable problem.

Ivan

And the winner is . . . (1999)

TV Review from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nothing brings a lump to the throat quicker than the round of glad—handing and mutual back-slapping that constitutes the modern “awards ceremony” . So it was with Channel Four’s Political Awards, shown—endearingly enough—on Valentine’s Day, only on this occasion the cause of any lump in the throat could only be bile. There can be few more sickening sights than a group of politicians congratulating themselves on their parliamentary performances, politicians who on any other day of the week are barely on speaking terms—and not simply because of any political differences either. The principal differences between them will be entirely personal and most likely malicious.

At this particular event, those politicians nominated for awards by Channel Four were put to sit next to one another at nominees` tables, shifting uneasily in their seats and shooting suspicious, sideways glances at their rivals. Only when they were certain the camera was on them—as the announcement was made that one of their rival nominees was victorious—did they crack a smile. And those smiles! It is not easy to generate facial expressions redolent of the type of creature that would be created if Dick Dastardly were to be crossed with Donny Osmond, but most seemed to achieve it.

Not that all the politicians were slimy, untrustworthy examples of a life-form lower than tabloid journalists. Some of the nominees and victors were principled within their pro-capitalist context (Ted Heath, Tony Benn, Chris Mullin) while others were talented enough performers of the political arts, and transparently so (Benn again, Anne Widdecombe, Richard Shepherd).

As with all awards ceremonies what was really irritating was the cloying, fake mateyness of it all. If smugness and complacency paid, they’d all be millionaires (though, come to think of it, a fair few of them are). Far more interesting would have been some critical awards based on the underlying search for meaning in modern politics rather than the concoction of a ceremony designed to encourage the bastards even further. Needless to say, it was not forthcoming from Channel Four, so the Socialist Standard has bravely stepped into the gap and produced its own set of awards for the parliamentary exponents of political science over the last year.

And the categories are:

Greaser of the year: the first category and the one with the most competition. Winners at previous ceremonies tended to come almost exclusively from the Conservative Party. This year’s entrants come from the Labour backbenches, in particular from New Labour’s sinister Stepford Wives, Barbara Follet—clones without a social conscience. But the overall victor—by a short brown nose—must come from the Cabinet itself. This year’s winner: Alun Michael, Welsh Secretary, who is currently so far up Tony Blair’s backside he can now see Jack Cunningham’s ankles.

Turncoat of the year: the man who posed as the workers` friend, spending years proselytising the Trotskyist cause and who now lavishes praise on the CBI while kicking the unions where it hurts: Stephen Byers, Trade and Industry Secretary, and yet another Trot who has turned out just as expected.

Hypocrite of the year: the man who said that workers should expect no favours from business under a Labour Government but who himself was caught receiving some very big favours from business indeed: Peter (“what’s half a million between friends?”) Mandelson.

Lunatic of the year: the ever tender, loving and caring Reverend Dr Ian Paisley, saint to the sinners, and three turnips short of a truck-full.

Joker of the year: the newt-lover extraordinaire, whose “loyalty pledge” to the bosses` friend Tony Blair should send the appropriate signals to the workers of London that he can in no sense be taken seriously as any sort of socialist, real or imagined: step forward, Ken Livingstone, whose campaign for free tube rides for reptiles will end up fooling no-one except the lizards on the benches next to him.

Political deserter of the year: Captain Paddy Ashdown, whose piousness in the face of the social problems of the world has only been equalled by his enthusiastic support for the system that caused them. His resignation brings forth the positive prospect that we may now at last see less of him. Hard-up Somerset farmers may now take the opportunity to plant potatoes in his permanently furrowed brow.

Special Princess Diana Award for saintliness: Tony himself, of course. Even now thousands are preparing to hurtle themselves off the pavement in front of buses just so he might come to visit them on one of his many nightly hospital visits. At least that’s why we think they’re doing it . . . though it is possible that other explanations are more plausible. They might, for instance, have spent Valentine’s night watching Channel Four and then regretted it very much indeed.

Dave Perrin

Nothing to pay (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is the text of a leaflet that was produced for distribution at anti-tuition fees demonstrations recently:

Nobody should have to pay to study.

Nobody should have to buy books or pay rent for accommodation.

Nobody should have to pay fares to travel.

Nobody should have to pay for heating or food or water to drink.

The organisers of this demonstration are not asking you to support these demands. They are asking you to confine your demands to the single issue of university fees. They believe that education should be free. It should—but capitalism is not about freedom; it’s about profits and costs. Education in a capitalist system is preparation for the world of being used and exploited. The demand for free capitalist education is not going to be granted. Many people here voted Labour in the hope that it could deliver a kinder form of capitalism. It was New Labour that followed the logic of capitalism and imposed tuition fees. It is naïve in the extreme to expect free services from capitalism.

