Reagan and Gadaffy — terrorists both (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The callous incursion of US military might on Libya cannot be justified on the pretext of securing a better and safer world than the cowardly bombings by covert agents. Terrorism is no less terrorism when it is executed by the state and dressed up in the hideous morality of nationalism.

The Socialist Party condemns, without hesitation, the actions of the Reagan government and the assistance given to it by the British government, whilst warning our fellow workers not to be beguiled into an unwarranted sympathy for the Gadaffy regime that such actions may prompt. The conflict of interests that is here involved is not one in which workers anywhere have a stake. The background against which this latest tragedy is played out is that of a global system of economic competition. It is a system rife with conflict in which war is endemic — the brutal expression of its insane logic — notwithstanding that wars are fought by and large by those who have nothing to gain and quite possibly everything to lose.

The Socialist Party points out firmly that a free society can never by fashioned by coercion. Conversely, armed might can never be the agent of liberation in any real sense of the word. The attack on Libya can only foster a greater insecurity, a more insidious erosion of what limited freedoms there are as a result of the tightening spiral of tit-for-tat reprisals it will inevitably provoke, Behind ail the cant and hypocrisy it represents nothing more than the latest addition to the bloodstained chronicle of capitalist butchery.

Running Commentary: Royal parasites (1986)

The Running Commentary Column from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Royal parasites

Two things were blindingly obvious in the first television reports on the engagement of Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew. The first was the total absence of even the feeblest note of dissension. It would have seemed, to a viewer from another planet, that the entire nation were ecstatic over the betrothal of these two brainless parasites. Not even the most cautious voice was allowed to suggest in the most tentative way that perhaps there might just be another point of view.

When so resolute and comprehensive a blanketing of opinion is practised by the state capitalist dictatorships of Eastern Europe, the media in this country react with a contemptuous scepticism. And this is, after all, democratic Britain where there is a free and equal opportunity for all attitudes to be expressed . . .

The second thing was the apparently boundless and seemingly invulnerable confidence of the couple in their own class superiority. What jolly fun, while the world is still being fed with pictures of the pitifully starving children of Africa, to tell everyone about this prince making you eat profiteroles at a banquet! How ripping, soon after a cold spell which killed so many old workers who could not afford to heat their miserable homes, to show which class you belong to by spending £28,000 on an engagement ring!

In the same news bulletin, the cameras visited a school where blind and deaf children are being taught to communicate with others. This is real, necessary, demanding work, performed by highly skilled people who, as far as anyone can under the bestial capitalist system, operate to an approximation of the morals which socialism will have — that human needs should be the only reason for human activity.

The relief from seeing this school was only partial; this brief hint of how a humane society will deal with its unavoidable problems was in all too sickening a contrast to what is happening now under capitalism, when human needs are the lowest priority. In a world infested with misery, overshadowed by a desperate peril, the media were preoccupied with the irrelevant antics of a useless couple wallowing in their class privilege to the point of disfigurement.

It could only make anyone concerned for the welfare of the human race seethe with anger for what is happening now and with impatience for what will happen in the classless future.

Parsimony

No, not houses to live in; not much-needed hospitals or schools — not even prisons. Street shelters are to be built for claimants in the queue at the offices of the DHSS. The Guardian (4 March 1986) quotes Peter Jones, branch secretary of the Civil and Public Services Association:

  Some days we have 200 to 300 people claiming benefit . . . Many people start queueing at 7am for the office to open. They often have to wait outside all day before they can be seen and if they arrive later than 10.30am they are too late to be served.
. . . Half the staff in offices are in their probation year. There is an 80 per cent turnover for clerical officers and a 100 per cent turnover among clerical assistants. Many staff are taking Valium because they can t stand it — others are turning to drink for relief. . .

However there are some in government circles who consider staff at the DHSS underemployed. The new Social Security Bill put forward by Norman Fowler and currently being examined by a Standing Committee of MPs has found a new job for them (Guardian 12 March 1986). To save government funds, instead of grants being made for the purchase of necessities such as furniture to people with savings less than £500. members of their families and even friends and neighbours are to be approached by the DHSS to ask if they are willing to lend the money.

Apart from the ethics of this exercise in parsimony, no thought seems to have been given as to how long this would take, how the already over-worked staff are going to find the time to do this, nor how it should be done. Will these good people be invited to attend the local DHSS office? Will they be visited or written to? How often will they be reminded that a reply is required? How long must the claimant wait before the DHSS pays out in the absence of a willing private lender? There is also the possibility that friends and good neighbours who have been helping in other ways might back off when they find that they are going to be pressurised into lending money which they have saved for other things or may not even have. Will they have a means test to establish if they can afford to make the loan? Who will decide who is to be asked? And of course it is most unlikely that those already on supplementary benefit would be able to repay the debt. And this is called Social Security . . . On the other hand, perhaps it could be called a return to Victorian values.

Class apart?

So, to the consternation of the leadership of at least one of them, the two main teachers' unions are inching towards some form of unification — in thought if not as yet in deed. About time too, some might add. But, given the circumstances, exactly what good will it do? Listen in on an average staff-room discussion of labour problems and you will shortly begin to wonder how it is that so many teachers can associate with so downmarket an institution as a trade union at all. (Indeed, since in at least three titles the terms "association" is preferred to "union" perhaps many teachers feel they do not).

For if there is any one weakness that strikes most fatally at the heart of genuine social understanding on the part of your average pedagogue it is what Karl Marx described as a false consciousness of class. This refusal to identify, consciously or subconsciously, with their fellow workers is presumably what enables so many teachers to troop unquestioningly into a hymn-and-prayer session every morning (how many other workers would put up with such rubbish?). This blindness helps them to pass off, with massive imbalance, the loaded "history" and social-scientific half-truths of our ruling class' approved texts while blithely castigating identical practices in the — so-called — communist world.

Ordinary workers though they may be, obliged as are any other wage-slaves to sell their skills to an employer in exchange for wages (sorry! salaries!), far too many of them lack the enlightenment to do other than snipe at manual workers and their union spokespersons. (Scargill is a very dirty word indeed in many staff-rooms).

What. then, is the answer? To start with, no comprehensive solution is possible given the continued existence of world capitalism However, teachers — indeed, any group of workers — can do little to alleviate the consequences of their own exploitation if they wilfully ignore their own class condition, preferring to hide behind a mask of "respectability".

Understanding socialism (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The criticism that workers are too "thick'' to understand socialism is put forward by many political parties, including the Socialist Workers Party, the Labour Party and the Militant Tendency. It is almost as if they are suffering from visions of the working class as a multitude of Monty Python-like Gumbies'. living in a world of television, chips, pubs. Rambo and Terry Wogan. For any member of the working class, this is a patronising viewpoint; so let's see whether socialism is a particularly difficult idea to grasp.

Socialism is a world society in which all wealth (the land, farms, factories and all their products, communications systems, buildings) are owned and controlled democratically by all the people in the world. There are enough natural resources on the earth and sufficiently developed technology to satisfy the needs of every human being. The social guideline will be co-operation; all things to benefit all people. There will be no divisions based on economic factors; no money, no classes, no countries, no banks, no soldiers, no lawyers and no employment. Work will be carried out voluntarily according to what each individual decides they can contribute and what they most enjoy doing.

