Prosperity under “Protection”. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment in New York State

	Idle Continuously for 3 months, Jan., Feb. & March.		Idle last day of March.
	Number	Per cent.	Number	Per cent.
1906	24,746	6.5	37,239	9.9
1907	65,642	13.8	77,270	19.1

1908  101,466                      26.3                    138,131                     35.7

Fortnightly Review, Dec., ’08.

Mamdani’s election no victory for socialism (2025)

From the December 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Zohran Mamdani began his victory speech on being elected mayor of New York City:

‘The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands.’

and ended it:

‘Together, New York, we’re going to freeze the rent. Together, New York, we’re going to make buses fast and free. Together, New York, we’re going to deliver universal childcare. Let the words we’ve spoken together, the dreams we’ve dreamt together, become the agenda we deliver together. New York, this power, it’s yours. This city belongs to you.’

This is a bold claim that his election represented the passing of political power in New York into the hands of ‘working people’. In fact, it represented the election of a political leader who promised to improve things for them. No doubt he is sincere and no doubt many are hoping that he will do this, but the question is will he be able to?

Peter Joseph, of Zeitgeist fame, thinks not:

‘For 18 years, I’ve tried to explain that the idea of getting the right person into political power—by whatever means—will never be enough to bring society back onto a sustainable and equitable path. The larger systemic forces, spiraling like a hurricane of negating feedback loops, will devour any fundamentally contradictory personality, policy, or platform. This is not an indictment of democracy as an idea, but of democracy as it exists within the larger construct of market capitalism—a power structure first and foremost. I want everyone to watch, as time moves forward, how this well-meaning man will be completely paralyzed and ultimately destroyed if he truly attempts any meaningful anti-market policy changes, or what he refers to as “democratic socialism.” By the end of this exercise, I hope people will realize that if you expect to change society, the political system cannot be the only system you rely on, because it is fundamentally and inherently corrupt by its very nested nature within the confines of market capitalism.’

We don’t know about wanting people to just watch Mamdani fail (they should rather be active in campaigning to replace the profit system with socialism as a society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of life) but Joseph is basically right. There are structural reasons why no politician operating within capitalist system can honour their promises to improve things, however sincere or determined they might be.

Mamdani has been elected to run the affairs of a big city but within the framework of capitalism, and capitalism is a system that imposes its priority — the making and accumulation of profits — on political as well as economic actors. That profits need to be made, and encouraged to be made, is something that anyone elected to political office within capitalism has to contend with and, in the end, accept and even impose.

Even though elected as the candidate of the pro-capitalist Democratic Party, Mamdani stated that he was a ‘democratic socialist’ and is in fact a member of the ‘Democratic Socialists of America’ (DSA) which proclaims:

‘Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society… We want a democracy powered by everyday people. The capitalist class tells us we are powerless, but together we can take back control.’

The DSA is one of the fragments of the old reformist ‘Socialist Party of America’ that imploded in 1972, with one part — them — deciding to enter the Democratic Party and pursue their aims there. The SPA was the party of Eugene Debs — hence Mamdani’s nod to him in his opening remarks. Debs stood for President of the USA on five occasions between 1900 and 1920. Launching his 1912 campaign he said of the Republican and Democratic parties:

‘They are substantially one in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office. To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact. They, or rather it, stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery.’

This is as true today as it was then, but if it’s reforms you are after (as Mamdani and the others in the DSA are) there is some sense in working within a party that has a good chance of winning political office and so be in a position to implement reforms. Mamdani is now in that position and can (if he can raise the funds) implement this but faces a further obstacle — the capitalist economic system which will not allow people’s needs to be put before profit and will undermine his reforms, in particular his flagship ones aimed at reducing the cost of living (rent freeze, free buses, free childcare) as this will exert a downward pressure on money wages. It will be swings and roundabouts.

If, on the other hand, you want socialism this makes no sense at all since, in supporting a party that stands for capitalism, you are supporting capitalism even if you seek to improve it. That’s why we say Mamdani’s election was not a victory for socialism.

Adam Buick

Cooking the Books: No such thing as free buses (2025)

The Cooking the Books column from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his successful campaign to win the primary election to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 4 November election for the Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, the left-winger, ran on a promise ‘to lower the cost of living for working class New Yorkers’ (zohranfornyc.com). He is a member of a group of reformist Social Democrats calling themselves the ‘Democratic Socialists of America’ who have chosen to bore from within the Democrat Party and among his proposals was ‘fast, fare-free buses’.

It is not a new idea. It’s been put into practice in some places. In fact, in itself it’s a good idea. Fares do restrict people’s freedom to travel and fare-collecting, even via plastic cards and ticket-machines, is a waste of resources. More people travelling by public transport and less by car will help reduce air pollution and carbon emissions.

Free transport in a socialist society would be run for people to use as and when they want it. But a distinction needs to be drawn between free transport as a reform within capitalism and free transport as part of socialist society where all goods and services will be free.

Under capitalism, where there is no such thing as a free anything, the question arises of how free transport would be funded. Mamdani’s supporters, like Matt Bruenig, say that his plan will be paid for by increased local taxes. Bruenig explained:

‘Most people seem to realize that if we shifted to a fee-funded school system, we’d need to roll back property and other taxes in order to make sure people had the money to pay the fees).’ (jacobin.com/2025/06/zohran-mamdani-free-bus-proposal).

By the same token, he argued, introducing free buses would have the opposite effect. It would mean people would save money from which to pay the increase in taxes to fund it. This makes some sense but it rather undermines Mamdani’s claim that free buses would lower the cost of living (whatever other merits it might have).

There is in fact a link via the cost of living between free services and wages. Fares are an important item in the cost of living and it is the cost of living which largely determines the level of wages and salaries. Whatever reduces the cost of living will tend also to reduce wages. Anything provided free by someone else relieves employers of having to pay their employees to cover this, as would be the case if fares were abolished. It would be a subsidy to employers, whatever its other merits might be.

Before everybody can benefit from free transport, the whole wages system needs to be abolished. The means of production must be converted from the class property of a privileged few into the common property of the whole community. This would also create the framework within which the problem of the motor car and its pollution and destruction can be rationally tackled.

Once the means of production are the common heritage of all and are under democratic control, then the profit motive and the price system can be abolished. Wealth can be produced solely for people to use. People can have free access not only to travel facilities but to all the other things they need to live and enjoy life. Goods will not be priced, but will be available for all to take freely according to their needs.

The crime wave (1946)

From the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

New York.

"The long-predicted post-war crime wave is beginning to make itself felt throughout America. Not only have murders increased, but there has been a sharp increase in bank robberies for the first time in almost 12 years."—(Report from New York. Evening Standard, 4th December, 1945.)

London.

" C.I.D. to round up 9,000 deserters. Biggest crime wave since 1919."—(Headlines in Daily Telegraph, 10th December, 1945.)

Moscow.

“Armed military police are patrolling the Moscow streets as part of the action taken by the Soviet authorities to stamp out a post-war crime wave in the capital. Additional police are on duty at night."—(Report from Moscow. News Chronicle, 28th November, 1945.)

