Editorial: A world fit for humans (1978)

Editorial from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The great mistake of the so-called Environmentalist Movement is that it treats the thing it seeks to protect as if it existed separately from the very conditions which put it under attack.

It is almost impossible now to read a newspaper which is bare of some sort of reference to pollution of the air or the sea or the rivers; in some cases, such as the Mediterranean of the Canadian Lakes, to a frightening extent. And we have recently been made starkly aware of the fact that there is a time bomb being rapidly built up beneath us — atomic power stations, oil refineries, chemical plants and the like.

Every so often something happens which confirms some of our worst fears — like the leak at Windscale or the explosion at Flixborough or the poison cloud at Seveso. These events are called accidents, which is a rather loose way of using that word.

And what about the places which actually sit on the time bomb? There is no lack of verbose planning experts (simple minded people may be surprised, or shocked, to learn that such places are actually planned) who contribute their worries about the pressures of urban decay (a nice name for slums) or development blight (a way of describing homes made uninhabitable by the motorway outside the bedroom window) or locational stress (which can mean the big jets screaming in just above the chimney).

So we might expect that there would spring up organisations, armed with facts and statistics and a measure of sincerity (as well, sometimes, with an injection of commercially inspired financial support) to oppose the chemical plant or the motorway or the airport runway.

Such organisations have an instant appeal. Who would not demonstrate against a great slash of concrete destroying a green and peaceful valley, where workers might expect to find some rest after the rush and tear of the week? Who is not outraged by the cloud of poison which is ceaselessly pumped into the atmosphere?

The question, then, is why these organisations, with their facts and their sincerity and their resources, fail. Why, after all their efforts to stem the polluting tide, does the environment steadily deteriorate and become even more threatening to the people who exist in it?

We live today under social system known as capitalism — an accurate name, since its driving force is the accumulation of wealth as capital. This gives that wealth a particular social characteristic; it is commodity wealth, produced for sale rather that for use.

For example, food is produced under capitalism not because people need to eat, but in order that it be sold; and literally millions of people starve simply because they cannot buy the food they need to live. Homes are built under capitalism, not because people need shelter and comfort, but to sell or rent; and literally millions of people are homeless or live in slums, because they cannot afford a decent home. The list of the ways in which capitalism fails to provide for the needs of its people is almost without end.

Capitalism has organised its communities — its towns and its cities — as basically economic units, to feed more easily its massive appetite for human exploitation in the productive process. This concentration makes for its own tensions; apart from those more obvious ones of the slums there are the subtle neuroses of the trim estates of semi-detached poverty, where every worker’s dream of his own mortgage millstone comes horrendously true. Or the outworn terraces, as close as the bugs which infest them. Or the high rise flats, once the final solution of the planners who never seem actually to live in them.

And every so often what small peace there might be found in these concentrations is shattered by a road being ground through, or a new runway laid down or great concrete towers of office blocks being raised alongside. The environmentalists wail and wring their hands over the destruction of something they like to call the Quality of Life — which begs an enormous number of questions.

It is because they ignore the basic facts of capitalism’s motivation that the environmentalists fail and must continue to fail. The alternative may not have their kind of glamour, the appeal of the instant demonstration or sit down before the TV camera, but it does have the more enduring quality of matching effectively with reality.

There is only one way of ending capitalism’s problems and that is to end capitalism itself. That said, there is only one alternative to capitalism and that is socialism. The new society will be one of common ownership of the means of production and distribution, which means that its wealth will be produced for use.

One immediate result of this will be that the priorities of socialism will be those of human interests and not minority profit. The quality of what we produce — whether it is food or clothing or housing — and of how we organise our lives will be, simply, the best we are capable of.

Socialism will be a massive transformation of every aspect of human life — our social and personal relationships, how and where we live and what surrounds our lives. The experiences of capitalism — its slums, its pressures, its assault upon the very air we breathe — will be no more than an evil memory.

Socialist society will give us a sweeter life; it will cleanse the food we eat, the water we drink, the very earth we tread. It will be a world fit for human beings to live in and it is waiting for us to make it reality.

Running Commentary: Hypocrisy at Camp David (1978)

The Running Commentary column from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hypocrisy at Camp David

There is no record of anyone who attended the recent Egypt/Israeli talks at Camp David actually being physically sick, but such was the hypocrisy which spewed out there that it might easily have happened.

With the first approaches between the two countries, last year, Begin and Sadat both made unctuous speeches implying that peace could come to the Middle East provided all the leaders there were sincere in their desire for it. It was, they said, a simple matter of good intentions triumphing over bad — a weary but persistent version of history.

These good intentions soon evaporated when the leaders got down to discussing the real business of the economic and military domination of the area.

It was then that the Americans, much in the style developed by Henry Kissinger, forced both sides once more to the conference table. The agreement which followed — which effectively postponed settlement of the more sensitive problems — was publicised in the same nauseating manner as before, with Sadat embracing Begin as a grinning Carter looked on.

Capitalism’s war and peace are not matters of good intentions, or bad; war springs from the economic rivalries inherent in the system. The Middle East, with its oil rich fields and its strategic importance, is especially sensitive and so has been in continual conflict for a very long time.

