Thorneycroft's budget and yours (1957)

Editorial from the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Budgets and Budget speeches follow more or less regular patterns year after year. First it is the deep gloom type—”We are on the brink of disaster and only a desperate effort will save us.” This is normally followed by the “don’t rock the boat” type—"if we keep on a steady course we shall make it”; and a year later by the "let us rejoice, prosperity is round the corner and we can afford a few tax reductions.” In the fourth year it starts again on gloom and disaster.

Thorneycroft and Gaitskell

The budget this year is type number two. The last budget of the Labour Government, introduced by Mr. Gaitskell in April, 1951, was type number 1. It put up income tax, levied another 4½d. a gallon on petrol increased entertainment tax on cinema seats, introduced charges for spectacles and false teeth, and stepped up some purchase tax rates. On the other side it raised the marriage and child allowances for income tax and increased old age pensions from 26s. to 30s. for single persons and from 42s. to 50s. for married couples.

Certain features turn up every year whether the Chancellor is from the Dalton, Cripps, Gaitskell team or from the Tories, Butler, Macmillan, Thomeycroft. One is the eternal nagging of the workers to work harder and not press for higher wages, coupled with the Government's solemn pledge to keep down the cost of living. The other constant feature of budgets is that the Chancellor sorrowfully regrets that his limited resources prevent him from pleasing everybody as he would have liked to do; while the Opposition screams that he has wickedly and wantonly neglected all the really deserving cases and if only they were in office it would be a very different story.

Hope Springs Eternal

By now it might have been expected that budgets would have been seen in their true proportions, but, as the poet Pope wrote 200 years ago, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and every year there is the same wave of excitement and curiosity about what the Chancellor will produce from his little red box. Pope, who was cynical, could have had this budget-fever in mind in his second line, “Man never is, but always to be blessed,” for in truth, for the mass of the population the hope that some day a Chancellor will do something really nice for them is the purest illusion. The little differences that budget policy make one way or the other to them are trivial compared with the worker’s everyday problem of his wages and what they will buy. Governments come and go and budgets let out a little there and take in a little here, but no Government ever urges the workers to fight for higher wages, always the opposite. And the big things go on unchanged from one generation to another. The rich minority still own almost everything that matters in the country we live in. and it is they, as company shareholders, who stand to gain when prices go up and wage increases are denied under the Tory-Labour policy of wage restraint

Low Prices and Low Taxation?

But it must not be thought that because high prices bring their hardship that a remedy could be found in low prices and low taxation. Prices and taxes were far lower before the war than they are now but workers' wages did not buy any more. Each pound note bought more, but there were correspondingly fewer notes in the wage packet. Workers, the great majority of the population, live by selling their energies to an employer and whether prices are high or low the struggle over the selling price (wages or salaries) goes on. The employers, including the boards of the nationalised industries, try always to pay as little as possible. Less interest in the vote-catching manoeuvres of Chancellors and more attention to the struggle for higher wages would be a better attitude for the workers to take. 

Another Social System

But this, though the more fruitful policy, still does not lead anywhere; and that is why the Socialist Party exists. And we must repeat for the benefit of those who do not yet know it that Socialism is quite different from the aim of other organisations. Socialists are not trying to carry out an improved Labour Party programme.

The elements of the problem are simple. Nine people out of ten live frugally and with little to hope for, on wages that never leave any worth-while margin beyond necessities. And the social system we live in does not even produce enough consumer goods to satisfy reasonable human needs; nor will it ever do so. At present the means of production and distribution—land, factories, transport systems, etc., are owned by the propertied minority and used by them to make profit out of the sale of the products. Goods are not produced solely for use but for profit, and national groups, coming into conflict through rivalries about markets and trade routes (like the Suez Canal), and sources of raw material (Middle East oil), are all forced into their costly and inhuman armament schemes and H-bomb tests.

The Socialist aim is to get to the root cause of these evils of poverty and war by changing the basis of the social system so that things would be produced not for sale and profit but solely for the use of mankind. Only by this can war and poverty be abolished, and along with them class and national rivalries and hatreds.

Fantastic! say the thoughtless opponents of Socialism, including supporters of the Labour Party. All great social advances of the past, including the abolition of chattel slavery and serfdom, have appeared to be fantastic until they came about.

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day, 1957. Once more the Party is making a special propaganda effort, this year on Sunday, 5th May. In London there will be several outdoor meetings, and Birmingham, Glasgow and Nottingham will also have afternoon and evening outdoor meetings. A May Day Rally will be held at Denison House. London, in the evening, commencing at 7 p.m., when the speakers will be Comrades Ivimey and Wilmott. Further details of all meetings are elsewhere in this issue.

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Meeting on Strikes. At very short notice the Propaganda Committee arranged a public meeting at Denison House on Sunday, 7th April. Comrades R. Critchfield and J. D’Arcy spoke on “Another General Strike?" Although the audience was not as large as usual at such meetings, the meeting was a lively one and after both speakers had made a contribution, several members of the audience put some good questions and took part in discussion. Some had taken part in the recent strike. A collection of five pounds was taken up during the interval.

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Conference will be over by the time this issue is printed, although the Standard will have gone to the

printers beforehand. Conference news will be reported, therefore, in the June issue.

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The May S.S. Sales Drive. During this month many Branches are undertaking an extensive programme of canvassing the Socialist Standard. Plans are also in hand for a special drive on May Day.

Last year over 6,000 Standards were sold, and this year we are hoping to do even better. All members are especially asked to do all they can to help in canvassing, contacting newsagents, selling at outdoor meetings and by personal contact, etc. The Literature Sales Committee will be pleased to give any further information required.

PLEASE SEE LIST OF CANVASSING ARRANGEMENTS ELSEWHERE IN THIS ISSUE!

Phyllis Howard

Emptying the sea by bucket (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

For those misguided people who like going in for marches, demonstrations, signing petitions and lobbying M.P.s. Capitalism sees to it that they are kept busy, even if they achieve nothing.

The fact is there is so much wrong, so many objectionable things taking place all the time, that the marching enthusiasts are bound to miss quite a lot. Apart from this they suffer from two fatal faults, first the objects of their marching are only effects and do not touch the fundamental cause, secondly, the fundamental cause being the class ownership of the means of production, marching is not the way to remove it.

It must not be taken from the above that demonstrations can serve no purpose of importance to the working-class. As a means of rallying support for wage claims, drawing attention to grievances and mustering a certain amount of solidarity during strikes they are useful. But we are concerned here purely with demonstrations as a means of altering the course of capitalism or eradicating one at a time the problems which arise because of capitalism; even in the sphere of wages etc., the effect is short-lived for the conflict between exploiter and exploited goes on interminably and will do so until the exploited understand Socialism.