Film Review: Miracle on 34th Street (1947) (2025)

Film Review from the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

We deconstruct a ‘classic’ film that is always shown on some TV channel over Christmas.

For those who don’t know, this is a Christmas film about a nice, elderly man – called Kris Kringle – who gets a job as a department store Santa Claus, but thinks he really is Father Christmas. Kringle befriends: a lawyer (whom he later moves in with); his girlfriend (whom he also works for at Macy’s department store); and her little girl from a previous relationship.

The story has two main plots that connect. The first is about a court case in which the lawyer has to prove that Kringle is the real Santa Claus in order to stop him from being put in a mental hospital. The second plot is about Doris (the single mother) who won’t let her daughter believe in Santa Claus or use her imagination in any way, because she wants her to have a realistic outlook on life. It’s not entirely clear why she decided to do this, but it has something to do with Doris’s husband/Susan’s father abandoning them both.

Even though this film is regarded by many as a Christmas classic, from a socialist point of view it’s terrible. Firstly, Kris Kringle is used as a metaphor for God, with the film being an allegory about why it’s important to have faith. In that respect, the famous ending of this film is what Americans would call a giant cop-out. The New York Post Office decides to send Kringle all the letters they get from children addressed to Santa Claus (they do this to cut down on their waste). Because of this, the judge rules in favour of Kringle due to the Post Office (a branch of the US government) recognising that he is Santa Claus.

The ending of the 1994 remake makes a lot more sense. In that version, Kringle is proven to be the real Santa Claus because ‘In God We Trust’ is written on US bank notes, which shows that if the US Treasury is allowed to put its faith in God on the currency – without the requirement of evidence that God exists – then the people of New York should be allowed to believe Santa Claus is real without evidence.

Another reason why this film is bad from a socialist perspective is because of a sub-plot in which Kringle uses his position (as the department store Santa) to advise parents to go to other stores to get what their children want for Christmas if Macy’s doesn’t have it. This leads to a lot of positive feedback from customers, and also to Gimbels (Macy’s main market rival) copying them. And, wouldn’t you know it, this leads to both stores making super profits, therefore, they don’t have to compete with each other anymore. How wonderfully reformist!

In conclusion, it’s not hard to see why this is regarded as a classic. However, it’s very preachy and believes that rival businesses can and should co-operate with each other in order to optimise the interests of both capitalists and customers.

Matthew Shearn

Editorial: Slums doubled since 1933 (1955)

Editorial from the June 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

In their election manifesto, “United for Peace and Progress,” the Conservatives promised to start a programme for clearing the slums and aiming to rehouse “at least 200,000 people a year from them.” (P. 23).

As the Conservative Minister of Housing, Mr. Duncan Sandys, put the probable number of slum houses at a million (Manchester Guardian, 12/1/55) and as you can reckon that there are between three and four million people living in that million slum houses, it would take a very long time to clear the existing slums at the rate proposed. And in the meantime more slums will have appeared out of the other millions of old and dilapidated houses.

The Conservative manifesto went on to make the claim that “there has been only one full-scale slum clearance drive in British history, and that was when Conservatives were in office in the late ’thirties.”

But, according to the Labour Party’s “Handbook 1951” (p. 234), that Conservative slum clearance programme had closed or demolished only 245,000 slums by March, 1939, so that nearly half of the original 1933 estimate of 472,000 slums were still being lived in.

It will be observed that, according to this estimate, there are about four times as many slums now as there were in 1939 and double the number that existed in 1933.

Slum clearance fares no better in New York according to an article by Mr. Gerard Fay in the Manchester Guardian (9 May, 1955). There, too, they plan to abolish the slums and “the housing now planned, when built, will be a victory over a problem which must once have seemed insoluble, but it will be far from total victory.”

“At the end of 1952 there were still 426,792 apartments in the city which were more than 50 years old. This does not sound alarming by European standards but New York tenements more than 50 years old, especially in Manhattan, are often below, far below, any decent housing standard.”

He writes of “ the more than a 100,000 apartments in New York which have no private bath or toilet . . . an equal number which have no running water or are classified as * dilapidated,’. . .  the more than 50,000 which have cold water only.”

Lastly, “the housing shortage could be ended and the slum problem finally solved only by building something like 400,000 apartments. The present plans fall far below this ideal."

Voice From The Back: Outdated Marxism? (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outdated Marxism?

A gap of over a 150 years separates the following two quotations, but they surely give the lie to the notion that Marxism is now outdated. “Paris: Junior doctors in France went on an indefinite partial strike in protest at their long working hours. Members of the ISNTH union, which represents 8,000 junior doctors, said they will refuse night shifts or be on call at home until demands are met.” The Times (20 November, 2001) “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers.” Communist Manifesto 1848

The wasteful society

Socialists are always arguing against supporters of capitalism that it is a wasteful and destructive society. A recent item from the Herald (26 November) illustrates our point very well. “Every time a single B2 Spirit stealth bomber makes the gruelling 34 hour round trip from its base in rural Missouri to unload its precision-guided payload over rural Afghanistan half a world away, it costs the American taxpayer more than £2.5m in fuel for the mission. Each laser-guided bomb dropped adds another £50,000 to the bill.”

The fearful society

It is often said by sociologists that social trends that first surface in the USA eventually appear in the UK. If such were to prove true about crime and punishment then the future is very gloomy indeed. According to the journalist Simon Jenkins writing in the Times (28 November) the US have a real problem. “What is known is that America now imprisons a staggering 700 people per 100,000, against 124 in Britain and 89 in France. One in three young black males in American inner cities is in prison or on parole . . . Meanwhile, half a million Californians feel they must live in armed and gated estates.”

Progressing backwards

Amidst the phoney euphoria of the Labour Party’s electoral victory of 1997 the British working class were promised an end to poverty or “social exclusion” as Labour prefer to call it. But what is the reality today? David Plachaud of the London School of Economics in the current issue of the Political Review is quoted in the Guardian (26 November) as remarking: “Child poverty remains higher than it was in 1979.” and “Britain still has the highest child poverty rate of any major industrialised country apart from the United States.”

The unhealthy society

In a revealing article in the Observer (2 December) it was shown that so pathetic is Labour’s running of the NHS that one in eight of the population now have private medical insurance, and that even those without private insurance won’t use the NHS. “Even those without medical insurance boycott the NHS in record numbers. Last year, more than 200,000 people jumped NHS waiting lists by paying for private operations – double when Labour came to power.” The most revealing aspect was the reason put forward for many employers providing health cover. Surprise, surprise it wasn’t the bosses concern for the workers they exploit; it was a commercial one. “Fergus Kee, managing director of BUPA’s UK insurance business, said: “Companies are increasingly recognising the value of medical insurance to get sick employees back to work faster.”

For my next trick

The Rev. Andrew Thompson is concerned about falling Church of England attendances, so he has come up with a super wheeze. He has written a booklet “Gospel Magic” that advocates flaming torches, trick guillotines and disappearing handkerchiefs to get the punters back to church. This has aroused a lot of opposition from more conservative elements in the church but it is difficult to sympathise with them. After all, their main man the Cunning Carpenter was reputed to have been a dab hand at conjuring tricks like water into wine and fish teas for the five thousand.

