At Home and Abroad . . . (1971)

The Home and Abroad Column from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Review November 1971

At Home

Emperor Hirohito of Japan has been in and out of favour with the British ruling class so much that his life has resembled that of the man and woman in the barometer. Before the last war he was awarded the Order of the Garter, which is supposed to be a recognition of a person’s “chivalry” but which is actually one of the gaudy medals our rulers exchange like little boys with cigarette cards. Then in 1941, as his country was fighting against the British ruling class, he was stripped of the order. In April he got it back—and the whole episode serves to underline the true purpose of these decorations and ceremonies which are thrown around and which the popular press make such a fuss about. Hirohito is now, of course, a friend of British capitalism, at any rate for the time being and his visit to this country was designed to ram the fact down the throats of the British workers. Some of them were unwise enough to protest, in memory of the atrocities which parts of the Japanese army were responsible for in the last war. Apart from the fact that these protests were not aimed at atrocities as such but only those committed by the enemy, there was also the fact that the protesters were acting in the customarily naive fashion of supporters of capitalism. The alliances of international capitalism change as the pattern of opposing interests change, so that yesterday’s enemy is the friend of today. It is not stretching matters too far to say that, had Hitler in some way survived the war and the trials which followed, he may have been paraded through the streets of London to display the new solidarity between the two capitalisms. For capitalism does not know principles other than its own sordid motives, which erect no obstacles in the way of one set of murdering bandits embracing another.

Abroad

A recent United Nations report has told us that unless a “mammoth” relief operation is mounted, there will be some 40 million starving in East Pakistan by Christmas. We have grown so familiar to this kind of warning that the report passed by almost unnoticed, as another example of the world’s inadequate resources or its inability to organise such an operation smoothly and in time. That has always been the official excuse, for tragedies such as in East Pakistan, or in natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, typhoons. Yet at the same time as the U.N. report came out, a comparatively short distance away from East Pakistan the evidence was accumulating, that the excuses for inaction are nothing more than lies. In the middle of a desert, among the ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis, the Shah of Persia briefly held court to a gathering of the representatives of world capitalism in conditions of unprecedented luxury. The assembled dignitaries camped out in tents as sumptuous as a palace. They ate food exotic into the realms of fantasy. The whole show, which lasted only a couple of days, cost some £40 million. To get all that stuff out to the ruins in the desert, convoys of lorries rolled out from the Continent every day for months. And the object of it all was simply to show the world that, among the minor powers of international capitalism, Persia has a place. Whether or not that point was made, what was clear was that it is possible to move vast amounts of supplies into difficult places—but that capitalism does not care to do so. When the deaths are counted up in East Pakistan, or in any other similarly needy place, nobody who remembers the junketings at Persepolis should be content with the excuse that it is all an unavoidable accident.

Politics

That strange, light headed feeling we always get at this time of year is relief at the end of the boredom of the party conferences. This year’s were splendid examples of the art of conference trickery. Labour desperately tried to paper over its splits, revealed briefly the flash of knives in the shadows and ended with a marvellously unrealistic list of industries to be nationalised by a future Labour government. Sometimes they mentioned the word Socialism but for all they understood it, or mentioned it in correct context, they might as well have said rhubarb.

The Tories were also in excellent form. This year, remember, they are in power, so the speeches have to be rather different in tone if not in basic content. When they were in opposition we were all being threatened with imminent disasters; now we are all being threatened with imminent prosperity. Barber and Heath both told us all about the golden future which is about to be served up to us and the Chancellor dug up an explanation for unemployment which has been out of use for long enough to sound really fresh. It was all, he said, due to wage demands. The Tories also had their customary hunt for the blood of the criminal, and of course the hats made a wonderful showing.

When capitalism is no more, there will be a good case for keeping these conferences going, for how else will we know what cynicism meant to the people it now deceives and suppresses?

Aspect: Marx’s Critique of Political Economy (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the failure of the European democratic revolutions of 1848 Marx, in exile in England, decided to improve his knowledge of economics or “political economy” as it was called at that time. The first result of this research, mainly at the British Museum was the publication in 1859 of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*. Marx had intended, as he said in the Preface, to examine various aspects of the capitalist economic system and he listed capital, landed property, wage-labour, the State, foreign trade and the world market. In fact before he died in 1883 he had only got as far as capital with the publication of the first volume of his main book in 1867.

The Critique itself only covered the commodity and money, and is much the same as the first three chapters of Capital (though “exchange value” in the one becomes “value” in the other). In fact it too begins, “The wealth of bourgeois society, at first sight, presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities . . .”, but is a good introduction to the labour-time theory of value, especially as applied to money.

Marx emphasises that money is not just a convenient device for facilitating the buying and selling of goods but is also, as he puts it, “an expression of a social relation of production”. Money, in other words, is a sign that the people who use it have a particular form of society; at the very least it tells us that the means for producing wealth are not owned in common and that production is not carried on according to some definite social plan. The regulation of production by money and the market disguises the domination of the means of production by a minority class.

Marx’s theory of money is that where wealth is exchanged one commodity (or, product of labour produced for sale) will eventually emerge as the one which can be exchanged for all other commodities. This commodity, which acts as a measure of the amount of socially necessary labour-time spent on producing all other commodities, is money. Being the measure of value is the money-commodity’s primary function, but it is a role which can only be played by something which itself has a labour-time value by virtue of being the product of socially-necessary labour. Say it takes the same amount of social labour-time to produce an overcoat as an ounce of gold, then we can say that the overcoat (or 4 chairs or 10 books, etc, etc) is worth 1 oz. of gold. This is its price, the expression of its exchange-value in units of the money-commodity. Being a standard of price and a unit of account like this is money’s second role. The units in which prices are expressed are purely conventional. In our example they are units of weight (which is what they originally were, a £ having once been a lb. of silver) but are now special money-units like cents and dollars or roubles and kopecks fixed by governments. These units can still be related, however indirectly, to weights of gold; the American dollar for instance was for a long time defined as l/35th oz. of gold. Finally, money serves as a means of settling debts, what Marx calls a means of payment.

Originally, the money-commodity itself, usually gold or silver, circulated as the currency in the form of coins. Where this is the case, said Marx, the amount of money that is needed depends on the total prices of all the goods and services to be bought and sold (and the total amount of debts to be settled) and, since coins can be used more than once, on how quickly the coins circulate. Marx rejected the Quantity Theory of Money, at least in the form put forward by Hume and Ricardo which made the price level depend on the quantity of the money-commodity rather than vice-versa.

But, Marx went on, “where paper notes are the sole medium of circulation”, i.e. where the currency is composed of paper notes circulating as tokens for the money-commodity, then the situation is reversed: the price level does depend on the quantity of (paper) money. This does not contradict the theory that the amount of real money is determined in the end by the price level. For the basis of the Quantity Theory of paper-money is that only a definite amount of real money is needed so that, if the amount of paper money issued exceeds this, then currency depreciation—and inflation—will result. This is because paper money is worthless in itself and only has value insofar as it represents gold or silver. If the amount of gold or silver to be represented is given, then obviously the more tokens are issued the less amount of gold or silver each will come to represent. Prices rise because in effect the whole standard of price has been altered.