One of the many things which happen every day under capitalism was the announcement that plans are being made to make troops carry a drug kit to infect themselves against “the latest poison gases” (Daily Express, January 30th, 1957). How are the reform marchers to approach this particular piece of capitalism's ugliness? It is their way to take it in isolation from the system as a whole, this is the reformist approach to everything, i.e., to seek solutions within capitalism, to housing problems, high rents, redundancy, slumps, poverty and wars each on its own without bothering to find out that all the problems have a common cause and can only be solved not bit by bit, but altogether, by the removal of this cause. Faced with the drug kit as an isolated proposition, would they march for it or against it or would there be a division in their ranks—some marching for, some against? Considering the proposition more closely we find these are the points to be taken into account. First, there is no challenge to the existence of capitalism, so they all accept the need for armies. Then, since it is a fact that nerve gases have been stockpiled, which do they prefer, troops to go unprotected against these deadly gases or do they submit to the need for soldiers to carry "a dangerous dose of the drug belladona?” Of course, outraged by our criticism, our marching reformers might shout “ban the gases and the drugs” (there’s a nice slogan for them), but what of the efforts to ban the "A” and "H” bombs? The turbulent sea of capitalism floods in upon them. If this or that weapon were "banned” there is no way of guaranteeing it would not be used, for the politicians who can "justify” their production can surely "justify” their use on any number of pretences. And even without “A” and “H” bombs and nerve gases the workers of the world could have a glorious time slaughtering each other by millions with "conventional” weapons of all kinds.

Within capitalism what can be done? The answer is bluntly that, squirm as they may, while the world remains under the present system, the workers will continue to bear the brunt of it.

While cancer and polio research still rely on voluntary contributions, scientists like Penny are designing "H” bombs, and Dr. H. Cullumbins, one of the chief scientists of the Chemical Defence Station at Parton, had this to say about the effects of the drug injections: "A large proportion of the men may collapse and the military efficiency of the remainder may be negligible, especially in hot conditions. But that is preferable to death from nerve gas poisoning."

From our standpoint as Socialists, taking the interests of the world working-class as our guide, there is no proposition which simply involves re-arranging capitalism that can make one arrangement "preferable" to another. Whatever the arrangement, the workers are going to continue being exploited for the profit of an idle class, insecurity will continue to be the lot of the useful, crises will continue to arise while commodity production, world markets and profits remain, and wars with all this bestiality will continue to arise. It therefore remains that the one object of any real use that the world's workers should devote their efforts to, is the establishment of Socialism. This means they must understand that capitalism cannot be made to work in their interests by adjustments here and there. From this understanding they must build the political organisation to send delegates to Parliament for the task of making the means of production common-property so that society can then proceed from this basis of a classless world to organise production for use and eliminate all wasteful and harmful production, so that mankind in peace eternal be able to enjoy the fruits of their labours to the full.

Harry Baldwin

50 Years Ago: The Significance of May Day (1957)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The First of May of our own times is in direct contrast to the May-day of old. The old festival had an organic connection with the daily work of the people. The old games, the decorations of greenery and flowers, the bringing home of the May; these reflected the joy of all at the awakening of nature, at the promise of the crops to come, and at the growing light and warmth of the season. To-day, however, agriculture has ceased to occupy the premier place and is consequently no longer reflected in the holidays of the people . . . agriculture itself is, indeed, with intensive culture and the growing use of machinery, fast becoming an industry. The increase in culture under shelter and the rapidity of communication with other climes also diminish greatly the importance of the seasons, and tend to complete the change wrought by the rise of manufacture in the significance of the First of May.

The First of May, though nearly all its old associations are for ever lost, has now a new and deeper meaning. It comes to the toilers as seed time for the harvest to come; a seed time of fraternity and organisation with their fellows, for the harvest of deliverance from wage slavery. May-day yet retains a portion of its old significance; it is still a festival of the people, of those who work . . .

The First of May is, then, a worker’s festival, a pledge of fraternity and internationalism, an awakening to the social mission of the working class.

[From the Socialist Standard, May 1907.]

Strikes, Strikes, and More Strikes (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

When are people going to fully realise that the old ruling class stunt of “Divide and Rule” is operating today—much more fully than it ever did in years gone by?

The train driver gets his mean and petty one, five, or perhaps ten shillings more than his fireman; and for this he sells his peace of mind. They can hardly be comrades, under these conditions.

According to the News Chronicle of March 21st, 1957, the “Queen Mary” sailed at 1.35 a.m. She was permitted to do this, ONLY BY THE HELP OF ONE SECTION OF THE WORKING CLASS whilst another section said: “No. She must not sail.”

Why, oh why do not workers realise that, while they back a profit, or money system, this sort of action is, and will be in order? The men operating the tugs will doubtless be “sent to Coventry” or “blacked” in one way or another. The whole business is utterly stupid, when the answer is so clear, if workers would only accept clear-cut thinking, by themselves, for themselves.

The miners gain a temporary advantage over the transport operators, or dock workers, so temporary that, by the end of a year, the whole business of strikes starts again. Money, more Money, and still more Money, is needed, to try to keep up with the cost of living.

Money. Some workers are now being paid with £5 notes; pay envelopes have to be made larger and larger. We may soon require a sack to take the wages home to the wife—and still she will look at it, and wonder if there is enough to buy little Johnny a new coat.

One thing is abundantly clear, when you study the world around you—your wages, salaries, fees, commissions, or whatever you call them, are the price of your labour power. Though you must struggle to increase them, they will never represent more than a meagre standard of living, compared with what will be possible when we decide to run the world by civilised standards.

Your masters will struggle with you over a few shillings more or less per week. Then, when you have gained your point, they may let the purchasing power of the £ fall, or devalue it deliberately, as they did by 40 per cent. in September, 1949. They know that, whilst you are struggling to make ends meet, and to gain a “victory” of a few more shillings, you will not be devoting your attention to a study of Capitalism itself—the economic system that keeps you poor in a world of potential plenty.

When are you going to change your approach to this international social scandal? It is no use leaving it to your masters, or to those members of the Labour, Liberal, Tory, or Communist Parties, who are committed to the maintenance of Capitalism, in one form or another. (Whatever form it takes, it will still keep you—the majority, poor).

We, the working class, now run the world for the benefit of the Capitalist class. Why not run it for ourselves? The leaders who are constantly exhorting or cajoling you, are not beings with superior brains. One comes to quite the opposite conclusion when one studies their words and actions’ carefully. It soon becomes obvious, however, that they are merely performing actions, and saying things that reflect the needs of the Capitalist class.

We, the working class, with our wages, salaries, fees, and commissions, are really quite clever. We run a complicated, world-wide economic system, from top to bottom. But then we cease to be clever. We give the bulk of the wealth we create and distribute to the small minority who own the means of wealth production—the land, factories, railways, etc.