Bought it fair and square

In last month’s issue we reported that Michael Bloomberg had bought the office of Mayor of New York for $60 million; we were wrong. The official figures are now out and reported in the Times (5 December) – he spent $68,968,185! Even by American standards this is a phenomenal election expenditure for such an office. President Bush spent $193 million on his presidential campaign against Al Gore’s $133 million and Hillary Clinton spent $29.9 million, a record in New York, to become a Senator. Bloomberg spent more than five times his Democratic Party opponent Mark Green, in fact it is reckoned that he spent $92.60 for each of his 744,757 votes. The really staggering aspect of this corruption of democracy is that the Times can report it boldly, under the headline” $69m buys election as Mayor of New York” and that Mr Green’s campaign manager Richard Schrader could say: “He bought it fair and square. By spending a historic amount on television ads, he controlled the airwaves and altered people’s perception of reality.” Capitalism has reduced everything to the cash nexus. Why don’t they just dispense with voting altogether and have an auction for all the offices of power between the capitalists and their puppets? The whole thing has become a farce and has no claim to the term “democracy”.

Capitalism’s facelift?

“All companies must strive to give capitalism a name that doesn’t result in riots. Capitalism is good. But benevolent capitalism is better!” Sir Richard Branson. Yorkshire Post (1 December).

Voice From The Back: Is This The Way In Amarillo? (2007)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is This The Way In Amarillo?

“In March, 2005 a nuclear warhead almost exploded in Texas. The near miss accident occurred in Amarillo, when workers at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant bungled the dismantling of a W-56 warhead, a weapon 100 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War 2. Details of the averted catastrophe have been kept under wraps until last month, when the Department of Energy (DOE) fined the company that operates the plant, BWX Technologies, $110,000 for safety violations. In a letter obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), technicians at the plant blamed the accident on severe working conditions, including mandatory 72 to 84 hour work weeks. One nuclear scientist told POGO that he “would not work on his car engine if he were fatigued from a 72- hour work week, and sure as hell would not work on a nuclear weapon.” (The Nation, 18 December) $110,000 fine is hardly reassuring but what is worse is the news that the plant has set its 2007 production aims for a 50 percent increase.

Viva Las Vegas?

The city of Las Vegas likes to promote itself as a tourist paradise of fun and entertainment, but there is another side to it. “This is a boomtown, but it is also scattered with signs of bust – namely homeless people. And the city is taking a hard line against them. With mixed success in the courts and on the streets, Las Vegas has tried sweeping away their encampments, closing a park where they hang out, making it a crime to feed them, even passing a ban on sleeping within 500 feet of faeces.” (Associated Press, 18 December) The mayor has even proposed moving the homeless to an abandoned prison 30 miles outside the city. The area has a population of 1.8 million but has 14,500 homeless. The mayor may seem heartless, but capitalism is a heartless society.

Post Xmas Blues

At a time when many workers are reeling from credit card demands and other reminders of our debts it is heartening to know that this is not the fate of everyone. “Sales of high priced items such as designer shoes and celebrity jewellery are breaking records, while John Lewis’s director of retail operations, Gareth Thomas confirmed that the department store group is poised to record its best ever performance. … Sales have been buoyed up by shoppers buying flat-screen televisions for second and third rooms… Mark Henderson, chief executive of tailor Gieves and Hawkes, said: `There is a definite return to formality and a flurry of sales of traditional dinner jackets starting at £1,200`” (Observer, 24 December) Fellow workers, as you sit watching your third flat-screen television in your traditional £1,200 dinner jacket you must often reflect that capitalism isn’t such a bad system after all.

New York, New York

“Food or rent? That is the daily choice faced by about 1.2 million of New York’s 8.2 million people. Faced with that choice, mostly they pay rent and rely on emergency or charity food to survive, poverty activists say. … Hunger is not unique to New York. More than 12 million households – or 35 million Americans – struggled with hunger in 2005, according to the US government. … About 3,800 people were living on the streets in 2006, according to New York City statistics.” (Reuters, 26 December) When Sinatra sang about “The City that never sleeps”, he was telling the truth – it must be hard to sleep on the street with all that traffic.

The Insecure Society

In Dundee after the Second World War the NCR company in Dundee employed over 7,000 workers, but over the years this has fallen to less than 1,500. So when Bill Nuti, the company’s chief executive announced 14 months ago that he was “one million per cent committed to the Dundee operation” the remaining workers felt relieved, but capitalism doesn’t work that way. “A total of 650 factory workers in Dundee were dismissed via transatlantic videolink by their American employer yesterday after being told that production was to be switched to cheaper plants overseas. Employees at NCR, which makes  automatic teller machines, were summoned to a meeting at midday yesterday where amidst angry scenes, the job loses were announced by videolink by Bill Nuti, the company’s chief executive.” (Times, 12 January)

Priorities

Two items appearing in the same newspaper on the same day illustrate the priorities of British capitalism. “Patients face much tougher rationing of treatments and restricted access to breakthrough drugs if the Government does not rethink its plans for health spending, the NHS’s treatment regulator has told the Times. Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, the head of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), cited treatments ranging from new life-saving drugs to free food for the elderly in nursing homes as examples of care that could suffer if ministers slowed the rate of spending, as expected.” And … “Tony Blair defended his policy of intervention and said that more money would have to be spent on the Armed Forces to improve conditions and equipment, enable Britain to stay a warfighting power and face the threat of terrorism.” (Times, 13 January)

Tiny Tips (2010)

The Tiny Tips column from the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard 

While the world has been devouring reality television shows, many Argentines have been opting this Christmas for reality board games, such as Eternal Debt, involving the International Monetary Fund.

[Paywalled Link.]

For seven years, Jennipher was forced to breastfeed the puppies of her husband’s hunting dogs. After drinking and smoking heavily, Nathan Alowoi would appear at the marital bed, bind his young wife’s legs and hands together and force the mewling animals to her nipple. He had handed over two cows to his father-in-law as part of the “bride price” for his new wife. So, he reasoned, if the cows were no longer around to provide milk then his new purchase would have to provide for the pups. “I had to feed them all through the night; then in the morning he would untie me,” his wife, now 26, explains matter-of-factly.

[Link.]

Israel will begin distributing its entire population with gas masks in two months, though no reason has officially been given by the Israeli government.

[Dead Link.]

Most Britons have little confidence in official statistics and believe that they are distorted by politicians, according to a survey for the Financial Times. Only about 10 per cent of adults believe that official figures are accurate, while a similar proportion think that figures are produced without political interference, according to the survey conducted by Harris.

[Paywalled Link.]

That isn’t stopping some restaurants from putting together the usual intricate New Year’s dinner — and in some cases, charging astronomical prices. At New York’s Aureole, for example, diners will be getting a five-course meal including big-eye tuna sashimi, chestnut ravioli, Canadian lobster, and N.Y. strip loin. The price: a mind-boggling $650.

[Link.]