America’s rivalry with Russia has given given it an interest in keeping the peace — on American terms — in the Middle East, an interest which was demonstrated in, for example, the intervention over Suez in 1956 and the invasion of the Lebanon in 1958.

So Camp David, behind the publicity handouts, was a typically sordid carve up of capitalist interests, backed by some frightening military power. As an agreement it will be worth no more than those others which, when it suited the signatories, were broken.

The true nature of Camp David was illuminated when it became clear that the American arms industry was going to be able to sell a lot more of its products as a result — and to both sides, too.

So everyone was happy, except those who care for the future of human society and who want a safer world for us to live in — or those who may have been sick over it all.

British cars in trouble

British Leyland has been subjected to the attentions of a succession of whizz kids, if that term can be applied to the ageing likes of Lords Stoke and Ryder. These men were said to be possessed of unnatural powers enabling them to tame the wildest ways of capitalism’s anarchy.

Well so far they have all failed, which has not deterred another candidate being pushed into the cage to see what he could do to put down the uncontrollable.

Michael Edwardes came to British Leyland with the reputation of a man who unfailingly organises profitable balance sheets. So when he found that BL is in such deep trouble he must have had problems, after all those nice things said about him in the newspapers, in admitting that it might be anything to do with him or with what he is trying to control.

Nobody could have been surprised when Edwardes decided that the real problem is with the workers at British Leyland who, as everyone knows, are a peculiarly lazy, unreliable and selfish lot. In fact there has been so much propaganda recently on those lines that the BL worker has become part of British capitalism’s folk mythology, a scapegoat for the system’s defects.

It should be noted, that so far Edwardes has confined his criticism of those who don’t work to exclude the most blatant examples of it — the capitalist class. Perhaps he is too well aware of who is employing him — and of what they expect him to say.

Behind the emotional smoke screen, the facts about the car industry are clear. Competition is fierce — and getting fiercer in this country, as more and more foreign vehicles challenge for a slice of the market. Where before there were a few Renaults and Volkswagens there are now many, as well as Japanese, Italian and even Russian cars.

British Leyland invested a lot of money in its Marina model, which competes in the middle range where the pressure is particularly strong Cutting corners to keep costs down has resulted in a shoddy car, even by the standards of the car industry, and this also contributed to BLs sick joke image.

A typical mess of capitalism. But the answer does not lie in inveighing against the workers, who also compete for employment and for survival, but in an examination of the social system itself.

No vacancies

Not only do the workers (skilled tradesmen, foremen, shop-floor workers, managers) operate capitalist society, and produce and distribute its commodities, but they play a large part in enforcing the capitalist ethic. Many members of the working class never see a capitalist (unless perhaps on the telly, or getting into a taxi outside a London luxury hotel). The average youth is drilled into accepting the capitalist ethic (that is, it is right for the owning class to live in wealth without working, but it is wrong for the rest of us to live even in poverty without working) by other members of the working class: parents and relatives, teachers, journalists, policemen, workmates, civil servants, etc.

Almost certainly Stephen Dayus, the sixteen-year-old son of a Birmingham window cleaner, never met or spoke with a capitalist. Yet he was convinced of his own worthlessness when he left school and could not find a job. “He longed to be an electrician and wrote countless letters to employers. But in job-hungry Birmingham — where thousands of youngsters shared his plight — the reply was always the same: no vacancies” (Daily Express, 29.3.78.) Stephen probably did not realise that there are thousands of young people in this country at this moment who are not only not looking for employment, but would regard it as totally irrelevant. They will never have to “get a job”; they may sit on a few boards of directors in due course, but the nearest they will get to work will be to make sure that others are working in the enterprises they will inherit. All Stephen knew was what other members of the working class told him; that the was failing in his line of duty if he could not find an employer to make a profit out of him. “Finally, depressed by rejection and the jibes of luckier friends sixteen-year-old Stephen hanged himself” 

No individual capitalist can be blamed for this tragic suicide. It is the capitalist system, with the loyal support and assistance of many deluded members of the working class, which killed Stephen Dayus.

The end of human nature (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

People are only too well aware of the magnitude of the social problems which daily confront them. The persistence of conflict at every level of human affairs, from wife bashing to open warfare, serves only to reaffirm the prevailing mood of pessimism about social relations. Society’s manifest failure to solve or alleviate problems such as malnutrition or war has not however, led to a rejection of the principle of leadership or to a lack of faith in those with ‘new solutions’. Far from the working class thinking and acting in terms of common human interests on a social basis, we find that popular wisdom continues to accept the failure of political solutions as inevitable.

The reason for this lack of success, according to most people, is not the misconceptions of leaders but the ineradicable flaws in the human make-up. If humans are naturally aggressive, selfish and acquisitive, the establishment of social harmony is out of the question. What is referred to as human nature will not permit it.

In the difficult task of rebutting this popular fallacy, socialists are not alone. In the field of research into the nature and history of the human species, there has developed a strong body of opinion in support of the view that they are not dominated by an innate aggressiveness and self-interest. Furthermore, these studies stress the possibility, and indeed necessity, of human beings transforming their behaviour and relations in society in order to overcome their problems.

