‘Money is Irrelevant' (1996)

From the June 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

That’s the verdict of Sir James Goldsmith, the financier turned politician. A new convert to the Socialist Party, perhaps? Unfortunately, no. When Sir James says that money is irrelevant, he means he has so much of the stuff that he couldn’t spend it all if he tried, he is worth £1,200 million. However, this hasn’t stopped him from making the effort, and he recently pledged £20 million to the campaign for a referendum on the European Union and its single currency, thereby donating irrelevant money to an irrelevant cause.

Sir James’s offensive comment was quoted in the Sunday Times's eighth annual tribute to Britain’s super rich, published in April. This year’s wallow in the cream of the capitalist class appraised the fortunes of five hundred fat cats, worth collectively a staggering £70 billion. This figure is a massive 28 percent higher than that of last year, the highest total since the survey began in 1989:

“Britain’s rich became more than £15.5 billion richer in 1995 in what proved to be a vintage year for personal wealth creation. "

Recalling your miserly two or three percent pay rise (assuming you got a rise at all), you may be forgiven for wondering how you managed to miss out on this bonanza. For most of us, of course, it was more likely to have been a “vintage year” for debt, job insecurity, negative equity and the inexorable struggle to make ends meet. You may be wondering just how the fortunate few came by their even greater wealth. Was it hard work? Thrift? Fiddling their expenses? On the contrary; they didn’t actually do anything:

“A rare combination of record stock market performance, a sharp increase in land prices, a steady rise in art values and a thriving market in the sale of companies has created a sudden improvement in the lot of the rich. ”

If only you’d sensed that thriving market in the sale of companies, you could have got yourself down to the local car boot sale and unloaded a few of those old companies you’ve had cluttering up the garage for years.

Richer and richer

Yes, it’s a funny old world isn’t it?

There you are, packing in the overtime to cam a few extra quid, while Hans Rausing has seen his wealth rise by a stratospheric £880 million—and that’s following his retirement! In fact the average increase in assets amongst this tiny group was £30 million. There were so many millionaires with bigger fortunes queuing to get onto the Sunday Times list that the threshold for entry had to be raised from £25 million in 1995 to £35 million this year. And if these estimates seem astounding, bear in mind that they do not include cash in private accounts!

So what are your chances of joining this well-heeled band? Even less than your chances of winning the lottery:

". ..  no lottery winner has yet made it to the 500 despite . . . rollover jackpots. Until a . . . winner emerges to claim £40m, the most that a winner can hope for is to scrape into the top 1,000 where the bottom line in our database is £10m. Not a bad sum but not serious money."

No, not serious money. If you want to play with the big boys (and they are mostly boys—only 8 percent are women), you won’t be taken seriously without at least thirty five million to your name.

The big boys are people like David Sainsbury, of the supermarket giant, who is worth £1.26 billion. His “salary” rose from £311,000 to £389,000 last year, a cool 25 percent increase. Not that impressive, some might say, for the boss of Britain’s leading grocer. However, this didn’t include his whopping £37.5 million share of the company’s dividends. Interestingly, Sainsbury is quoted as saying: “If I vote at the next general election, it will be for Tony Blair.” Confirmation, if any were needed, of whose interests “New” Labour represents.

Other top dogs include Viscount Rothermere the newspaper publisher, whose family’s wealth tops £1 billion, and there are “unconfirmed reports that his personal wealth in cash alone matches that sum”. Then there is the Duke of Westminster, worth £1,650 million, who “tries to stay in touch with the harsher side of life”. Apparently, he recently took his two children to a drug rehabilitation project “to show them what it was like”. It’s a bit like us going to visit a stately home to see how the other half lives, but instead of pleasure by proxy, the Duke likes a little pain by proxy, just in ease he’s deprived of the pleasure of knowing just how stinking rich and privileged he is.

Different world

Not all aristocrats have fared as well as the Duke, however. The aristocracy of course is no longer in the position of ascendancy that it once was, and incomes for many have reduced dramatically in recent times. If you’ve fallen on hard times lately, you may be eager to hear how these pillars of the community have coped; they do, after all, have much more substantial commitments. Well, the answer can be very simple:

“Though landowning aristocrats no longer dominate the 500 list, they will not disappear completely for several generations. As Simon Howard has shown with his stewardship of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, it simply takes the auction of one £5 million painting to provide enough liquidity for some years . . ."

So there you have it. You know' those ugly old Van Goghs and Picassos which are making your drawing room look untidy? Get them along to the boot sale with your old companies and you’re quids in.

One of the interesting things about the Sunday Times’s survey is its raison d'etre. It’s difficult to ascertain whether it’s aimed at envious poorer readers, who may drool over the enormous fortunes enjoyed by others, or if it’s aimed at the people who actually feature in it, so that they might also envy those with bigger wads, while at the same time feeling superior to those with less. For many it’s a double-edged sword: if they’re not included they complain, yet when they are included they still complain that they’re either under- or overvalued, depending presumably on whether they are tax exiles or not.

Clearly, the people in this survey inhabit a different world, a world that the rest of us can barely imagine. Many inherited their wealth, while the majority are “self-made” men. Defenders of capitalism try to persuade us that entrepreneurs have acquired their money through some sort of super-human effort, and that they deserve more than the rest of us. But there are only twenty-four hours in a day; only so much work that any one person can do; and whose contribution is more valuable? The entrepreneur who chooses to work ten or twelve hours a day, or the farmer, or miner, of fitter, or firefighter? No matter how hard a worker toils, they will never be rich—but somebody else will. Yes, the fortunes of the wealthy are indeed the results of hard work: yours and mine.

The Sunday Times has at least cleared up a little problem for the government: the whereabouts of the mythical “feel-good factor”, for which the Tories have been patiently waiting to persuade a jaded electorate to vote for them. The feel-good factor is alive and well and living with Britain’s rich, while the feel-conned factor, as ever, stubbornly resides with the working class.

Nick Brunskill

The super-rich . . . (1993)

From the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

In April the Sunday Times published its guide to Britain’s super-rich persons. The list comprised the top 400 wealth-owners with assets between them of some £55 billion, roughly equivalent to the amount of revenue that the government will receive from income tax this financial year. It was stressed that the list was based on estimates of minimum wealth and the actual assets of the flush four hundred are probably worth much more.

At the top of the list, not surprisingly, is the Queen, who as head of state is said to be worth some £5 billion, of which at least £450 million is her own personal wealth (this makes a mockery of the paltry sums raised for charity by her and her family in an attempt to justify their parasitic-status).

The survey then goes on to rattle off a roll-call of revenue-reapers (of whom 25 percent possess an aristocratic title), along with the business or industry with which they are mainly associated, until we arrive at the relative paupers at the bottom who have only managed to amass a trifling £20 million each.

The list includes not only the famous and infamous; far from it. As you might expect there are the Richard Bransons, the Dukes, the smattering of pop stars; but the majority of names would be completely unknown to those of us who don't regularly make killings on the stock market or mount the occasional take-over bid for a multi-national corporation. No, most of these super rich supremos wouldn’t even stand out in a crowd, and yet they control huge businesses and properties and yield influence over millions of lives.