Voice From The Back: The benefits of globalisation (2001)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The benefits of globalisation

“America’s steel industry is in a mess; only a week ago, a veteran foundry, Bethlehem Steel followed two dozen of its brethren into Chapter 11 bankruptcy . . . The company blamed its plight on a tide of cheap imports and this week Pittsburgh-based US Steel announced third-quarter losses of $23 million. …. President Bush in June announced he would take action under section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974, an obscure law that permits global safeguards to industry. Unlike anti-dumping measures which require proof of unfairness, section 201 permits the erection of tariff barriers to provide temporary relief from import competition.” (Times, 24 October)

So, behind all it’s bombast about free trade and the benefits of competition, the US government reveals yet again a truism about capitalism. Capitalists are in favour of free trade when they are winning but against it when their competitors are winning.

It’s a dog’s life

Something of the madness of capitalism in general and post-disaster New York in particular can be gauged from Chris Ayres’s Wall Street Diary in the Times (25 October).

“A bomb-sniffing dog can take as much as $2,500 (£1,760) back to his kennel for a 16 hour shift. With the dogs working seven days a week, this adds up to an impressive $912,500 per year.”

A great deal more money than the wages of the heroic New York firemen who perished in that recent disaster, or indeed, for that matter, any of our readers.

It ain’t half hot, mum

In this column in May we reported that British police forces were interested in the development of an American crowd control vehicle that zapped demonstrators with microwaves. The good news for control freaks everywhere is that the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in New Mexico have recently completed tests.

“The Air Force now wants to use this Active Denial Technology (ADT), which it says is non-lethal, for peacekeeping or riot control at “relatively low range” – possibly from low-flying aircraft. … AFRL says that the 3 millimetre wavelength radiation penetrates only 0.3 millimetres into the skin, rapidly heating the surface above the 45 degrees C pain threshold. At 50 degrees C, they say the pain reflex makes people pull away automatically in less than a second – it’s said to feel like fleetingly touching a hot light bulb. Someone would have to stay in the beam for 250 seconds before it burnt the skin, the lab says, giving ‘ample margin between intolerable pain and causing a burn'” (New Scientist, 29 October).

Wow, is this tempting, or what, for repressive regimes everywhere? Burn, baby, burn.

Gerry in Wonderland

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” A similar disdain for language would seem to be shared by Lewis Carroll’s character in Alice in Wonderland and Gerry Adams.

“Mr Adams said, ‘The IRA is not a terrorist organisation. The name terrorist is bandied about willy-nilly. Clearly what happened in the USA recently was a terrorist act where civilians were deliberately targeted. In any war terrible things were done. In my view the IRA has never deliberately targeted civilians'”.

Pressed on whether the IRA had never placed bombs in shopping districts he said, “Well, it depends, it depends, you see.” He then added: “It’s quite academic.” The Herald (6 November)

Not really all that academic though if your kid has been blown up by some mad zealot, is it, Gerry?

A strange democracy

In an apparently surprising turnaround Michael Bloomberg was elected Mayor of New York last month. Surprising in that he was standing as a Republican in a city where five out of six voters are registered Democrats. Surprising also in that until about a year ago he was a Democrat. He has had no previous political experience Blatantly he only became a Republican to stand for mayor and used the campaign slogan “A leader not a politician.”

His 51 percent share of the vote becomes less surprising however, when you realise that Mr Bloomberg is a billiomaire and spent a staggering $60 million on his campaign. In other words he bought the office of Mayor of New York. A strange “democracy” indeed.

Praising Karl Marx

Socialists are used to the works of Karl Marx being dismissed or ignored by capitalism’s academics, so it is a pleasant change to read on page 166 of Steve Jones’s Almost Like A Whale a brief compliment to Marx:

“Karl Marx got it (as usual) more or less right: ‘what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality’. His statement brings out the pragmatic nature of evolution, in a hive or anywhere else. Bee society has no plans.”

From rats to riches

A short news item from  Rio de Janeiro speaks volumes about the ingenuity of the working class and the madness of capitalism. “Rats in the Brazilian city outnumber human beings ten to one and people are being offered about £1.30 for every 2lb of dead rat found. Officials are using poison and will collect carcasses – despite fears that poor people will begin rearing the rodents.” (Times, 10 November).

Voice From The Back: The rich get richer (2005)

The Voice From The Back Column from the November 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rich get richer

"The US's richest tycoons increased their personal wealth in the past year, with the top 400 worth $1.13 trillion (£640bn), says Forbes magazine.... To make this year's list of the top 400 fortunes in the US a minimum net worth of $900m was required — up from $750m last year." (BBC News, 23 September) The old popular song "Aint We Got Fun" cynically stated "The rich get rich and the poor get children", but it is no laughing matter.

Your two cents worth

An analysis of the gap between the rich and poor in Manhattan by Dr Beveridge of the City University of New York is revealing. "Income Disparity in City Matches Namibia. Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue is only about 60 blocks from the Wagner Houses, a public housing project in East Harlem, but they might as well be light years apart. They epitomise the highest and lowest earning tracts in Manhattan, where the disparity between rich and poor is now greater than any county in the country. . . .  The top fifth of earners in Manhattan make 52 times what the lowest fifth make — $365,826 compared with $7,047 — roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia. . . .  Put another way, for every dollar made by households in the top fifth of Manhattan earners, households in the bottom fifth made about 2 cents." (New York Times, 17 September)

Big Spender

"The minute he walked in the joint, they could tell he was a real big spender. . . .  By the time he left the Aviva bar in the five-star Baglioni Hotel in Kensington,West London, on Thursday night, he had spent nearly £36,000. He bought 851 cocktails, emptied the place of Louis Roederer Cristal champagne, and gave a waitress a £3,000 tip. (Times, 1 October) This hedge fund manager from New York spent £16,500 on champagne and £6,000 on a variety of cocktails. It can be safely assumed this high-roller does not live in the Wagner housing project in East Harlem.

Doublethink

According to George Orwell in 1984, doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. This spectacular mental gymnastic feat seems to have been accomplished by Karen Hughes, a public relations spokesperson for President Bush in her recent trip to the Middle East. Trying to sugar the pill for her Turkish listeners she came out with this classic of Doublespeak. "To preserve peace, sometimes my country believes war is necessary." (Observer, 2 October)

Progressing backwards

Some years ago the press and TV was full of conjecture about the wonderful leisure-based life we would have inside capitalism. Futurologists and other media pundits speculated that with the advance of technology we would all be working fewer hours and fewer days per week. The big problem of the future would be how to spend all our leisure hours. Such scenarios have proven completely wrong with many of us now working longer hours and now it seems probably working for many more years. "The state pension age should be raised to 70, the Confederation of British Industry says in light of new figures detailing extended life expectancy." (Times, 4 October)

The dignity of labour

In an edited extract from Maxwell's Fall: An Insider's Account by Roy Greenslade we learn something of the contempt the owning class feel for the working class. When Maxwell took over The Daily Mirror he wanted to speak to Kelvin MacKenzie then the editor of The Sun but his secretary reported that MacKenzie would not accept his call. "Maxwell demanded that the secretary relate the conversation in full, but she was hesitant. "No, no, no," screamed Maxwell. "Tell me everything he said." She said she would prefer not to, but Maxwell shouted: "You will not get into trouble, Patricia. But if you refuse, you will be in trouble. "Well, Mr Maxwell, he said, "I don't want to speak to the fat Czech bastard." Two weeks later Patricia left in tears, escorted from the building by a security man (Times, 6 October).