The anthropologist Elman Service in the Introduction to his book The Hunters, has this to say about twentieth century people:

Civilised man is often uneasily aware that not all of civilisation is an improvement, although there seems to be very little agreement about what is wrong, unpleasant or perhaps unnecessary about it — except of course such things as war, crime, and mental illness. And even for these ills there is no obvious panacea. Could it be that civilised man does not understand his civilisation very well? Most anthropoligists are likely to go further. Civilised man does not understand his civilisation at all. He does not even know what it is. (our emphasis)

Study of societies still living at the food gathering and hunting stages of cultural development points up the error of those who see the future of the human race as determined by ‘ineradicable shortcomings’. Attempts. particularly of the Konrad Lorenz/Desmond Morris/Robert Ardrey school, to show that homo sapiens is simply an improved form of ape have been soundly and scientifically debunked, in particular in the works on human aggression by Ashley Montagu and Erich Fromm. (That apes are not innately aggressive, as has been demonstrated in the research of Jane Van Lawick-Goodall, George Schaller and Dian Fossey, is another matter). ,

Service, in the above quoted work, shows that selfishness and hierarchy are not common features of primitive society, and that on the question of dominance the hunting and food gathering band differs more completely from the apes than do any other kind of human society. There is a total absence of authority based upon either physical strength or sources of power such as wealth, heredity, military or political office. Even when, by dint of greater strength or wisdom, individuals possess greater status or prestige than others, the manifestation of these prerogatives is the opposite of ape-like dominance; the rewards are intangible, being merely the attention and love of others. In primitive society prestige is accorded to the individual only if their qualities are put to work in the service of the group, a feature alien to ape society. Service further refutes the idea that what is accepted to-day as natural human behaviour holds good for all times in history:

In no hunting-gathering society is gratitude expressed, and, as a matter of fact it would be wrong even to praise a man as “generous" when he shares his game with his camp-mates. On another occasion he could be said to be generous, but not in response to a particular incident of sharing, for then the statement would have the same implications as an expression of gratitude; that the sharing was unexpected, that the giver was not generous simply as a matter of course.

This was exemplified by the reproof another anthropologist received when thanking an Eskimo hunter for sharing his meat with him.

On the question of aggression another equally eminent anthropologist, Colin Turnbull, in Wayward Servants or the two worlds of the African Pygmies remarks on the virtual absence of physical or emotional aggression in the groups known to him. This was borne out by the lack of warfare, feuding, witchcraft and sorcery. Even the act of hunting is, to Turnbull, not carried out in aggressive spirit at all. Due to the consciousness of depleting natural resources there is actually a regret at killing life.

So, contrary to popular belief, the human race is capable of different behaviour in different environments. In the words of Marshall Sahlins:

In selective adaptation to the perils of the stone age. human society overcame or subordinated such primate propensities as selfishness, indiscriminate sexuality, dominance and brute competition. It substituted kinship and cooperation for conflict, placed solidarity over sex. morality over might. In its earliest days is accomplished the greatest reform in history; the overthrow of human primate nature and thereby secured the evolutionary future of the species.

Many anthropologists are not only aware that humanity can radically change its behaviour patterns as a species, but realise that it is absolutely essential that this be done if we are to survive. Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin in their book Origins have this to say:

Precisely because evolution produced an animal capable of tackling whatever challenge the environment might offer, the answer must be that very few behavioural patterns are rigidly built into the human brain. Obviously our brains are not jumbled networks of nerve cells with no overall structure. The anatomy of the human brain is well ordered, but it is built in such a way as to maximise behavioural adaptability. Within reasonable biological limits, humans, it is fair to say, could adapt to living in almost limitless numbers of ways. Indeed this flexibility is manifest in the rich pattern of cultures expressed throughout the world, (page 945)

Primitive people began the process of social production, making possible the enormous technical development of modern times. However, in the course of this progress the individual became more and more dependent upon society as a whole, his changing behaviour reflective of new social structures. Capitalism, based as it is on private property relationships, creates problems which are insoluble within its own framework. The further development of social co-operation and the elimination of antagonism can now be achieved only within the framework of Socialism, a society of common ownership and production for use. Anthropologists may be dimly aware of the barrier to human progress presented by the social relations under capitalism, but unfortunately this awareness takes the form of mild reproach and idealistic moralising.

If it is true that, in the words of Marx, “it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness”, the abolition of private property will see the beginnings of the development of the new humanity and the disappearance of ‘human nature’, a concept central to capitalist ideology.

Harry Walters

In 1918 they called it peace (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are very few people alive who experienced the First World War — the first swift moves of 1914, the settling down into the trenches from the Channel to the border of Switzerland, the mud and the policy of attrition which ground away millions of lives and then the great battles of 1918 and the Armistice, which came sixty years ago this month.

The war opened, on both sides, in a mood of high optimism. The author Henry Williamson, who himself survived much of the fighting, describes the last minutes of peace:

That night I wandered with a cousin to the West End and we heard Big Ben strike the hour. The German Government had not replied. Wild cheers rose on every side.

The troops marched away to cheers and brass bands, the recruiting stations were jammed with eager heroes, it was widely assumed that by Christmas another glorious victory would have been written into the history of British — or German — imperialism. This jingoism was subsequently fed by the official propaganda machines, at their traditional task of making the truth the first casualty in a war. The Germans alleged that any prisoners taken by the Belgians were liable to have their eyes gouged out (and then collected into convenient buckets for war correspondents to see); the Allies were definite that the brutal Prussians were severing children’s hands to prevent them growing up into a new generation of soldiers.