As Marx put it:

Let us assume that £14 million is the amount of gold required for the circulation of commodities and that the State throws 210 million notes each called £1 into circulation: these 210 million would then stand for a total gold worth £14 million. The effect would be the same as if the notes issued by the State were to represent a metal whose value was one-fifteenth that of gold or that each note was intended to represent one-fifteenth of the previous weight of gold. This would have changed nothing but the nomenclature of the standard of prices, which is of course purely conventional, quite irrespective of whether it was brought about directly by a change in the monetary standard or indirectly by an increase in the number of paper notes issued in accordance with a new lower standard. As the name pound-sterling would now indicate one-fifteenth of the previous quantity of gold, all commodity-prices would be fifteen times higher and 210 million pound notes would now be indeed just as necessary as 14 million had previously been. The decrease in the quantity of gold which each individual token of value represented would be proportional to the increased aggregate value of these tokens. The rise of prices would be merely a reaction of the process of circulation, which forcibly placed the tokens of value on a par with the quantity of gold which they are supposed to replace in the sphere of circulation.

That inflation will be the inevitable result of issuing more paper currency that the amount of the money- commodity which would have to circulate if there were no (inconvertible) paper currency was once recognised even by bourgeois economists. It was forgotten under the influence of Keynesian economics and is only now, after over thirty years of non-stop currency depreciation and rising prices, being rediscovered.

The Preface to the Critique contains Marx’s well-known account of his historical method—the materialist conception of history. The structure of a particular society, including the ideas predominant amongst its members, said Marx, was conditioned by how its members were organised with regard to the production of wealth. This, in its turn, was mainly dependent on technology and the level of productivity. As technology changed and productivity increased so social forces were set in motion which eventually led to a change of society. Marx mentioned four main stages through which human society has passed — later known as Asiatic society, chattel-slavery, feudalism and capitalism—and went on to say that the coming social revolution would end in the establishment of Socialism.

Also published with the Critique as with the original 1904 translation is a document called An Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy which is an unfinished and rough draft dealing mainly with the relationship between production, distribution (defined as a person’s share in what has been produced) and consumption. Though translated on its own into English in 1904 it is really the first part of a set of manuscripts known as “Marx’s Grundrisse," which are only now being translated. The Introduction is interesting in that it shows that Marx would have rejected the orthodox Trotskyist description of Russia as a “contradictory combination of a non-capitalist mode of production and a still basically bourgeois mode of distribution” (Mandel).

Actually, “non-capitalist” is too weak a term to convey what the Trotskyists really have in mind. For they consider that as far as the production of wealth is concerned Russia is a classless society. They do not deny that there is a privileged group in Russia but claim that this group is privileged only with regard to the distribution of wealth. To make this point Trotsky called it a “caste” to distinguish it from a class.

True, classes are defined by how groups are related to the use of the means of production rather than by how they stand in relation to the distribution of the products, but the real question is: Could a class-type mode of distribution exist alongside a classless mode of production?

Marx’s answer can be clearly inferred from the following:

The structure of distribution is entirely determined by the structure of production. Distribution itself is a product of production, not only with regard to the content, but also with regard to the form, since the particular mode of men’s participation in production determines the specific form of distribution, the form in which they share in distribution.

And how in fact could a group be privileged with regard to the distribution of the products without being at the same time privileged with regard to their production? For having the power to distribute products to your advantage amounts to being able to decide what should be produced and so to deciding how the means of production should be used — which is precisely what being privileged in relation to production means. The orthodox Trotskyist analysis of Russia is an absurdity and, as the Introduction shows, quite at variance with Marx’s theory of society.

An introduction by Maurice Dobb and two reviews of the work by Engels complete this edition. Dobb, by the way, seems to imply that commodity-production and money were not central to Marx’s conception of capitalism, but this is what you would expect from someone who mistakenly believes that, although money and commodities still exist there, Russia has abolished capitalism and established Socialism. As Marx always made clear, capitalism is the highest form of commodity-production and money-economy while Socialism by establishing democratic social control over production necessarily means the abolition of production for sale and of money.

Adam Buick

* Just republished by Lawrence and Wishart — £1.50.

The End of “Full Employment”? (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment has been increasing continuously for five years. It was increasing under the Wilson Labour government and the rate of increase has accelerated under the Tories. At first it was noticed that the monthly figures were higher than they had been a year earlier; then they had reached levels which were a record for seven, eight, nine and ten years; and when unemployment passed the 900,000 mark in August, this represented the highest total for thirty years—back  to the beginning of the war.

Normally unemployment is expected to rise in winter and fall in summer. This summer the fall did not take place. The September figure was 280,000 more than in January and about 560,000 above September 1966. It may well reach the million mark this winter.

Every industry has been affected—private and nationalised, old and new. No section of the workers has escaped and some of the most heavily hit have been the clerical, technical and managerial. Many who have lost their jobs have little prospect of ever getting work again at their old rates of pay.

This is not the first time since the war that unemployment has reached peak levels, but the peaks go higher. In the four years 1947, 1958, 1959 and 1962 the average for the whole year just exceeded 500,000. In 1963 and 1967-9 it was about 600,000. In 1970 640,000 and for 1971 it is likely to come out at 850,000.

Of course it will drop back again sometime as markets and production pick up but there are signs that it will run in future years at levels considerably higher than it was in the nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties, when the annual average was usually below 400,000 and often below 300,000.

One new factor is that employers’ expectations about quick recovery have been undermined by the long duration of the present recession. In earlier setbacks employers expected a quick recovery with a return of labour shortage, and were often prepared to keep surplus staff on in slack times; now it has become the practice to get rid of “redundant” workers immediately.

Why was unemployment relatively low in the early post-war years? Why is it rising now? and what will happen in the future?

Many politicians and economists have had a ready answer. They believed that governments have almost complete control of the situation and can make unemployment as high or low as they choose. This assumed control was not claimed to be total—it would not eliminate small up and down fluctuations and it might take a few months to be effective. In 1957 Professor A. C. L. Day in his The Economics of Money, discussing the pre-1914 ten year cycle of boom and depression, wrote:

“It may now have been mastered as a result of the insight into economic processes which has been acquired in the last generation.”

Even more confidence in what the government can do was expressed in the Sunday Times (24/5/70) when their contributor Malcolm Crawford wrote that American bankers “know that the government can stop a recession of any magnitude, nowadays, at about six months notice”, and that the steps already taken by the American government were “enough to stop the recession”. (Since then Nixon has had two or three more goes “to stop the recession”, but it still persists). The economic backwoodsmen of the TUC still firmly believe in this assumed power of governments.