Now if we compare socialism to the present system, capitalism, we find a society where food, clothes, accommodation and all other goods and services which people need are articles of commerce which are produced to be sold at a profit. If you cannot pay, you cannot have. It is a system of competition which divides people. It puts workers in rivalry with one another over jobs, housing and places in the queue for second-rate health treatment. But more importantly, it divides the world into the wealth producers who do not possess (the great majority) and the wealth owners who do not produce (the small minority). It is this monopoly of wealth by a small, privileged minority class which leads to people starving while food mountains rot; millions of pointless deaths in wars over the economic rivalries of the parasites; people dying of hypothermia while coal mines are closed because they are "unprofitable"; and to thousands of people being homeless while construction workers are made unemployed and brick "surpluses" collect dust.

Anyone who can understand the perverse logic of capitalism's economics can easily understand socialism. Officially, an "oil glut" means that there has been too much oil produced. But, of course, most workers can understand that this does not mean that everyone who would like to make use of oil has a sufficient quantity of the substance. The "surplus" spoken of relates to the dealings of the market and not simply to what people actually need.

Who is it that keeps every country in the world running? Who builds the roads and the houses, factories and offices? Who designs and builds and maintains the washing machines and cars and televisions? Who builds the aeroplanes and runs the international airports? Who produces the oil. extracts the coal, runs the hospitals, teaches in the schools and universities, prints the newspapers and makes the television programmes? It is the working class who run this system from top to bottom. Workers are not thick, they are misinformed. They are misinformed by the ideas of a social system which runs in the interest of a minority who live in luxury and comfort off the labour of the majority.

It is important to be aware of the powerful forces which are wielded in order to keep workers in a condition of ignorance and prejudice. influences which are exercised over the minds of workers every day: from the Sun to the Guardian, from Breakfast Television to Night Thoughts, from the infants' school to the universities. Recently we have been instructed to hate the Argentinians and the Russians. Forty years ago it was the Germans. a hundred years ago, the French, four hundred years ago the Spanish. We are never taught to question these views, let alone to consider why we should have to hate an entire mass of people with whom we have had little, if any, personal contact.

A typical geography lesson in school consists of studying maps of the world divided by lines going up and down and across marking all of the different countries. Where are these boundaries when you look at a satellite photograph of the earth? A visit to the so-called Iron Curtain will not reveal any particularly distinctive national landscapes meeting abruptly at the passport barriers and barbed wire. Countries are artificial areas. Some, like Poland or several in Africa have had many different shapes in recent history according to the fortunes of the ruling class owners in territorial negotiation and war.

Religious teaching is based on the idea that people are inherently evil. Would it not make more sense to regard society's wrongdoers as victims of an environment where the majority are deprived of the necessities of a decent life? Theft, burglary and muggings are results of a society of artificial scarcity. In situations where there is no shortage or unreasonable limit to what we can consume, we behave in a rational way — without hoarding, or being greedy or feeling the need to steal. How many burglars do you hear of climbing over backgarden walls with gallons of stolen water?

Faced with the long-term brainwashing that most workers receive from an early age, educating people to think for themselves and to act in their own interests as a class is not an easy task. But is that any reason to stop? The idea of workers being too stupid to establish socialism also assumes that society has become immune to change. Then there is the argument that workers are generally content and would not have enough incentive to act for socialism. But consider the state of the working class; who is content with their lot? The unemployed, the wage and salary slaves performing boring and often useless or anti-social work, bossed about and just as poor at the end of their working lives as they were when they began the grind; the workers in war-tom countries or the millions of people who. quite reasonably, wonder whether they will outlive a nuclear holocaust, the millions of homeless and the refugees? Consider the number of people spending so much energy and time trying to alleviate the suffering which capitalism produces as a matter of course, the people working for Shelter, Child Poverty Action Group, Oxfam, Live Aid, Greenpeace, Help the Aged, anti-racist organisations . . . Has the profit system really produced widespread content?

We live in a very insecure society and who can honestly say that they are exempt from the anxieties caused by this insecurity? The more people who accept an idea, the more possible it becomes and the faster it spreads. One person talking about a society without classes, countries or money could be considered an idiot. Ten people could be regarded as eccentrics, a hundred could be dismissed as a radical sect, a thousand and the movement has become more significant. a million and the avalanche has begun.

Nick Davis

General Strike — sixty years on (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The so-called General Strike took place 60 years ago in the nine days 4-12 May 1926, in support of the coal miners but when it failed the miners stayed out for seven months before being forced back on the coal owners’ terms. This naturally invites comparison with the unsuccessful coal strike which lasted about a year in 1984-5. On this occasion, although the NUM called for supporting action by the TUC and other unions, and did receive some financial and other support, there was no general strike action such as there had been in 1926.

In spite of other similarities, including the formation of a rival miners' union based in the Nottingham coalfield both in 1926 and 1984, great changes had taken place in the industrial background between those dates. In 1926 coal was for all practical purposes the only source of energy. There were over a million miners, almost the highest total ever reached. In 1984 there were 241,000 and since the strike this figure has fallen to 140,000.

If ever there was a time when a strike by miners could be expected to have a decisive effect it was in 1926, especially as the miners belonged to the Triple Alliance, along with dockers and railwaymen who between them wholly dominated transport. By 1984 a large and increasing share of the energy industry was held by oil, gas and nuclear power. The recent big fall in world oil prices further undermined the competitive power of the coal industry and may still further reduce its share as a source of energy. During the 1984 coal strike prices were continuing to rise, in line with the inflation policy imposed by all governments. Labour and Tory, since 1945. It was very different in 1926.

With the suspension of the gold standard in 1914 prices rose fast until 1920. The government then decided to operate a deflation policy, through reduction of the paper currency in circulation. Prices fell drastically until 1922 and more slowly until 1925, when the gold standard was restored. A version of the events leading up to the miners' strike in 1926 put out in Labour Party circles was that the wage reductions called for by the coal owners in 1926 were caused by the re-introduction of the gold standard in 1925. That was a wildly inaccurate representation of what actually happened.

When prices began to fall in 1920, including the market prices of coal and other products of industry, employers pressed successfully for the reduction of wages. The wages of coal miners fell exceptionally heavily, the decrease having mainly taken place before the 1926 strike. Between 1921 and 1925 the average weekly earnings of coal miners had already fallen by 40 per cent. The further fall in 1926 was 5 per cent, though with some increase of hours as well. The Labour Party version disregards the fact that the gold standard stabilises prices; it does not reduce them.

The 1984 strike was mainly against the closing down of unprofitable pits, while the strike in 1926 was about wages and hours of work. The 1926 strike was against the private coal owners; nationalisation did not come until 1947. In both events the government threw all its weight against the strikers, the National Coal Board being just as ruthless as the private coal owners had been. The miners' union spent 40 years campaigning to create the nationalised coal industry and then another 40 years fighting against the capitalist monster they had helped to form — a demonstration of the utter uselessness of nationalisation — state capitalism — as a remedy for workers' problems. Both in 1926 and 1984 a prominent question was government subsidies to the coal industry. In both instances the withdrawal of subsidies helped to provoke the strike. The 1926 strike was followed by a tightening of the law against the unions, in the 1927 Trade Disputes Act. In 1984 the law had already been tightened by the Thatcher government. In both 1926 and 1984 the strikes had long been prepared for by the government, special organisations having been set up for that purpose. In 1984 huge stocks of coal had been built up at pit heads and power stations.

One aspect of the 1926 strike recalled an event that took place seven years earlier, when the Triple Alliance of Miners. Dockers and Railwaymen organised a kind of "general strike" against British military involvement in Russia. What was at issue was the ability of the government to intervene decisively. The year 1919 was marked by widespread strikes, including unsuccessful strikes by some of the police, by a number of mutinies in the army and riots and attacks on the police. It was against that background that the government faced the Triple Alliance in 1919.