Socialism has come to be a dirty word. But it’s only once we establish a socialist society of production for use not profit that nobody will have to pay—to study, for books and housing, for travel, heating, food or water. It you are opposed to a system of society where the market plays no role and there is free access to goods and services, then don’t expect free education.

If you’re interested in FREE ACCESS FOR ALL to education, goods and services, then it’s time to go beyond the pleading of this demonstration.

To go beyond the demands for freedom under capitalism, please write for free information to The Socialist Party, FREEPOST, London SW4 7BR.

50 Years Ago: Trade Unions and the Next Slump (1999)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are We Backwoodsmen?

At the Brussels Cycle Show Russian machines are on display at what the Herald calls “highly competitive” prices. The Financial Times (22/1/49) reports that the cotton industry is worried about the revival of Japanese competition and Sir Raymond Streat, Chairman of the British Cotton Board is in U.S.A. to discuss with American manufacturers what can be done about it. The Manchester Guardian tells us (25/1/49) that “employers and trade union leaders are to talk to Mr. Harold Wilson next week about the danger of German competition with the British engineering and shipbuilding industries.” Referring to this and to the cotton developments, the Guardian says: “These are early moves in a struggle that is bound, within the next year or so, to become one of the most bitter issues of industrial and foreign policy.”

Oil is another industry in which supply is overtaking demand; and the Times (24/1/49) tells us that world production of wheat and other grains is rising: “Last year’s cereal shortage has been largely overcome and during the next five years surpluses may well be in sight.” This does not mean that too much will be produced for the needs of the world’s population, but that supplies may be more than the market will take. Indeed the Director-General of the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation has just said that “more than half the world’s population will go to bed hungry tonight.” (News Chronicle, 28/1/49.) If the hungry ones have not money to buy food they do not exist in the eyes of the capitalists who are seeking to sell their food-stuffs profitably.

(From Socialist Standard, March 1949)

The wonderful world of advertising (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letters:What about education? (1) (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

What about education? (1)

Dear Editors,

“Where my offspring spent every day of the week being trained to serve capitalism.” So Heather Ball describes her daughter’s school in the December Socialist Standard. This recalls the words of Pik Smeet in the August issue in his article on Labour’s education policy, “a vast factory for turning out workers tuned to our masters’ requirements”.

I don’t deny that our education system has many faults, most notably the existence of private schools, but the case for socialism is strong enough to make exaggerated attacks on the system both unnecessary and off-putting for many potential socialists. Any society needs its members to have a thorough grasp of “the three R’s” plus an appreciation of history, geography, science, the arts, and so on. At present these are taught by the majority of teachers in a politically biased way. But these subjects would be required in a socialist society, or is it to consist of ignoramuses?

It would be useful to have a major article setting out positively what education would be like in a socialist society. Which subjects would be taught and how would teaching differ from that which operates now?

Bryan J. Fair, 

Dorchester, Dorset

Reply: 

We will try to publish an article on what education might be like in a socialist society. In the meantime see the letter which follows – Editors.

What about education? (2)

Dear Editors,

If Bryan Fair does not think children are being “trained for capitalism” in our schools, then what does he think they are being trained for? What about the stock market, banks, building societies, retailing—the endless sales of endless crap because the system cannot survive without it; a system which insists on showing us inane little stories (called advertisements) over and over again and again on television so as to persuade us to spend our earnings on stuff that most of us have no use for and could do without. Undeniably we need builders, doctors, scientists, teachers, and it says something about humanity that, despite the ethos of capitalism, it yet still has within it, compassion, albeit a sentiment constantly eroded by manipulation for profit.

From the moment a baby emerges from the womb (and even before that) it begins the process of learning. “Playing” is a part of that process. I cannot myself visualise a socialist society where children are regimented into education, conveyor-belt style. It is my belief that the competitive atmosphere of the classroom can make kids resentful and anxious, and those who do not, for various reasons, come up to scratch, are sometimes made to feel worthless and insignificant, whereas if their latent talents were to be encouraged to burgeon without coercion, then I can only think that this would make for a better world. What do we say to the thousands who the education system fails? I don’t imagine young people selling the Big Issue on every corner of every street in towns and cities in a socialist society, anymore than I would expect there to be homeless people. I am not blaming teachers for this. We each of us are forced to make a living whilst at the same time deal with our own sorrows and problems, but if I was a teacher I would feel it incumbent upon me to explain to my pupils how the system works, and that one day some of them may be jobless, surplus to requirement, or press-ganged into a sort of slavery in order to have food and a roof over their heads. And, is history really taught in a politically unbiased way? Think about it.