By 1918 the mood had changed, after the experiences of the Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele and the like. The exuberance had given way to grim despair and a conviction that the war would, if not actually last forever, go on for a very long time with the trenches stuck there in the mud swallowing up one generation after another. There was little expectation that the end was so near; in August 1918 Churchill told Haig, the British Commander in Chief, that the “decisive period” of the war was to come in July 1919.

So when the Armistice came it was often greeted with a numb indifference. On the Western Front, exhausted soldiers simply slept through the rain which fell that day. One officer recorded the event in his diary, in less than heroic terms: “November 11 — Armistice with Germany commenced. Weather: Fairly heavy rain”. It was a strange ending to the battles of that year, which had introduced the direct military presence of American capitalism into the affairs of Europe and which had persuaded the German ruling class that they would do better to try to live to fight another day. Their army was allowed to return home in good order, a circumstance which subsequently fuelled the Nazis’ argument that the brave, honest German soldier had been stabbed in the back by the politicians.

Reality

It is impossible to compute anything like an accurate figure for the total losses of the war; one estimate says that 30 millions is too low for all the members of the forces and the civilians who lost their lives. Then there was the massive burden of the wounded — maimed, blinded, gassed or with nerves shattered by the shellfire. Many of these lingered for years, dying gradually over the days of disillusionment in the twenties and the thirties. And there were others, who were not killed or maimed but whose lives were distorted by the loss of someone they depended upon; the wife of a soldier who was killed got 5 shillings (25p.) a week plus ls.6d. (9p.) for each child, which was not far off starvation.

These were the people who, in 1918, were waiting for the promises of verbose politicians to be made good; they had suffered, as they had been told to, and now they were due to experience the better, safer world which their endurance was supposed to build.

Reality was something different. Demobilised servicemen came home to join the dole queue, the Means Test and the insulting rigours of the Not Genuinely Seeking Work Clause. They roamed the streets begging, or tried to live by selling laces in the gutter. They returned from the trenches to the slums — and many of them might hardly have noticed the difference.

It is a pitiful thing to think of, but thousands of these brave men of ours have better homes in the trenches of Flanders than in the sunless alleys of our Motherland.

(Arthur Mee, Lloyd’s News, March 26, 1916).

The bewilderment and despair bore a predictable response. In England the workers turned from Conservative to Labour and back again; there was a questioning of the political system and of the value of parliamentary democracy which on the Continent helped the dictatorships into power. And in 1939, as a fitting climax to Europe’s new Dark Age, the struggle between German capitalism and the rest was resumed.

There are many questions being asked, now, about the First World War but few go to the roots of the matter. Much of the criticism of 1914/18 is laid at the door of stuffy, incompetent generals, who were more worried about the shine on their boots than about the sufferings of the men in the trenches. Or the war is treated as a massive historical accident, which might easily have been avoided by more skilful statesmanship.

These theories are inconsistent with one vital fact. August 1914 was the climax of a long period of the build up of their respective forces by the great powers of European capitalism. The military build up was itself a by-product of the challenge which German capitalism was making to the established dominance of the French and the British.

Socialist Opposition

That dominance was based on the industrial development and the imperial expansion of Britain and France during the 19th. century. German capitalism came comparatively late on the scene and as its industrial power increased it too began to look for expansion. The clash with the powers already in command was unavoidable.

Their victory in 1871 had given the Germans access to the ore of Lorraine; their production of iron and steel quickly outstripped that of Britain. Their mercantile fleet expanded and their ambition to become a new colonial power, with all that that meant in terms of markets and access to sources of raw materials, had to follow. Germany acquired the beginnings of an empire in Africa and, in the Agadir incident in 1911, showed its desire to get a foothold in North Africa. The plan to build a rail link between Berlin and Baghdad opened a way into India and, perhaps, then the Far East.

It was to support these economic ambitions that Germany built up her armed forces. The German Navy threatened to match that of Britain — something the British capitalist class could not accept without contest. Their army became a highly professional force, dedicated to the most efficient and ruthless prosecution of war — which the French ruling class could not accept. In the Schlieffen Plan the Germans laid down their design for the conquest of Western Europe and when it all began it became virtually impossible to turn it back in its tracks .

That war, then, did not appear suddenly out of the mists; it was the predictable outcome of a typical clash of interests in the perpetually feuding world of capitalism. What of those who saw this, who saw that workers were being pressed to fight for their masters’ interests and who stood out against the bully boy patriots who thirsted after the blood of their fellow workers?

From the outset the Socialist Party of Great Britain made our opposition plain:

. . . no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood . . . Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

Opposition to the war was a hazardous stand to take. Objectors, of whatever persuasion, were often given a very rough time:

The Daily Mail wants the names of every known pacifist or active friend of Germany in your city, town or village . . . (Daily Mail, October 25 1917).