An account of what happened was published in The Times (16 November 1979). The Prime Minister. Lloyd George, called the Triple Alliance leaders to meet him and told them "the army was disaffected and could not be relied upon":

  "If you carry out your threat and strike then you will defeat us. But if you do so. have you weighed the consequences? The strike will be in defiance of the Government of the country and by its very success will precipitate a constitutional crisis of the first importance. For if a force arises in the state which is stronger than the state itself, then it must be ready to take on the functions of the state, or withdraw and accept the authority of the state. Gentlemen, have you considered, and if you have, are you ready?".

According to the account in The Times the miners' leader, Robert Smillie, said "We were beaten and we knew we were". The strike did not take place. It is evident that the issue raised by Lloyd George in 1919 overshadowed the TUC General Council in 1926. They went into the general strike reluctantly and seized the first excuse to call it off. Long before 1926 the government had overcome its problems with the police and the army. It confronted the general strike and the coal strike confident of its ability to defeat them and resolved to do so no matter what the cost.

The term "general strike" is somewhat misleading. The number of workers on strike was only 1,580,000. apart from over a million miners. This was not because the TUC was unable to get other workers to strike but because those on strike (mainly transport workers, building workers, printers and engineers) were chosen to make maximum impact, without causing unnecessary and useless hardship to other workers.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, through the columns of the Socialist Standard, had much to say about the strikes and the general strike, based on an understanding of the realities of capitalism and recognition of the fact that a politically confident government. with effective control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, can defeat any strike if it is prepared to use its power to the limit. For example, the Socialist Standard in April 1919 stated that, given the backing of the state power, "on the economic field the Masters are in a far stronger position than the workers and can beat them any time they decide to fight to the finish". In the issue for April 1922, an editorial urged the unions to take united action. It pointed out that the employers were taking on one section of the workers after another:

  How can the situation be tested7 There is only one way. The organised workers must take united action to hold up industry. It is not a sectional question. The whole of the workers are involved, and if they remain divided, they will be attacked and beaten, in detail by the employers . . . First the stoppage must not be allowed to drag on indefinitely. If it does not achieve its purpose in a short, sharp, action, then it will have failed and the men must accept the inevitable for the present.
  Second, it must be carried out peaceably. Any attempt at riot or destruction must be sternly repressed, as it would at once give the signal for the use of the armed forces against defenceless men . . .
  Third, the decisions to come out and to go back must be in the hands of the rank and file. No power should be given to leaders — revolutionary or otherwise — to decide these points.
  Such action would cause practically no increase in the misery that already exists and it would be a real test of the situation.

There were then, and still are. other voices — organisations urging the workers to take violent action, or to rely on indefinite strikes, as if the workers can hope to starve the employers and government into submission.

Of course, the article went on to remind the workers that strikes only deal with the effects of capitalism without looking to the causes and emphasised the need to take political action for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Sellafield story (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Half a tonne of uranium is dumped in the Irish Sea; fifteen workers are affected by highly toxic plutonium nitrate; contaminated water is accidentally discharged . . . another few weeks like that and Sellafield — formerly Windscale — had better start looking for another name.

Not to worry though, after one incident British Nuclear Fuels calculated that only two workers were affected. That this figure grew to 11, then 15, should not be unexpected in an industry with a particularly notable history of lies and deception. Indeed it was this general lack of information that forced 800 workers at Sellafield to come out on strike.

At the same time, local communities in four areas around Britain are having their wishes ignored, their protests ridiculed, and their lives threatened by the proposed dumping of radioactive waste. Recently, the government — promptly for once — pressed ahead with a public inquiry into a new kind of fuel reprocessing plant at Dounreay. The inquiry is being held half way between Cape Wrath and John O Groats and is being boycotted by all the major anti-nuclear groups because of the haste with which it is being carried out.

Back at the source of the waste, at Sellafield, the chairman Con Allday was living up to his name — he criticised public concern with radiation as being "born of ignorance". However, according to the Guardian (March 1). only about 10 per cent of the research carried out into the pollution and biological effects of radiation is readily available to the public.

Of course, you can have all the access to information that you want, but the real decisions are based on economics, the figures under the headings "profit" and "loss". And the story that these tell is that profit must be maintained. Compared to that, the figures for the ten-fold rate of leukaemia around Sellafield might as well come under "other costs'.

Make no mistake, in the socialist alternative locked doors, secret files or codes on computer files will be as impossible as money or markets. Socialism will be a society in which decisions will not be made by an owning minority or a state, nor will decisions be subject to the anarchic fluctuations of the market, which can favour nuclear power one week and oil the next. Instead decisions on. for example, energy production, will be made by the whole of the community concerned.

But talk of socialism is all very well we are told. In the meantime, however, "workers must be given a lead". But what sort of lead has come from the politicians? For example, Jack Cunningham? Now as Labour spokesman with responsibility for issues concerning the protection of the environment. Cunningham has shown his sincere concern and abiding interest in protecting his seat from any nasty fallout. To hell with the environment. and to hell with the health of a large proportion of the population of Britain, because Sellafield employs 11.000 people, and that's 11,000 votes.

Of course, such a lead has angered many Labour supporters, but what they don't realise is that such political hypocrisy is not limited to one Labour shadow minister; Jack Cunningham need have no worries about selling out on Sellafield. because he had been given assurances anyway, that the Labour Party conference resolution on stopping the nuclear power programme, would not even be included in the next Labour election manifesto.

If you take the view that politics is only about what politicians offer you, then we have no choice. Workers and local communities have no real choice when it comes to such an area as energy production: the workers in and around Sellafield are choosing between keeping their local cancer factory or suffering immense unemployment in the area. Not that they should really worry — when Thatcher visited the plant last year she said that she would be happy to live near Sellafield. Presumably Barratt 's did not have any houses in the right price range in the area.

Similarly, at the Scottish Labour Party conference in Perth recently, the choice was seen as being between nuclear power (hazardous to health and the environment but provides jobs for some workers), and coal (similarly hazardous but provides jobs for other workers). The stale politics of the Labour Party and of working within capitalism, divides workers into different apparent groups when what is required is the recognition of the common interests that workers have under capitalism, and the common interest all workers have in getting socialism as soon as possible.

But if the Labour Party has been shown to be powerless to protect the environment, what about the likes of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace? The first thing that can be said about such "single-issue" campaigns is that they aren't. Both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are starting to realise that you cannot just concentrate on one problem at a time. Now the Socialist Party has been saying for years that the vast majority of social problems have at their root the present social system — capitalism — and the consequent domination of profit over people and their environment; the problem of pollution can only be seen, and solved, with an understanding of the society that causes it.

However all that the environmental pressure groups are doing is supporting a variety of fragmented and futile reform measures. For instance, faced with official censorship of information on the extent of radiation in the environment, the environmental pressure groups have been forced to broaden their campaigning to include demands for Freedom of Information. Similarly, in their arguments for the closure of Sellafield. FoE have calculated that reprocessing is currently uneconomic. Now you can bet that if profit was the only reason to keep Sellafield open, it would indeed have been closed down years ago. However, closure of the plant would in a real sense have "cost a bomb” as that provision is also integral to Sellafield. So the environmentalists are also having to face up to the part that nuclear power can play in the whole area of nuclear weapons. The lesson is clear — once you start to deal with problems bit by bit, you will never finish.