The decline of religion

It used to be an argument of supporters of capitalism that socialism was impossible because of the working class's adherence to religion. A recent article by the columnist Magnus Linklater seems to give the lie to that notion. "Whereas in 1851 between 40 and 60 per cent of the population went regularly to church, today that figure is less than 7 per cent. In recent years the trend has accelerated — by 28 per cent in the last 20 years for the Catholic Church, and 24 per cent for the Anglican Church; in Scotland, the fall has been so dramatic that the once all-powerful Kirk reported recently that it could well be extinct as an organisation within the next 50 years." (Times, 13 October) Any other arguments against socialism?

Socialist Scholars Conference (1989)

From issue 6 of the World Socialist Review

Held at the City University of New York at the beginning of April (which this writer attended), it was impressive enough in terms of the range of subjects it covered, the number of persons attending it and the breadth of representation of the sponsors and participants. The closest thing to it I can think of (and which I have never been to) is an annual event in France sponsored by the Trotskyist Lutte Ouvridro (Workers’Struggle), in which everyone who’s anyone on the left shows up.

It was, on the face of it, a welcome opportunity to discuss ideas and events in a relatively open atmosphere, though in practice, it frequently turned into a war of fixed positions between competing points of view. It also represented an occasion for networking (establishing contacts with other organizations) and generally a pretty good place to find source materials.

Organized by the CUNY Democratic Socialists’ Club and centered nominally on the theme, “Two Centuries of Revolution: 1789-1989," the Conference was used regularly and methodically by the DSs to get in some Marx-bashing; I couldn't be sure how well attended those workshops were, since they were all the same dreary variations on the topic, "Isn’t Marxism dead yet?" which did not help them to seem any more interesting.

Two panels which I did attend—one called “Is Capitalism Entering a New Stage?” sponsored by Monthly Review, featuring Paul Sweezy, Samir Amin and Beatrix Campbell, and the other on “Black Workers and Class Consciousness"—were at least on more provocative subjects. (Sweezy believes the answer to the question is "no”: capitalism is locked on a course of continued stagnation.) The panel on class consciousness among black workers brought forth the usual round of analyses and ended by leaving the impression that black workers are neither more nor less class conscious than any other sectors of the working class in the United States—though racism and systematic underemployment can generate extra obstacles to socialist understanding for blacks.

Had we (the Boston group) made inquiries early enough, we could at least have had adequate time to decide whether or not we wanted to pay for and man a literature booth at the Conference. We should definitely set up a booth there next year; it would give some very good exposure to socialist ideas. If we can demonstrate expertise in some field, it is even possible we could sponsor a panel or workshop of our own at future conferences, assuming there is a show of interest in it from comrades.

Ron Elbert

By The Way: Concern for Workers (1944)

The By The Way Column from the October 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Concern for Workers

As everyone knows, there is a most terrible housing crisis in London now. The newspapers are full of appeals to the authorities to get something done about it. The Government has brought thousands of building workers from the provinces and arranged for them to work a 65-hour week, Mr. J. J. Mallon, the Warden of Toynbee Hall, has written to the Times pointing out that long hours under modern conditions do not make for greater production.

Let Mr. Mallon speak for himself: —

HOURS OF WORK. 

To the Editor of the Times, 

Sir,—It is disquieting to learn that building operatives are to work 65 hours a week on first-aid repairs to houses in the London area. Even though the arrangement is to apply only for three weeks, it is deplorable and against the teaching of all industrial experience. The Regional Joint Committee for London express the view that the Government is “ill advised to propose such hours,” and suggest “that the maximum hours of work should not exceed 60.” Sixty hours are also too many. If 55 or even fewer hours are worked more will be done.

For nearly 40 years as a member of innumerable trade boards and other industrial bodies I have had to do with hours of employment. When these hours are excessive they tend to lessen rather than increase production, to add to illness, accidents, and absenteeism, and so to fatigue the worker as to do him cumulative injury. The reduction of excessive hours always leads to greater production. Surely the example of America, where miracles of war production have been achieved, should not be disregarded. Early in their associated war efforts the relevant American Government departments decided in favour of an eight-hour day and a 18-hour week “as the best working schedule for sustained efficiency in most industrial operations.” The results of their decision fully justify it. The Government should reconsider the 65 hours proposal.

Yours sincerely, J. J. Mallon, 

Toynbee Hall, 

28, Commercial Street, E.I. July 26.”

—(Times, July 28, 1944.)

Mr. H. C. Harland, the President of the Master Builders’ Association, has written to the Times to confirm Mr. Mallon’s verdict. The point that Socialists are concerned with is that Mr. Mallon and his apparently kindly well-meaning fellow Lib.-Labourals are not really worried about the worker, as such, at all. They reduce hours and give medical treatment, holidays, music while you work, etc., in the same way as one puts expensive oil into a motor engine—to make it run better.

They are not the first or the only ones to realise that the old big stick methods of treating the workers are out of date.

Even King Farouk of Egypt is busily running round telling the tale to the workers—a very good reference for Egyptian workers, incidentally. The Times for July 31st records his “visit to the M.I.S.R. Co.’s spinning and weaving (cotton) works, where he had an enthusiastic reception from 26,000 employees.” “In an address to the board of directors he emphasised the importance of the Egyptian worker, and impressed upon them the necessity of providing better living and working conditions. He invited representatives of the workers to the royal table and made a gift of £1,000 to their benevolent society.” “King Farouk is missing no opportunity of establishing closer and more personal relations with the humbler classes of his subjects.” (Times, July 31st.)

Naturally, British capitalists don’t call representatives of their workers to their table to present them with £1,000. They get Sir William Beveridge to do it. The idea is always the same—to get the workers to work better. “All that glitters is not gold.” Working men who allow this talk about concern for them, by capitalist Lib.-Lab. politicians, to delude them into supporting reforms of capitalism will get improved capitalism, not Socialism—that is, increased exploitation and relative poverty.

* * *

“How U.S. Airmen are Taught New Technique"

Under this heading a London evening paper reports that mobile training units, miniature technical schools on wheels, are now following U.S. airmen as bases move deeply into France. “Though airmen are fully trained before coming to Europe, continual aircraft modifications due to experience in battle make it necessary for mechanics to study constantly.” The training has speeded up aircraft repair so much that the director of the training units has sent mobile units to every war theatre in which U.S. aircraft are fighting.

What is happening to-day on the battlefields happens yesterday and to-morrow in industry. The complex nature of the productive methods developed by capitalism force mechanics to “study constantly.”

When mechanics are studying constantly nothing on earth can prevent them eventually contacting and completely grasping the Socialist idea—which is the application of study to problems of society. The reply to those who claim that “the workers will never learn,” is “look around you”—the workers are learning at aeronautical speed, every day, at their work.