Friends, let us be really clever, and make a study of the social system under which we live. Let us all discover what a pleasant world to live in this can be, if we give leaders of all types the sack, and start producing wealth for the benefit of all mankind, instead of the profit of a few.

Contact your local Socialist Party Branch, and join their Discussion Group. Knowledge is the answer— knowledge of our present economic system. Then, and then only, can we change it, to the advantage of all.

When we say “Socialist Party” we mean just that. The Labour Party and Communist Party will use pseudo-Socialist language, but they do not stand for Socialism— merely the reform, or adjustment, in some way or another, of the Capitalist system. You cannot reform a bad egg —you throw it in the dustbin. The same applies to Capitalism—it will never be of any use to you.

E. L. McKone

Should Irish Workers Support the I.R.A.? (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the recurrence of I.R.A. activity, attention is again focussed on the “Irish Question.” The familiar tragedy of young workers dying for “The Cause” is again being re-enacted.

There are those who would tell us that as Irish workers we must be in the vanguard of the “National Struggle.” Coming from the I.R.A. this means that we should join that organisation, procure arms, and train ourselves in their use. If called on, they say, we will attack the armed hirelings of the State, regardless of whether or not we fall in the fray, dangle on the hangman’s rope, or find ourselves condemned to long years of imprisonment. The militant Republican assures us that we owe it to “our” country; that we must be prepared to sacrifice everything for “The Cause.”

Now if a man considers “The Cause” (either that of the “Republic” or of “Ulster”), to be worthy of his, or his comrades’, blood, then surely its social implications, in relation to the position in society of its protagonists, must warrant much careful consideration.

To think rationally on these matters it is necessary at the outset, to divest ourselves of all will-o-the-wisp notions; all airy legends of the past. We must leave the mythical Ireland of Echoing Glensides and green-clad columns of valiant men, and return to the earthy Ireland of a million-odd slum-dwellers, of 130,000 unemployed, of mass immigration, of T.B. and other poverty-diseases, and of thousands be-devilled by the candour of their wage-packets.

Yes, fellow-workers, this is the Ireland we know; surely the logical starting-point for our researches.

The Real Struggle

Our purpose is to show both the “Nationalist” worker, and his “Unionist” counterpart, that the struggle “for” or “against” the Border does not materially affect his lot as a worker; that the “freedom” much-talked of on both sides, is but the right of a minority class (the Capitalists) to exploit the mass of the people. We would make bold to assert that the Border is but the bastard child of the sectional interests of Capitalism in this country, and that the real struggle of the workers, in Ireland, North and South—as elsewhere in the world— should be against that more evil border that divides the workers from the Capitalists.

Sinn-Fein

To the Republican, Sinn-Fein are hallowed words, indeed; but the workers of Ireland have nothing for which to revere this organisation. It is worthy of note that when formed in 1905 its demands went no further than the claim for recognition of Ireland as a separate Kingdom, hereditary to the British Crown, with “King, Lords and Commons for Ireland.”

Sinn-Fein represents the demands of Irish Capitalism, and the primary purpose of its struggle was to free the native Capitalist class from the yoke of its English competitors. It is true that lip-service was paid to a “National Re-awaking,” but dare our masters ever reveal their true intent?

In the bitter struggle which raged in Ireland in the years 1919—1922 the workers, as always, were called upon to give their blood in the cause of “Mother Ireland!” With the culmination of that struggle, and the ensuing Civil War, the Irish worker was faced again with the reality of existence under Capitalism. On public buildings, police barracks, etc., the Tricolour proudly fluttered, and street names began to appear in Irish. The lot of the wage-slave, however, was no better than before— even if he was a hero-returned. The proud Tricolour flying over the Labour Exchanges was cold comfort to the mass of unemployed workers. The Irish and British Capitalists still loafed idly on the profit, rent and interest, extracted from the Irish workers.

Some will assert that, at least, the British Army had been driven from part of the national territory; certainly the Irish farm workers of the period, who went on strike for better wages and living conditions, knew this to be true—for it was the new Irish Army which the new Irish Government used against them!

Yes, the British were gone; but they were not too long out of Dublin when the new Irish Postmaster-General called on them to send “blacklegs” to help him break the strike of Post Office workers in 1922.

We have not digressed on the “principle” of “freedom”; neither, we are sure, did the thousands of unemployed in 1926 when they heard “their” Irish Government disown them with the callous declaration that unemployment was no concern of the State.

It is true that the sea-green incorruptibles among the Republicans maintained that this was but mock freedom. Their indignation, however, was not because the lot of the worker was as before, but because the Six Ulster Counties were still “unfree.”

They need not have worried, for though the workers of Northern Ireland still existed under the Union Jack, their conditions were similar to those of their class-brothers in the new Irish Free State. The record of both States, and their respective Governments, is one of callous disdain for the lot of the working-class. Both are the handmaidens of Capitalism, and are, consequently, bent to the will of Capital.

The Lot of the Worker

The life of a worker, after he has received whatever education Capitalism deems necessary to equip him as an efficient wage-slave, starts with the search for a job. In Ireland, North and South, with an aggregate total of 130,000 unemployed, this is no mean task, indeed! In most instances the childhood dream of “…. I’m going to be—when I grow up” goes by the board (unless the child, for morbid reasons, wants to be a policeman—for which there seems to be a constant demand in Ireland!). Capitalism does not cater to our talents, much less our whims.

On finding a job the young worker becomes acquainted with the reality of the class-struggle: on the one side the Masters with the porridge—on the other the Olivers, perpetually with just enough to “keep body and soul together,” and only occasionally with enough courage to ask for more.

Whether you are paid wages or salary, you depend for your living upon selling your mental and physical abilities to an employer. There exists a constant struggle between you and your employer over your wages and conditions. Never would you dare to think that as wealth is produced from the resources of nature, by the application of human labour-power, it should wholly belong to those who, as a social class, produce it.

In other words, you accept the class ownership of society; you are prepared to let a minority class (the CAPITALISTS) own and control the means whereby you live. As a consequence of their favoured position these Capitalists can live in any part of the world they choose; they can sell, barter, or gamble away, the VERY MEANS WHEREBY YOU LIVE, AND THE NATIONALITY OF THE NEW OWNER IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Such an economic set-up makes nonsense of the claims made by Republicans, Unionists, or any other political party, that the people can control their own destinies, by raising this flag, or lowering that. The problems that beset us in Ireland to-day do not originate in our capacity for colour appreciation, in the qualities of Green and Orange. They are problems inherent in the Capitalist system—that system which has the blessing of both Governments in Ireland; that system which would continue to afflict us if the I.R.A. concluded a successful struggle to-morrow.

The Socialist Solution

In Ireland, North and South, we live to-day within the framework of the Capitalist system, and this decadent system would still obtain if we lived in an All-Ireland Republic. “Freedom” for the broad masses of the people, under Capitalism, is but the freedom to choose between wage-slavery and starvation. The English, French, American or Russian workers, with “their own” national governments, are no more free than we in Ireland. Capitalism, with its wages-system, and its class structure, is the common enemy; our common weapon is Socialist knowledge.