The environmentalists have called for the closure of Sellafield. but the demand will be ignored if it runs counter to the economic logic of capitalism. However the environmentalists have succeeded in the minor but still futile demand to get rid of BNFL's chairman (as if changing the chairman's name will make any more difference than changing Windscale's name). The chairman was due to retire last month anyway, but at least now the members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth can sleep at night in the comforting knowledge that the unfortunately-named Con Allday has been replaced by the even more unfortunately-named Neville Chamberlain.

It is tempting to think that problems can be reformed away one by one. bit by bit; that the problems of pollution are just unfortunate accidents, sad aberrations in an otherwise perfect world. But experience shows that reforms rarely remove the problem. One example of the ineffectiveness of reformism is the ReChem plant at Bonnybridge, Scotland, which incinerated a toxic chemical and in the process could produce an even deadlier chemical, dioxin. After much protest the plant closed down (due to economic reasons, said the company). A success for the environmentalists, you might think? Not really, the problem has only shifted — to South Wales to be exact, where the only other factory for the disposal of these chemicals (called PCBs) is now incapable of dealing with the increased load. So now more and more toxic waste is having to be stored before incineration, in itself creating more problems. Another example of the "success" of reforms in the field of environmental protection is the simple solution to emissions of smoke and chemicals from factories and power stations polluting the nearby countryside — build chimney-stacks and kill a fjord or German forest instead.

All these examples (and more) of environmental destruction — from Bonnybridge to Bhopal. Sellafield to Seveso. or the Black Forest to the rainforests — have a common cause in capitalism, and the socialist alternative is relevant to them all. For inside socialism, the choice will not be between polluting your own backyard or someone else's; neither will it be a choice between having a job or having your health.

Brian Gardner

A Duke Distorts Marx (1986)

Book Review from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

“This, it seems to me, is Marx’s legacy to the world. For love, tolerance and compassion he has substituted hatred, envy and oppression. For honesty and justice he has substituted the interest of the party. Although it is a sad commentary on human nature that so many people are eager to adopt such doctrines of violence and conflict, there is one thing we must all learn from Marx. It is now more important than ever that we learn and understand the guiding principles of our own system, if we are to make it fulfil our ambitions to live in freedom, in harmony, in prosperity and in justice.” (HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, A Question of Balance, p.30).

So ends the Duke of Edinburgh’s published attack on the ideas of Marxism. Before we turn to deal with the distortion, be it intended or ignorant, contained in that attack, it is worth congratulating this titled spokesman for legalised robbery for taking the bother to commit his ideas to print. Too often the nonsensical dogmas of anti-Marxism are offered as casual asides or vague references, so making them harder to answer. Here we have a clear account of why one member of the capitalist class thinks that Marxism is wrong. Let us examine his criticisms.

The Duke—or whoever might have assisted him in composing his attack—has taken the trouble to find out a little about who Marx was and what he wrote. On page 6 we are presented with a concise biographical sketch, deficient more in its omissions than in relation to any false information. The reader is told that Marx “appears to have had an enormous capacity for painstaking work, a vivid and forceful literary style, considerable imagination, and a single-minded devotion to a particular philosophy”. It is stated that Marx held that “the bourgeoisie had . . .  to be destroyed by the abolition of all private property”. This is half right. In fact, both state and private property must be abolished and Marx was advocating the abolition of class relationships, particularly that of wage labour and capital, therefore the bourgeoisie (or capitalist class) will be destroyed as a class personifying capital, but not as individual people. The Duke contends that “capitalism has proved to be a great deal more flexible than (Marx) ever imagined”. There is probably some validity in this.

Having stated those points where the Duke was correct or nearly, so let us list his numerous errors and distortions.

 . . . it becomes apparent that at the heart f the terrorist campaign, or of the liberation army… or of civil unrest, there is a hard core of Marxists. Furthermore it cannot be entirely coincidence that wherever such a state of conflict exists the terrorists, liberators or revolutionaries are almost invariably supported by money, arms or men and women from countries under Marxist regimes. (p.5)

Are we to assume from this that any army or government or individual psychopath who chooses to adopt the label Marxist will be regarded by those attacking Marxism as representatives of Marxist ideas? The Russian dictators and sections of the IRA and various anti-social organisers of civil disorder adopt the Marxist label, but that makes such people no more “Marxists” than is the German Democratic Republic democratic. The linking of a label with an idea is only valid if those being labelled hold the ideas and act on the ideas to which the label refers. The Duke gives no evidence to show that terrorists are carrying out principles to be found in the writings of Marx; not a scrap of evidence is offered to show that “Marxist regimes” are Marxist societies. This is a classical distortion tactic, used by those who find it easier to smear than to prove.

In fact, on page 26 the Duke states that “Marxism has given ambitious politicians an absolutely ideal method of acquiring and keeping absolute power”. Indeed, many capitalist leaders have usurped the rhetoric of Marxism in order to run the system of oppression which genuine Marxists seek to destroy. If the Duke of Edinburgh cares to read the history of British Royalty he will discover that by manipulating the ideas of religion the British monarchy was able to attain absolute power, justified by the doctrine of divine right. If the Duke was informed he would realise that it is necessary to check the credentials of those who pose as Marxist governments and activists, if he is informed, then he is dishonest, for he will know that their credentials are bogus.

“His weakness, if that is the appropriate word for it, seems to have been a hopelessly unrealistic understanding of human nature.”

We must assume from this that the Duke does understand “human nature”. Odd, then, that he at no point attempts to define it. The reason could be that it is a totally nonsensical concept, used too often by people who speak before they think. Marx argued that human behaviour is socially determined and that our ideas and actions are not inherently produced. Rather than asserting that this is “hopelessly unrealistic”, where is the evidence against it? The Duke states that Marx’s “obsession with science and scientific socialism . . . seems to have blinded him to the power, variety and irrational nature of human emotions and talents and to the fact that such qualities of human nature are equally distributed among all people regardless of class or intellect”. (p.7) Does this mean that there are as many slum-dwellers obtaining Oxford degrees as millionaires’ children? Are there as many princes suffering the frustration of the dole queue as sons and daughters of miners? And what is this “irrational nature” which the Duke finds in human emotions? Human thought and feeling is linked to the rational pursuit of survival and comfort, if he has discovered some irrational content beyond this material interpretation, let the Duke spell it out for us rather than making vague and pointless references. Human nature has always been the concept most loved by the defender of the status quo. The slave-owner of old would say that it was human nature for negroes to be owned by white masters. The Duke of Edinburgh invokes the same undefined theory in defence of the modem form of slavery, the wages system.

“Marx, like many before and since his time, went to considerable lengths to make his selection of facts fit his particular theories.”

These aristocratic liars obviously believe that they have only to assert a view and it will be accepted. If Marx distorted the facts to fit his interpretation of capitalism why has there been no satisfactory effort made to offer other facts which will show Marx’s ideas to be false? Where are the “facts”, to show that poverty is not caused by the system under which the few own and control the means of wealth production and distribution? What “facts” exist to demonstrate that workers are not exploited at the point of production by being paid a wage which is less than the value of what we produce? Where are the “facts” denying that the history of property society is a history of class struggle? Wise men have had over a century since Marx’s death to provide us with “facts” that will not fit in with “his particular theories”. Wise men have yet to disprove Marx’s facts, and the Duke, who is not “wise”, hasn’t done this either.