Naturally, therefore, those economists and politicians regarded the low level of unemployment which lasted for about fifteen years after the war as proof positive that they were right in believing that Keynesian methods had changed the nature of capitalism and that serious unemployment need never be feared again.

The explanation was too simple. From the start it had one major flaw, for the same Keynesian methods were also supposed to keep prices more or less stable and not even the most zealous believer can regard the rise of prices since 1938 to a level four and a half times what it was as price stability. And now they have to explain why the Labour government before 1970 and the Tory government since 1970 could not prevent unemployment rising to levels both say are too high.

The odd thing is that though they claimed to be Keynesians they hadn’t even got Keynes on their side for he didn’t believe it possible to keep unemployment down to two per cent or less, which it was in those years. When Lord Beveridge hoped that, taking the good and bad years together, they could keep unemployment to an average of three per cent, Keynes dissented on the ground that Beveridge was too optimistic. Keynes did not state how much above three per cent he thought it should be but if we assume only three and a half per cent as an average, this would mean a range of, say, two and a half per cent to four and a half per cent. This would mean unemployment ranging from about 600,000 to 1,100,000. So present unemployment is Keynes’ “Full Employment”.

It is interesting to note that in America, where Democratic Presidents have from time to time been said to be operating on Keynesian lines (and Nixon suddenly announced in January that he too had been converted) unemployment in May was at a nine year record level of 6.2 per cent, and Nixon’s Chief Economic spokesman John Connally admitted in a moment of candour that, except in war-time, it has never been below four per cent (Financial Times, 8/7/71). In Britain four per cent would be about a million.

An examination of the causes of low post-war unemployment in Britain was made by Professor R. C. O. Matthews, himself broadly a supporter of Keynes, and published in the Economic Journal (September 1968). His conclusion was that, starting with the stimulus given by making good war damage of all kinds, a major cause was a prolonged investment boom and that “the decline of unemployment as compared with 1914 is to a large extent not a Keynesian phenomenon at all”.

On a comparative basis he estimated pre-1914 unemployment at 4.5 per cent and that from 1945 to 1967 at 1.8 per cent. He expected this situation to continue, but the doubling of unemployment since 1967 has already destroyed the basis for that optimism. On one point in particular Matthews has been proved wrong. He thought that the greater job-security of the post-war years, due to employers retaining surplus workers in slack periods, would continue, but this is no longer true as the hundreds of thousands of redundancies show.

The fact is that some British industries have been losing ground and failing to keep up with the expansion of world markets. Better equipped, more efficient rivals in Japan, Germany and elsewhere have been undercutting British (and latterly also American) companies. The two devaluations of 1949 and 1967 delayed, but did not stop, this drift.

Belief in the ability of any government to secure “full employment” at will soon came up against a complication. The 1945 Attlee government (followed by Tory governments) discovered, as Marx or even Keynes could have told them, that when unemployment is very low the workers are in a better position to push up wages and this combines with other boom developments to cut into profit margins; which in turn discourages capitalist plans to expand industry. So the governments applied their “incomes policies” to keep wages down. It never succeeded for long. The Heath government came in with its alternative, of encouraging employers to show tougher resistance to wage claims, and warning them that if they could not pay their way they must no longer count on the government bailing out “lame ducks”—which also adds to unemployment.

If we disregard the possibility of another world depression like that of the nineteen thirties, present indications are that the years ahead will see more unemployment in Britain, coming nearer to the pre-1914 average of four and a half per cent. But the myth of “full employment” will die hard. The Labour Party and trade unions will go on pursuing it, for—not being Socialist—what else have they to offer?

Edgar Hardcastle

Malicious Damage (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every working day, Bob drives down the long, straight arterial road to the big factory where he peels away from the rest of the swarming cars. He parks his new Escort in the car park which he is allowed to use by virtue of the small circular sticker on his windscreen which the firm give only to the staff. Sometimes the uniformed security man says “Good morning” or even salutes him, which makes Bob feel more like a member of the staff than ever. Through the side door of the huge building he climbs quickly up the stairs to the office which runs the entire length of the building and, although his desk and chair and filing cabinet are exactly identical to the hundreds of others, he finds his way unerringly to his place. He always arrives about ten minutes early so that by the official starting time his desk is perfectly prepared and he has actually started work.

From the filing cabinet he takes out a large bundle of invoices from other firms. Each invoice has an allocation tag stuck to its lower edge and Bob’s job is to sort them out into their various allocations. Some invoices are for production material; others for services like transport, maintenance and so on; some for customs duty or agency. Bob carefully sorts each invoice into its separate tray and every so often a girl comes up to his desk to clear out one of the trays and take away her share of the invoices for processing. And every so often another girl comes, from the mailing department, with another bundle of invoices to be sorted and labelled. The flow never stops and Bob often says, at lunch in the staff canteen which is separate from the works cafeteria where the factory workers and the lower office employees eat, that no matter how hard he goes at it he never goes home with an empty tray.

Sometimes there is a break in the routine; perhaps a question from another department about a missing invoice or a telephone call from a supplier about one which is unpaid. Bob is always meticulous in his investigations of such matters and if he finds that one of the girls has made a mistake he lets her know all about the trouble and extra work she has caused him.

At the end of the day he clears his desk into the filing cabinet and rejoins the swarm weaving down the big road. He is often very tired but usually finds the energy to do any gardening or decorating which is needed. He is an attentive husband and a caring father; a decent, dependable man who wastes the vast part of his waking life in thoroughly useless, monotonous, unproductive, degrading drudgery.

There are millions of others like him. They work in banks, insurance offices, merchant houses; they are salesmen, advertising men, accountants. Their job is to organise the commercial affairs of capitalism — its buying and selling, collecting and paying out money, processing its vast financial machine. To the capitalist system, which produces its wealth for sale, such jobs are very necessary but they contribute nothing to society’s wealth.

For capitalism, which claims to be the most rational social system known to man, wastes most of its productive resources in the field of human labour. Sometimes this takes the form of the slow, grinding waste, like Bob with his invoices. Sometimes it is more spectacular, even bizarre, as food is ploughed into the ground or burnt. For some time, governments have realised that, in the age of Oxfam, the open destruction of food can be politically unwise. From this realisation has sprung the better, more stealthy but equally wasteful, method of simply not producing the stuff.

From this it was only a small step for governments actually to pay food producers for not producing food. Of course this requires a certain amount of administration and somewhere there must be people like Bob who process paper showing how much each farmer who is in the great non-production scheme has not produced and how much he is to be paid for keeping his land idle. Then there must be some check on the few dishonest people (for this, remember, is capitalism) who are sufficiently mean and ungrateful to claim for not growing food when all the time they are growing it.