To us of the working-class, Capitalism means the continuation of all the rotten, miserable conditions under which the mass of the people suffer. No amount of reforming can change the basic nature of the system, and its effects are not mollified by a flag. It matters not which party administers Capitalism, whether it is Republican, Unionist, Labour or Communist. Each may apply the screw of policy; bless it, curse it, nationalise or de-centralise; the effects, as far as the working-class are concerned, are the same—poverty, insecurity, slums, ignorance, depressions, and wars.

We Socialists affirm that there is but one solution to the problems confronting the working-class; that solution is SOCIALISM. By Socialism we mean the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production (the factories, land, mills, mines, transport, etc.), by, and in the interests of, the whole community, without any distinction whatsoever. No wages system, no exchange, no buying and selling, but instead, the application of the principle; from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs. That is Socialism, and the way out for the workers of Ireland, and the world.

When Can We Have Socialism?

One of the objective conditions necessary to the establishment of Socialism already exists; viz., the development of the machinery of production to the point necessary for supplying the needs of humanity in a free society. The second objective condition depends on us of the working-class: it is a readiness to understand the social implications of Socialism, to accept them, and consequently, desire to make the change to a Socialist society.

And when we do desire to make the change, NO POWER IN THE WORLD CAN STOP US!

Richard Montague

Is Capitalism Really Changing? (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the parties of reform cannot call the tune to Capitalism they can at least call it by fancy names. Tories and Liberals rather like the sound of “The People’s State,” “Progressive Industrialism,” or simply “The Welfare State.” With unconscious irony the Labour Party in this never-never or hire purchase age, refer to it as yet a further instalment towards getting Socialism, while the ingredients for their recipes are the same each rival party seeks to sell its programme as a proprietary brand and the label assumes greater significance than the contents. Word magic then becomes an essential feature of political art and future historians may note that the differences among the reform parties were at bottom semantic differences.

Last Days of Pompeii

Mr. Strachey’s book, Contemporary Capitalism, is yet another verbal variation of the current situation. Dramatically he names it, the last stage of capitalism. For all its relevance to actuality he could have called it. “The Last Days of Pompeii.” Mr. Strachey deals with capitalism in terms of its symptoms, not the malady; which is as futile as a physician treating measles in terms of its spots or malaria in terms of its shudders and shivers.

Mr. Strachey in diagnosing the body politic and economic discovers by certain signs that capitalism has changed, is changing, and will continue to change—for the better. Mr. Strachey lists the signs as evidence for this, in the separation of ownership from management—which we shall deal with in a separate article—the increase in State activity, the appearance of the Welfare State and even the new method of setting out the national accounts. If all this is coupled with the atrophy of competition, which, says Mr. Strachey, is the essential regulating and controlling mechanism of capitalism, then a new kind of capitalism is being produced. A new kind of capitalism which in Mr. Strachey’s view, it will in the foreseeable future be an abuse of language to call capitalism. It is the ending of what he calls unrestricted competition that is the basis of, to use another term of his, the mutation of capitalism.

Capitalism and Competition

Mr. Strachey by treating competition as the essence of capitalism is able by invincible logic to establish the proposition that as unrestricted competition is no longer with us, neither is capitalism, or at least only its last stage. The weakness of identifying capitalism with laissez-faire, i.e., individualistic competition and an absolute minimum of State interference in industry is that such a state of affairs corresponded only with the coming to maturity of English capitalism, while the development of capitalism in England went through a “free trade” phase, in the U.S.A. it went through an opposite phase—protection again in Germany, Japan, Italy, etc., the early stages of capitalism so widely departed from the classic English development as to say that a laissez-faire free trade capitalism was peculiar to, England. We might add that Soviet capitalism has never known anything remotely connected with laissez-faire.

What can be said is that laissez-faire and free trade were components of 19th century capitalist ideology, but its actual economic practice only came into operation under certain conditions. Also, if trusts, cartels, etc., are à la Mr. Strachey, evidence of a last stage capitalism, then U.S. and German capitalism must have come to it in the alleged traditional fashion of the Chinese by going through the last stage first, for such things were features of the early capitalist development of the above countries.

On historical and factual grounds it can be shown that individualistic competition and non-intervention by the State in matters industrial, although they corresponded to the growth of English capitalism were not features basic to the maturing of capitalism elsewhere. Laissez-faire and capitalism cannot then be regarded as synonymous terms. Even on purely logical grounds Mr. Strachey is guilty of a howler unpardonable in a high school student. Thus, if there is a last stage monopoly capitalism and a first stage competitive capitalism, and the species is still extant and recognisable, then competition cannot be the essence of capitalism. There must be some basic factor common to both stages.

The Nature of Capitalism

What that basic common factor is. Mr. Strachey never really attempts to explain. The nearest he gets to it is a casual observation (page 92) that “Marx showed that wealth is not due to capitalist abstinence but wealth and capital accumulate because workers produce much more than they consume.” But this does not tell us what makes capitalism tick or show its essential differences from other exploitative social systems.

It is not that the worker merely produces a value over and above his own upkeep—surplus value, but that this surplus value constitutes the warp and woof of capital accumulation, and it is capital accumulation on an ever-expanding scale which is the dominant objective of the owners of capital. For capitalists the most essential thing is the magnitude of capital under their control and its most desirable characteristic the ability to expand indefinitely. The fundamental urge of capitalist society is the same now as it was in all its yesteryears.

Nor is capitalism crucially altered because owners of capital fight in the massive formation of firms, corporations and cartels instead of rushing into battle single-handed with the cut-throat sword of naked competition, as was the wont of their early and mid 19th century counterparts. Capitalism is still a battleground of rival concerns, each trying to obtain the greatest possible spoils in their efforts to realise the greatest amount of surplus value for themselves. It is true that Agincourt was fought with bows and arrows and armed horsemen, but it was no less a battle than Stalingrad, which was fought with tanks and high explosives.

Capital accumulations have not ceased

If capital accumulation is the cardinal feature of capitalist society, then it is precisely here that Mr. Strachey should have directed his efforts, to show that capitalism is changing in some significant way. He should have sought to reveal that accumulation of wealth is no longer capital accumulation, but becoming social accumulation and that the means and instruments of wealth production are ceasing to become capital, that is, means of exploitation in the hands of individuals or groups of individuals, but were in the process of being invested in the democratic control of the community. If Mr. Strachey could have demonstrated this, then he surely would have proved that when he states that capitalism has undergone a mutation he is using the word in its correct sense. On the contrary, Mr. Strachey implicitly and at times explicitly shows that wealth accumulation still takes the form of capital accumulation.