The radical educationalist, A.S. Neill, proved that most children desire to learn. His school, Summerhill, made lessons available, but voluntary. Children who wished to become engineers, doctors, teachers, etc, used their self-discipline to attend appropriate classes and many of them achieved their goals. So to me a socialist society would include places of learning without compulsion.

You say that “our education system has many faults most notably the existence of private schools”. To me that is rather like saying that the coal mines, water, and the railways should not be privatised. I don’t think it makes much difference whether they’re privatised or state-owned. As a radical socialist I no longer support reforms.

You say “it would be useful to have a major article setting out positively what education would be like in a socialist society”. We cannot predict, but this socialist, for one, has her dreams.

Heather Ball, 

Norwich

Inconsistent?

Dear Editors,

I feel the article “Pinochet and Socialism”, (Socialist Standard, December 1998) contains a familiar inconsistency as regards your view of the role of political democracy in abolishing capitalism.

The fact that the working class on the eve of socialism will be a world-wide self-conscious organised socialist majority will itself constitute a powerful material force and it is this force which is the basis of the principle that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class.

How does it then follow that this movement needs to use, or should use, capitalist political democracy to abolish capitalism? Capitalist democracy is a capitalist institution created in the interests of the capitalist class to ensure a smoother running of the capitalist system. What is so special about sending a group of Socialist MPs into a parliament to declare the abolition of capitalism when the material force for actually delivering this abolition is the Mass Socialist Movement outside?

Why cannot this declaration be made by the Movement itself through its own representative democratic structures, which will have been created by the working class itself, specifically for the purpose of developing and furthering the mass movement for socialism?

I know you say using capitalist political democracy is essential in order to gain control the state. But in response to “Leninist” claims this would invite a “Pinochet style” response, you argue that the state apparatus is staffed by workers who will inevitably be won to the Mass Socialist Movement. The armed forces would in effect be a broken reed in the face of the MSM, literally generals without troops. Again, you confirm the key to effect change, to gain control of the state apparatus, is the Mass Socialist Movement, not the comparative handful of Socialist MPs sent into a Parliament.

So why the continued emphasis on the importance and need for (capitalist) political democracy to secure the transition to socialism?

The importance of a representative institution to demonstrate a majority for socialism and to ensure the abolition of capitalism is done in as peaceable and co-ordinated manner as possible is not denied. But isn’t it far preferable to use structures and tools created by the working class itself, and for itself, to achieve this more effectively?

We cannot guarantee capitalist democracy will always be available to use for the purpose yet by definition we know for sure a Mass Socialist Movement will be based on organs of working class democracy which are certain to be available to us and better fashioned for the purpose.

Andrew Northall, 

Kettering, Northants

Reply: 

You are right. Once what you call “the Mass Socialist Movement” has come into existence capitalism’s days are numbered and there is nothing supporters of capitalism can then do to stop socialism coming. Even if they were to try armed resistance they would lose and, after a period of chaos and bloodshed, socialism would still end up being established.

You are also right that, if the Mass Socialist Movement so chose, it could simply go ahead and seize power. This too would result in a period of chaos and perhaps bloodshed (it would give the opponents of socialism a perfect excuse to resist) but the end result would still be the establishment of socialism.

But what’s the inconsistency in conceding that this is theoretically possible but not advocating that it should be tried? Using existing representative and elective institutions would be the best way to proceed for the reasons you yourself mention: “to demonstrate a majority for socialism and to ensure the abolition of capitalism is done in as peaceable and co-ordinated manner as possible”.

We don’t agree either that it makes sense for the socialist movement to duplicate existing representative and elective structures. Obviously, the socialist movement will have to have its own democratic structures, but what would be the point of drawing up registers of electors, rules for nominating candidates, counting procedures, etc when these already exist for political elections? Why not use those that exist? Admittedly, new democratic structures will have to be developed at the workplace, where none exist at present, and we have always envisaged this happening through workers’ unions of one sort or another, but this does not have to be done as far as geographically-based local and national elections are concerned.

So, all in all, using existing institutions is the best option which is why we have always advocated it.—Editors.