This is exactly what has happened in the case of the potato growers, who are proving so dishonest that a number of quite advanced checking methods have had to be applied against them. Now potatoes are a popular, nutritious food which might do something towards feeding people, even these like old age pensioners who can’t afford to spend too much on the tiresome business of keeping alive. But when potatoes are produced in plenty they come pouring onto the market, which causes their price to fall and, instead of making things easier for the pensioner, this only makes them harder for the farmer because his produce can’t be sold profitably. The government at present try to protect the farmers from too catastrophic a loss by guaranteeing a price of about £15 a ton but this does not prevent the kind of situation we had in August, when something like half a million tons were destroyed because the market could not absorb them profitably.

This guarantee comes into operation if another scheme, run by the Potato Marketing Board, fails. Under this scheme, growers are supposed to register with the Board the land they want to use for growing potatoes and the Board then decides how much acreage they can each be allowed for this production. In deciding on the land quotas, of course, human needs are not an influence; the size of the market and the expectations of profit are what count. A grower who exceeds his quota can be fined by the Board, who now have a light aircraft equipped with long range cameras spying out the countryside for pirate potato growers. Presumably, if the spying succeeds the price of potatoes will be kept stable — and profitable.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, people are dying of starvation and declining through malnutrition. The effects of the restriction of food production upon them are all too obvious; but what about the effect upon those, better fed, who do the restricting? In the case of the potatoes, for example, the aircraft brings back its photographs which are then marked with potato growing areas and compared with maps showing the areas covered by growing quotas. If the two don’t coincide, a pirate has been caught. What is the effect upon the people who process the photographs and compare them with the maps, who are doing a good job when they catch out a farmer who is producing food, who write up the reports for his prosecution?

Human behaviour is a matter of learning; we take in experiences and sensations which, provided we are capable of absorbing and processing them, modify and fashion our attitudes and our behaviour. This can, and ideally should, be a maturing process in which we acquire knowledge and skills but it can also be inhibiting, for example in the case of the battered baby who as a result of the cruelty it has experienced is withdrawn and mistrustful.

Extending this reasoning, we can ask what effect their work has upon people like Bob and those who work for organisations like the Potato Marketing Board. Is it maturing or inhibiting? Do they flourish or wither, under the burden of their socially useless drudgery? In many cases they respond with a fervent support for the capitalist society which condemns them to their drudgery. In the dormitory area where Bob lives the poor old Labour Party is regarded as dangerously revolutionary. These intelligent people take this unreasoned attitude not entirely in the conviction that in their semi, their insurance policy and their Escort they have something worth defending. Like the beaten child, Bob reacts with a defence mechanism; he denies his problems, denies that his job is useless and boring. He has to believe that he contributes something significant to the social wellbeing because the alternative is too horrible to face.

The erection of this defence may serve its immediate purpose but, again like the child, this is achieved only at some cost. Bob is a damaged person who can be absorbed, even obsessed, with trivia — the hunt for a missing invoice, the tidiness of his desk, the gleaming newness of his car. He is not fulfilling his potential as a person; indeed he would even deny that he had any and adapts himself to wasting his abilities and his very life seated between the in tray and the out tray. A decent man, rather than lower his defences he will accept and defend the obscenities which capitalism perpetrates in the name of profit — starvation, poverty, murder, repression, deceit.

The depressing fact about Bob is that he is representative of his kind; in one way or another capitalism damages all its people and one of the great advances which will come when the system is swept away will be their release. This will not be only a matter of them realising their potential to produce wealth, to design and to beautify. It is also a matter of their development as human personalities, as people. Under capitalism we can hardly guess at what a human being is really like and the world has yet to experience what we are capable of, in terms of co-operation and caring, when we are free.

Ivan

Moneyless or not (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

“While there is money, there is scarcity”. “. . . Work itself becomes voluntary. The new incentives will be pleasure, pride and social responsibility”

These are among the ideas expressed in the final chapter of the book Play-power by Richard Neville, one of the editors of OZ convicted of producing what the Law regards as an obscene publication.

Quite true; men could use modern technology to design and construct machines to do the boring and repetitive jobs involved in the production of wealth, thus freeing human beings to engage in interesting, creative work of their choice. Employment could be abolished and work become voluntary.

But before this could be done the machines and the other means of production must have ceased to be the property of a privileged minority and have come instead under the democratic control of all the people. Only then could they be used to turn out an abundance of good-quality consumer goods and services which people could use to satisfy their needs. Money would become redundant.

There is no doubt at all that in writing about “a moneyless society” Neville was directly influenced by the ideas of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. For he was quoting with approval from one of a number of articles that have appeared in OZ written by a Socialist (‘The Food Explosion” OZ 19 and 26. See also “Smash Cash” OZ 17).

The only trouble is that Neville isn’t consistent and so gives the impression of having used our arguments merely to justify shoplifting and fare-dodging. People who do this, he says “are training themselves for a moneyless society”. There is of course nothing “immoral” in these practices but they have nothing to do with a moneyless, socialist society, and are practised by many others besides Socialists and those Neville calls “drop-outs”.

Neville’s inconsistency comes out on the very next page where he uses a quite different argument to justify the practice of non-employment (what is sometimes called “refusing to work”). He conjures up the vision of a society where, in order to maintain consumer demand in the face of growing unemployment caused by automation, the State pays everybody a guaranteed income. This would presumably be paid in money, so what became of the moneyless society Neville was supposed to be training for?

We can only say that, if Neville really does believe in a State guaranteed income, he is way behind the times. In this age of potential abundance nothing short of free access to wealth will do. He was right the first time: future society will have no need for money. Today’s notes and coins—dollars and cents, pounds and pence, roubles and kopecks—can be relegated to the museums alongside the Romans’ coins and the South Sea Islanders' cowrie shells.

Socialism and Work (1971)

Book Review from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Future of Work and Leisure, by Stanley Parker. MacGibbon and Kee. £2.25.

This short and (with the exception of chapter 7) readable book is a good discussion of the question of work and leisure. Many of Parker’s points have long been made by us: that work and employment must be distinguished; that working for wages is of comparatively recent origin; that in the sense of engaging in some socially useful activity men need to work; that work can be made pleasant and interesting; that the so-called problem of leisure cannot be solved in isolation from the problem of boring work (and that this cannot be solved within “our outmoded economic system”); that it is wrong to regard work and leisure as opposites since leisure as freely chosen activity can—and indeed should—overlap with work. As Parker says:

The weight of historical, anthropological and contemporary evidence is that, whatever their expressed desires, men in all societies need to have work as well as leisure. Further, in cases where their work embodied many of the values normally associated with leisure, a separate period of time labelled leisure appears to be necessary neither to their happiness nor to their creative function in society.

Actually, all this is no co-incidence. Parker learned most of these arguments while he was a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. He himself has chosen not to acknowledge this, though it should be clear to those who know us who are the descendants of the “Marxist socialists” of a century ago who envisage a time “when production is carried on solely for use and not for profit”. So should the origins of the “Marxist phrase” about there being “two classes in society” and of the definition of capitalists as “those persons who possess capital the return on which enables them to live without the necessity of being employed”.