There were many examples of the brutal treatment of conscientious objectors, callously justified by Kitchener as “horseplay amongst soldiers”. This excuse illustrated one especially nasty feature of the system of dealing with objectors; all too easily they could be “deemed to have enlisted”, which meant that they were officially regarded as being in the army and subject to military law and discipline, whether they wanted to be or not. Thus if they were shipped to France and continued to disobey orders to put on a uniform they could be — and in many cases were — sentenced to death.

Pledge

In no case were these sentences carried out, although some not uninfluential voices thought they should have been. In the case of political objectors there was an especial disdain. Colonel Wyndham Childs, who as Director of Personal Services — the ‘discipline branch’ of the War Office — was responsible for the treatment of conscientious objectors who, because they were “deemed to have enlisted” were officially in the army, recommended in April 1918:

That it should immediately be made known that conscientious objectors who disobey a lawful command . . . will be tried by General Court Martial and, if sentenced to death by that court, the sentence will be carried out if it appears that their objection is based on political and not religious grounds . . .

For the Socialist Party, propaganda was a difficult, almost impossible, business. Our meetings were broken up, our headquarters raided by the police and our members who were eligible for conscription were either imprisoned or forced to go on the run. Wherever they were — Dartmoor, Wormwood Scrubs or living rough — they continued to put the case against the war which was slaughtering their fellow workers in the cause of their masters and for the society of socialism. When the last shots were fired in 1918, we could look back on our defiant statement of August 1914 as a pledge to our class which we had kept through four desperate years.

In 1918 they called it peace but such has been the history of the world since then that there is hardly any need, now, to draw attention to the cynicism of that claim. The sixty years since 1918 have been of practically unbroken war, somewhere in capitalism, because this social system cannot exist as a harmonious, co-operative human experience. Capitalism is essentially divisive and conflict is basic to its nature.

These facts will not be in the minds of the people who stand at the cenotaphs this November, nor will they be heard in the sermons which are mouthed there. The poppies and the wreaths and the parades will be marking the end of one of capitalism’s bloodiest episodes — one tragic futility celebrated by another.

Ivan

Diary of a Capitalist (1978)

The Diary of a Capitalist column from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sunday

Christmas will soon be here again. The problem of presents becomes harder the richer one gets; almost all one’s acquaintances have got everything they could reasonably want anyway, so what on earth does one buy them? I was reminded of my Christmas shopping two years ago by finding a brochure showing some of the things one could buy at Christmas 1976. I bought several of the things illustrated—for despite what I just wrote, there are always various young persons around who are very ready to show their gratitude in return for one’s generosity. One young friend of mine told me she’d taken up cycling for her figure, so I bought her the Austro-Daimler Ultima Superleicht. advertised as the world’s most expensive bicycle, for £600; and to go with it, a pair of gold cycle clips, each inset with a diamond, for £1200 the pair. Along with a Baignoire gold wristwatch, £700, they made a nice little parcel on the handlebars of the bike. For another close friend I got an eighteen-carat gold cigarette lighter with a diamond-studded top. which cost £5000 from Cartiers.

This year, of course, after two more years of inflation, little gifts like that could be quite expensive.

Monday

Talking of inflation, some newspaper and TV commentators speak of it as if it were an unaccountable visitation, perhaps supernaturally inflicted on us to punish us for our sins. In fact our inflation, and its exact degree from year to year, is decided by successive Governments when they arrange how large the money issue will be. An increase in the money in circulation means inflation; a greater increase means greater inflation. If the money issue was held steady, there could be no inflation; while if it was diminished, there would be deflation.

Politicians prefer a certain amount of inflation because they believe it prevents the unemployment figures getting higher still, which would be a drawback electorally.

As an individual capitalist, however, I can see that one of the main benefits of inflation to me and those like me is that it inflicts an automatic wage-cut on every employee every year: 10 per cent inflation, 10 per cent wage-cut, 15 per cent inflation, 15 per cent wage-cut, and so on. The workers try to increase the nominal value of their pay to maintain its real value; so they can always be depicted in the media as greedy, grasping, never satisfied. In the 1920s, there was actually deflation. Employers naturally tried to reduce the nominal amount of wages in order to prevent their real value continually rising. In those days it was easier to depict the employers as greedy, heartless Scrooges. It was one such attempt to cut wages in this old-fashioned way, in 1926, by reducing the miners’ pay and then locking them out when they refused to accept the reduction, which led to the General Strike. (It’s very satisfying, incidentally, to see that many of the history books call the miners’ lock-out a strike; showing that historians like to keep the appropriate ruling-class propaganda in their accounts even when it is easily shown to be factually inaccurate.) We defeated the General Strike, of course, but it was very unpleasant while it lasted. Now we have a way to force a wage-cut on every one, not only on selected industries, every year, even every month; and some innocent "experts’’ wonder why inflation has continued without abatement since the 1930s.

Do they think the ruling class are all fools?

Tuesday

One enjoyable way to spend one’s profits is in buying a boat and cruising our coastal waters. One chum of mine, Byron Alexander, a successful businessman with three companies and a luxurious house in Chalfont St Giles, has bought a £40,000 twin-engined cruiser; it has £6000-worth of electronic gadgetry on board, and he keeps it at Hamble on Southampton Water. Every weekend he drives down there in his Rolls, and acts as a voluntary auxiliary coastguard. "I am in the fortunate position of being able to do what I want”, he told a reporter (Daily Mail, 12.4.78). "Some people in my position would build a model railway or just spend their money on enjoying themselves. I prefer doing this. It’s my hobby.’’