Millennium Bug

Dear Editors,

It is no coincidence that every year many thousands are struck down with influenza in the wake of the so-called “Christmas festivities”. Having indulged in just about everything that we know is not good for us our resistance to disease is at its usual annual all-time low. Little wonder that the old ‘flu bug jumps down so many throats and hey ho! A few thousand more get their come-uppance before they have had time to put their baubles away.

The ‘flu epidemic post-Christmas 1999 promises to be the biggest ever. The Christmas binge will of course be dragged on into the 21st Century as countless millions make themselves ill while celebrating and having a “good time”, little doubt the millennium bug will strike . . . but it won’t be computers catching cold.

So why are so many people hell-bent on making themselves ill in order to “celebrate”? And what is there to celebrate? What difference will there be in the world a minute before midnight and a minute after midnight? Disregarding the millions who will have made themselves ill in the attempt to bring some joy into their hapless lives there will be no difference whatsoever. There will still be people living in cardboard boxes while others have several homes to live in. There will still be millions dying for the want of a bowl of rice while others die of obesity. There will still be one million children in this country alone being supported by others than the people who brought them into the world.

The bugs of deceit, corruption, greed, sleaze and dishonesty will continue to flourish and permeate every strand of our society and will continue to do so till the demeaning values upon which world society is based are replaced by values of a higher intrinsic worth . . . when that happens we will truly have something to celebrate.

John Phazey,

Sutton Coldfield

What’s new about New Labour? (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Old Labour said it stood for socialism and advocated policies to run capitalism. New Labour says it stands for capitalism and advocates policies to run capitalism. The only difference between the “old” and the “new” versions is that Blair’s Labour Party is more honest about its love affair with capitalism.

Back in 1925 George Lansbury, darling of the Labour Left, addressed his party’s conference with a rousing declaration:

“Socialism is inscribed on our banners . . .  We intend that the land of Britain and all its resources shall be owned and used in the service of the British people.”

It was a peculiarly nationalistic version of socialism, but Lansbury and his followers clearly believed that they were standing for the principle of common rather than private ownership. Two years earlier 143 Labour MPs voted in favour of the following resolution which they proposed in the House of Commons:

“This House declares that legislative effort should be directed to the gradual supersession of the capitalist system by an industrial and social order based on the public ownership and control of the instruments of production and distribution.”

Again, there was no mincing words about their professed opposition to capitalism as a social order. Labour was committed to something different, so they proclaimed. But the strategy was one of gradual transformation: fighting the capitalist tiger one claw at a time. Of course, such gradualism is completely impossible when there is a clear choice between mutually exclusive ways of organising society. No more than a person can be a little bit pregnant or a part-time virgin can a society become gradually socialist.

Clement Attlee, who was to become Labour’s famous post-war Prime Minister, realised as early as 1935 that

“The plain fact is that a socialist party cannot hope to make a success of administering the capitalist system.”

How right he was. We wonder whether this “plain fact” has ever occurred to Messrs Blair, Brown and Cook—or whether they would consider themselves to be in a “socialist party”. (Oddly enough, when Blair’s Labour Party dropped its mythical commitment to Clause Four of its constitution they replaced it with wording proclaiming themselves to be a “democratic socialist” party.)

What Labour has traditionally meant by “democratic socialism” is benign capitalism. As Professor Eric Hobsbawm put it in an October 1980 article:

“The concept of democratic socialism is that by diffusion of power there will be a change in the relationships between capital and labour . . . Because in the first instance capital has to be accountable to the people it employs.”

This was manifest nonsense, all the more so when uttered by a so-called Marxist theoretician. The function of capital is to exploit labour. Capital can no more be held accountable to labour than muggers can be made accountable to the people they rob on the street. Were this some kind of academic hoax it would be unfunny, but as a basis for political change, in which millions of people have invested their hope, it is a tragedy.

The tragedy is not without its farcical scenes. Its contemporary ideologists have invented a mumbo-jumbo ideology called The Third Way. This is neither capitalist nor socialist, but . . . who knows? The Third Way is a glib phrase to describe the rhetorical abandonment of socialism and an accommodation with capitalism, albeit an imagined reformed and modernised version of the old system. As Richard Rorty wrote in the New Statesman (8 May 1998):

“We should not let speculation about a totally changed system, and a totally different way of thinking about human life and human affairs, replace step-by-step reform of the system we presently have.”

There is nothing new about this. Labour has always stood for step-by-step reform. The only difference is that in the old days they did so with a pretence of aiming at the creation of a totally different way of organising human affairs. Today New Labour is at least being straight. They can see no alternative to capitalism. They have been hypnotised by the blinkered Thatcherite ideology of TINA (There Is No Alternative) into open advocacy of the existing system.