* * *

Last Days of the Barricades

A great deal has been written and said about the insurrection in Warsaw. That the plight of the insurgents is rather pitiable can hardly be disputed.

Most ironical of all, the high-priests of insurrection, at all times, in any places, during the past twenty-five years, the Moscow politicians, are supporting their own special Committee of Liberation as against the British sponsored Council of National Unity of the Polish Government in London. Incidentally, the London Council of National Unity is more “radical” than the Committee of Liberation, making play with the phrase “socialisation of industry.”

For this reason, Pravda says that “the Red Army has always warned people against such risings. Handfuls of men armed only with fiery sentiments and cold steel have no chance against modern weapons in battles for large cities.” (Our emphasis.) (The Observer, August 20th.)

To this the Poles reply that the Soviet radio had, in fact, on several occasions shortly before the rising, called on the Polish people, and especially the people of Warsaw, to rise against the Germans.

Apart from this, such statements from the Bolshevik leaders of to-day are the clearest confirmation of the Socialist Party’s repeatedly expressed view on insurrection. Years were spent proving how the Russian Communists were distorting the writings of Engels—for example, in his well-known preface to “The Class Struggles in France”—to try and justify their unprincipled attempts to embarrass foreign governments by riots and street fights.

As if the Soviet’s statement on the futility of insurrection in Warsaw were not enough, further confirmation is to hand from Paris : —

“The Patriots had a very had time, but they recovered and managed to form a defence line in the streets near the building with the aid of barricades built of anything they could lay their hands on.

The barricades were not strong enough, backed by our small arms, to hold the tanks. The German armour smashed them down, then went through the Patriots, firing right and left and affecting shocking slaughter. We had not the weapons to prevent them. . . . All Paris is waiting for the Allies to enter the city and clear out the German tyrants.” (Star, August 25th, 1944; our italics.)

It may be added that in Paris, as in Warsaw, practically the entire population was in support of the revolt; arms had been freely distributed by parachute by the Allied Air Forces. Yet both failed completely, though the circumstances could not have been more favourable.

The Editors of Pravda are quite right. “Handfuls of men with fiery sentiments and cold steel have no chance against modern weapons in battles for large cities.”

In other words, without the all-powerful State machine, with its complex armed forces, revolts are doomed to disaster. And yet there are still “direct action” maniacs in public places urging the workers to commit suicide in barricade revolts.

The statement of Pravda will be chalked up for those post-war C.P. and “Unemployed” fire-brands who will once again urge workers to bash their heads against the State machine.

The Socialist Party urges the workers to think before they act, and then vote intelligently for Socialism, thus giving incidentally an infallible indication of the progress of the Socialist idea and the intellectual development of the working class.

With a Parliamentary majority it is the capitalists who will be faced with the prospect of illegal barricades, which the Socialist controlled army and air force will go through like cardboard, if they ever get put up.

To those who claim that the capitalists will close down Parliament before the Socialists can attain the majority, the reply is that’s their funeral—if they are ever stupid enough to do so.

* * *

Easier for Lord Latham

The evening papers (The Star, September 7th, 1944) inform us that one man whose task has been easier by the relaxation of the black-out is Lord Latham, who since 1940 has been mainly responsible for Civil Defence in the L.C.C. area. He is Chairman of the L.C.C.

By the queerest coincidence, in addition to being Chairman of the L.C.C. and in charge of Civil Defence in London, Lord Latham happens to be Chairman of the London and Thames Haven Oil Wharves, Ltd. Lord Latham, as Chairman of the L.C.C., is very concerned in the re-planning of London. According to the Evening Standard (August 29th), Lord Latham is also very interested in the port of Havre. The Company of which he is Chairman owns about (about) £1,000,000 of property there. “It is the largest shareholder in an oil installation, a hotel, and wharves. Now the shares, like those of other concerns with interests in Occupied Europe, are on the rise.”

Following is the City Editor’s report on the Company (Evening Standard, August 28, 1944) : —

London and Thames Haven 

Feature in the market recently has been the further rise in the shares of London and Thames Haven Oil Wharves. These 4s. shares are now up to 15s. 6d., which compares with a low of 1s. 1d. in 1941. This price gives the Ordinary shares a market valuation of around £3,100,000, which compares with a market valuation of around £5,700,000 in the years when the company was paying tax-free dividend of 10 per cent, plus a less tax bonus of four. Since then the capital has been written down to provide for losses.

The company has paid no dividends for six years, but secured earnings last year of 3.8 per cent. tax free. The prospect is that the company will shortly recover the property which it owns at Le Havre. It has been improving its position steadily and has reduced its bank overdraft to £331,000. The directors are considering issuing more capital to pay off the bank overdraft, and no doubt, once the French position is more clearly seen, some action may be taken along these lines.

Mr. Churchill has a word for this. He said the war “as it progresses becomes less ideological.” In this case about £1,000,000 less.

* * *

Lend to the End (of What?)

Peace Savings Soon.—Sir Harold Mackintosh, Chairman of the National Savings Committee, said last night at the jubilee dinner of Birmingham Municipal Bank that the time would soon come when the war-savings campaign would become a peace-savings campaign.”— (Manchester Guardian, September 2nd, 1944.)

* * *

“Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings”

The New York Times Magazine, April 30th, carried an article by a young British evacuee, Anselm Acker, describing his impressions of American life, in the course of which this schoolboy says of New York: “The sight in the subways, when the people are returning from work, sitting and standing like sodden bales of hay with their mentality apparently all drained from them,” displeased him. Good for you, young Anselm, you are a perspicacious youth, whose keen eye will assist him much in penetrating the surface to see the real nature of the things beneath.

No wonder American magazines carry ads. for “No-Dozies,” guaranteed to keep you awake. And the comic strip of the Philadelphia Tribune shows a small child asking its mother : “Mom, what do these candies do to me ? Nothing, Son. What, don’t make me regular? No, Son. Don’t make my complexion clear? No, Son. Don’t make my breath sweet? No, Son. What! you mean I can eat ’em because I like ’em? ”

All the most simple elementary things of life are utterly commercialised and distorted. Everything is “packed,” “processed.” American troops are issued “Energy” crackers. Ham becomes Spam. Life is in a packet or carton.

If you would like to turn up the writings of a man who never went to New York, Anselm, by the name of Karl Marx, who wrote over sixty years ago, you will find that he said :—.

"Within the capitalist system all methods of raising the social productiveness of labour are bought at the cost of the individual labourer . . . they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work, and turn it into hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process, in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power : they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital: as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his pay high or low, must grow worse."—(“Capital,” Vol. I., chapter 23.)

Nowhere is this clearer in the world to-day than New York.

Horatio.

Comrade Cyril May on New York Radio (1970)

From issue number 6 (1970) of The Western Socialist

During his recent visit to the United States as fraternal delegate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to the annual WSP conference in Boston, Comrade May, together with two other SPGB comrades, addressed a successful propaganda meeting conducted by New York Local. While in New York he was interviewed by Arlene Francis (well-known star of motion pictures and TV) on her radio program, on WOR-AM, September 29, 1970.