Significantly, the top three wealth-owners after the Queen have amassed their fortunes through food production and distribution, proving that selling people something they must have in order to survive is highly lucrative and certainly not sacrosanct in capitalism’s thirst for the divine dollar. Of course, not all fortunes are made through business. Many are acquired through inheritance, kept in the family so to speak, much as workers inherit a life of exploitation and drudgery from their parents. Some 45 percent of those surveyed were born to their riches, and can look forward to obtaining further revenue via rent, interest and profits.

Assets race

In case you've been moved to rush to the sideboard to retrieve your investment portfolio in order to discover just how far you’re lagging behind in the assets race, it should be mentioned that some of our affluent tycoons have fallen on hard times and find themselves not quite so flush of late. For instance, spare a though for the embattled Duke of Westminster, who has seen the value of his assets fall from £3.5 billion to £1.5 billion since the bottom fell out of the property market. The Duke, who owns budget deficit-sized chunks of ultra-cache Mayfair in the heart of London, has also been clobbered by a recently introduced amendment to the leasehold law which means that tenants have the right to buy their freehold after 21 years. Despite this unforeseen "hardship”, the Duke hasn’t been dissuaded from splashing out on a £650,000 executive jet for commuting to London, but one does after all have to keep up appearances. Likewise, further down the table, poor old Cameron Mackintosh, a 46-year impressario, has seen the value of his theatre production company fall from £200 million to £60 million. Mackintosh has apparently not been prone to self-pity however, having paid himself a salary of £8.3 million in 1991.

However, the tale is not all of doom and gloom and some of our entrepreneurs have experienced substantial windfalls during the past year. Take the Sainsbury family (they of local supermarket fame); its members have seen the value of their empire increased by some £1 billion, without them having to lift a finger. Last November, half-year profits were up 19.4 percent to a staggering £391 million. So next

time you pop out to Sainsbury s to pick up a few essentials and find yourself dismayed by the size of the deficit in your pocket afterwards, take comfort in the knowledge that a good deal of the hard-earned cash you have to hand over every week just to cat is further enriching, amongst others, the Sainsbury folk.

Plutocracy

If you think that Britain's richest have rather more than their fair share of a very sumptuous cake, consider the fact that even the Queen ranks only fifth in the worldwide league table. In fact her fortune is dwarfed by that of the world’s wealthiest man. the Sultan of Brunei, whose oil-rich state has provided him with a tidy nest egg of $37 billion (£19 billion).

This tribute to Britain's under-worked and overprivileged plutocracy did not of course lake the form of a denouncement but was more of a celebration of the vast inequalities created by a property society. Despite several pages being devoted to honouring a mere 400 capitalists, who take no direct part in producing goods or services, not a single column inch was given over to the plight of the millions of workers (who actually produce everything) and their struggle to make ends meet week after week. But then producing an article listing the poorest members of society with total assets up to £55 billion would require several volumes and an inordinate degree of monetary exaggeration.

You’d think that by actually publishing this information the Sunday Times would be guilty of incitement to riot, or at least precipitating several angry letters to the editor. Not a bit of it; it’s a remarkable testament to capitalism's power to persuade and influence the majority of the working class that one of the mouth-pieces of the ruling class can openly boast about the inflated fortunes of its leading members without provoking mass outrage and calls for a fairer system of wealth distribution.The fact is of course that most workers actually believe that the current system, while perhaps, not entirely fair, is nevertheless immutable and that there is no viable alternative.

Socialists have no personal grudge against the people described above; when all the affectations and the airs and graces are stripped away they are just ordinary people like everyone else. It is however very important to recognise that it is the economic system known as capitalism which causes such disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It is the job of socialists to campaign for an alternative economic system under which each and everyone can partake of the wealth that this planet can yield and to persuade workers that things can be run differently, that is, not only in the interests of the few. Dare we even imagine a day when a future socialist equivalent of the Sunday Times may produce a special supplement entitled "Revealed: The World’s Wealthy”. More difficult to imagine is how you could fit into such a supplement the name of every person in the world . 

Nick Brunskill

Market leader (1993)

From the April 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Has it ever appeared to you that in this revered “democracy" of ours, despite the efforts of successive governments over the decades, the politicians who claim to have the solutions to the country's problems are just fumbling in the dark? Has it occurred to you that no matter what supposedly new schemes the power-brokers dream up and sell us like a new brand of detergent, the social and economic ills which afflict our lives seem to remain with a tenacity rivalled only by Jeremy Beadle's attempts to embarrass the entire population before his retirement?

If your answer to these questions is yes, then rest assured that you are not the first to have serious doubts about the merits of our so-called democratic system of government. It is not uncommon to find yourself exasperated at the fact that nothing really changes, regardless of which band of political incompetents has lately deceived the electorate into handing over its decision-making power.

After all, haven’t we been consistently assured that eventually abhorrences such as poverty, inequality and war will become merely topics for the history books? And yet we still find the politicians continuing to grapple with the problems which our grandparents hoped would have long been consigned to memory by the time their grandchildren had reached maturity. Not an unreasonable aspiration when you consider what an intelligent and co-operative species human beings can be.

Disturbing reality

The disturbing reality is that here we are, seven years shy of the milleniuni. on the brink of what many a science fiction writer has dreamed would be a fantastic age of unity, enlightenment and space travel, and human existence continues to breed conflict and despair. How could this have been allowed to happen, when in most parts of the developed world, we the people have the power to select the representatives ostensibly best able to tackle the corrosive features of our society?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question is terrifyingly elementary. The truth is that no democratically-elected representative anywhere in the world, no matter how well-intentioned or altruistic he or she may be, has any real power to improve the lot of the majority of people, the working class. Many idealists have boldly entered the world of politics with commendable notions about changing society for the better or serving their fellow men, but on becoming elected they discover that their plans are foiled by an uniquely ascendant and irresistible governor—the market.

Let there be no delusions; everything related to the daily running of a national or local economy, whether it be production of food, social services. health care or employment. is dominated by the intransigent demands of the market system. Despite the fact that the world is now capable of producing more than enough food, clothing and shelter to serve the needs of all its inhabitants, and technology has provided the potential for a quality of life for all unimaginable a century ago. the politician finds at every turn in the economic labyrinth yet another barrier erected by the market. Nevertheless the market, though possessed of absolute authority over our lives, never has to face election by the people it governs. It is a dictator of the most pervasive nature, without integrity or conscience.

The evidence for this contention is not difficult to find; you need only to switch on the radio or television or pick up todays paper. There we see and hear stories of miners losing their jobs while there are still vast reserves of coal left underground; we hear of hospitals turning away patients because their budgets have been exhausted before the end of the financial year; we hear the prime minister blaming lack of “demand" in the economy for the rising numbers of unemployed. and yet there are millions in need and millions idle who are prepared to produce the goods to meet those needs.