We would not want to pretend, however, that Parker here agrees with us entirely. He left the Socialist Party because he came to imagine that it was possible to transform capitalism gradually into Socialism, and this too comes out in the text.

Parker’s omission of any reference, even in a footnote, to William Morris is also peculiar since Morris’ criticism of those who regarded work even in Socialism as a necessary evil to be reduced to a minimum rather than as an important human activity is the basis of our views on the subject, and so also of those of Parker himself.

Adam Buick

Suez Intrigue (1971)

Book Review from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Suez Affair, by Hugh Thomas. Pelican. 30p.

Early in the morning of November 6, 1956, a combined Anglo-French expeditionary force landed at Port Said. It was preceded the previous day by the capture of various strategic points by British and French paratroops. The Suez war had begun.

The immediate background was about six months of intrigue and collusion between Britain, France and Israel, with the most elaborate attempts at deception which would have done justice to a comic opera, were it not so serious. The aftermath has been fifteen years long, so far, with the Israelis firmly ensconced in the Sinai Peninsula and talks dragging on endlessly about cease fire, future boundaries, etc.

Hugh Thomas in this book recently republished as a paper-back, deals in some detail with the British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt, but it really doesn’t add much more to our knowledge of the incident than was supplied by the Bromberger Brothers in their Secrets of Suez (Pan Books 1957)—incidentally a much more readable work. It is just that Thomas has the advantage of a great deal more hindsight than was available to the Brombergers. Nobody now denies that there was collusion between the Israeli and allied Governments; in fact Moshe Dayan has openly admitted it.

Nevertheless, Thomas has managed to unearth some interesting information on the rifts and dissensions among the various members of Anthony Eden’s cabinet, not to mention the double-talk and double-crossing between America and others. There is the rather surprising revelation however, that the American government were caught unawares by the allied action.

The story of the “police action”—as it was euphemistically styled at the time —is distressingly familiar. When the Egyptian rulers seized the Suez Canal, this was seen as a direct threat to British and French capitalist interests in the area. Indeed, so seriously did they view it, that they were prepared to go to war. As Eden said at the time: “Suez is a question of life or death for us”.

Additionally, the French were pre-occupied with their problems of rebellion in Algeria and suspected Nasser of sending help to the rebels. Those who recall the period, will remember the 24-nation conference and proposals for the international control of the canal, but all to no avail.

The Egyptian ruling class saw the canal as a rich and easy source of revenue and were not prepared to relinquish their hold. Perhaps their action in seizing the area was precipitated by the refusal of all the great powers at the time to help with the Aswan Dam project. The greater probability is that they would have nationalised the canal sooner or later anyway. This is a method of grabbing foreign capitalist assets, common enough among the newly formed states in recent years.

Incidentally, in the period that followed, it was Harold Wilson’s habit to refer contemptuously to the Tories as “Men of Suez”; this book is a timely reminder of the Labour Party stand over the whole Suez action. The parliamentary party, at least, was just as nationalistic as the Conservatives, and was certainly not opposed to the use of force in principle. As the author points out, what they wanted was “legalised” force. —prior United Nations sanction for any military action.

Hugh Thomas tells us of speeches in favour of this by Gaitskell, Bevan and other Labour leaders of the time. It was a pathetic and ineffective gesture and did nothing to halt the affair. In the event also, it seems they underrated the amount of popular support for the government’s action when it came to the crunch.

The establishment of Israel over twenty years ago was supposed to be an answer to the chronic problems of Middle East conflict, but the problems are there today as harrowing as ever, as the various capitalist powers jostle for elbow-room in the area. Ernest Bevin staked his political reputation on the post-war attempts at settlement. Perhaps it is a pity he is not with us today to read this book, and to see the bitter mockery capitalism has made of his efforts.

Eddie Critchfield

Communal Housing (1971)

Book Review from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Communal Housing, from M. Braido, 34 Ennismore Gdns., S.W.7. (Duplicated 25p).

The report has been published by a small group of people who have formed a Housing Association to facilitate the provision of communal housing accommodation in the London area. It is well researched and written with plenty of references for those who want to study the matter in more detail. Part of the report contains useful information on the practical problems of finance, building conversion and legalities, but it is that part which argues the case for communal housing that is more interesting to read.

The report clearly shows just how restrictive, in comparison, is the typical family unit housed in a flat or semidetached, and puts forward very convincing evidence for the view that communal housing groups would provide a much more diverse and stimulating atmosphere for adults and children alike. The demoralising effect of most institutional housing for old people, those suffering from mental ill-health, and others is dealt with, and the superiority of mixed communal groups for such people illustrated. It is suggested that voluntary groups of this kind could re-create many of the benefits of the “extended family” whilst avoiding the problems that arose from its compulsory nature.

Communal housing groups are no cure-all. Their members still have to work for wages to secure the rent, and relationships within the group generally are most strongly affected by external factors, but the growth of interest in ventures of this kind indicates just how much the existing social relationships are being recognised as restrictive of further human advancement. We can only hope that those who read this report will apply some of the same thinking outside of the housing field to society as a whole.

M. B.

SPGB Lectures and Special Meetings (1971)

Party News from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

• The first two issue of the Swedish Socialist journal can be read at the following link.
• Mention of Harry Baldwin doing a meeting on the Oz magazine reminds me that David Ramsay Steele's article, 'Smash Cash', appeared in issue number 17 of Oz magazine in 1968.

Where to buy the Socialist Standard (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

ABERDEEN: J. G. Bisset’s, 99 High St.. Old Aberdeen (also pamphlets sold). Bisset’s, 12-14 Upper Kirkgate. Bisset’s, College of Education, Hilton Place. Watt & Grant's, 247 Union Street. College Bookshop, 191 Holbom Street. M. Vallance, Room 21, Johnston Hall, College Bounds. Old Aberdeen. (Also pamphlets sold). 

BELFAST: The Paperback-Shop, Gresham Street.

BIRMINGHAM: Reference Library, every weekday, evenings only. The Ramp, New Street Station, every Saturday.

BRIGHTON: The News-stand, London Road Unicorn Bookshop, Gloucester Road. 

DUNDEE: James Finnie, 10 Kinnaird Street. 

EDINBURGH: David Balfour, West Nicholson St. Better Books, Forest Road. Moondan, 18 Stephen St., Stockbridge Cross, Westport Row. Cross Market. Every Saturday 11 a.m. -5 p.m. in Princes St., at the East End beside the Duke of Wellington Statue, at the West End in front of Binns, and halfway along Princes St. at the Mound. At the Mound every Sunday. 

GLASGOW: Bryson’s, Byres Road, W.l. Clyde Book Shop, High Street. Macdonalds, Maryhill Road at Cromwell Street.

HULL: Robinsons, 80 Cottingham Road. Robinsons, Newstall University Union. Browns Bookshop University.