“Marx believed very strongly that it was impossible to have a satisfactory society where there was such a crude division between those who owned property and capital and those who owned nothing but their wages. Naturally in a purely static situation this would be intolerable, but no human system is static and the freer the system the more quickly the self-correcting mechanism works and the greater the movement between classes is likely to be.”

So the Duke agrees with Marx that the crude division between those who own property and those who are wage slaves is “intolerable”. But the argument he puts is that, given a free society, the poor will be able to correct this situation and be come capitalists. A century after Marx’s death the crude class division still exists. in Britain the richest one per cent of the population own more of the accumulated wealth than the poorest eighty per cent added together. How long do as the Duke think it will take for this “self-correcting mechanism” to move those who are dependent on selling their abilities for wages or salaries to gain entry into the capitalist class? Of course, this will never happen because the capitalist minority can only survive by living parasitically off of the labour of the wealth-creating majority. It is “intolerable” that this division exists but, unlike the Duke, Marxists are not expecting the system to correct the problem.

“There was a utopian belief that every human problem could be solved by scientific analysis and the operation of altruistic human will. All that was necessary was to identify and eradicate the cause of the problem and everything would immediately become all sweetness and light. Marx was convinced that be had achieved all this in his theory of historical materialism.”

Nowhere did Marx ever state such a point of view. it has been invented by the dishonest Duke. It would be “utopian” to assert that “every human problem” can be solved by science but Marx was talking about problems caused by the social system, not those of natural causation. A system which makes wars inevitable can be removed and there will be no more wars. It is a basic principle of science that effects are eradicated by first removing their cause –Marx did not invent such an idea and the Duke cannot disprove it. Marx made no reference to “the operation of altruistic human will”. this is yet another of the Duke’s absurd phrases. In fact, the establishment of socialism depends on material self-interest, not abstract altruism. Socialism will not be “all sweetness and light” and Marx never used such a silly phrase. We can say that it will be an efficient, co-operative, peaceful social system, free from the bitterness and darkness of world capitalism. If the Duke cares to argue with that he will have a debate on his hands; any old fool can knock down a utopian dream which Marx was not indulging in, but not any old fool will be allowed to get away with it.

“One of the features of Marxist analysis is the constant use of group denominations and particularly the references to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, as if there was no such thing as individual will. What sort of an argument is it to say that because all my colleagues and contemporaries are behaving in a certain way, that is the way that historical materialism has ordained I must believe?”

Needless to say, the Duke does not define this mysterious “individual will”—this man is a master of the undefined concept. My individual will is to live in Buckingham Palace: but which is more influential—my “will” or my class position? All people are either workers or they are capitalists and if they are in the former class they are robbed and they are relatively poor and they have a world to win, if they are in the latter class they are exploiters and they are relatively rich and the world is theirs. There are those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess. As for “individual will”, the Duke can buy mine from me for the price of one of his Rolls Royces. A person’s class position generally determines their ideas: that is why it is not surprising to find the husband of the richest woman in the world opposing Marxism. When members of the boss class start flocking into the Socialist Party we shall take more seriously the claim that historical materialism does not ordain how humans think and behave.

“As Marx’s ideas entailed the confiscation from private capitalists of all means of production, distribution, transport and communication, all these things would have to be centralised in the hands of the State, by which he meant the hands of the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”

Here the Duke asserts that Marx stood for centralised state capitalism. Untrue. The abolition of class monopoly necessitates the removal of the state, which Marx pointed out is merely the executive committee of the exploiting class. Marx argued that with the emancipation of the working class there will be no class left to be exploited and the logical implication of that is that there will be no socialist state. So, when the proletariat (or workers) are organised as the ruling class, which will happen when the state is democratically conquered, that will at the same time be the end of classes, including a ruling class, and the end of the state. The centralised state has nothing to do with socialism, but is a feature of coercive capitalism. A great deal of the Duke’s attack on Marxism rests on the assumption that a centralised state will create an elitist bureaucracy which will become a new ruling class. This is correct. The Duke opposes such a new ruling class, of the type which took over from the Tsars in Russia, because he is a defender of the old ruling class; Marxists oppose state and private capitalism: they are opposed to all ruling classes.

“Of all Marx’s ideas the most explosive was his choice of one particular class or group of citizens within a society—distinguished only by their relative wealth and occupations—to be held responsible for everything that is unsatisfactory in that society.”

Once again the Duke demonstrates his failure to grasp –or his ability to distort –Marxism. It is not a Marxist contention that the capitalists as individuals are the cause of the problems of the working class. It is not a question of individual will. The whole point of Marx’s writings is that the capitalist system demands that capitalists must act in certain ways if they are not to descend into the working class –a miserable fate, as we are sure the Duke will agree. The point of Marxism is not to blame this group or that class, but to expose the system and to show that it can never be run in the interest of the wealth producers, even if all the bosses were jolly decent chaps.

“…(Marxists) whole ideology is based on the idea that any degree of force, subversion, terrorism, persecution and dishonesty is justified in achieving and maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

This is rich, coming from a defender of British capitalism. The very tactics listed have all been used by the Duke’s own class in order to preserve the dictatorship of King Capital. In no way did Marx ever advocate or defend these methods. It was Karl Marx who stated that “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves”, the same principle has been advocated by The Socialist Party, the only Marxist party in Britain, since 1904. We seek to establish a free and democratic society and we are the first to point out that this will never be brought about by any of the tactics used by our class enemies, such as those listed above. We seek to establish a society of mutual co-operation, not a dictatorship—a society which will be classless. We have congratulated our class enemy on having the openness to commit his ideas to paper, it is a pity that we are not able to offer similar congratulations on his honesty, intelligence and clarity, all of which are far too undignified to enter the mind of this pompous Royal distorter.

Steve Coleman

Hi-tech births (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The profession of obstetrics has received a great deal of public attention as a result of an inquiry which began in February into the professional competence of Wendy Savage, a consultant obstetrician at the London Hospital. Savage was suspended in April of 1985 by her employers, the Tower Hamlets Health Authority, after complaints surrounding her handling of five pregnancies. Following her suspension a campaign was mounted for her reinstatement by local midwives, mothers and GPs.

During the inquiry a number of criticisms were made of the type of approach to childbirth and pregnancy that has come to dominate maternity care in recent years. According to Savage and her supporters the excessive use of high-technology in modern obstetrics has deprived women of the freedom to choose where and how to have their babies. The process of giving birth has become dehumanised because current obstetric practices have succeeded in shifting the focus of interest from the mother to the machine. Women, argue critics, are regarded as mere objects on a conveyor belt. Wendy Savage and her supporters would like to see this depersonalised system of obstetric care replaced by an approach which emphasises both the naturalness of every birth and the individual medical needs of the women concerned.

While socialists sympathise with these objectives we also point out the limitations which present-day society places on their achievement.

First of all, isn't it surprising that the controversy arose within an NHS hospital providing health care to a particularly deprived working-class area in the east end of London? Not at all. Under capitalism there are two quite distinct standards of health care. For the rich — the capitalist class — there are the Harley Street Clinics and the private hospitals which provide the best maternity treatment money can buy. Consequently they suffer none of the degradations associated with current obstetric practices.

For the poor, on the other hand — the working class — there is the NHS.