Socialists opposed Labour when they claimed to be working for socialism by running capitalism and we oppose them now that they have finally rejected any alternative to capitalism. The current system, based on production for profit, cannot work in the interest of the majority of people and no amount of “modernising” rhetoric will disguise this fact. That is why socialism is as vital today as it ever was—and New Labour is as hopeless and irrelevant as Old Labour.

Steve Coleman

Culture and Capitalism (1999)

Book Review from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

'A Weapon in the Struggle: The Cultural History of the Communist Party in Britain'. Edited by Andy Croft. Pluto Press. 1998.

This is one of those irritating books the title of which offers a set of expectations which is almost totally out of kilter with its content. Thus the reader isn't offered a cultural history of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but rather a series of essays about the work and impact of various so-called Communist artists and critics living in Britain—some of whom, coincidentally, were members of the Communist Party.

Only in the short, six-page introduction, written by Andy Croft, is there any considered reference to the cultural policies and practices of the British Communist Party and, significantly, this introduction largely ignores the essays which follow. As Andy Croft put it himself: "These essays [consider] some of the achievements and failures of communist artists who, though mostly forgotten now, once had an extraordinary impact on British cultural life."

This said, such references as are made to cultural policies of the Communist Party of Great Britain, suggest that they were frequently hostile to the work of artists, including many of the artists who are the subject of the essays in this book. For the most part the CP's official attitude seemed based on the "norms and expectations being imposed by Zhdanov and the cultural policemen of the Soviet Union".

Indeed, Emile Burns (the chairman of the CP's National Cultural Committee in the early 1950s) went so far as to argue that nothing was to be learnt from the "decadent culture of capitalist society", and that "it is absolutely vital to the working class that they should see culture for what it is—the culture of a decaying class". Leaving aside the fact that culture can heighten our awareness of the world we live in, and thus affect a critique of capitalism, the idea that such cultural figures as Mozart, Shelley, Hogarth and Zola were mere apologists for the capitalist class is grotesque.

But if the title of the book causes readers to wonder about the possibilities of taking action under the terms of the Trade Descriptions Act, many of the essays are interesting and revealing. It helps that the focus of attention is wide rather than narrow and that it encompasses graphic art, pageants, jazz and folk song, in addition to poetry, the novel, film, classical music, and literary criticism. I particularly enjoyed Robert Radford's essay on "the graphic art of the three Jameses" (Boswell and Fitton and Holland), and the accompanying trenchant cartoons; Gerald Porter's piece on folk and vernacular songs; and Hanna Behrend's thoughtful article on Marxist literary criticism.

The latter faces four square the apparent paradox of economic relations determining the ideas that exist in the superstructure of society, whilst at the same time these same ideas provide the basis for further economic transformations. It also hints at a further dilemma: how can a political party judge the value and worth of cultural artefacts, both in terms of their political power and their cultural merit, in such a way as to favour some and criticise others? More about this would have been welcome but given the book's studied avoidance of the implications which flow from its own title, though I wasn't surprised that no more was forthcoming. Nevertheless a rewarding read not least because, if my reaction is typical, it will inspire a lot of further thought in readers.

Michael Gill

Poetry Work (1999)

Book Review from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work: An Anthology. Edited by Dinah Livingstone with the Common Words Group, Katabasis, 1999, pb. £12.95 

Call me a philistine if you wish, but I find much contemporary poetry boring. Poets, lacking anything significant to say about change, retreat into reflective abstractions and introspective indulgence. I am not hoping for all literature to be "politically meaningful", but neither should it be precious, remote from the world and proud in its inaccessibility. Poets should seek to be understood. 

Work is an anthology by poets who clearly want to be understood. As importantly, they clearly understand what it is they are writing about. This is not an observer's view of work but the testimony of people who have themselves had to work in order to live. The book breathes experience. It is a superb collection, comprising new works by writers who have a record of publication and reputation and others who were hitherto unpublished. 