LEHAM-BY-FORFAR: Roger Wilkie, 8 Blairs Road.

LIVERPOOL: Wilson’s Bookshop, Church Alley, off Church Street, Liverpool. Bob's Newsbox, Brown-low Hill, Liverpool 3. 

LONDON: News-stand outside Midland Bank, High Holbom, WC1. The Compendium, 240 Camden High Street. NW1. News Stores, 10 Coptic Street, WC1 (near British Museum). Collet’s, Charing Cross Road, WC2. Housman’s, 5 Caledonian Road, Nl. News-stand, Notting Hill Gate Tube Station (near Burtons). Until II pm SPGB, 52 Clapham High Street. SW4 (all literature). And at Hyde Park every Sunday. 

MANCHESTER: Percival, Oxford Road; also Percival’s at St. Peter's Square and Wilmslow Road, Didsbury

SWANSEA: Dylan’s Bookshop, 75 High St. (near High St. Station). Tel. 59664. Central Library 10.30-12.00.

WOOLWICH: W. Tyler, 30 Woolwich High Street. SE18.

Books Received (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

• For Marx. L. Althusser. Allen Lane.
• The Rise of Fascism. F. L. Carsten. Methuen. 80p.
• Marx in His Own Words. Ernst Fischer. Allen Lane. £1.50.
• New Fabian Essays. Dent. £1.75.
• Mao Papers. Edited by Jerome Ch’en. OUP. £2.75.
• Europe versus America. E. Mandel. NLB. £2.00.
• Sexuality and Class Struggle. Reimut Reiche. NLB. £2.00.
• Social Consequences of Conviction. J. P. Martin and D. Webster. Heinemann Educational. £4.50.
• Suspended Sentence. Marc Ansel. Heinemann Educational. £1.50.
• The Enthusiasts. L. Thompson. Gollancz. £3.00.
• Ted Heath: A Latterday Charlemagne. Donald Johnson. Johnson Publications. 50p.

Don't be fooled by words (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

“All I want to see, is my country free, happiness peace and prosperity." A theme, with variations, that has headed the top ten of the political hit parade with unceasing regularity during the last century.

The chorus master on this occasion is Joe Cahill who has been described as “the militant leader of the Belfast wing of the provisional IRA" after his release from detention in Dublin. At this point we will stop the satire; the part played over the decades by political “leaders" with their message of national independence has proved too tragic and disastrous to joke about.

The working class of Ireland, that is to say of Eire and Northern Ireland, as indeed workers wherever they may reside, should think seriously about such phrases as “Freedom", “My country", “Prosperity" and “Peace". Let’s see what they really mean.

Freedom: In capitalist society means the right of the vast majority to be propertyless wage workers producing wealth to be sold on a market with a view to profit.

My country : The countries of the world are owned by a privileged minority. The working class has problems and interests that are produced by capitalism and not by the existence of national barriers. 

Prosperity: All workers are poor, some are destitute. A prosperous working class is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is as incapable of producing a working class that is prosperous as it is of producing a government that is popular.

Peace: Even if the shooting stopped the class war would remain, that is the struggle which goes on all the time over the ownership of the wealth of society, whether it be in a so called “United" Ireland, the “United" States, the “United" Kingdom, the “United” Arab Republic. Russia, Africa, in fact wherever capitalism is the predominating form of society.

S. L. L.

50 Years Ago: Futile Appeals For Disarmament (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A demonstration was held on Thursday October 13th at the Central Hall, to further the agitation for disarmament. It should be obvious that the capitalist governments of the world arm against each other because they must, war being the logical and necessary outcome of their economic rivalry. While, therefore, the prospect of economising, by mutual agreement to limit expenditure, is attractive to the employing class who have to bear the burden, to appeal to a national group of capitalists to give up their only defence against their like-minded predatory neighbours and against the workers from whose robbery the privileged position of the capitalist class arises, is to ask them to commit suicide, and will naturally be given the amount of consideration such a proposal would deserve. Is it to be expected that our capitalist rulers, armed to the teeth to defend their private property, will scrap their armaments and voluntarily sacrifice their hold on the world's wealth merely.in response from muddle-headed reformers?

* * *

The Bishop of London distinguished for his Christianly ferocious thirst for blood in the late war, asked God's blessing on the Washington Conference meaning no doubt that he hopes the Empire would find favour in the sight of the Lord to get a thumping big share of the spoils in the partition of China. The speakers . . . were no doubt doing their duty by the ruling class in talking platitudes about peace in .the present interlude between the 'last war’ and the next ‘last war’, because at the moment it is desirable to distract working class attention from the lining-up for the conflict to decide the mastery of the Pacific.

(From an article The Peace Society’, by E.R.H., Socialist Standard, November 1921).

Now they say there’s too much electricity (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is facing another problem linked with the coming of potential abundance, this time in the field of electricity supply.

Nuclear power stations—which at present use the heat of nuclear fission to raise steam to drive the turbines generating electricity — can produce so much electricity that as more and more of them are built the problem is arising of what to do with the “surplus” produced during the hours of off-peak demand.

According to Keith Richardson, Industrial Editor of the Sunday Times in an article “Will they have to give electricity away free” (26 September), this was one of the matters discussed at a recent conference in Geneva on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Since, apparently, nuclear power stations cannot be easily damped down from time to time in the way coal and oil-fired stations can, two possible solutions were discussed. One was to quite literally give away the “surplus” electricity free during off peak hours; the other was to waste the heat produced during this period by releasing it into the atmosphere. If capitalism’s past experience is anything to go by, there should be little doubt as to what will happen.

Free electricity, free transport, free goods and services generally—this is the way modern technology points. But all this is impossible under capitalism with its class monopoly of the means of Iife and its profit motive. Capitalism cannot digest abundance and has to seek ways to prevent and pervert its progress. Only when all the resources of the earth, natural and man-made, are owned in common by all the people of the world can they be used in a rational way – to provide an abundance of goods services which people can take and use freely as and when they need to.

To Join or Not to Join? That's not the question (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been claimed that Britain’s application to join the Common Market has been made ‘without a mandate from the people.’ If the issue is so vital and opposition to entry so widespread, why are ‘the people’ continuing to give their support to the Labour and Conservative parties which, when in power, negotiated with the Six? It is because they accept the present social system from which trade with its international rivalries; markets and tariff walls; cost of living; national sovereignty and grouping, such as the European Economic Community, are inseparable. This gives a clear indication of the level of political maturity of ‘the people’ of Britain. The idea that ‘the Nation’ is made up of people having a community of interests within it, and conflicting interests outside it, is a myth which is accepted to their detriment by the working-class majority in all countries.