Contrary to what politicians tell us the NHS is not in the business of providing an all-embracing caring service, free at the point of delivery and run in the interests of everyone. Its real intention is to serve the economic interests of the capitalist class by placing at their disposal a steady supply of fit and healthy wage slaves. In meeting this requirement of the exploiting class, the NHS contributes enormously to the overall profitability of British capitalism. However, it also represents expenditure and as such the provision of its services must be cost-effective to ensure that the capitalist class get value for their money. In economists' jargon this means that resources must be used effectively. services must be rationalised, financial targets must be met, and wages must be minimised — the NHS is big business and it must be run accordingly. Under capitalism even the most basic of our health needs play second fiddle to the managerial and accounting practices associated with production for profit.

So how do these practices relate to the provision of maternity care? The maternity services operate within a context of scarce resources, shortages of expert consultants and midwives and expenditure cuts. Everything possible is done to cheapen the cost of childbirth and this economic fact determines the quality of care and the practices adopted by obstetricians.

In the early years of the twentieth century maternity care was exclusively handled by untrained mid wives, known as "handywomen". Apart from a few difficult cases, which were handled by doctors or GPs. more babies were delivered at home. Today, however, these functions are controlled by professional obstetricians working from maternity units in large district hospitals. Community midwives have been gradually reduced and as a result the number of hospital deliveries has risen from 15 per cent in 1927 to 97 per cent in 1976, with the intention that home delivery be phased out further (Short Report on Perinatal and Neonatal Mortality, 1980).

With the professionalisation and hospitalisation of maternity care there has been an increased reliance on high-tech medicine. One practice which has increased tremendously in recent times is that of inducing labour artificially by using modern technology. Some obstetricians have argued that inductions are carried out only when the life of the baby or mother is threatened but some experts have pointed out that inductions are not always carried out for medical reasons:

Technology is now being used in some hospitals to induce labour routinely, not primarily for the baby's safety or the safety of the mother, but in order to create a production line system where women have their babies by clockwork during daylight hours. (O. Gillie & L. Gillie, Sunday Times. 1974.)

Given the priorities of the NHS it is easy to see why the rate of inductions increased (from 13.7 per cent in 1963 to 38.9 per cent in 1974). Inductions help to speed up the process of childbirth, ensure that hospital beds are used more intensively and shorten the length of time women stay in hospital. Often inductions are laid down as hospital policy — as was the case in the hospital where Wendy Savage worked — in order to meet a planned throughput of births, perhaps 1.000 babies delivered each year. In a study of inductions, A. Cartwright (The Dignity of Labour) reports that more than half the obstetricians questioned said they would recommend inductions where there were staff shortages or a restricted access to anaesthetics. After giving birth by this method, which often has negative psychological and emotional repercussions, women are ushered out of care to be looked after by a much depleted and hard-pressed community midwife service.

Economic considerations can also be observed behind the startling increase in caesarian sections. The use of this method of delivery was central to the case against Wendy Savage. Tower Hamlets Health Authority claimed that she had performed a caesarian "too late", resulting in the death of a baby eight days after delivery by an emergency caesarian. Although the merits of this particular case are unclear, recent figures released by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys suggest non-medical reasons for this type of operation. The figures show that much depends on how busy the ward is on a particular day. On Fridays, the busiest day for deliveries, there was a 43 per cent increase in the number of elective caesarians (those not performed in an emergency) but on Sundays, the quietest day, elective caesarians were 62 per cent below average. An interesting figure is that the caesarian rate for private hospitals (19.6 per cent) was twice that for NHS hospitals. The explanation here is that most insurance policies cover caesarians, while patients have to pay cash for spontaneous births. Given the choice it is hardly surprising that working class mothers choose the former, less expensive method of payment.

As with all services provided by the NHS for members of the working class, maternity care offers women little choice over the kind of treatment they would prefer. In a study of NHS hospitals in York and London (H. Graham & A. Oakley: Medical & Maternal Perspectives on Pregnancy in Women) most women complained that there were very few areas in which they were allowed any say in their maternity care. They had practically no explanation from the doctors about what was being done to them; they saw too many doctors to receive any kind of personal attention and the whole experience left them feeling like battery hens.

This kind of treatment cannot be blamed entirely on the attitudes of consultants, who are as much victims of the situation as are the pregnant women. Over-worked consultants have little time to discuss alternative options of delivery and for the sake of convenience are likely to make decisions for those in their care. They require a passive rather than a questioning attitude from their patients and this is fostered by the sense of vulnerability and helplessness felt by pregnant women — especially when they are delivered into the hands of experts who, they believe, ought to know best and surrounded by a bewildering array of sophisticated equipment.

So what's the solution? Both the best and the worst aspects of the use of technology are represented in modern obstetrics. On the one hand the risks to mother and child associated with child-birth and pregnancy have fallen dramatically, as evident in the reduction in the perinatal mortality rate (still births and deaths during the first week of birth) from 38.5 per cent in 1948 to 17 per cent in 1977. But on the other hand modern obstetric methods have left women feeling degraded and brutalised. Under capitalism this situation will never be resolved; technological advances can only be used for the enrichment of the tiny few and the consequent enslavement of the vast majority. A truly civilised standard of medical care can flourish only in a truly human society and judging by current obstetric practices, it is perfectly obvious that we clearly do not live in one.

G. Davidson

Freedom not for us (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freedom is one of those words which nobody can be against. The trouble is that it means different things to different people. To socialists freedom means that we should no longer be forced by economic necessity to go out onto the labour market and sell our working abilities for a wage or salary to those who own the means of life. In other words, freedom for us means emancipation from wage slavery.

To the capitalist, however, freedom means the freedom to exploit wage labour and to buy and sell without government interference. Unfortunately, but in a sense understandably (as Marx pointed out a long time ago. the ruling ideas in class society are those of the ruling class), it is this second sense of freedom that is the most prevalent today — a fact which allows capitalists to disguise their sordid money-making as an application of the noble ideal of freedom.

The present controversy over Sunday opening is a case in point. The government and other supporters of this proposal present it as an extension of the area of freedom. In this particular case, however, they have some difficulty in disguising the purely commercial aspect of this proposal to allow supermarkets and other shops to trade on the one day of the week when their moneymaking activities have been restricted up till now.

Of course socialists don't take sides in this controversy, and even less support the Bible-quoting opponents of the measure, but we can't help pointing out that Sunday opening would represent a further victory for the logic of capitalism, a further invasion of our lives by the rampant commercialism that is an inherent feature of the system. But we are under no illusions that this is how it has to be under capitalism and how it will be, as capitalism continues its course. America is there to show us Europe's future when all the barriers to "free" capitalist trading inherited from a non-capitalist past (which actually never existed in America) have finally been swept away.

Another example is the much-vaunted "freedom of the press''. If you ever bother to read the editorials of the mass circulation daily press (most people don't, and rightly) you will find that they have an extremely high opinion of themselves: according to them a "free" press is a bulwark against tyranny and dictatorship. But if you scratch the surface a bit. you quickly realise that by "freedom" they mean freedom for the capitalist enterprises (not to say the millionaire press magnates) who own the daily papers to print in them anything — be it lies, pornographic, violent or obtained by unscrupulous methods — that they consider will sell more copies of the newspaper-commodity they produce.

If from time to time they expose some corrupt practice by a politician or government official it is to the benefit of the capitalist class, not us. All government spending is in the end a charge on profits and politicians and officials are there to carry out certain administrative functions on behalf of the capitalist class — not to help themselves to a share of the profits wrung from the wage and salary working class.

Then there is advertising. The dailies today are in fact more advertising sheets than newspapers in the sense that the sensationalised "news" items they publish are essentially bait to get people to buy the paper with a view to their reading the ads. So much is this the case that Eddie Shah, owner of the latest addition to the daily gutter press, has gone on record as looking forward to the day when newspapers will be given away free, financed entirely from their revenue from advertisements. To call such commercial rags a "free" press is a travesty of the word freedom.