The anthology begins with an extract from Morris's How We Live and How We Might Live which serves as a political foreword to the volume, rooting it explicitly in a political recognition of how employment turns the worker into "but an appendage to profit-grinding". Poems within the anthology return to this again and again, few more powerfully than Christopher Hampton's exposure of "the leash" of wage slavery; Sandra Smith's wonderful comparison between workers and birds; and Dilys Wood's moving evocation of a miner's life. There is much more: short, sharp pieces on odd jobs such as the chiropodist by Anna Robinson and Dinah Livingstone's brilliant "assistant birdman of Regent's Park". Mimi Khalvati writes beautifully on the work of being a poet. And these are just some. There are prose pieces, including direct reports from the Hillingdon hospital workers (Asian women who were on strike for four years for refusing to take a pay cut; their employer is a member of Blair's Low Pay Commission) and an account of a young worker killed by casualisation. Ernest Fischer, whose The Necessity of Art remains probably the finest Marxian analysis of the role of art, describes how poetry began in the rhythm of the work song, itself produced by the repeated movements of physical work. So it is appropriate that this fine anthology of poetry should return to the subject of work—to its frustrations, its creativity, its rhythms and its pitiful rewards. The next Katabasis anthology will be on the theme of Home. I'm looking forward to it already.

Steve Coleman

Anthropology and politics (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the late 1920s and the 1930s a series of books by the American anthropologist Margaret Mead created a tremendous following among the general public. Coming of Age in Samoa, Growing up in New Guinea, and other blue Penguins still to be found on second-hand bookstalls thrilled generations of readers who wondered, after reading the accounts of free love among the people of the Pacific islands, whether they were getting their share. Then came spoilsports to interrupt the dream of what was reported to go on under the swaying palms and around the sleepy lagoons of Polynesia.

The whole thing was a hoax, these academics argued. Margaret Mead spent very little time in the Trobriand Islands, didn't bother to acquire the language, only learned what she wanted to learn, and her interpreters obliged by making it up.

There is a long tradition of hoaxes and forgeries in the human sciences. The fossil of Piltdown Man provided British archaeologists with something home-grown to offer against the French and Spanish with their sumptuous finds of Cro-Magnon people, their art and artefacts at Lascaux and Altmaira. By the time the Piltdown fossils had been identified as the skull of an ape mixed together with the skeleton of a not very prehistoric man the perpetrators were long dead.

The psychologist Sir Cyril Burt was discovered after his death to have produced some very original home-made statistics in his anxiety to prove that people are differently equipped with intelligence. He was one of a long line. A recent book The Bell Curve by another psychologist named Murray and an economist, continued this sterling work among social Darwinists to prove that the poor are poor because they are stupid. A sceptic might argue that if Natural Selection was a reliable hypothesis, then the most intelligent and robust should be sought among those who were products of the most testing circumstances—the historically poor.

These distortions mattered less in the nineteenth century before psychology was invented and anthropological research was carried on by chair-bound scholars like Sir James Frazer in his Golden Bough, which was a hotchpotch of classical mythology, and stories brought back from the Empire by missionaries like Dr Livingstone and army officers like General Pitt-Rivers. This cosy world was burst open by a new breed who took research out into the field. The Pole Bronislav Malinowski went to the Trobriand Islands and brought back to the newly-founded London School of Economics his findings published as Argonauts of the Western Pacific. This was a materialist account of the daily lives of the people. He supplied the sex himself by getting his leg over the nubile Margaret Mead.

American anthropology of this time was dominated by the German scholar Franz Boas, much of whose work had been concerned with the American Indians. The Frenchman Marcel Mauss had also written about the native Americans of the north Pacific coast in his classic essay The Gift, but like the amazingly prescient, and home-grown Lewis Henry Morgan with his Ancient Society of a century earlier, he had come up with conclusions of primitive communism which were clearly unacceptable and mostly ignored in the US. An added disability for Morgan was his being taken up by Engels in Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. It was not until the women's movement in the 1960s that either could be mentioned in academic circles.

Boas was much more interested in a cultural approach and pressed his student Miss Mead for details of the sex lives of her subjects. Her publisher was also pressing for juicy details which would guarantee big sales. The result was a succession of best-sellers which guaranteed her a mass following. Margaret Mead became a living embodiment of the Statue of Liberty. Enter the villains, in particular the Australian Derek Freeman, to the hisses of American academics.

The Australians are frequently anti-American, we are warned; although Margaret Mead "did provide misleading embellishments" to her accounts of native life, they did not materially affect their accuracy. Freeman, for his part charges her with being anti-evolutionary and stuck in a rut of cultural determinism. He pleads for an interactionist view of things. Her defenders counter that he is viewing 1920s' anthropology through the glasses of the 1980s with the benefit of hindsight.

If Americans are charged with reductionism, with ignoring the interaction between factors, then it would not be the first time that they laid themselves open. More recently than Margaret Mead, the biologist Garrett Hardin argued in The Tragedy of the Commons that medieval common land was destroyed by overgrazing until private property arrived to save it. But Hardin's unregulated free-grazing was as false an assumption as Mead's Polynesian lovelies being available to all-comers. There were rules, as wiser American counsels urged, also Karl Heinrich Marx:

"Men make their own history, but not just as they please. They do not choose the circumstances for themselves, but have to work upon circumstances as they find them, have to fashion the material handed down by the past."