Inasmuch as the discussion ran about 40 minutes, we had to condense it because of space requirements of The Western Socialist. We take pleasure in presenting Comrade Cyril May’s effective presentation of the socialist case in this interview. Miss Francis asked meaningful and pertinent questions.

Arlene Francis: I would like to introduce Mr. Cyril May, party organizer of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, who is visiting this country to give some lectures. And I'm happy that one of your lectures. Mr. May. is to be addressed to me because what I do not know about your subject is embarrassing to me. Among my few meager bits of knowledge is the fact that the socialist state that you envision does not presently exist nor has It ever existed. Am I right?

Cyril May: That is quite correct. In fact, the statement of a "socialist state” is not one that we would particularly like to go along with because the very word "state” itself has certain political connotations with which you and I would perhaps disagree at this juncture. But it is true that socialism is something that does not exist in any country throughout the world.

Arlene: And has it ever?

Cyril: And it hasn’t ever. No.

Arlene: Then you have come up with a brand new idea today. And . . .  sowhat we are talking about — is what? Ia it another movement toward features such as public control of all utilities? I don't know so I have to ask.

Cyril: OK. Well I’ll try to fill you in with the essentials on it. Socialism to the Socialist Party of Great Britain and to its companion parties in other parts of the world, including the World Socialist Party in the United States, is a system of society, or a way of living if we can put it that way, where the means of wealth production and distribution, the land, the mills, the mines, the minerals, the factories and workshops, the means of transportation will be owned by the whole of society, regardless of sex or race. In short, common ownership is the essential economic fundamental of a socialist society.

Arlene: How do you even begin that?

Cyril: Well, to begin that. It really involves a revolution In the idea process of people. They’ve got to change their ideas and concepts and the scales of social values, that they have today. In short, the establishment of a socialist society, from our point of view, rests upon a majority of people. It can’t be established by some dictatorship or some elitist group. It rests upon a majority of people understanding it and arising from that understanding taking the necessary political action to establish It. So first of all it’s a revolution in ideas.

Arlene: So that it’s a case for the psychotherapist really, before anything else.

Cyril: Well. I changed my ideas and I didn’t have a psychotherapist.

Arlene: What were your ideas?

Cyril: Well, my ideas when I was 14 or 15 were rather typical of most working class boys, I guess. I went to a Methodist Church. I thought at times, I guess, that it was a change of heart that was needed by people. And I looked at the hearts of a lot of people who had apparently changed, belonged to churches, and I found that they had no solution to what I considered to be the major problems then. This was In the middle of the 1930s when the Second World War was looming on the horizon. and after listening to a variety of different political speeches and reading books on it, I came to the conclusion that the ideas of the Socialist Party were the correct ones. But no psychotherapist entered into this. And If we’ve got to wait for psychotherapists to deal with this, then I don’t think It will ever come. It’s long enough to wait for it dealing with it in the normal way. But I think if we let the psychotherapists loose on it we really are in trouble.

Arlene: Yes, but still you’ve said yourself that we have to recondition our own thinking. That takes quite a lot of work to leave in the hands of the individual.

Cyril: No. It doesn't leave work on the part of the individual. But at least they are capable of doing it. The trouble as I see it and the Party sees it, they're not prepared to devote the amount of time to the world in which they live that they devote to football, perhaps. in England and in America to baseball and basketball.

Arlene: Then you don’t recognize natural greed?

Cyril: No, I don’t recognize natural greed, as such. I recognize people are greedy, including myself. But I don’t think that is any natural aspect of man. I rather think that’s more a feature of human behavior that’s determined by social conditions under which he finds himself. (Voice from background: Desperation?)

Arlene: Jeanie just said "desperation.”

Cyril: Well, not so much desperation, perhaps, apart from the way in which this world is organized—rather stupidly in my opinion. There are those who become desperate because on the one hand, the world can turn out sufficient food to feed the millions of the world, while on the other hand millions of people starve. That is a desperate situation, and one which will exist as long as this type of world operates where food isn’t grown primarily for people to eat. I mean, that is of secondary importance. In fact, a lot of food that is produced isn’t fit for humans to eat very often. But the prime reason it is produced, I would say, is for sale on the market with view to profit. No profit, no production, and the people can die of starvation. That’s desperate and I think we’ve got to do something about it.

Arlene: Why does, or does the Socialist Party of Great Britain feel that a gradual reform is impossible?

Cyril: Well, we’ve come up against this political question of reformism in Great Britain since around the turn of the century. Organizations like the Labour Party were formed on the old Social Democratic Federation lines and put out the view that they wanted a different type of society and envisaged that this society could be obtained by a series of political reforms. Well, in England — and obviously I talk out of a great deal of political experience after seventy years of political reforms since the first of the century, some of which have been quite fundamental in character — as for example the introduction of the National Health Service, the fact that certain industries were nationalized, all reforms advocated by the Labour Party, fundamentally these reforms haven’t patched any of the basic problems that confront mankind. And we think that all reforms, some of which may be good, some of which have a left-handed kick, as it were, if added up, do not even touch the ownership of society, which — to us — is the basis of the ills that confront mankind today. So this process of reformism doesn’t in any way bring us that much nearer to the fundamental change which we consider is necessary.

Arlene: Could your ideals be expressed in the ballot?

Cyril: Yes, that is the idea of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the Companion Parties, that the capture of political control, political power, to introduce a new way of life can only be done through peaceful means. We do not envisage a revolution on the streets behind barricades, lynching people, that does not give rise to a sane order of society. So It has got to be done through the ballot box.

Arlene: Were the socialist ideals of George Bernard Shaw any closer to your way of thinking?

Cyril: I like George Bernard Shaw as a dramatist. As a political commentator he was not particularly on the beam. He was a member of the Fabian Society which is an offshoot of the Labour Party. He was interested firstly in what the Labour Party stood for, namely, to try and reform, shall we say, rub the raw edges off the capitalist system but really to keep it in being with its ownership basis.

Arlene: Doesn’t it strike you that your goals are so enormous that they are virtually impossible?

Cyril: Uuhm . . .

Arlene: Of course you wouldn't be working for anything that you thought was impossible . . .

Cyril: Yes. If I thought it was impossible I wouldn't be devoting my time. We do realize it is an enormous task. But we have a number of features which are working for us, in many ways. If the introduction of the new system rested upon the mere handful of socialists, relatively speaking, in this and other parts of the country then you could say, why worry? But the way the system operates and organizes itself throws up such a series of problems which man has got to grapple with one way or another, otherwise he's a dead one, that this in itself, acts very much on happy hearts, and people begin to start thinking of things along lines of dealing with them from a worldwide basis without necessarily being socialists. There are a number of agencies, today, which are certainly not socialist — in fact, very much capitalist — in character but they are beginning to appreciate, and realize that the problems today are no longer confined to one geographical unit, but are world-wide in character.

Arlene: Can you mention what some are?