The most important social division is world-wide between the minority which owns and controls the means of living and the majority who are propertyless wage and salary workers. Between them there is an antagonism which cannot be reconciled. The interest of workers in pursuit of better wages and working conditions is detrimental to those of the capitalists who must maximise their profits. The so-called national interest is, in fact, nothing but the interest of the owning minority — the capitalist class. The problems of trade and sovereignty are their problems. Hence the working class, who own no part of the country they live in and are faced with an antagonism of interest, with those who do own it, can have no national interest! In fact, they share with other workers throughout the world common problems and interests associated with their wage slave status.

“The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.” This was a fact noted as long ago as 1848 by Karl Marx and is as true today as it was then! The Common Market debate has shown this well. The Labour party now say they are against entry on Tory terms, although some of their leaders claim that these terms are not different from those they were prepared to accept. The Common Market debate was the highlight of this year’s TUC conference. They decided against and found themselves in the same political bed as the so-called Communist party, Enoch Powell, and the National Front. Neither the pro- nor the anti-marketeers have ever questioned the relevance of their attitudes to the working class as a whole. This comes as a result of accepting the capitalist mode of production with the wage labour and capital relationship as unalterable.

For the Socialist Party of Great Britain there is only one question — capitalism or Socialism? In other words, should the workers of the world continue to operate a social system that can only serve the interests of a minority; or establish a system that works in the interests of the whole of mankind. The Common Market involves changes within a private property society. Socialism involves the abolition of private property in the means of production along with all markets and the profit motive and replacing them with common ownership and production solely for use. The interest of the working class of all lands is to unite to achieve this end

Joe Carter

Letter: The UCS "Take Over" (1971)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sirs,

On reading your August edition of the Socialist Standard, I was shocked and disappointed at the inaccuracies and blatant lies given out under the heading "Revolt on the Clyde”.

In a previous article entitled “Do You Know About Socialism?” you attack the working class of this country for their placid acceptance of the controls and restrictions placed on them by the capitalist system. And yet when a section of the working class make a stand against this system of suppression you immediately condemn them out of hand for being unrealistic.

The author of the derogatory article states, "That workers in a declining industry like shipbuilding have any economic power capable of overcoming the all too real and socially accepted political power of the government is a myth”. This statement shows a gross ignorance of the world shipbuilding situation today. A little investigation would have shown that the true situation is the reverse of that stated. World tonnage for ships launched has been steadily increasing over the past ten years, and there is no evidence to suppose that this increased demand will not continue.

The statement, "Locked in the yards with no work and no money the workers would only be able to hold out for a short while”, again shows a lack of understanding of the situation. Due to tremendous response from all over Britain in the way of donations to the UCS fighting fund and weekly levies imposed by trade unions, the shop stewards should have sufficient capital to re-employ UCS workers as soon as they are made redundant until March 1972. There is also sufficient work in the yards to keep the men fully occupied until then. By this time it is envisaged that the government will have altered its viewpoint on the situation.

It is further implied in the article that UCS in its present form is not viable, and that the cause has been partially lost because "thousands of Clyde shipyard workers did lose their jobs while Benn was Labour Minister”. May I point out that the thousands mentioned were laid off during the creation of UCS as part of a productivity agreement with the unions concerned. Since then the company has increased productivity and improved labour relations no end and can now confidently quote £5.5m. for the 17,000 ton cargo ships which are so much in demand as against Japan’s quote of £5.3m.

The government sponsored Shipbuilding Industry Board says in its report that the shipyards are in better shape than they have been since the war. "They deserve encouragement and support”.

Since the shop stewards took control of the situation at UCS, words such as "occupation" and "workers’ control” have been bandied about, not by the stewards but by irresponsible articles written by authors lacking in either basic socialist morals or common sense. In direct contrast the men in control of the UCS at present have shown themselves to be responsible, realistic and genuinely concerned about the current unemployment situation.

These men are fighting for The Right to Work, a right regarded by true socialists to be basic and by the present government to be contrary to the theory of capitalism.

A victory for this right just now will not only be a victory for the Clydeside workers, but a victory for all those who regard socialism as the only true and fair system for this country.

I therefore respectfully suggest that your publication refrains from the type of public sniping and destructive criticism we are accustomed to in the capitalist press and get on with the job of educating the people of this country in preparation for socialism.

You could begin by assigning the author of the article to the organisation of appeals on behalf of the UCS fighting fund and therefore practically assist those who are currently leading the fight for a basic socialist principle, The Right to Work.

F. J. Coyle, London, W.5.

REPLY:

We have never condemned the UCS workers. Quite the reverse. The article in question wished them luck “in using their bargaining strength to get the best of redundancy terms they can”. Which is essentially what the so-called work-in is about. It is not the beginning of a workers’ revolution, nor the expropriation of the capitalists at the point of production but, as Mr. Coyle recognises, simply a trade union tactic of an unusual kind.

We do not doubt that the UCS shop stewards are what Mr. Coyle describes as “responsible” and “realistic”. For all their fiery words, they must know that all they can hope for is some deal, either with the government or with some capitalist like Archibald Kelly, that will save as many jobs as possible. It is to their credit that they do not seem to be interested in leading the Clydeside shipworkers into a head-on clash with the forces of the State, despite the nonsense mouthed by those criticised in our article (and despite some of their own earlier statements made in the heat of the moment). In passing, we would challenge the accuracy of saying that the stewards now “control” the yards seeing that for the time being it is also in the interests of the liquidator that work on the unfinished ships goes on.

The shop stewards must know, too, that any deal is bound to involve some redundancies. We stand by what we said on this, that whatever happens some (more) Clydeside shipworkers are bound to lose their jobs because of the profit situation in British shipbuilding. The UCS workers cannot win in the sense of achieving “no redundancies” and any deal the unions and/or the stewards are likely to get—like the last one when Benn was Minister — cannot avoid some men being declared redundant. To assume otherwise is to assume that capitalism can cease to run on profits. This is not to say the workers should not put up a struggle. They should, if only because the more militant they are the better deal they are likely to get, as past trade union struggles have shown.

How successful will be the particular tactic they have adopted remains to be seen. But it is not something to be condemned out of hand just because it has not been tried before (if it was really an attempt to expropriate the capitalists rather than a mere trade union tactic that would be a different matter; that has been tried before with disastrous results and we would have no hesitation in condemning it). The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always given its general support to the industrial side of the class struggle, which is what the UCS workers are involved in, while leaving the specific tactics to be adopted in this struggle to the workers immediately involved. If after considering the situation carefully the UCS workers have democratically decided on a peaceful, disciplined “work-in” that is up to them. As we said, we wish them luck. Mr. Coyle may also be interested in knowing that members of the Socialist Party through their trade unions have contributed to the UCS fighting fund.

Mr. Coyle charges us with certain inaccuracies but he has misunderstood us. First, the reference to shipbuilding as a declining industry was to shipbuilding in Britain not the world. Incidentally, by “economic power” we meant the trade union strength of the shipbuilding workers rather than the competitive position of the shipbuilding industry. Second, does Mr. Coyle think that from August 1971 to March 1972 is not “a short while”? Third, we specifically stated that we were not going to get involved in “board room disputes”. Whether or not UCS in its present form is viable comes into this category and readers can judge from Mr. Coyle’s enthusiastic comments on UCS’s labour relations and costs where this can lead.