Ken Smith 

"All This Hard Graft No Longer Makes Sense" (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx referred to early society as "primitive communism" because throughout the Stone Age our ancestors co-operated to provide for their needs. With this in mind the socialist revolution can be seen as a long cycle of change from co-operation at a primitive level to co-operation in a more conscious, technically advanced society.

Anyone who visits the sites of upper Palaeolithic cultures in the Dordogne, France, can see in the museum at Les Eyzies the flint tools and the conditions in which they were used by the Magdalenian people about 20,000 years ago. It appears that life during this time was not necessarily "nasty, brutish and short". They developed art amidst abundant game, fish, wild vegetables, fruits, nuts and berries. All these things were there for the taking, it was natural wealth which did not have to be produced. Time had no economic value. There was no wage working, profits, bosses or economic crises. The whole community had free access to what was available and if one could avoid toothache, the living could well have been pleasant.

But sometime before 8,000BC conditions developed in which farming began and with it began the treadmill of hard work. For cereals this required ground preparation, sowing, watering, weeding, harvesting, threshing, storage and grinding. Also there were animals to tend. This was surely the beginning of the long working day. But farming brought more than hard work. With the emergence of dominant classes it brought exploitation of slaves who have done all the hard work ever since.

In his short book, Neanderthals, Bandits and Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began, Colin Tudge suggests that the development of farming took much longer than has been commonly supposed and was preceded by along period of "proto-farming". Writing recently in the Independent under the heading "All this hard graft no longer makes sense", he suggests that the once necessary long working day is outdated. He says, "We should see our industriousness not as an inveterate, "objective" good but as an adaptation geared to different times, and one that no longer makes sense; a mental vestige; virtually a psycho-pathology. We and the world would be much pleasanter and safer if we did."

Waste

But our situation is much worse than this. Most hard work has little connection with real human needs and a lot of it is actually lethal. The modern age has seen enormous gains in productivity of labour but where are the benefits for the working population? Do factory workers or farm workers or those in building and construction work less hours after having provided for the needs of the community? Of course they don't. Despite the much predicted society of leisure workers still work long hours and productivity means they are exploited more intensely.

There are thousands of people in supermarkets working long, poorly paid mind-blowingly boring hours operating the tills. They hold you up when all you want to do is leave the store after collecting what you want. They are there to make you pay so their bosses can get their profits. They are there to serve the profit system and their work has nothing to do with needs.

A great deal of hard work is done by the vast numbers of workers in the world's armament industries. The countless millions killed or wounded in the wars of this century were the casualties of every kind of weapon from bayonets, bullets and bombs to high-tech ballistic missiles and all these required long hours to produce. So when we ask whether we need to do all this hard work, the answer must be that it is not just unnecessary, much of it brings about great misery and suffering. So we can certainly do without it.

We can estimate that at least half of all the workers running the capitalist system would be redundant in a sane society where work would be organised economically solely for the needs of the community. This means that, including the present millions who are unemployed, socialism would more than double the numbers of people available to do useful work. Also, these vastly increased numbers would be free to use and further develop the most advanced techniques of production. All this would add up to a huge increase in our powers of production.

At first, to solve problems, production in socialism would have to be expanded. The priority would be to ensure that every person is comfortably housed and supplied with good quality food of their choice. The construction of a safe world energy system would be another urgent project. The present great differences in the world distribution of machinery, plant and up-to-date production methods would need to be evened out. But with an adequate structure of production in place we can anticipate that in socialism, we would soon be in a position to relax in the necessary work of providing for needs.

The idea of producing enough for the community and then relaxing to enjoy many other kinds of activity which may interest people is impossible under a capitalist system. Capitalist production is not primarily about supplying needs it is about making profit and accumulating capital. It can only work with a constant market pressure to renew its capacity for sales. Under capitalism a surplus of commodities, in excess of market capacity means they cannot be sold for a profit. This can bring about recession, workers thrown out of jobs, governments having to pay out more in doles when strapped for cash trying to finance a reasonable health service, it means companies going bankrupt. It means the whole mad market system being thrown into yet another crisis simply because the goods cannot be sold. These are some of the destructive features of a money-driven economy which is long past its sell-by date.

In socialism, with the abolition of the market, and acting with voluntary co-operation, people will produce goods and distribute them to stores without any of the barriers of buying and selling. The cash tills will disappear, shoppers won't be held up and the operators won't have to do their boring, meaningless jobs.