Cyril: Yes. I should think the Food and Agricultural Organization attached to the United Nations Organization has done an enormous amount of research work and printed a considerable amount of literature which is not socialist, but which in many ways has pin-pointed the problem as being one of a social nature and one of a world-wide character. They stop short there, of course, and here, I think, is their fundamental failing. They are dealing with these evils through the eyeglass of capitalism and as long as they wear that eyeglass they will not go any further than that.

Arlene: What about the abolition of money, which was suggested on this microphone some months back by Alan Watts. It is an interesting idea and it still haunts me — all the ramifications of it. Will you please develop that a little for us?

Cyril: Yes. This is one of the points that the socialist mentions — that they envisage a society without money, that at this juncture most people do think that we are cracked (laughter from the hostess). They've got so used to money that they can't envisage anything except money with which to obtain articles. But if you look back over history money wasn't always in existence, certainly not in primitive times and it only came into existence with the development of private property and became the complex money system that we know today as capitalism has become more and more complex . . . In London, recently, due to the fact that our transport system, much like yours in New York, is run down and doesn't pay its way the suggestion’s been made that it is not worthwhile collecting all of these silly coins and silly pieces of paper; let's ride for free. Well, this isn’t socialism, of course, but it shows the way in which people’s minds are working. To us, money is only a means of exchange in order that if I was in a bar instead of your radio studio and wanted a cup of coffee, I’d have to give fifteen cents for it because somebody owns that cup of coffee and if I want it I've got to pay them for it. But this presupposes ownership all away along the line. But if you have a world based on common ownership, where the coffee, the cocoa and all the thousand and one different things that men need in order to live are owned by the whole of society, then what would we have money for? It's no use paying ourselves money in order to obtain these things. And we envisage this socialist society as being one in which people will give according to their abilities and take according to their need. And we will not need money in order to do that.

Arlene: Isn’t that also Communist theory?

Cyril: Strictly speaking the words “socialism” and "communism” are synonomous terms. Marx, a hundred years ago wrote this in many of the political books and pamphlets he was writing at the time and it’s largely in the 20th century, particularly from the dating of the Russian Revolution of 1917, that the words "communism” and "socialism” seem to have taken on a different meaning. In short, some people look upon "socialism” as being parlor pink and "communism” as the deepest of red. But to us they are, indeed, identical terms.

It may indeed! (1972)

From the March 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unhygienic, cumbersome, expensive to renew, money is rapidly going out of fashion. The credit card, that magic wand of purchasing power is taking over, bringing with it new problems. A Stanford Research Institute economist believes that thefts and other forms of misuse could drive the credit card companies into bankruptcy within 10 years unless they install equipment to stop the abuses. In New York a stolen card now sells for anything from $75 to $200 depending on its status. The typical loss on a card known to have been stolen is somewhere between $5000 and $7000. To foil the thieves will require devices that can link a document with its true owner by voice, fingerprint or some other physical characteristic. The economist sees nothing for it but to set up a nationwide computer system to check every purchase against the card-holder’s normal spending pattern—and. of course, how much he’s got in the bank. The bewildering assortment of hardware required (including new microwave or satellite networks to transmit the data over long distances) could produce a new industry to handle it. And it isn’t as if that will be the end of it. We shall have to guard against the crooks who invade the computerised hierarchy to funnel off private fortunes from so many credit sources at once that no one will know where the money has gone. How absurd the whole business has become. “To each according to his needs . . ." may yet be the only answer.

Ariadne, The New Scientist, 13 January, 1972.

Voice From The Back: Still Accumulating (2006)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Still Accumulating

In last month’s column we reported on how in India capitalism was repeating the process that Karl Marx had analysed in Capital, under the heading of the primitive accumulation of capital; now an identical procedure is being carried out in China. “Several people have been injured in the latest violent clash between villagers and armed police in southern China. …China reported 74,000 demonstrations involving more than a 100 people in 2004.” (Times, 16 January) These demonstrations are by farmers protesting at the seizure by the government of land that they have tilled for generations. The seizures are extremely violent as shown by the death of three protesters gunned down by the police in the previous month.

Same Old Story

Under the headline “People die of famine in nation that exports food” the Times (18 January) expresses astonishment over events in Kenya. “The British aid agency Merlin found that 27 per cent of children around the town were malnourished — nearly twice the 15 per cent emergency level.” Their astonishment is because: “Kenya is a food exporter. Grain silos are still full from last year’s harvest.” Their misunderstanding is because they think malnourishment is caused by drought rather than capitalism, after all in the 19th century during the Irish potato famine Ireland was exporting food. It’s the same all over the world throughout history, if you have money you eat, if you’re poor you starve. That is how capitalism works.

Some Mean Cities

Capitalism is a dangerous society. How dangerous often depends on what part of the world in which you live. More important than that though is the class to which you belong. According to recent figures if you are a man and live in the Gaza Strip your life expectancy is 70.5 years. If you live in some other areas of the war-torn Middle-East it is even lower, but even more hazardous is trying to survive in the working class area of Calton in Glasgow. “In Iraq, life expectancy is 67. Minutes from Glasgow city centre, it’s 54.” (Guardian, 21 January). The message seems clear for all potential parents — don’t have your child reared in a war zone, but if you can’t manage that, at least avoid a working  class area in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham or Newcastle. Capitalism is a killer society, no matter where you live.

The Uncaring Society

We live in a harsh, brutal society; but even by its standards the following report is a shocker. “ A postal worker rode in a subway train around New York for six hours before a commuter noticed he was dead” (Times, 25 January). The 64-year-old Vietnam veteran had joined the subway after finishing work at 1am and his train had covered the 15-mile circuit six times before he was discovered. In the rat race that is capitalism human beings become callous towards others, but probably a contributing factor to this piece of inhumanity was the knowledge that eye contact in the New York subway can prove to be dangerous at certain times.

A Disastrous System

Under the headline “World has only 20 years to stop climate disaster”, the Times (31 January) reported on the document Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. This reported on the conference hosted by the Met Office in Exeter last year. The release of carbon dioxide is causing the polar caps to melt and many areas face disastrous flooding. As every government in the world represents the interests of the capitalist class, who in their mad drive for profits are polluting the atmosphere, the future looks disastrous unless we can get rid of capitalism. 

Education Is A Commodity

Everything that is produced in capitalism takes the form of a commodity even education. “A detailed look at half a million pupils will show that bright children from the poorest families are often fated to perform below their potential. Success at primary school can soon become irrelevant as children repeatedly fail to get places at the country’s top schools, the study by the Centre for Market and Public Organisation will say.” (Observer, 5 February) Everything that is produced — housing, clothing and food — is distributed according to your wealth. Why should education be any different in a buying and selling society? 

All Right For Some

Every day we read in the newspapers about poverty, world hunger and crime, but it is not all doom and gloom inside capitalism. Take the case of billionaire Larry Ellison, reputed to own about $17 billion, his lawyer reported to a San Francisco court that Ellison owned a $194 million yacht. “But most intriguing is the money his accountant set aside for what are described as “lifestyle” expenses: $55,000 a day.” (Times, 7 February) $55,000 a day? Yes $55,000 a day. We definitely need a revolution!