The cruiser costs about £11,000 a year to operate.

Wednesday

Met Lady Compton this morning. She told me she "has rejected London life and men to concentrate on three-day eventing (like Princess Anne)” (Evening News, 31.8.78). She was divorced not long ago from Lord Compton, who has since succeeded as Marquis of Northampton. She was his second wife, and she got a “generous six-figure divorce settlement”. However, the marquis has enough left; he is worth £20 million.

This afternoon went to Sotheby’s, and bought a double magnum of 1870 port for £280. A chap I knew at school got a magnum of 1811 cognac for £520 (Daily Telegraph, 30.9.78). I could never touch some of the cheap wines and spirits that ordinary people seem to buy. I suppose they enjoy them; not everyone can have an educated palate like mine.

Thursday

People have been making a fuss over Lord (Lew) Grade’s pay-rise from £59,500 a year to over £200.000, and Tiny Rowland’s from £70,000 to £80,000. Rowland’s increase has been contrasted with the way Lonrho (Rowland’s group of companies) treated a caretaker. Lonrho sold off 24 of a block of 48 flats they owned in Islington for £128.000; and then reduced the caretaker's pay (he also had accommodation. light, and heat from £25.50 to £12.50 (Sunday Mirror, 20.8.78). Grumbles have been heard that the rises self-awarded to Grade and Rowland don't square with the Government’s guide-lines. Why can’t people realise that the Government was intending to control the workers, not the capitalists?

In my own case, my ostensible income, which I report to the tax authorities, is only part of my real gains from my businesses: the rest comes from all kinds of perks within the company, week-ends at country “conference centres” near grouse moors, travelling overseas to foreign trade shows in say Switzerland or Florida (who knows how often you attend?) and so on.

Friday

The widow of Leo Bodmer has disappeared in unusual circumstances. I knew Leo years ago—he was president of a Swiss newspaper, and a director of an engineering group. Since Leo’s death, his widow Iris has been living at the Palace Hotel in Lausanne (Sunday Times, 23.7.78). Then she decided to go on the QE2. on a cruise it was making from New York via the Panama Canal and Tahiti to Tasmania and Australia, then returning via Hong Kong. Yokohama and Honolulu to San Francisco. She flew to New York, and stayed at the Plaza Hotel while she booked her ticket. Prices for the cruise went up to £88,500, plus extras, for a duplex penthouse; Mrs Bodmer paid only £4700 for the first part of the voyage, to Sydney. She enjoyed it. and paid another £5700 to go on to Honolulu. She had with her 18 trunks for her possessions, including fur coats and jewellery. On special occasions ‘‘she would don a million dollars’ worth of jewellery. Sometimes it was the pearl necklaces, sometimes the rubies-and- diamonds."

When the QE2 was nearly at Honolulu, Iris Bodmer disappeared. The maid who came to call her one morning found her cabin empty, and her bed not slept in. Most of her gems she had put in a safe-deposit box on board, but apparently not all of them.

No trace of her has been found since. The Swiss authorities have failed to discover any relative who might inherit the Bodmer fortune. Police enquiries have been no more than tentative; Mrs Bodmer was a Swiss national, in a British ship, approaching American waters. None of the three national authorities involved appears to have made a thorough investigation. The ruling classes of different states must obviously be rivals of each other, whether in peace-time economic competition or open war; but surely they should be able to co-operate in a matter such as this

Saturday

Two peers among my acquaintances have both gone into the restaurant business—Viscount Newport and Baron Burghersh. They have both decided to expand, and open new premises in Beverly Hills, California. Burghersh is going to fly over a hundred friends for the inauguration of his new venture some time next year (Evening News, 31.8.78). I’m expecting my invitation any day now.

I saw an advertising brochure for The Times recently, and it claims there were 155,000 Times readers who took three or more holidays every year. If the people who go round making the necessary interviews ever come to me, should I include jaunts like this one in my “holidays”—flying 6000 miles to join in the junketings when a new business venture opens?

I don’t think I would count it. After all. when you look at it carefully, it’s just a business trip to promote a new venture, isn’t it?

Alwyn Edgar

What is women’s liberation ? (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Women are not inferior to men. They are quite capable of participating to the same extent as men both in the production of wealth and in the general running of social affairs. That they do not do so today is not due to any inherent disability but to their having been denied the same opportunities as men to acquire the skills needed for such participation. This may seem to be stating the obvious, especially in the columns of a socialist publication, but there is a widespread popular prejudice, reflecting itself in discriminatory practices, which denies this.

An increasing number of women have come to resent and oppose this prejudice and discrimination in a movement which has become known as Women’s Liberation — misleadingly since this suggests that the disappearance of these anti-women prejudices and practices would amount to the liberation of women. Which would be far from being the case as all the demands of the women’s movement, even the most radical, are compatible with capitalism and in fact amount to no more than demanding the creation of conditions that would permit women to compete on the labour-market with men.