Although passionate believers in the democratic principle. socialists refuse to give their votes in an election to any candidate other than another socialist. Even the so-called socialists of the British Labour Party are merely attempting to ameliorate the capitalist system by endeavouring to reform some of its more objectionable attributes. You will never hear a Labour politician advocate the complete overthrow of capitalism. Socialists maintain that (unless of course there is a genuine Socialist candidate) workers have no real choice when confronted by a ballot paper: whoever they vote for on election day. the result is the same—government by the market.

Beyond the market

As the worst recession since the 1930s drags on, an encouraging phenomenon has germinated in several parts of the country, started by small groups of workers disillusioned with the money exchange system. Necessitated by the severely limited budgets of the unemployed and low-paid. small bartering networks have been set up with their own currencies in order to allow the exchange of goods and services without the use of cash. Although these “local exchange trading schemes" are in essence just another form of exchange and therefore not an alternative to the market system. they do demonstrate that some workers are now questioning the ethos of the capitalist system and are attempting to exercise some control over their own lives:

  Dr Michael Hodges, lecturer in international affairs at the London School of Economics, sees the proliferation of such schemes as the result of a loss of faith in governments to control the global economy (Observer, 17 January).

While socialists do not advocate the idea of bartering as an alternative to the market system. we are nevertheless interested in examples of workers coming to understand that they are capable of organizing their own community rather than subjecting themselves to the ineptitude of incompetent politicians. It proves that we are not isolated in our refusal to accept that the prevailing economic system is immutable.

In a rationally organized society there could not be the mind-boggling anomalies of the sort that are endemic under capitalism, such as millions starving to death while food is stockpiled because it can't be sold at a profit, or ever-increasing numbers of homeless people while construction workers are forced into idleness; there would not be a waste of vast resources on weapons research and manufacture while the infirm suffer for want of rudimentary medicines and health care. In a sane world there would be no market to dictate that only those with “purchasing power" may have access to what they need, because there would be free access to goods and services for all.

We have it in our power to conceive a new order in which all people have real control over their own lives, the power to forge a true democracy where wealth is shared amongst the population of equals and not monopolized by a privileged minority. When the day comes in which the majority of workers decide that enough is enough, that the oppression of the wealth-producers has prevailed for long enough, then and only then will the market system face the scrutiny of the masses in the greatest “election" in history.

On that day it won't be the vacuous grin of the latest Tory or Labour prime minister which greets us on our television screens, nor the platitudes of the newest president or chancellor. When socialism is finally established there will be a worldwide awakening to the dawn of a consciousness which will transport humanity from the desolate age of disillusionment and insecurity to a new era of unity and understanding.

Nick Brunskill

Criminal convictions (1986)

From the June 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Very little mention is made in the recent ample publicity given to rising crime figures, that this is happening when for the last seven years we have had a government committed to "law and order". The Tories, like any other party in power, have no realistic policies for eradicating crime or its causes but are merely intent on dealing with its perpetrators more punitively.

If we are to look for a cause of crime, we first need to ask what crime actually is. In the most stark terms, the word crime simply means an act punishable by law. So how do laws originate? They are Acts of Parliament — rules instituted by the Members of Parliament to facilitate the smooth running of society, ostensibly for the protection of all the nation's citizens. The reality is different.

Most laws relate to the protection of property and wealth. Since the working class possess very little of either, these laws affect them in positive terms only fleetingly — even though they need some form of protection for home and hard-earned cash. Look a little closer at the interminable legislation committed to the Statute Books and it becomes apparent that laws are actually there to protect the interests of governments themselves and of those they represent that is the owners of substantial property and the means of production and distribution. Any effects on the workers are in fact purely coincidental.

Laws can be described more accurately as the rules of capitalism. As we live in a capital accumulating, property owning society, it is essential that there exists a comprehensive framework of protection for the rights to money and possessions. These rules exist primarily to prevent workers from getting their hands on the goods and services they produce, apart from what they are permitted to obtain through the system of rationing known as wages and salaries. This rationing does not apply to the capitalists' access to commodities and services because they have sufficient capital invested and accumulated to fulfil their desires without having to do a stroke of work.

Is it any wonder then that members of the working class, knowing that the fruits of their toil are yielding profits of which they receive none, now and again decide to help themselves to a little extra? After all, there is a myriad of attractive and desirable goods displayed in every High Street, all designed to persuade us to part with our meagre allowance and our attentions are solicited by television and the press in the hope of awakening the idea that we need ever larger quantities of "consumer goods'" to render our oppressed lives marginally more bearable.

The problem is that wages don’t stretch very far and as the law hammers home the doctrine that under no circumstances can goods be claimed without paying for them, many workers feel hard done by when the media displays the wealthy and privileged shamelessly enjoying their affluence. Restraint can easily be weakened by the influence of temptation.

The media love to chew on the real meaty bone of violent crime in preference to the tit-bits of petty larceny and trespass. "Mindless violence isn't confined to soccer matches" declared one local rag gravely. There is indeed an abundance of mindless violence outside football grounds, much of it executed quite legally and acceptably by the police and armed forces; it wasn’t so long ago that a deal of mindless violence broke out in the Falkland Islands. But far from condemning it our rulers positively encouraged it.

What emerges from this is the paradox of a society that condones the mindlessness of war and yet throws its arms up in horror when workers commit acts of violence independently and without the prior consent of their rulers. These workers may be unemployed, or working six days a week to live in conditions of abject poverty, overcrowding and deprivation. We are expected to accept such conditions as inevitable; though it may seem slightly unfair that we have virtually nothing in this world of plenty, we are taught from the blooming of memory to keep our noses clean and to the grindstone, to take our exploitation and domination lying down. If we're good boys and girls we won't be thrown in gaol and may even get to go to heaven.

No account is taken of the possibility that the present economic system breeds dissatisfaction. envy, contempt, unrest and aggression. And it isn't merely coincidence that those on the lowest incomes and from the most deprived communities are most likely to be convicted of crime. In America a labourer is fourteen times more likely to go to prison than a "professional" and a black male is twenty-eight times more likely to be gaoled than a white female (What Is To Be Done About Law And Order?, Lea & Young. 1984)

As aggression and violence are inherent in the competitive, ruthless, uncaring capitalist system and romanticised on television and at the cinema, it is hardly surprising that violence will also manifest itself in the form of crime. But people don't suddenly become home-made Rambos over night. We learn to be violent; right from childhood, as well as being fed a staple diet of cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians and war stories, we're taught to be competitive, to stick up for ourselves. along with patriotism and the justification of war. Violence is in fact just another aspect of everyday capitalist life; it's ingrained into us and can't be removed and replaced at society's convenience.

In a socialist society, money and private property would no longer exist and all the means of production and distribution would be democratically controlled by the entire community in the interests of need instead of profit. There would be no such crimes as theft or trespass because everything would belong to everyone. There would be nothing to gain by "stealing", from someone else because all needs would be provided for without consideration of cost, value or ability to pay. So it follows that if there was no such thing as theft, there could be no violent theft; if there was no such thing as trespass, there could be no forced entry or aggravated burglary; and as for assault, it follows that if there was no property, no competition, no oppression, exploitation or deprivation but instead freedom for all to pursue peaceful, uncorrupted and useful existences, then there would be no violence.