Nor are the compulsions of capitalism any less compulsive than they were in the 19th century. The process of capital accumulation is not something over which capitalists can exercise a personal choice, to ignore it would be to invite elimination from the ranks of the owners of capital. Capitalists, and here we include management, although they are agents of capital, are not free agents. Capital is an historically conditioned form of wealth, expressed in the class ownership of the means of production and for that reason the motive and aims of the owners of capital are prescribed for them by this form of control. It is in the light of this that we are to understand Marx’s statement when he says in the preface to volume one of Capital that “he treats of landlord and capitalist as personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and interests.”

Because reformist policies are themselves, the outcome and implementation of capitalist development the political parties in order to justify their existence seek to rationalise this development in terms of significant changes. But it is a mistake to suppose that development as such is synonymous with change in some transformative sense. Muscles may be developed, but they are still muscles. A plant may in its life cycle undergo change of form, but it is subject to an intrinsic pattern of development. Capitalist development may modify certain features of the system, but it does not alter the essential nature of the beast, any more than sawing off the legs of a Wolfhound if it were possible would make it a Daschund. It would still remain a Wolfhound with short legs.

The acid test of Reformism

It is because the conversion of capital accumulation of wealth to social accumulation provides the acid test to any genuine change in society that Mr. Strachey’s political litmus paper not only fails to turn red, but even parlour pink. In Mr. Strachey’s future society there will still be class ownership of the instruments of production and hence accumulation will continue to be capital accumulation. What will be necessary will be that the rate of investment must be kept as high as possible and in that case Mr. Strachey sees no objection why the economic mechanism cannot be left in private hands. Since, says the arch-revolutionary Strachey, the owners of the means of production or management cannot be ordered they must be induced not to let the level of investment drop. This can be achieved by public works investment and a whiff of inflation.

In Mr. Strachey’s social mutation there will still exist all the characteristics of the old species, capital accumulation, private ownership, profits and wages. And so the more capitalism is changed the more it is like the same thing—only even more so.

Mr. Strachey, a little self-conscious, perhaps, that his mutation looks suspiciously like the old species writ large, implies that owners and management are becoming socialistic because the profit motive is today not the only motive. But if profits are not made owners and those who constitute management will go out of business. For capitalism it remains the golden rule of success and capitalists must play the game in accordance with that rule. Whatever other motives inspire the entrepreneur they are all subordinated to that one and whatever other rules are broken that one is the one which they can least afford to break.

We are all Socialists now

Mr. Strachey puts forward the threadbare apologia that those who direct and control investment do or can play a useful social role. That their job is one of those specialised jobs they do on behalf of the community and in taking profits they are merely being recompensed for their trouble like any other workers. No doubt under Mr. Strachey’s future economy, capitalists will murmur with pride and equanimity, “We are all Socialists now.”

Competition as fierce as ever

Mr. Strachey, who in the matter of politics is the best second-hand dealer in the business, offers the commonplace of fifty years economic theory that competition has declined. It is an over-simplification amounting to falsification to say that price competition between the bigger concerns no longer operates. There are periods in various spheres where price stabilisation is achieved by agreements, but such agreements are temporary in character and have been broken time and time again, and so far as cartels being something new in capitalism they are almost as old as capitalism itself. In fact, the history of capitalism is replete with cartels, both national and international, coming together and falling apart.

Sometimes the conditions of the markets are such that price competition has to be resorted to. When the battle has reached exhausting limits, non-price competition, i.e. selling agencies and advertising take its place. But the antagonism between rival producers is as fierce as ever. Price competition or non-price competition are then merely forms of social antagonism inseparable from such a society as capitalism.

For someone who cannot define capitalism it is hardly to be expected that he can define Socialism. And this turns out to be so when Mr. Strachey gravely utters the nonsense that the outstanding difference between last stage capitalism and Communist societies is political rather than economic. It is the difference between democracy and dictatorship. On such a classification, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Argentine, and even Spain, are nearer to “Socialism” than England.

One can only say in conclusion that the height of Mr. Strachey’s absurdity is equalled only by the depth of his ignorance.

Ted Wilmott

This World of Violence and Cruelty (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are politicians in every land who tell their Parliaments and peoples that they can see a bright future before the country; and millions of ordinary men and women who go on with their jobs and their family concerns believing it to be true. The politicians talk like this, whether or not they have confidence in their own words, because it is expected of them, it is their trade. And the millions who accept it at face value do so because they know no better and because they trust their politicians. But anyone who reads and thinks about world affairs knows that it is an uncertain hope, not a probability. They know that the governments are desperately preparing for the possibility of a third world war that would, if the latest scientific weapons are used, destroy great cities and centres of industry, and lay waste whole countrysides with unheard of loss of life.

Those who know this react in different ways. Some give way to despair, others resign themselves to what seems to them to be unavoidable. Others again put what trust they can conjure up in United Nations or in political parties or religious bodies that preach peace in a tormented world.

The solution to be aimed at

The kind of solution that must be found if the human race is to find security, and civilisation is to survive, has been seen more or less clearly by many people. The solution must include the abolition of armaments and war and the peoples of the different nations, large and small, must leant how to live peaceably together. So far so good, but how is this to be brought about? Clearly the mere holding of international conferences and the making of speeches in favour of peace is not enough. We have had them in plenty for a long time and the hatreds and tensions only become worse. What, then, is the nature of the problem? Is it one that will respond to appeals to men's good nature and humanitarian sentiments, and their “sense of justice"? The answer has to be an emphatic no, for the evils and cruelties are not in the main perpetrated by consciously or wantonly evil and cruel men, but by people who believe their motives to be above reproach and who find themselves forced into actions they deplore by forces beyond their control. When war breaks out those who carry out the orders to kill and destroy feel fully justified by their patriotism and their belief that they are fighting for their country[s survival against the aggression of the enemy. Patriotism for them justifies and ennobles every vile action.

The first step to understanding the problem is to face up to the fact that the mass of people in the “enemy” countries feel themselves to be just as fully justified in their patriotism. All the warring armies and peoples believe they are fighting in a just cause. How, then, are they to be reconciled? Can it be done, as some believe, by individuals preaching reconciliation and non-violence ?

The Case of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi was an individual who became known universally as a believer in non-violence. With some back-slidings but with a large measure of consistency, he tried to persuade the Indian independence movement to accept his teachings and he cherished the belief that by so doing they would build up a nation that would be an example to all and in particular to Western civilisation, with its trust in armed force. Before his death by assassination he was to see India divided into two countries facing each other at war over Kashmir. He who had hoped his fellow-countrymen would accept his view that "a society’s civilisation should not be judged by its power over the forces of nature, nor by the power of its literature and art, but by the gentleness and kindness of its members towards all living things,” was to confess his failure. Not many months before he died he said: “There was a time when India listened to me. To-day I am a back number. I have no place in the new order where they want an army, a navy and an air force, and what not I can never be a party to all that.”—(Times, 29/9/1947.)