The capitalist state has long accepted equality of women with regard to the vote and property ownership and has recently legislated to try to ensure equality over wages, recruitment, promotion, pensions and social security. Socialists, who understand how the economic laws of capitalism function, have doubts about how effective legislation can be in ensuring equality of wages as long as the quality of the labour power of many women is impaired by the discrimination they suffered when they were brought up and educated. In these circumstances to force employers to pay equal wages for unequal labour powers can only lead to them choosing not to employ the poorer quality — to increased unemployment amongst women.

Paying “wages” for housework (presumably by the state) would come up against the same economic laws of capitalism and lead to a reduction in wages generally since the wage of a man with children at present includes an element for maintaining the family. If this were paid directly by the state then the employer would no longer have to pay it. This was long a trade union objection to family allowances which, now that they are paid direct to the mother, are a sort of “wage” for housework.

It is a recognition of this harsh economic fact that the skills of many women are at present inferior to those of many men that has led some sections of the women’s movement to go even further and challenge the way women are brought up and educated. They complain that, from the earliest age, girls are taught to consider themselves as the “weaker sex” and to concern themselves with activities connected with the home rather than with more outward-looking activities reserved for boys.

Of course this handicap is not insurmountable and many women have overcome it but it still remains an obstacle which results in women being at a disadvantage with men when competing on the labour-market. On the other hand, it leads to women accepting jobs that are more like the activities they were brought up to consider a women’s role such as teaching, nursing and being secretaries, thus reinforcing the prejudice that it is only these jobs that women are capable of doing.

It is in this sense that some sections of the women’s movement are quite logical, in terms of the aim of achieving equality of opportunity for women to compete with men, in directing their criticisms against the way in which girls are at present brought up. But however radical their proposals in this connection may be — and they involve a complete revision of all children’s books and even nursery rhymes — these still remain compatible with capitalism.

The same goes for other demands like challenging the necessity of a woman taking her husband’s name on marriage and the replacement of "Mrs” and "Miss” by a common "Ms”. There is in fact no way in which the current practices can be rationally defended once the premise that woman are human beings in their own right who should enjoy the same treatment as men is accepted, but who would argue that their abolition would pose a threat to capitalism?

Another of the handicaps women face when competing with men in the labour-market is their biological nature as child-bearers which requires them, whenever they have children, to withdraw from working for wages for a while. The women’s movement proposes as the solution here the provision of more nurseries including at the place of work; to which neither employers nor the capitalist state have any objection in principle and which they are often prepared to provide, even if as inadequately as all so- called “social services” under capitalism.

The demand of the more radical sections of the women’s movement for "free contraception” and “free abortion on demand" is also in the end a proposal to overcome this handicap to equal competition. For, if implemented, one of its aims would be to permit women, like men, to engage in sex without having to worry about their wages career being unexpectedly interrupted by having to bear children.

To say that the demands of the women’s movement are compatible with capitalism is not to say that these demands are not worth having (especially those concerning the treatment of women as equal human beings), but is to answer those who mistakenly argue that these demands are inherently anti-capitalist and that the women’s movement is therefore somehow implicitly socialist.

Capitalism is a system of society based on the exploitation of wage and salary earners for a profit. All wealth, including that portion which under capitalism takes the form of profits, is produced by the application of human labour power to Nature-given materials. The more productive workers are, the more profits they can produce. This is why capitalism as an economic system is not interested in the language or the skin colour or the sex of workers; it is interested only in their productive capacity.

Capitalist employers are now coming to realise that discrimination against women denies them a huge source of productive talent which they could be using to increase their profits; how many women who would make good mechanics, engineers or scientists are denied the opportunity to work in these fields because of out-dated prejudices and practices inherited from the patriarchal societies that preceded capitalism (and which capitalism was itself in its early days when family businesses were the predominant form) and from the religious dogmas that went with them?

This is why modern capitalism could easily tolerate, in fact would positively welcome, equality of opportunity for women in the labour-market. It could also tolerate even the radical changes in family structures that achieving this fully would have to involve. Despite the dubiously scientific psychology of those who argue with Wilhelm Reich that capitalism requires the patriarchal family in order to breed the authoritarian and repressed personalities needed to prevent people challenging it, capitalism could — and does — accept what used to be called “free unions” in which the man and woman don’t bother to get a licence from the state or church to live together and in which they treat each other as equal partners. Indeed the vast majority of those who practice this — which of course will be the basis of relations between the sexes in socialism — are not socialists but supporters of capitalism and even members of the capitalist class itself.

Capitalism, in other words, could "liberate” women if "liberation” is to be restricted to meaning the equal treatment of women with men on the labour-market and, as a condition for this, in the home too. If this is seen as a step forward for women even within capitalism, it does not represent the real liberation of women.

If we accepted that it is then we would have to accept that men — or rather, to be precise, those men, the great majority, who are forced to work for a wage or salary to gain a living, the men of the working class — are already liberated. Which denies that capitalism is a system based on the exploitation and oppression of the working class in which the producers are wage slaves in the sense that they are economically dependent on the class of capitalist employers to whom they must sell their mental and physical energies in order to live. The implementation of the full programme of the women’s movement would leave women equal wage slaves with men.