As it is. while condemning violence on the part of the criminal, capitalist society virtually ignores the sometimes more subtle violence of poverty and oppression which plagues this mindless system. In the words of the playwright George Farquhar: "Tis still my maxim that there is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty".

Nick Brunskill

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

Within those walls (1987)

From the July 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we drove along the narrow road bordered by grass with trees and shrubs beyond, I felt curious yet mildly uneasy about our destination. The others were laughing and joking around me, apparently thinking nothing of our impending encounter, though it was true that most of them had been there before. I was struck by the bleak, apparently deserted surroundings, just a stone's throw from a newly completed section of motorway hidden in a cutting beyond a high wire fence.

Then suddenly we were upon it: a large group of grey, uninviting buildings linked together by a single interminable corridor. There were annexes and outbuildings which had been added at intervals. Surrounding the entire establishment was a high stone wall, interrupted in places by large cottages. High atop the central administration building was a clock tower but each clock face had stopped on a different time. I had been expecting a more attractive and friendly building nestling in leafy grounds. Instead, the whole place was gravely forebidding, with an aura of despair reminiscent of a prison save for the absence of bars on the windows.

Originally the establishment was a virtually self-contained unit with its own farm, set well away from the town which had grown and crept towards the boundary wall. Despite this, there was still an inescapable remoteness about the place, a sense of having been abandoned and forgotten by society. Our guide led us into the foyer, a cold unsociable room almost noiseless but for distant echoing footsteps and the buzzing of the telephone switchboard behind the reception window. There was a scruffy, middle-aged man on the floor by a wall, head propped up on one arm. voraciously smoking a cigarette held between fingers burned by years of dragging discarded nips down to the filter. His staring eyes seemed menacing but his manner suggested that he had no will to do anything other than lie around smoking second-hand cigarettes.

We filed through a double door into a reverberating corridor with hideous decor punctuated by patches of bare plaster. There were more vacant-looking people wandering aimlessly up and down. Some were recognised by members of my group, who offered greetings. A couple acknowledged the attention; most were silent and unresponsive, as if senseless. I noticed that they were all wearing very similar clothing: the men all in bland shirts with huge collars, check jackets and crimplene trousers and the women in shapeless dresses that made them look like animated curtains.

I hesitantly followed the others into a long high-ceilinged room lined on either side with old tubular-framed beds. Once through the door, my nostrils were assaulted by a pungent offensive odour. The dormitory was stark and soulless, not a homely or personal artefact in sight. The beds were all covered with identical counterpanes, the only means of identification being pieces of card stuck to the ends of the bedsteads on which were written the names of the night-time occupants.

We were standing on a hideously patterned carpet which led like a causeway over the slippery linoleum to another door, also with two handles. Through the glass I could make out several haggard figures moving to and fro. They looked as if they were anxiously awaiting the arrival of something. We entered this living area, which had thoughtfully been labelled above the door with a large placard. It later occurred to me that to describe it as a "living" room was something of a misrepresentation; "existing" room would have been a far more accurate description. I was unprepared for the scene which confronted me.

The impatient men wandered about, apparently oblivious of our presence. Nearby there were many languid figures seated in uncomfortable plastic-covered armchairs, some half asleep, others staring into the room or fiddling with their clothing. Apart from one man periodically growling at the odorous atmosphere, the only sound was that emanating from a television set placed high on one wall.

Next we called on some younger women, trooping up two flights of worn steps like class and teacher on an outing to the local museum. The place was markedly different; it had a more homely atmosphere. The sleeping arrangements were also remarkable because the beds were in the same huge room as the living area but enclosed in four glass-topped cubicles. I noticed a woman peering at us from within one of these cubicles; her eyes were petrified into an iron stare, isolated inside dark rings. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for weeks.

We followed our guide back down the stairs to the endless corridor, talking earnestly about what we had seen. After another brisk trek we were led through a door into the warm June sunshine — bright, refreshing and gratifying. We walked up a concrete path towards a prefabricated building near the boundary wall.

Inside there were three tables littered with half-finished wicker trays, stools with cord seats and some recently moulded resin figures. At another table there were four men playing a disinterested game of cards. The atmosphere was one of indifference, although a couple of people were making an heroic effort to master those blister-inducing pieces of cane to produce a passable tea tray. Others sat and glared with undisguised contempt at their work through clouds of cigarette smoke.

I've briefly described my first impressions of a psychiatric hospital, in which I subsequently worked for almost three years. The experience was both enlightening and disturbing. The place was a spectre from the past, one of those places we all know exist but don’t like to acknowledge. Within its antiquated walls, time became inert for most of the inhabitants. There was a different world outside of high speed travel, microchip technology, fast food, piped music and canned laughter. Inside there was safety, comfort and seclusion; security in a persistent and unvarying routine. There was of course a vivid window on the world in the form of the television screen but I discovered later that it was more of an intruder than a welcome guest. Here second-hand, pre-packaged escapism was redundant and there was no place for sophistry. The people here made their own world, away from the tangled. mind-bending turmoil outside, insulated in a cocoon of predictability and convention. There were no decisions to be made, no bills demanding to be paid, no production targets to be met. This place was indeed a sanctuary from the economic and social battlefield outside . . .  an asylum.

Although my first impressions were so unpleasant I later developed a fondness for the place and the patients in it, along with a firm contempt for the largely reactionary psychiatrists and their methods of "treatment". During my short experience it became clear to me that the majority of people admitted to a psychiatric hospital would not be there but for poverty and the stress of modern living. Their treatment could only be a palliative, usually in the form of drugs, to enable them to cope — accept the unacceptable, to render them docile and controllable. But the causes of their illnesses would still be there when they returned home, and it was the real causes that were rarely addressed.

Nick Bunskill

Stir Crazy (1998)

From the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new prison has just been completed near where I live, on the site of an old psychiatric hospital. There is something remarkably symbolic and ominous about demolishing an asylum in order to put up a prison. Of course, the hospital didn’t close especially to make way for the prison (it had already become a victim of “care-in-the-community”), but the poignancy is undiminished. The unavoidable impression is that those who are dazed and confused in an incomprehensible world need not seek sanctuary, but should simply await retribution.

The philosophy of “detention” for offenders is one which is, at best, tenuous. It’s not just the incredible idea that incarcerating for long periods men and women who fall foul of the law, in a cramped and dehumanising environment, will result in them emerging as model citizens. No, there is something else which is even more incongruous about prisons. The paradox is, of course, that prisons house people, at great expense, against their will, while other “law-abiding” citizens are homeless. Those who behave themselves, follow the rules, and don’t attract the attention of the police, have no guarantee of a home; if you do get one, it’ll cost you an arm and a leg. But towards those who break the law, the state suddenly becomes very benevolent, and will give you not only a roof over your head but board too, for months or even years.