Finally, Mr. Coyle seems to think that Socialism could be established just in “this country”. We do not; we say Socialism can only exist on a world-scale. Mr. Coyle also thinks that the so-called Right to Work is a basic socialist principle. We do not, as we explain elsewhere in this issue.

Editorial Committee (October 10)

See also: Report on Clydeside (December 1971 Socialist Standard)

The Right to be Lazy (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the course of the French revolution of 1848 the workers of Paris  went into the streets to demand "The Right to Work".  Ever since, whenever unemployment has grown, trade unionists have demanded the same "right". In fact the Clydeside shipworkers are supposed to be asserting it at this very moment

But what is this high-sounding Right to Work? To the average trade unionist it is probably the "right" to have a job and the pay packet that goes with it. It would, in other words, be more accurately called "The Right to Employment" or "The Right to Work for Wages"

It should not be necessary to argue that under capitalism no such right exists, nor could it. Capitalism is based on the ownership of means of production by a minority.  The rest have no alternative but to sell their ability to work — when they can — to one or other of these  employers.  But the employers are not philanthropists. They do not employ people in order to give these employees a living. They  only employ people when they have calculated that they themselves can make a profit from selling the goods the workers produce.

Production, and therefore employment, is determined under capitalism by the profit motive. The rule "no profit, no production" is the guiding economic principle. If those who own the means of production calculate — as many have done recently — that they cannot make a profit by selling the goods their factories could turn out, then they will run those factories below full capacity or even close them down altogether. The result is the mounting redundancies and growing unemployment we are now experiencing.

This is the normal way capitalism works and is one reason why the Right to Work is a completely unrealistic demand. It amounts to demanding that employers abandon the profit motive and operate their system on some other principle. But they could not do this even if they wanted to, since what they can do is limited by the working of capitalism's market forces. Nor could they be forced to do it even by the most militant trade union or political action. If pressed too far, they would merely shut up shop. The stark fact is that capitalism creates, and needs to create, rising unemployment from time to time.

So, our average trade unionist may now be thinking, are you saying that in order to get the Right to Work we must get rid of capitalism and establish Socialism? No, we are not! We are not in favour of the Right to Work in the first place. Remember the Right to Work is merely a fancy way of referring to the Right of Employment, the Right to Work for Wages. In our view, this is demanding the Right To Be Exploited. It involves accepting capitalism and its wages system. The employer/employee relationship is based on exploitation since, if the employer is to make a profit, the wages he pays his employees must be less than the value of what they produce. The system of employment for wages shows that human brain and muscle power has become a mere commodity, to be bought and sold like some object. It signifies that those who actually produce the wealth of society are excluded from ownership and control of the means of production and so have no choice but to operate them for the employers on the employers' terms — and at the employers' convenience. The wage packet is in fact a badge of slavery.

No, Socialists don't want the Right to Work. It would be more accurate to say that we want its opposite, the Right To Be Lazy. This isn't as way-out as might seem. Just think of developments in technology over the past hundred or so years, developments which  are still going on, and you will see that the bulk of the hard grind of production is now done, and could be done even more, by machines. Automation could now relieve human beings of the burden of boring toil. Nobody need do a job he doesn't like doing. The set working day could be reduced to two or three hours, freeing men to engage in the activities of their choice, including even producing useful things.

Of course, this will never happen as long as the means of production are the property of a minority. It could only happen in a society where the factories, farms and other places where wealth is produced are commonly owned by all the people. There would then be no employers, nor wage-earners. Instead everybody would be an equal member of a free community organised to produce an abundance of good-quality consumer goods for people to take freely according to their needs.

Actually, so long as it is enjoyable, work is a natural human activity, not to say need. In this sense to talk of the Right To Be Lazy can be misleading. But although men will always work, there is no reason for it take the form of boring toil. It could and should be interesting and so become like some of today's leisure-time activities — done for the fun of it.

To convert work from boring toil to creative activity is now possible. The ethic of hard work — necessary perhaps in the past to build up the means of production to the point where they can now turn out abundance — is outdated, and worse: it helps to keep capitalism going. No five words better sum up the Socialist's emphatic rejection of the dogma that boring toil must be the lot of mankind than the slogan "The Right To Be Lazy". Speed the day when trade unionists begin to demonstrate for this rather than some spurious Right to Work.

What we stand for (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain comes under criticism from some left-wingers for engaging in a policy of peaceful action to establish Socialism.

These pseudo-socialists claim erroneously that it is near impossible to get a majority of class conscious workers who understand and want Socialism and are prepared to work for it. They prefer to side with Lenin who is reported to have said, "If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years" (From a speech in November 1918 quoted by John Reed in Ten Days that Shook the World) and that the working class is not capable of Socialist consciousness but that "exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop  only trade union consciousness" (What is to be Done). They, therefore, favour insurrection and smashing the State and army by a professional elite and who will lead workers to the promised land.

We in the Socialist Party on the other hand hold that the emancipation of the working class can and must be achieved by the working class itself through capturing the State machine and not be a vanguard demolition squad (Marx and Engels held this opinion too as seen by their letter to August Bebel, Bracke, Liebknecht and others in September 1879). But we also realise that we face a difficult struggle considering the stranglehold the ruling class have over the ideas held by the working class. We face powerful weapons wielded by the State which operate from the day we enter this world until the day we leave it. Then the capitalists use the radio, television, newspapers, literature and films to spread capitalistic values.

These mind-controlling weapons ensure that the obedient wage-slaves pop down to the polling station to vote for one of the capitalist parties. They also provide willing recruits—and corpses—for inter-capitalist rivalries for markets in the form of war. "For Queen and Country" is a sentiment still prevalent among working class circles, although not always in such words.

Minority insurrectionists would fail in any attempt to overthrow the capitalist system while the masses are still conditioned in this way.

How will the Socialist Party counter these highly sophisticated instruments of submission? One way is to propagate the case for Socialism wherever and whenever it is possible. That is why we publish literature and hold regular indoor and outdoor meetings throughout the country urging workers to organise politically and send delegates to Parliament with a view to setting up world Socialism, in conjunction with the workers of the rest of the world.

But a more powerful force on our side is capitalism itself. The deprivations and contradictions of the present system of society must lead more people to challenge capitalist values. The uncertainty of the future caused by the spectre of war, pollution and starvation forces the workers to think. Some drop out of society and form isolated Hippy communes, others sink into an alcoholic or drug induced escape. But as they realise that man is not an island they have to return to the rest of the slaves. More people are being confronted with the economic scrap-heap and the dole queue. Salary earners of 5000 a year are sinking in the same boat as a man earning 500. No one is secure under capitalism. The system is its own gravedigger.

ALJO