Why it Failed

Gandhi and those who shared his illusions may not have understood why he failed, but Socialists understand it. The reason can be found in a circumstance that he, in his blindness, regarded as an incidental, of no importance. His speeches were full of talk about an India of peasants and handicraftsmen, but his movement was mainly financed by Indian “big business.” He thought he was doing one thing but his movement and its capitalist backers were in fact doing something else; they were making India into a great capitalist State, to take its place alongside the other capitalist powers. Western and Eastern, America, Britain, Russia, and the rest. His was a beautiful dream that other men used for their grim reality.

Capitalism—enemy of the human race

Capitalism must have armies and navies and air forces and the nationalism and patriotism that go with them. Capitalism cannot disarm, and while the world remains capitalist there can be no peace and no reconciliation between the nations. Preaching "non-violence" and “universal justice” in a capitalist world is useless because all who accept capitalism—most of them without having started to recognise what sort of thing it is—are firmly convinced that the trading activities of their own particular country are thoroughly right and necessary. They no more think of questioning the efforts of their own government to capture overseas markets, hold strategic territories and trade routes and acquire sources of raw materials, than they question the internal trading activities and rivalries of manufacturing companies.

The Solution—Socialism

The Socialist questions and condemns them all; they are all part of the capitalist social system that Socialists aim to replace by Socialism.

Capitalism rests on the basic fact of the exploitation of man by man. of the working class by the capitalist class. Rent, interest and profit, all forms of income from property ownership, are the proceeds of the “legalised robbery" of the wage and salary earning class that produces the wealth of the world for others to own. International competition that leads to war between the nations is an inevitable product of world capitalism, which in turn rests on class division and class struggle within the nations.

All who want to rid the world of war and cruelty, want and insecurity, must turn their thoughts and efforts to international action to rid the world of the social system known as capitalism, a system that has outlived its usefulness to mankind and the continuance of which now threatens the very existence of the human race. 

Edgar Hardcastle

Odds and Ends: The Workers’ Paradise in Russia (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Workers’ Paradise in Russia

When a Communist or Communist-dominated delegation visits the Soviet Union they generally publish a report containing much praise and wonderment at the marvels of the Moscow Underground, the Kremlin Palace, the Church of St. Basil, and the new Moscow University building; but they say very little about the life—and living conditions—of the ordinary workers and peasants of Russia. When a non-Communist delegation visits the Soviet Union the position is often reversed.

Last year an official Mineworkers’ delegation went to Russia. They have just published their report, summarised in the Manchester Guardian (15/3/57). They visited Moscow and a number of other towns, where they found that “an average of sixteen people are housed in a living space equal to a British council house.”

They report that hours of work exceed those worked in the mining industry in Britain; and “women in the Soviet Union are in many cases required to do work that is the hardest of manual work—to work in the pits, to do the heaviest types of jobs, including the handling of heavy materials and the mixing of concrete on the surface.”

And this the Communists call “Socialism.” Some Socialism!

Smash ’em up!

Socialists have always claimed that things are not produced to satisfy people’s needs, or to last long—if it can be helped. Most things today are cheap and shoddy. But if it was not for the fact that things are produced primarily for profit, some things if desired, could last virtually for ever. For example. The New Scientist (14/3/57) brings us an interesting story about glass—and tableware.

A leading glass manufacturer is producing some tableware which is very strong: plates can be crashed together like cymbals, and nails knocked into wood with the bottom of a glass with little or no damage done. But, continues the New Scientist, even stronger glasses and plates could be produced. But this would be uneconomical for the producers.

During the last war drinking glasses used by the American marines had a life of only seven trips to and from the kitchen. A specially strengthened glass was then produced which lasted nearly one hundred trips. But, alas, the manufacturers found this unprofitable. Eventually, a glass was made toughened only round the rim which lasted an average of twenty-three trips. Such are the workings of our present society. A sane society would produce glassware—and everything else—solely for people's use. because they wanted it; and only the best would be made.

The Perversion of Science

It has often been claimed that scientific discovery and development is misused and perverted in our modern capitalist society. The following passage from The New Scientist (14/3/57) bears this out.

  "In Europe, the search for better navigational methods arose from the desire for trading and from the warfare that ensued. Harrison's famous chronometer, which he perfected in the eighteenth century, was made in order to win an Admiralty prize of £20,000 for a method of determining longitude at sea. Even today progress in navigation is usually to meet military needs, and now it is the development of guided missiles which is throwing up the commercial navigation of the future."

Calypsos Next?

According to the people who are supposed to know—in Archer Street and Fleet Street—Rock 'n' Roll is on the way out, and the Calypso is in. But, so far, those who have cashed in on “Rock”—Tommy Steele, Winnie Atwell and others—are still “coining the loot,” and very few Calypsos have been heard yet on the radio. This writer does not think that the Calypso will be such a money-maker as Rock Y Roll with its simpler beat and lyric, its noise and gimmicks. Anyway, if the Calypso is going to take the place of Rock 'n' Roll it will have to be “cleaned up” a bit, since many of its lyrics are hardly suitable for the B.B.C., or the record companies. For example, “Chinese Children Calling Me Daddy”:—

“Since I am small I am living with women
And all I can get from them is false children.
Some with blue eyes and some like Chinese,
Any kind of child my girl make she stick me.
But I'm waiting on her patiently.
Its about ten months now she aim't kissed me.
And you know the bold-faced woman is telling me.
Any kind of child that born in my house. I'm the daddy.
I'm so ashamed I don't tell nobody
Chinese children calling me daddy.
You know my mother does want to beat me when
Chinese children calling me daddy.
For I black as jet and she just like Tar Baby, still
Chinese children calling me daddy.
Left, right, in front and behind,
Chinese children calling me daddy. ”

For the time being it looks as though we shall be stuck with Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog or Bill Haley's Don't Knock the Rock. There's more money in it; and it won't upset anyone's moral susceptibilities!

The Church and Socialism

In Britain only about 10 per cent. of the population regularly go to Church, although many more say they believe in some sort of a god or Creator, whereas in the United States about 60 per cent. are Churchgoers. The American workers, it seems, are more superstitious than their British counterparts. But even in Britain, one Church—the Catholic Church—claims 3,000,000 members (including the backsliders?). All the various Christian churches and sects oppose Socialism, but the Catholic Church is possibly the most vociferous in its opposition (and misrepresentation) of Socialism.

In a pamphlet called Socialisation, and “published with the authority of the Archbishop and Bishops of the Catholic Church of Australia,” we are told that “Socialism, in its strict sense, is a theory which advocates that the State should take over and operate the entire machinery of production, distribution and exchange.” That this statement is a complete lie from beginning to end does not worry our Catholic Bishops and Archbishops. For the information of any Catholic who may read this column, Socialism means the common possession of the means of life; an absence of a state apparatus, and no machinery, or means of exchange.