Prisons were originally conceived as places of “reform” and rehabilitation–in America they are often still referred to as “correctional” facilities–but for political and economic reasons the ethos rapidly changed to one of punishment and segregation. They are a relatively new idea, dating from the late eighteenth century, about the same time that capitalism first reared its ugly head. That is not to say that there were no sanctions employed against the dispossessed before that time; on the contrary, death and transportation were the sentences of choice, but juries were becoming reluctant to convict in capital cases and the ships bound for Australia were overflowing. With the concentration of workers in new towns and cities subordinate to the sanctity of private property, a more practical method of dealing with convicts was required. Thus, the prison was conceived.

Former Home Secretary Michael Howard, amongst others, insisted that prison works. This evaluation of course depends on what it sets out to achieve. If the intention is simply to punish the dispossessed for trying to gain a few more material goods, and act as a deterrent to potential offenders, then it could be said to be serving a purpose. However, the deterrent effect is questionable, because common-sense suggests that most criminals don’t imagine they will be caught, or they wouldn’t commit crimes in the first place. The likelihood of detection would surely be a greater deterrent. If, on the other hand, prisons are intended to rehabilitate offenders and reduce the incidence of crime, evidence shows they clearly do not work. Firstly, statistics reveal that once sent to prison, a person is far more likely to re-offend; and secondly, despite more people being imprisoned than ever before, the crime problem shows no signs of diminishing. The reason that politicians like Michael Howard, and even new Home Secretary, Jack Straw, continue to favour incarceration is that they are at a loss for solutions to the problem of crime, and there are always a few votes in “getting tough”.

Getting tough

What getting tough on crime has meant in the last decade or so is a nine percent increase in the prison population, and this is expected to continue rising from the current level of 51,000 inmates to almost 60,000 in 2004 (Home Office Statistical Bulletin, 4/96), although there is already talk of this figure being reached much sooner. As prisons are presently overcrowded, the building of several new ones will of course be necessary, financed entirely by central government. You’ll notice that there is no restriction on prison construction, unlike public housing. And when did you last hear of a prison being closed because it was no longer “economically viable”? Hospitals, of course, do not enjoy the same security. There is now even a prison ship, hastily imported because existing prisons are filling up quicker than new ones can be built. When prison ships begin weighing anchor and hauling their “cargo” off to the Antipodes, things will have gone full circle.

If Britain’s enthusiasm for locking up its citizens seems over-zealous, it is actually quite restrained compared with America, where building prisons is a major growth industry. Tougher drug laws and mandatory sentencing have combined to push up the number of inmates to almost 1.5 million, or 565 out of every 100,000 Americans (compared with about 100 in Britain). In California, spending on prisons has shot up from two percent to 10 percent of the state budget, and last year was more than expenditure on higher education. This at the same time as welfare benefits and health provision are being reduced. The US politicians have claimed that a fall in the crime rate in some areas is solely attributable to their lock-’em-up policies, but criminologists point out that other factors such as demographics and changing drug habits must also be taken into account. Even if the politicians are correct, there can only be one logical consequence of their strategy: virtually everyone will end up either an inmate in a prison, right down to those who don’t bring their library book back on time, or will be helping to run one.

If the idea of going to prison for something as trivial as failing to pay a fine seems unimaginable, then you may be surprised to discover that it is not an uncommon practice in Britain; over 22,000 people fell victim in 1994 alone. Here is another paradox, to add to the pile which accumulate around this subject. People who, for example, can’t afford a TV licence, are then fined more than the value of the licence which they couldn’t afford in the first place. When they fail to pay the fine, they end up in jail. And here’s the “double whammy” which would perplex even the Mad Hatter: the cost of imprisoning, say, a single mother for not buying a TV licence (yes, you with the blinkers on, they do put mothers of young children in prison) is likely to be forty times the cost of the licence. And they reckon that prison works?

What, then, does the convict learn from the experience of imprisonment? As illustrated above, for many the harsh lesson is that society is prepared to pay thousands of pounds to punish you, but not even a small fraction of that amount is forthcoming to prevent you turning to crime in the first place; in other words, punishing the poor for nothing more than their shortage of money. It is unlikely that many prisoners emerge from the experience with a more positive attitude to the iniquitous socio-economic system which first condemns them to a life of poverty, and then, when temptation gets the better of them, condemns them again to be punished. It’s no wonder that prison does little to discourage crime.

If all other things were equal, perhaps a case could be made for punishing transgressors, but as everyone knows, equality is not something that can be associated with capitalism. It’s bad enough that so many are trapped in a life of poverty, yet the arrogant pitiless free market has to constantly rub their noses in it. Conspicuous inequality is what leads the poor to try to obtain a little more by any means available. If politicians wanted to reduce crime within capitalism, they would establish a system to counsel, aid and attempt to rehabilitate offenders–alas, not politically popular and not many votes in it. On the other hand, if they were serious about eradicating crime, they would identify and attempt to remove the causes of crime. This, however, would raise questions about why we need private property, money, privilege, etc.–not likely to be tackled by most politicians, as the one thing they agree on is the continuance and support of a social system in which a minority owns most of the wealth and exploits the rest of us to maintain it.

The new Labour government, for all its claims to be “tough” on the causes of crime, is proving to be just as ready to cage people up in a way considered inhumane in zoos. Whichever side of the law you’re on, whether you’re in or out of jail, if you’re poor there is one sound-bite that will always ring true: Tough on you.

Nick Brunskill

Prozac Logic (1995)

From the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

There's an old aphorism which says that a pessimist is just a well informed optimist. According to Dr James Goodwin, the so-called "Pied Piper of Prozac", however, a pessimist is a chemically deficient optimist!

Dr Goodwin, a psychologist in Washington state in America, claims that the anti-depressant Prozac has beneficial effects for virtually anyone who takes it, because everyone is a little depressed without realising it. He attributes this melancholy tendency to a chemical imbalance in the brain, a lack of “joy juice” if you will, and argues that everyone should be entitled to have their balance restored.

There are of course many who hold views opposed to those of Dr Goodwin, and critics have accused him of serious misconduct, ranging from incompetence to drug-pushing. Psychiatrist Dr Peter Breggin went as far as arguing against the prescribing of anti-depressants on moral grounds; he wants to see suffering remain as an acceptable and necessary fact of life, pointing out that some degree of angst and insecurity is necessary to the human condition, and is very much part of what we are.

But surely there is a much more fundamental point to be recognised when discussing whether, and if so why, people arc unnecessarily negative or unhappy. Dr Goodwin’s theory presupposes that we live in an ideal world where everyone should be happy and contented, and therefore the question is, why aren’t they? This is like asking why there is hunger in a world with the potential for abundance; the simplistic answer is there must be an imbalance between supply and demand, so let’s grow more food. Alas, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of capitalist economics is aware that food is not produced to be eaten, but instead to be exchanged for money with a view to realising a profit; if you don’t have the lolly, you don’t get the bread. So it is with Dr Goodwin’s “Prozac logic”. Problems in the emotional department? There must be a chemical imbalance, therefore add more “joy juice”. However, as anyone who has worked in the psychiatric field knows, the hunger for happiness often can only be satiated if you can “buy” the joy with satisfaction.