Having said this however, a free press does exist in countries like Britain and America but it is not represented by the mass circulation commercial dailies. Rather is it represented by journals of opinion, published by committed groups wanting to put their point of view across — such as the Socialist Standard and of course other such publications that put a different view from ours. In other words, in the end the genuinely free press in the West is not much more extensive than its counterpart — the samizdat press — in the East, even if its conditions of publication are much less difficult.

Another example of the abuse of the term freedom to make it mean the absence of legal restrictions on money-making was over commercial radio. In Britain these were most appropriately called "pirate radios" (in fact, this is what they should continue to be called), but in France they called themselves "free radios". Some of them were indeed genuinely free in the same sense that the Socialist Standard and other non-commercial journals of opinion constitute the free press — they were run by people with a desire to communicate ideas or to simply amuse themselves and others without any ulterior money-making motive. But most were set up as profit-seeking enterprises.

In the end. the government agreed to legalise the private commercial radios, presenting this as an extension of "freedom" whereas, once again, it was really just another invasion of commercialism into our daily lives. If having the opportunity to listen to inane and insulting jingles urging us to buy this or that piece of rubbish is an extension of the domain of freedom, then the difference between the socialist and capitalist conceptions of freedom can be fully appreciated.

Adam Buick

Fit for consumption? (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under capitalism food supplies are manipulated to increase profits regardless of the consequences to health. This is because food, like all other goods, is produced for its exchange-value and, therefore, supplied according to the dictates of the market instead of for social needs.

Profits from agriculture are maximised in the following ways: destroying or storing food when there is a surplus that cannot be sold at a profit, regardless of the number of deaths from starvation or malnutrition; cutting back on food production to prevent unsaleable surpluses in subsequent harvests; farming land more intensively by using artificial fertilisers and pesticides; extending the number of processes which food undergoes.

Although about a quarter of a million old people in Britain suffer from malnutrition and there are obscene inequalities of wealth in the rest of the population, generally speaking there is relative affluence compared with underdeveloped countries and the problem for food manufacturers is to try to persuade people to buy more in order that the market can be expanded and profits increased. Normally manufacturers can persuade the public to buy more by the skilful use of advertising, playing on the fears and insecurity of consumers in an aggressively competitive, acquisitive society. But food presents a greater problem because, beyond the level of satiety. people do not eat more as a result of increased wealth. Nevertheless, profits can be increased by extending the number of processes which food undergoes and adulterating it with cheaper additives.

In 1969 a Lancet editorial pointed out that, on average, three pounds of chemical additives a year were consumed in food by each person in this country and that the number of additives exceeded 20,000, but by 1985 this number had increased to 35.000 and the consumption of additives was a staggering 8-11 pounds a year! Indeed, a new term — 'junk-food' has been coined to describe the artificially flavoured, highly processed food that is increasingly consumed today. Additives are used to provide colouring, enhance flavour, inhibit mould, emulsify, sweeten and provide uniformity of ingredients in the products sold.

The extent of the profits that can be made from expanding the processes which food undergoes can be seen in the sale of potato crisps which cost forty or fifty times more than the same weight of potatoes. Fish fingers and chickens are treated with polyphosphates (E450) to absorb more water, while fish and prawns are dipped in water before being frozen to increase their weight. It has been estimated that the public pays nearly five million pounds a year for water! (Walker. C. and Cannon. G. 1985. The Food Scandal, Century Publishing). All of these practices are perfectly legal: the 1984 regulations only require water to be declared in uncooked cured meats if it exceeds ten per cent.

The addition of water alone in frozen fish and prawns has no detrimental effects on health but polyoxyethylene monostearate, an emulsifier used in bread to make flour absorb water, causes cancer in rats. Cancers can be caused by some synthetic food colours. The use of amaranth, a red food dye, is permitted in Britain although in 1970 a Russian study showed that in its pure form it possesses carcinogenic activity. Amaranth was banned in the USA in 1976. Its continued use in Britain is a feature of additives in that there is a complete lack of uniformity of products permitted or banned from one country to another. Commercial considerations determine which additives are permitted, however harmful, while public awareness of the dangers of certain substances and consumer pressure in refusing to purchase certain products restricts or modifies their continued use.

The production of meat involves a number of processes which are potentially injurious to health; milk and meat may become contaminated from the routine doses of antibiotics given to cattle to prevent infectious diseases. The modern methods of rearing cattle cause them to be considerably fatter than wild game; the fat is also higher in saturated fats, which contribute to heart disease. and lower in polyunsaturated fats. But meat products present the greatest threat to health. Profits are boosted by using hide, skin. bone, preservatives and large amounts of fat in sausages. Most processed meats not only contain preservatives and colouring but consist of two or three per cent salt by weight while salami consists of as much as five per cent salt. Processed meats and bacon contain nitrates which interfere with the body's ability to convert carotene into vitamin A and combine with amines, occurring naturally in food, to produce nitrosamines which can cause cancer.

It is estimated that about twenty times more salt (sodium chloride) is ingested in this country than is needed for the maintenance of health and that an excessive intake is, at least in part, a causative factor in the production of high blood pressure. But salt is added to a wide range of products besides processed meats, including cereals, tinned vegetables. soups and bread.

Sodium also occurs in the diet by the wide use of monosodium glutamate, a flavour enhancer which permits smaller amounts of more expensive foods to be used. It was also widely used in baby foods until a study at Washington University in 1969 showed that in large doses it damaged the brain cells of baby mice. As babies have a poorly developed sense of taste its use was clearly directed at the mothers who "tested" the food to ensure that it was suitable. The publicity that resulted from the study led to some manufacturers (but not all) withdrawing monosodium glutamate from their products. The extensive use of monosodium glutamate in Chinese cooking can lead to side-effects such as palpitations, general weakness, gall bladder discomfort and numbness of the arms and the back of the neck and has become known as the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome".

Table salt, itself, is not free from additives but may contain sodium ferrocyanide and magnesium carbonate to prevent caking. In addition, sodium is consumed in the form of sodium citrate in soft drinks. It is, therefore, not surprising that a study in Scotland in the 45-64 age group found that one-fifth of them suffered from mild hypertension.

Sugar is an invaluable additive to the food manufacturer, it provides bulk cheaply, preserves, thickens and sweetens. Every man. woman and child in Britain consumes an average of two pounds of sugar a week. Tooth decay, obesity, constipation, diverticulitis, gall bladder disease, chronic digestive disorders and diabetes have all been implicated to some degree with the excessive consumption of refined foods in industrialised countries. By contrast. adult-onset diabetes is rare in rural Africa where a diet high in unrefined carbohydrates is eaten.

The food industry is also making more use of dextrose in food: more than 16lbs of glucose (dextrose) a year, on average, is consumed in processed foods. Fructose, a naturally occurring sugar which is twice as sweet as sucrose (white sugar) has been used in the food industry in the USA and could be an improvement in health terms because only half the amount needs to be used. But health needs under capitalism are always secondary to the requirement of profitability and the Common Market placed an import quota on high fructose com syrup to protect sugar beet production.