Man will no longer pray for his daily bread; he will just make it and consume what he requires!

It is not only the Catholic Church which propagates the figment that State ownership of the means of production is Socialism. Political parties, such as the Labour and Communist Parties, also make the same claim. The Communist Party, which, when it suits, boasts of its support of the theories of Marx and Engels, is perhaps the most shamefaced. For did not Engels explode this hoary old idea for all to read. In his book, Socialism : Utopian and Scientific (which all workers should read), he writes:—

   "But the transformation . . .  into State ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. . . . The modem State, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers—proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution” (pp. 71-72)

With the establishment of Socialism the State dies out. “State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and by the conduct of processes of production” (pp. 76-77).

Peter E. Newell

He joined the wrong army (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

No medals, glory, and a brilliant army career for poor George Christopher Grice (26), of Acton—be joined the wrong army. He was once a member of the Irish Republican Army, and for harbouring some ammunition in his room he was recently sentenced at Middlesex Sessions to twelve months' incarceration in one of Her Majesty’s prisons (Manchester Guardian, 15/3/57).

This unfortunate erstwhile (irregular) soldier was obviously unaware of the benefits of being a member of the (Regular) British Army, whose manifold attractions are amply depicted in a splendid full-page advertisement in the Manchester Guardian, (26/2/57). A list of these attractions (including a good salary and prospects, plenty of travel, and opportunities for sport—blood sports, no doubt) are suitably embellished by an enormous picture of an exploding atom bomb to stress the peaceful nature of army life. Had Mr. Grice seen this advert his future career might have taken a more profitable turn: for instance, the advert, assures us that if he were exceptional (doubtful, we fear, in view of his inability to conceal a paltry collection of bullets successfully) there would be nothing between him and a Field Marshal’s baton. Furthermore, as a subaltern in his first regimental duty, be would "probably be in charge of 40 men and some thousands of pounds worth of equipment." This makes the grenade and the box containing 26 rounds of .32 ammunition that were found in his room look pretty small-time.

But Mr. Grice does not seem to have been a very steel-hearted soldier—he left the I.RA in January, 1955, because, according to the Manchester Guardian, "he did not agree with the violent side of I.R.A. activities." Mr. Cassell (the prosecuting counsel) was quick to comment on this pacifist (and if we may say so, typically Irish) attitude to army life by asking Mr. Grice, “There is no point in having an army unless it is going to fight, is there?" Perhaps Mr. Cassell had also missed the army advert (It is headed PLAY A LEADING PART IN KEEPING WORLD PEACE) which states that if you join the Regular Army “you are declaring that you are prepared actively to help maintain peace." In other words, the army will ensure peace even if it has to use the H-bomb in the process. Clear? Pursuing this peaceful theme, the advert declares that the armed forces of the Western nations form "a weighty stabilising influence in a world disturbed by -isms and -ologies" (capitalism and theology, for instance?), and if you join the British Army "you work for the continued existence of the British way of life." We would add that with explosives such as are depicted in the advert., you would also contribute notably to the British way of death.

Mr. Grice’s unfortunate choice of armies was further highlighted by the chairman of the magistrates who presided over his trial. Had he joined the British Army, Mr. Grice would have had access to all kinds of beautiful weapons (the advert mentions guided missiles); but he chose a less well organised outfit, whose relations with the British Government, moreover, are strained to say the least. Hence the chairman told Mr. Grice “bullets are for killing, and the one thing we have got to ensure in this country is that bullets are not obtained. People are dying daily because misguided young men like you collect bullets I and let them off." In case any reader gets the impression that the chairman’s statement is a piece of strong pacifist propaganda, we would hazard that it is mainly directed against people in those organisations which oppose the British state machine (the Cypriot "terrorists," Mau Mau, for example): For, under different circumstances, did not the British government arrange for arms and ammunition to be parachuted to the Maquis and other resistance groups during the late war to encourage their guerrilla struggles against enemy forces? It all depends on which side you’re on, and poor Mr. Grice backed a loser.

But perhaps there are drawbacks to joining any army. As Mr. Cassell said, there is no point in having an army unless it’s going to fight, and Mr. Grice’s father said in the witness-box: “I put down this lad’s downfall to the war, when I was away."

Amid this welter of contradictions, the Socialist message stands out clearly. Grice and millions of other young men of the working-class throughout the world are wasting their time and causing themselves untold suffering by supporting their various capitalist groups however attractively the different military needs are cloaked in propaganda to pander to nationalist prejudices. We urge the Grices of the world to give earnest consideration to the case for Socialism the only hope for world peace and the future of mankind.

Michael La Touche

How To Attract Workers . . . By a Steel Magnate (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Steel and tinplate manufacturing in S. Wales has travelled a long way from those early times when the densely wooded valleys resounded with the blow of the hammering forges busily flattening iron into plates to the continuous strip rolling mill of today. Then the industry was in the hands of small private owners, today it has emerged into a mammoth combine employing tens of thousands of workers. Through it all, the role of the worker has remained the same. Despite changes in processes—from charcoal to coke; Bessemer to Semens; hammer to rolls; dipping to electrolytic tinning —the workers status is still that of one who owns no part in this enterprise; remaining, as of old, a seller of labour power.

On the outskirts of Llanelli there is to be seen an old school house—1850—built by the owners of a local tinplate works for the tuition of employees' children. We can well imagine that the curriculum was “well laced” with admonitions, such as submissiveness and respect for the “master” and, of course, the parson. Today, of course, as in industry, education has been centralized and otherwise "nationalized" so that both the old school and the old steel and tinplate works have had their day.

Nowadays, Llanelli boasts the most modern tinplate strip mill in Europe, if not in the world; built by the Steel Co. of Wales, an amalgamation of a number of smaller companies. The circle, it seems, is now complete. Beginning with the introduction of the tinning process brought to this country by Yarranton, who spied on the German method; having a second great phase with the laying of the foundations of the Margam Works in 1915 (this time with the aid of German prisoners of war—forced labour?). Today, the Steel Company of Wales is a giant of the tinplate world.

Nevertheless, the worker has still to be reckoned with and so we find that the Steel Company of Wales is as keen to educate the working class as were its predecessors in the little school house not five miles away from where the present magnificent factory now stands.

A typical example has come our way recently.

Sir Ernest Lever, Chairman of the mammoth Steel Co. of Wales, some time ago, delivered a speech to the Cardiff branch of the Institute of Industrial Administration, which was considered (presumably by Sir Ernest and his fellow executives) to be so good, that copies were distributed free to employees of the Company. We have read the document and feel that it deserves to be answered.

Sir Ernest, in a text of 10 pages, does not mention “Capitalism” or "Capitalists," though he does state that individuals “should . . .  be able to make a little financial profit for themselves." This appears to be a masterly understatement to say the least, from a man whose undertaking has assets of £99 million, with a profit of £14.3 millions.