It can be argued that for most of us, life is a tedious existence consisting of days spent doing an often mundane, uninspiring job week in, week out, punctuated by brief spells of recreation, socialising and occasionally a holiday. Even those workers who produce useful or essential goods and services are alienated from any fulfilment because of the negative nature of the employment relationship. Work is generally regarded as a necessary evil into which we are coerced by the need to earn a “living”, and all the concomitant imperatives associated with employment—such as time-keeping, paying taxes, fear of unemployment, etc.—prevent the majority of us from enjoying the positive aspects of work and its relationships. As George Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier: “A thousand influences constantly press a working man into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon.”

It’s been suggested that Dr Goodwin’s method is not unlike treating a disease such as diabetes, i.e. if a person has a chemical deficiency in any other organ it is corrected—so why not in the brain? But there is another anomaly which should also be raised concerning the prevention of ill- health. Despite the many rules, regulations and laws designed to prevent employers from exposing workers to practices or conditions that are potentially injurious to the body, there are no such requirements for protection of the conscious mind. For mental health we must rely largely on our own emotional resources with a dose of entertainment thrown in, usually in the form of sport or television. It’s also significant that taking a holiday has now become an essential part of working life, but “getting away from it all” is not done for its own sake, but as a positive, enjoyable counter-balance to the negative, disparaging drudgery endured for the rest of the year. The need to take a holiday illustrates the negative attitude most of us have towards employment; if our year-round, day-to-day lives were rewarding and consummating, a source of contentment, there would be no need to get away in the first place.

Dr Goodwin is approaching the problem from the wrong angle. He sees apathy and pessimism as a physical ailment to be treated with chemicals, like diabetes. But isn’t it possible to argue with equal conviction that a general tendency towards a negative outlook has more to do with low self-esteem and poverty (whether relative or absolute)? In the modern industrialised world, the socio-economic structure rewards the few high achievers with great economic freedom to which is attached a high degree of respect and influence. Conversely, the average citizen, though perhaps employed performing a very productive task, usually occupies a low social position and lacks any real control over his or her life; thus “basically the problem with poverty is not lack of money, but the inability to enjoy the multiple advantages associated with affluence” (Key to Psychiatry, 1973). As a riposte to the anti-drug lobby, it’s been suggested that there is a difference between Prozac and the so-called recreational drugs in that Prozac does not provide pleasure but restores the capacity for pleasure. However, does any healthy person really lack the capacity for pleasure, or is it that socio-economic circumstances prevent us from experiencing that pleasure?

If Dr Goodwin is correct and people’s negative tendencies can be “neutralised” by application of a chemical compound, it could of course have fundamental implications for the foundations of society. In contrast to the view that suffering should be a necessary fact of life, the establishment could regard a docile, optimistic population at case with itself as much more malleable; in other words the “Brave New' World” scenario. Just imagine the benefits of removing the inconvenience of strikes, crime, environmentalism, pressure groups . . .  a ruler’s dream come true!

Nick Brunskill

Society doesn't owe you a living . . . (1986)

From the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

How many times have you heard apologists for capitalism spout such slogans as "the jobs won't come to you", "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay" or "on yer bike!"? They're all akin to the offensive adage "society doesn't owe you a living". Capitalism is a society which owes the majority nothing, and anything we need must be worked, if not fought, for by prostituting our mental and physical abilities to the whims of the market system.

The most disturbing thing about the idea that capitalist society doesn't owe us a living is not so much that it is undeniable reality, but that it often originates from the lips of workers themselves. They might as well say "the system is at liberty to wring out of me everything it can get". So why is it that the majority of people are willing to abide by capitalism's rules and expect no more than a subsistence of relative poverty in return?

One reason is that it's not the majority, the wealth producers, who make the rules. Instead the rules, enshrined in the edifice of the legal system, are made by the ruling class which legally owns and controls most of the wealth and wields economic power over the working class. These rules do in fact guarantee the members of the ruling class a living, but because of differences in the way such regulations apply to the two classes, there is no promise of due recompense for us.

As far as workers are concerned, the rules apply something like this:

• Provided they agree to be used by an employer, workers shall be entitled to a paltry amount of the wealth they produce in return.
• If they are unable, or do not agree, to serve employers workers may be entitled to a pathetic "benefit" designed to barely maintain them in a state of readiness to be utilised at some future time.
• The taking from others of the tokens known as money, which entitle the bearer to a claim on wealth, is prohibited, even though others may possess copious amounts of these tokens.
• When bereft of the necessary tokens, appropriation by workers of commodities by any other means is also strictly prohibited.
• There shall be no guarantee of shelter and workers are required to place themselves at the mercy of landlords, building societies and council housing waiting lists.
• Workers are expected to keep good order at all times and violent outbursts will be dealt with severely. (This rule should be ignored when the government decrees otherwise, especially in time of war).
• Anyone found breaking the above rules will be punished.

These are the regulations as experienced by the majority of individuals and are clearly more than a little biased. Here roughly is how the rules apply to capitalists:

• Wealth and profit are the ultimate concern of the system and there is no need to consider human needs (except of course, your own).
• Capitalists should be free to employ workers for the minimum possible wage in return for the maximum possible number of hours worked. Capitalists need only return to the workers a small proportion of the wealth produced approximate to the survival, health and proliferation of the work force.
• Capitalists may compete collectively with those of other countries over markets, resources and trade routes. Should diplomacy and business strategy fail to resolve disagreements, violence may be resorted to. Naturally, the job of actually fighting shall be left to the workers.
• When a law does not suit capitalists or the politicians who represent them, if possible the offending law should be repealed or changed.

So the statement holds true: capitalist society doesn't owe us, the working class, a living. In fact, the hideous reality is that it is we who owe the capitalists a living, through no choice of our own. Capitalists, through their legal claim to wealth, are ensured of a privileged and comfortable existence without ever needing to dirty their hands on a tool or machine. They are not obliged to sell themselves to an employer, to have a proportion of the wealth they produce stolen from them in the form of profit. (Theft is of course against the rules for workers). The prosperity of the few is indeed founded on the exploitation. coercion and acquiescence of the many. We'll never get "fair play" or "compassion" or "equality" when the rules are stacked against us. Play by the rules and you'll be left alone to squirm; buck against the rules and you'll be dealt with severely.

One day, society will owe to all an equal and undeniable right of access to the wealth produced, in a world where everyone works to benefit the needs of all. But our just deserts won't be owed to us by way of a legal contract, but because all will contribute voluntarily and co-operatively and take what they need because everything will belong to humanity as a whole instead of being the property of a parasitic minority class.

Nick Brunskill

What makes a socialist? (1996)

From the February 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are not fabricated. They are people who have reached a state of understanding about the society they live in, known as capitalism, and all its attendant problems and iniquities. Out of understanding arises the desire to forge an alternative, a new society free society from poverty, oppression, war, apathy . . . So what does make a socialist? What makes a mind reject the disreputable and repugnant basis of capitalism and opt instead to follow the course of sanity and logic in committing itself to the ideal of socialism? So let's hypothesise for a moment.