Enough for Needs

What it also means is that for the production of component parts of machinery or household goods, etc, intense production runs using automated systems could supply not just sufficient components for immediate use but also stocks for anticipated future demand. These could be distributed as and when required and this would be an economical use of production facilities which could then be either shut down until when required again or with different tooling used for other production runs. The important point being that in socialism this could happen without any of the problems and chaos that an oversupply of commodities for the market causes under capitalism.

The idea of having enough for needs and then relaxing to enjoy it is perhaps an echo of the best times had by hunters and gatherers. But this way of life was never viable for larger populations who are compelled to produce what they consume. To begin with, during the advent of farming this inevitably required a lot of hard graft, but with the enormous increase in the powers of labour since then, this is no longer necessary. We can learn other lessons from hunter/gatherers. Until recently the aborigines of Australia held the land in common and co-operated to sustain a way of life that was in balance with their environment and had lasted for at least 40,000 years. The modern world has an urgent need to imitate that example.

To re-establish common ownership and co-operation would in fact revert to relationships which were normal for humanity for the very long period of pre-history. Now, of course, we would enjoy these relationships with all the advantages of modern technology and know-how. But, by being aware of history and the great mistakes of the past we would also be aware of the need to use these powers wisely.

Pieter Lawrence

Out of the Abyss (1999)

Book Review from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The People of the Abyss. By Jack London, Pluto Press, 1998.

First published in 1903, this has now been re-issued as a Pluto Classic, with the 1977 introduction by Jack Lindsay. Lindsay hails The People of the Abyss, along with The Iron Heel (1907), as "the two works in which [London] most fully uttered his socialist faith and integrated his vision". There is no doubt of the horror of his descriptions of life amongst the workers of the East End of London and the powerful impact which his experiences had both on him and on generations of his readers. Upton Sinclair described how "for years afterwards the memories of this stunted and depraved population haunted [London] beyond all peace".

It is as a record of a society polarised between the "sickly and underfed" and the "riotous and rotten" that London's book acquired the reputation of a "socialist classic". The photographs which accompanied the original publication are particularly striking (some of these are reproduced in The Streets of East London by William J Fishman). But to those with more than a passing knowledge of the East End, it is a partial picture. London's aim in writing this book was to focus on the conditions experienced by the homeless, destitute and unemployed. Members of the "respectable" working class featured only in so far as they lived in the constant shadow of destitution.

The result is a portrayal of such unremitting degradation that London (and his contemporary American readership) were unable to bridge the gulf between themselves and those whose lives he described. These became "a noisome rotten tide of humanity", "a menagerie of garmented bipeds that looked something like humans and more like beasts". These are not the phrases of empathy with fellow workers, but of fear and loathing of outcast people. Large sections of the population were not mentioned by London at all, such as the Jewish community in Whitechapel (where he undertook most of his investigations) and the Chinese community in Limehouse. This may have had more than a little to do with London's self-declared racism: "I am first of all a white man, and only then a Socialist". Or not a socialist at all . . .

Furthermore, as an analysis of how to get out of the abyss, the book is on shaky ground. The thread of outrage that runs through the book culminates in a chapter on "The Management" in which London addresses the question of whether "Civilisation bettered the lot of the average man". Despite it having vastly increased "producing power" (the means of generating wealth), civilisation (by which he meant the British Empire) had singularly failed to share this wealth equitably. This was due, he argued, to the criminal mismanagement of the economy by its ruling class. As a consequence, London judged that the slum dwellers of the East End lived in conditions worse than animals, and far worse than did the Inuit people, with whom he was familiar from his travels in Alaska. His conclusion was that "society must be reorganised and a capable management put at its head".

This is weak to say the least, after such a vivid portrait of poverty, and it is certainly not the socialist case. The clearest statement of London's political philosophy emerges from his discussions with the carter and the carpenter. Dismissing their talk of revolution as the talk of "anarchists, fanatics and madmen", he declared an "evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of things". And he reserved his greatest praise, not for any socialist orator or trade unionist, but for Dr Barnardo and his work with the children of the poor (or, "the progeny of the gutter folk"). London's anger and his moral outrage on behalf of the poor were genuine and passionately expressed. He understood the relationship which existed (and still exists) between the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor. He also understood the futility of addressing poverty as an individual failing rather than a social condition. But none of this makes The People of the Abyss a socialist vision, for we will not climb out of the abyss of capitalism by changing the management.

Helen Roberts