Sir Ernest begins by expounding the necessity for good management and illustrates it by giving homely examples such as that of the housewife. In this way he discusses the subject on familiar grounds with the reader as a preliminary to leading him along to a more ‘‘academic” plane. Having, he hopes, achieved some measure of agreement first he goes on to say that though Administration is not an "occult art” managers are "born and not made” (page 1). Throughout the pamphlet he plugs the necessity for leadership and the glorious rewards that lie in store for those who, like himself presumably, are born to lead (not forgetting the implication that you, too, the reader, may possess these hidden qualities).

It appears that Capitalist Administration, together with its attendant industrial methods such as "speed ups,” etc., have been grossly maligned by workers and the well known "Time and Motion” study is really nothing more than what the dear old lady meant when she referred to "using her head to save her legs.” We, of course, know that whereas the old lady meant her head, and her legs. Sir .Ernest means your head and legs and the Steel Co.'s profits.

He then dips into history and refers to the Craft Guild System to show the rewards won by the apprentice by obeying implicitly his master’s wishes and instructions and bemoans the fact that the modern worker has lost such humility (p. 10 and 11). Sir Ernest should be told that under the Guild System the apprentice hoped—and usually did—become a Master Craftsman himself; that the Master did indeed command some respect by being a "Master of his Craft" from whom one learned; that today the worker, by and large, does not and cannot hope to became the master: that masters are not masters in the sense that they are “master craftsmen” or are otherwise imbued with extraordinary talents—occult or otherwise: that they exist as masters simply by their control over the means of life with power to employ members of the working class in the laboratory, office, and workshop as happens in his, and every other industrial concern.

Perhaps the biggest “whopper” in a speech that is full of them is the statement that once a worker becomes a charge-hand or foreman, he is on his way to becoming a member of the Capitalist Class! "If you ask me when the employee becomes an employer . . .  I suppose the answer is when he reaches the top grade in the employee scale” (page 4). We notice that such a staggering statement demands a careful "suppose" from an otherwise authoritative spokesman of Capitalism. For our part, we are staggered to think that the "rags to riches” view is still held to be true together with the view that an employee—even a highly paid one—is tantamount to being a Capitalist.

Sir Ernest, drawing to the end of his speech, goes on to say that “in a properly conducted industry there should be no antagonism between workers and employer” (page 6). Of course this is the situation earnestly desired by the Capitalist Class and if the workers follow Sir Ernest’s advice this is the situation they will find themselves in (providing that in the meantime they lose their sanity, self respect and sense of logic). We, of course, cannot see it happening because in a system of society where there exists an antagonism of interests—on the one hand exploitation for profit and on the other the sale of labour power, strife is inevitable and willy-nilly, the Capitalist Class must wield the big stick now as they have always done if they are to remain in business even though Sir Ernest implies that though Capitalists were once bad. they are no longer so (page 6).

As we said at the beginning, Sir Ernest nowhere mentions "Capitalists" or "Capitalism." so we have had to do it for him. He confines the whole of his argument to "workers” and "management” His great aim appears to be to prove the necessity for “Leadership."

We know that the time has come when men can conduct their lives—socially and economically—without boards of directors. We know because we see the Capitalist Class running industry by purchasing the brains and muscle of the working class. When Sir Ernest says "our survival is at stake" he means, of course, the survival of the Capitalist System. We are not in the least interested in its survival, rather the opposite. Under his system our survival is always "at stake.” He cannot point out any period when it was not so.

We suggest that Sir Ernest or any other spokesman for Capitalism, when next they decide to write "homilies for homely working men" really get down to it and tell us what, in their view, are the benefits of Capitalism for the working class.

And we don’t want to be told that the answer lies in the steel company’s recent offer of shares on special terms for their workers. This, an editorial in the Western Mail, says, is intended to give them the idea that they "will have a real stake in the company” (4/3/57). The real purpose—and cheap at the price—is to make the workers more docile wage slaves.

W. Brain

Cappuccino, Skiffle and Spaghetti (1957)

From the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty or sixty years ago this writer’s grandfather spent six out of seven evenings a week in a public house. And most working men did the same. Today, many pubs, are almost empty from Monday to Saturday. This is partly due to the fact that more men stay at home, watching the T.V., listening to the radio or reading, and partly due to a change in drinking habits.

What, then, do we drink today when we don’t drink beer? And where do we go?

Coffee Bars

Millions of gallons of tea are drunk in restaurants and roadside cafés. And soft drinks like “coke” and milk shakes are sold in the now declining milk bars. But neither the roadside caff nor the milk bar can take the place of the pub. The public house was—and to a lesser extent still is—a meeting place for working men, and women, after a day’s work. But neither the café nor the milk bar can be that, though many milk bars and some restaurants boast of a juke box. The milk bar, with its high chrome stools and numerous mirrors, is no place for social drinking.

But during the last few years a new kind of place— with “ atmosphere’’—has come into being. It is the Espresso coffee bar.

About five years ago an Italian dentist who came to Britain, so we are told, to sell mouth-mirrors, so hated British coffee that he introduced Espresso coffee machines, which, by steam pressure, pump water through ground coffee to make a fresh cup of coffee for each cup. When the coffee is topped with the foam of milk heated by steam, it is called Cappuccino. Within a year, hundreds of Espresso coffee bars had sprung up in London arid elsewhere.

In most coffee bars the lights are low—very low; the walls are covered with Piccasso-like murals, and the waitresses lode like Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield! And all for ninepence a cup! This was the place that a fellow and his girl friend could sit in for hours on end— for a few shillings. But the coffee house proprietors soon found that coffee on its own or with the occasional gateau did not bring in the profits that they expected. Groups of working-class teenagers drinking possibly two or three cups of Cappuccino in an evening was of little use to them.

New and different clients had to be catered for. Coffee and gateau was not enough.

Spaghetti and Steak

A number of Espresso coffee bars began to add spaghetti to their menus; some came into existence as restaurants and coffee bars. Some are now licensed, and sell both coffee and spirits.

Another coffee bar “gimmick" is the skiffle group—three, four or more “musicians,” playing guitars, homemade string basses, etc., and singing, with pseudo-American accents, folk songs of Tennessee and the Deep South. A cover charge is made for such entertainment.

At present, Espresso coffee bars—plus spaghetti, steak, brandy and skiffle—are booming, but to a large extent they are changing. At first the Bloomsbury “intellectuals"and the Bohemians with their sandals and corduroy trousers frequented them, and then later the more typical working-class youngsters, but now many coffee bars cater exclusively for the upper-income types; others are squeezing the poorer group out with their three cups of coffee per evening.

Espresso is becoming bourgeois. Earls Court moves into Mayfair.

Peter E. Newell