Let's take the case of a young person, newly enfranchised, who in 1983 decides to vote Conservative. Within the narrow scope of capitalist thinking this may seem to be a sensible option, the Tories ostensibly being the party most likely to run the economy efficiently, with their free-market philosophy and sound business policies. Labour of course are simply out to disrupt industry and nationalise anything that isn't growing wild, and on top of that they're in the pocket of the unions.

So our new voter is quite happy with his choice, apart from one or two niggling doubts. Being a fair-minded person, he is perturbed at the great variations in the amounts of wealth that accrue to different levels of society, but of course enterprise and hard work are always rewarded.

The miners' strike

Then in 1984, comes the miners' strike, the last great showdown between organised labour and the capitalist establishment. Our voter is partisan, and condemns the reckless behaviour of the striking miners while praising the actions of the strike-breakers. The strikers have of course been duped by NUM leader Scargill's spurious claims of a few pit closures; the idea that the government had any plans for the decimation of the coal industry was of course preoposterous.

Then comes a turning point. Our voter (who let's say lives in a coal-mining area which is fully in support of the strike) is involved in a discussion about the strike between a few colleagues at work. One of the contributors, a union representative, defends the strikers against criticism regarding tactics used against the police. He points out that with the threat of pit closures the dispute differs from many others because it is an attempt to defend the livelihood of miners and their families, and to protect the communities they live in.

If there can ever be an equivalent for an atheist of "seeing the light", then this is it for our voter. he begins to realise that his support for the Conservative Party is misplaced, and to think that only the unions and the Labour Party will fight for his interests. Having diverted his thinking on to a new track, he begins to ask more and more pertinent questions, the principal one being "why do we need money?" Why indeed. It is gradually becoming clear that society isn't merely flawed, it is utterly insane and full of paradoxes. Our voter concludes that money has become a barrier to equal and free distribution of wealth. Why else would there be people starving when the EC destroys or stores food it can't sell? Why else are there unemployed builders and yet thousands of homeless people? Why are people dying of curable diseases when there are ample resources and workers to help the,?

Our voter, now turned sceptic, hasn't quite arrived at the answer to these questions, and in the meantime inquires about joining the Labour Party. Fortunately before he does so, he spots a small advertisement in the back of a magazine. The advertisement is offering free literature published by an organisation unknown to our sceptic—the Socialist Party. He replies to the ad, and is astounded to find that the ideas espoused by the Socialist Party precisely coincide with conclusions he has reached independently.

That is but one example of how a person may become a socialist. As you've probably guessed, the story is not hypothetical; it was my own experience. I thought it worth recounting here to demonstrate that even someone as dogmatic as an electronic rottweiler can grow to understand what and who is really calling the shots in our lives.

Hope and understanding

What really makes a socialist is not wool (thought wool is often applied in the visual region to deceive us), or indoctrination, or deception, or proselytisation. The making of a socialist can be attributed only to the utilisation of one of the most fundamental faculties of the human brain: the ability to reason—to ask "why?" Why do things have to be this way? And by simply asking the question, you have already partly answered it: things are the way they are not because it is unavoidable but because we, the dispossessed working class, allow them to be.

Nick Brunskill  

They Shoot Cowards, Don't They? (1997)

From the November 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Eighty years ago, some ten million lives were lost in World War One. Among these countless casualties was a small group of about three hundred and fifty who are not remembered each November when the dignitaries assemble at the Cenotaph and lay their patronising wreaths of poppies.

Recently, this select few have been in the news, and not for the first time; their deaths were, and still are, the subject of controversy. Readers of the Socialist Standard would no doubt consider the death of any human being in the pursuit of property and resources highly controversial. However, the reason the fate of this tiny proportion of those who died so long ago continues to be debated today is because they didn't die a "heroic" death at the hands of the enemy. They were shot by their own comrades.

To the uninitiated, or the naive, or just the logically-minded, this may come as a shock. Surely the job of an army is to slaughter marauding foreigners, not its own troops? Wrong. The job of an army is to do the state's dirty work, that is to plunder land, wealth and raw materials, as well as secure routes for international trade, or to prevent another state from doing same. This definition of any army's role does not preclude murder within the ranks. Granted, killing your own chaps doesn't sound like an efficient way to run an army, but the legally-sanctioned execution of comrades-in-arms during World War One was not only efficient, it was absolutely necessary.

Those who died by the bullets of their fellow troops were not ordinary soldiers, not normal men. They were of that rare perverted persuasion which knew fear and a sense of self-preservation. It may sound obtuse to suggest that a soldier who is afraid of going into battle is some sort of oddity, but that is precisely what the army wanted the average Tommy to think. If you suppose that fear probably comes as naturally to a soldier as brown paper bags to a Tory MP, you'd surely be right. But the army has a special term for people who respond rationally to this entirely natural emotion: they are known as "cowards".

The issue of those who were branded and shamed with this term during the First World War has come to the fore once again presumably because of the election of the new Labour government; there is apparently new hope for campaigners of obtaining pardons for their relatives. They have reiterated that there is evidence and expert opinion which now points to the likelihood that the majority of "cowards" were in fact suffering from some form of mental illness, and not in full command of their senses. It would seem more likely however that anyone who wishes to avoid almost certain death is in an absolutely sound state of mind.

Irrevocable punishment

The fact that advocates for these men are relying on the "shell shock" defence suggests one of two things. Either they genuinely believe that anyone in his or her right mind should willingly and dutifully have gone into battle in a war which took senseless carnage and breathtaking incompetence to new pinnacles; or they simply believe that this is the only chance of restoring the tarnished reputation of the family name. It's interesting that nobody seems to have questioned the morality of executing a man for refusing to endanger his own life; or recognising that he may have been averse to murdering his "enemies", who were terrified soldiers like himself, strangers against whom he had no grudge. That, surely, is justification in itself for laying down arms.

It seems astonishing now, in slightly more lenient times, that the government of the day could have permitted such summary and irrevocable punishment for its own servicemen, especially as the accused had no representation and no right of appeal. However, the practice has to be viewed in the light of the circumstances in which much of World War One was fought, particularly in the trenches. This essentially involved massing thousands of men and then sending them like lemmings towards the enemy lines, resulting in catastrophic casualties, often in order to gain just a few yards of ground, if any. Given that such behaviour, except to the seriously mentally unbalanced or the suicidal, naturally appeared to be utter lunacy, the politicians had to provide some incentive to persuade the potentially sceptical recruits to act like madmen. The principal methods of course were propaganda and flattery. After character defamation of the enemy, using easily understood terms such as "evil Bosch" or "filthy Hun", conscripts were told that it was their duty and privilege to rid the world of such despicable degenerates. Having preserved democracy and fair play, and saved England for all decent, God-fearing citizens, the troops would then be welcomed home as heroes and be forever intoxicated by the eternal gratitude of their countrymen.

Not surprisingly, it occurred to the top brass in the army that such shameless patronising might not wash with a few who cared to examine even cursorily their justification for mass slaughter of innocent human beings. And if only a few sceptics concluded that they were being duped, they might well persuade many others to lay down their arms and take up flower pressing instead. Therefore, an extra "incentive" was required, and this was where the ruthless efficiency of the military came into its own. It would have done no good to tell a dissenter that he was a naughty boy and to sit in the corner for the rest of the day; nor would there have been any point in threatening to send him to prison for life. After all, he would still have his life. No, the only way to ensure that insanity prevailed was to offer a Hobson's Choice: either go over the top and face almost certain death, or refuse and face certain death.