Highly refined foods provide more calories, but less nutrients (unless artificially added) and do not induce satiety as readily as unrefined food, tending to lead to higher consumption with greater profits for the manufacturers. White bread is made by the highly mechanised Chorleywood Bread Process which avoids the hours of fermentation that traditional bread requires. It also contains more air and water than the traditional loaf as a result of using additives that are potentially harmful. Polyoxyethylene monostearate, potassium bromate, propionic acid, ammonium sulphate, chlorine dioxide, nitrosyl chloride, benzoyle peroxide, sodium propionate. L-cysteine hydrochloride and azodicarbonamide are all used in refined bread. Agene was used for bleaching flour for nearly thirty years before it was linked with nervous disorders in humans and in 1968, 600 people in Johannesburg were poisoned by bread containing one per cent potassium bromate (Grant. D., Your Daily Food, Faber and Faber. 1973).

Even when additives are present in food at what are considered to be "safe" levels there is still a risk to health. The American Food and Drug Administration found that two chemicals taken at the same time can enhance the effect of each other; for example. silicone when used with an emulsifier makes the cells of the gut more absorbent and susceptible to poisoning.

There is also considerable contamination in food from the use of insecticides. In 1984 the Association of Public Analysts found that one third of fruit and vegetables were contaminated with DDT (despite being banned), aldrin (a carcinogen), dimethoate and mevinphos.

Although consumer pressure has resulted in a few dangerous substances being withdrawn from food the number of additives used has increased considerably in the last twenty years. Additives will continue to be used while it is profitable to do so. Only a socialist society which puts people first can stop the threat to health which capitalism imposes.

Carl Pinel

50 Years Ago: A Crime of Avarice (1986)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Thursday, April 16th. a woman, Nurse Waddingham, was hanged for murder. She had been found guilty of poisoning a patient in her nursing home, with the object of getting the patient's money. A special correspondent of the Evening News, on the day of the execution, wrote at some length on the life of Nurse Waddingham and on the motive for the murder: "Passion played no part in prompting her crime The motive was one more often associated with men murderers — avarice". Avarice, the dictionary tells us, is "greed of gain". So 34-year-old Nurse Waddingham, widow of "a respectable Nottingham yeoman ", mother of five children, was greedy. What made her greedy? A few years ago. during a court case, her household was described: "There seemed never any money in the house, and scarcely any food. No rent had been paid for nearly two years". The Evening News mentions this, but makes no comment. Poverty is so common that it is not news unless a murder is committed. Then the very natural desire to have food, clothing and shelter in a world where these exist in abundance — for the privileged minority of the population — is "avaricious"’ if the person concerned is not a member of the propertied class.

The murder was a callous one. but so are the journalists' capitalist employers callous. They accept the facts of working-class poverty, undernourishment and insecurity as necessary evils, just as they do all the premeditated atrocities of their war makers. Then, when some individual takes to private murder as a means of getting out of destitution, they sit back and sermonise about avarice.

[From the Socialist Standard, May 1936]

Between the Lines: The food problem (1986)

The Between the Lines column from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The food problem

The lunatics are most definitely running the asylum. This Week, Next Week (BBC1. 6 April) devoted one hour to a studio discussion about the problem of food surpluses. You see, there is too much food in Europe — 14 million tons of EEC grain is currently locked away in store and by 1990 the grain surplus is predicted to reach 90 million tons Minister of Agricultural Lunacy, John Selwyn Gummer, stated that "Now we're producing too much . . .  it's damaging the rest of the world, especially the poorest people" Funny that: I thought that "the poorest" people were dying in their millions for lack of food. Grain production has increased from two to four tons an acre in a very short time, moaned NFU spokesman David Naish. and this is causing major problems. Indeed, it seems that the British government is now storing beef in secret warehouses in London — Gummer admitted that this was the case but not one of the experts presented proposed that this beef and grain and all this other "surplus" food should be available immediately for free access. Had someone made such a suggestion — the idea of forgetting about money and profits and the nonsense of the market and producing food solely to eat — they would no doubt have been dismissed as a utopian crank. So the lunatics proceeded to think of ways to solve the problem of food over-production and the starving continued to starve and we have no doubt that Selwyn Gummer and the company had a pleasant Sunday lunch when they left the studio.

Make ’em work

This was the title of a Panorama programme (BBC 1. 7 April) about new policies in certain states of the USA to make it compulsory to work for the state before any welfare payments are granted. In Oklahoma it is compulsory for single women to seek work, even if they have given birth within the previous two months. No work, no payment — no payment, no money to spend — no money to spend, no food for them or their children. It's known as Workfare — a better term is wage slavery In West Virginia unemployed miners are forced to sweep the streets or help the police force as uniformed agents of coercion if they want to receive benefits. So much for the "land of the free" In California unemployed wage slaves are forced to go on courses designed to "make them want to work for wages". In the room where this course is being run is a large sign saying "THINK EMPLOYER". What can be better for capitalism than to educate the working class to be desperate for wage slavery to take whatever jobs are on offer — to look at themselves at all times from the angle of how exploitable they can be? In Britain young workers are already pushed on to YTS schemes where they are ripped off because of their economically insecure and unprotected position. How long might it be before "Workfare" is tried on the unemployed of Britain? Watching this programme showed just how unfree and vulnerable to economic coercion the wage-slave class is.

An orange fool

World In Action (ITV, 7 April) offered an introduction to a political leader who is arguably crazier than Ian Paisley. Peter Robinson, an MP who has close links with the para-military UDA, was shown to be a calculating, bigoted nationalist who is quite happy to let workers stone and kill one another for the sake of obsolete national aims. Robinson was asked why he attacked the IRA for its murders when he failed to criticise the recent violent rampages of the Loyalist thugs. We can answer the question: under capitalism a leader needs to be a committed hypocrite who will justify the indefensible when it is being carried out by his followers for the sake of his political interest. Anti-working-class leaders like Peter Robinson would not know a genuine political principle if it smacked them in the face Unfortunately for the workers of Ireland, it is they who are receiving the body blows and not well-protected, well-salaried stirrers of sectarian hatred like Robinson.

Update

Readers who followed our reference to the C4 Diverse Reports programme which was given over to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers" Party will be interested to learn that Channel Four have felt unable to deal with our complaint of being excluded and have passed our message to the IBA. We await their considered response.

Steve Coleman

Letter: Missing the point (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

Below is a copy of a letter of resignation I wrote to CND prior to taking up membership of the Socialist Party. I have also enclosed the reply 1 received. As you can see, Meg Beresford has completely missed the point of my letter, which was to declare that the world will never be rid of weapons of any kind while the capitalist system prevails, and therefore campaigning with CND is a waste of time and effort.

Dear Secretary. 

I am writing to inform you that I wish to discontinue my membership of CND as from now. 

The reason for this decision is that I have come to the conclusion that nuclear weapons are an inevitable symptom of the capitalist system, that is, governments have to protect their individual interests through war and therefore must obtain the most up-to-date weapons available. 

As CND exists merely to put pressure on leaders in the naive hope that they will abolish nuclear weapons, while at the same time supporting the system that spawned them, then I consider its efforts to be futile and contrary to the true interests of the working class. 

In my view, weapons of any kind will only be removed from the planet following the establishment of a socialist society, including the removing of all international frontiers, minority ownership and privilege, exploitation and money.

Nick Brunskill,  Bridgend

Dear Mr Brunskill,

Thank you very much for your letter. I am very sorry to see that you are discontinuing your membership of CND and I understand your reasons. I do not see quite why you cannot campaign for nuclear disarmament within CND on the one hand and involve yourself in other organisations which are working for the socialist society that you would like to see on the other, but there it is.

Meg Beresford 

General Secretary, CND