Madness of war

The fact that some three hundred or more soldiers, who were presumably aware of the penalties for cowardice, still refused to fight begs an important question. As the punishment was the ultimate penalty of death, and given that actually going into battle at least provided a chance of survival, doesn't it seem likely that these men were, as the campaigners claim, suffering from severe psychological trauma, be it shell-shock, or just the horror of seeing the gruesome demise of their comrades? In that case there would have been grounds for clemency, because these men were clearly not "cowards", but were deeply disturbed. Alas, such a distinction would have been irrelevant, because these unfortunate few had to be made examples to all the others of what happens to those who refuse to obey suicidal orders. Little surprise then that there was no right of appeal.

To some, war is heroic; to others, it is anathema. There is only one thing that can be said for certain about wars: they are never fought in the interest of those who die in them. Today, Britain has a professional volunteer army, and technical advances mean that modern warfare is a much more scientific affair. The Gulf War was a high profile example of how ever more sophisticated weapons are able to accurately target enemy weaknesses. Now there are no poorly trained conscripts, and no need for battalions of troops to go "over the top", and so there is no need for summary executions to enforce discipline. The naive and innocent victims of the firing squads of eighty years ago had the misfortune to be born into a very different stage of capitalism's destructive development, when daily casualties could wipe out entire regiments.

It's difficult to imagine what must have gone through the minds of those conscripts as they huddled in their cold, damp, dirty trenches, waiting for the order to ascend into no-man's-land with only a tin hat and a rifle for protection against a phalanx of machine guns and mortars. It was a different world then, not only in the way wars were fought, but also in the way minds were moulded. Many men were no doubt torn between the love for "their" country and the love for their families. Perhaps some thought of the men on the other side of the lines whom they would be required to massacre--men with the same fears and hopes, with families waiting anxiously at home; ordinary men, no different except that they just happened to be born under another flag. Perhaps some even entertained the idea that one day the world might be free of artificial economic divisions, when co-operation would replace conflict. Alas, such fanciful ideas were for future generations to enjoy. The soldiers of the Great War were unfortunate to live in an era when courage, however you defined it, equalled death.

Nick Brunskill

Let's All Boldly Go! (1995)

From the January 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Space, the final frontier ... To boldly go where no man has gone before ..."

Many science fiction fans will be familiar with those words through the television series Star Trek, in which the phrase "the final frontier" was used to describe the conquest of space. The mysteries of space for most of us however, though a fascinating area of exploration and study, are a long way away, both physically and intellectually. Before humans are able to make a serious attempt at grappling with the mammoth technological task of crossing the vast expanses of the cosmos to other stars and worlds, they must first make an even greater and more profound journey through the real final frontier, the barrier between the last class-divided world system capitalism, and the new world-wide stateless, moneyless community of common ownership of wealth -- Socialism. Are you ready to cross the final frontier and make that long-deferred journey to the undiscovered country? 

Socialists face a similar frustration to would-be space travellers: we can see our objective, distant and enigmatic though it may be, and we can wonder at the opportunities for extending our knowledge, as well as self-awareness, that presently can only begin to be imagined, but the method of reaching our respective destinations remains a difficult nut to crack, and the solution will require a huge leap in human understanding. Socialists however can take heart in the knowledge that, unlike the space cowboys, we do not need to make an unprecedented breakthrough in overcoming the constraints of physics to allow our journey to become viable - the means already exist. 

The key to making possible the journey to that single global society to which no one has ever been but which nevertheless could exist is simply the harnessing of the power of consciousness. Socialists seek to promote the exploration of the universe of the human mind, the great constellations of imagination, co-operation, humour, affection and compassion. At the moment the human consciousness is grounded in a class-divided ghetto, confined to the tiny solar system of capitalism. 

Getting to Socialism is not merely a question of physical effort, it requires a change in thinking, in the way of perceiving society as it is presently organised, and recognising that there is an alternative. 

Socialists know that a new world of unity and co-operation can exist in the future by observing certain features in society now, such as widespread cooperation despite tremendous pressures to divide and compete, and examples of generosity and self-sacrifice that are always evident in times of crisis. 

There is no short cut. The only way to get there is for all the dispossessed and oppressed members of the human race (the vast majority) to make a conscious decision to embark on this momentous journey together. We won't be led there by politicians. Their only concern is governing their own particular countries in the interests of profit and those who benefit from that profit. Nor will anachronistic religious beliefs pave the way to a better world, with their notions of life after death and the serenity of heaven; religions only serve to mystify. Likewise, single-issue campaigns and charities, though well-meaning, are constantly running to stand still and fighting a losing battle against all manner of horrors which capitalism throws up with predictable regularity; they can only hope to desperately juggle with the inevitable problems of a society in which property takes precedence over people. 

When one becomes class-conscious however, one is able to take a step back from the petty-mindedness and the prejudice and see the world as it really is: a planet inhabited by one race but artificially divided into nations vying for markets and access to raw materials and resources, with a breathtakingly unfair distribution of wealth. Suddenly one begins to realise that one has been conned by political leaders and their economic priorities, when the real priorities are human beings and the preservation of our one and only home: Earth. Of course, it isn't easy to admit to having been conned, but the cathartic effect of cleansing the mind and replacing all the political garbage and those dangerously sharp and uneven bits of bigotry with socialist consciousness more than compensates for any embarrassment. 

Clearly, the first sign that people have boarded the consciousness vehicle is when they decide to stop giving others the responsibility for governing their lives, when faith in leaders has finally dissipated. There is a powerful incentive which must surely lead the oppressed to taking this first step, and that is the undeniable conclusion that the responsibility for the plight of the working class today lies at the door of the working class itself. It is we who not only allow a few ambitious self-serving leaders to make all crucial decisions for us, but we also allow such decisions to be made not in our class interest, but in the interest of big business and its few wealthy owners. 

When a majority becomes conscious of this, we will have embarked on the first leg of our historic journey. And when the realisation dawns that it is we who are ultimately responsible for the perpetuation of the divisive economic system that persecutes us, there is only a short distance to be travelled before arriving at the conclusion that only we, democratically and collectively, can transform capitalism into a society of common ownership and production for use. 

So to return to the original question: are you able to open your mind as well as your eyes and really perceive what is going on around you, everywhere, every day? Are you ready to climb aboard the imaginary ship we may call the Spirit of Free Thinking? Some are, but there are many who are yet to become convinced, which means that we won't be making that journey for some time. But we don't have forever to make the move, which is why socialists will urgently continue to expose the injustices of the desperate and volatile world we now inhabit, as well as insisting that there is a better world yet to be enjoyed when there is the will to go there. The event will be so sensational that it will make Neil Armstrong's "giant leap" look like a mere "small step". The ship is fuelled and ready to go as soon as humanity is; the undiscovered country awaits discovery. 

Nick Brunskill