Real liberation for the women and men of the working class can only be achieved through the establishment of socialism — by the conversion of the means of production and distribution into common property under the democratic control of the whole community. On this basis the wages system — working for an employer for a wage or salary — would be abolished and the production and distribution of wealth proceed on the basis of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Women and men would cooperate with each other in order to produce an abundance of wealth to which they would then individually have free access according to need. Individual free access for all members of society, including women and children, to consumer goods and services will put an end once and for ever to the economic dependence of women on men and of children on parents which so poisons relationships today.

In socialism women would participate equally in the running of every aspect of social life. An equality of women with men is, we have argued, theoretically compatible with capitalism but it would then only be an equality in wage slavery, leaving untouched the fundamental inequality between the women and men of the capitalist class on the other. Women's equality will only acquire real meaning in socialism where all humanity would be liberated, freed from the economic slavery of the wages system and from the inevitably anti-human operation of capitalism and its production for profit. This is why we argue that real “women’s liberation’’ can only be achieved as part of the general human liberation that the establishment of socialism will bring.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not support the women’s movement nor advocate its demands, not because we are necessarily opposed to the demands but because it is our general policy not to advocate reforms of capitalism however desirable they may seem.

As a matter of fact we agree entirely with the philosophy behind the women’s movement that women are not inferior to men and should be treated as equal human beings. This is an integral part of the socialist case, dating from the early part of the 19th century when the Utopian Socialists were amongst the pioneers of women’s equality.

So we don’t advocate women’s equality under capitalism because we don’t advocate reforms of any kind. And we don’t advocate reforms because we don’t want to attract the support of people who merely want to reform some aspect or other of capitalism. History has shown that parties which try to combine advocating reforms with advocating socialism end up by becoming reformist organisations which forget altogether about socialism.

If we were to advocate equality for women under capitalism we would run the risk of attracting the support of those who wanted this change without wanting socialism. That this would be a real danger can be seen from our demonstration above that not one of the demands of the women’s movement is incompatible with capitalism. To the extent of course that we succeed in propagating socialist ideas we combat prejudice and discrimination against women under capitalism, since becoming a socialist involves among other things discarding such prejudices and practices. The spread of socialist ideas under capitalism will thus help breakdown prejudice and discrimination against women. But it will also pave the way towards the establishment of socialism which will, in the words of Clause Four of our Declaration of Principles, mean the “emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex”.

Adam Buick

The Questions They Ask (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Questioner: Mr. Speaker, would you please explain ‘Surplus Value’?

Speaker: Surplus Value is unpaid labour. It is work the worker NEVER gets paid for. How can that be? Quite simply. Workers today produce much more value than is required to maintain themselves and family. Let’s say a person works 40 hours a week, 5 days — 8 hours a day. Right. Now, 4 of those hours are the value of their wages, 4 of them go straight to the capitalist, as the sole source of profit. This has all been worked out in typical, rather long-winded German professorial fashion by Marx ("Capital” page 216; Kerr edition), using actual figures of the accounts of the cotton mill managed by his friend Engels. (And he should have known, being a successful mill manager on a salary and 10% of the profits), Marx therefore divided the day into “Necessary” and ‘Surplus” Labour. Necessary — for the worker, “Surplus” — for the Company.

Some people think that Surplus Value is the same as Profit, including some ignorant Trade Union leaders. It is NOT — Surplus Value is the ration of unpaid to paid labour — 4 to 4, or 5 to 3 hours, etc. Profit is what the firm has left, after paying everything: wages, rent, raw materials, taxes, and so on. So what with the investment of £100, Surplus Value could be 100%, i.e. 50 to 50, but profit only 10% — 90 to 10.

Next question . . .

Horatio

Poland December 1970: A Clarification (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article that appeared in the Socialist Standard in May this year we stated that "hundreds” of workers were shot and killed by government troops during the unrest over price rises that took place in Poland’s Baltic sea ports in December 1970. A previous article in September 1976 had stated that “at least six workers” had been shot dead in Gdansk (Danzig). The discrepancy between these figures is to be explained by the former being based on the highest unofficial estimates while the latter refers to the number officially admitted as having been killed on December 14, the first day of the unrest in Danzig alone.

The precise number, in the other ports as well as Danzig — and even one death would prove the brutal anti-working class character of the Polish state capitalist regime — is unknown. Keesing's Contemporary Archives says:

No definitive figures of the total number of casualties were available at the time but official spokesmen in Warsaw said early in January 1971 that 27 people had been killed in. Gdansk. Gdynia and Elblag and 346 injured, including 265 policemen; no official figures were given for Szczecin and Slupsk. On January 20, however, Polish newspapers revealed that 44 people had died in the December riots — 18 in Gdynia, 16 in Szczecin, nine in Gdansk and one in Elblag. It was also stated that there had been 120 injured, many seriously in Gdansk, where about 100 people were under arrest charged with looting, arson or attacking police. Unofficial estimates put the total casualties as considerably higher than those officially given (January 16-23 1971. p.24391).

Obituary: Jim Garnham (1978)

Obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with much regret that we record the death of Comrade Jim Garnham.

Jim first came into contact with ‘socialist’ ideas in the army (he was a conscript and knew nothing of socialism and the socialist opposition to war). In a NAFFI canteen he picked up Tressell's "Ragged Trousered Philanthropists”. Around 1947/8 he listened to Party-speakers in Hyde Park and joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain some thirty years ago. During all that time he was an ever present activist in the cause of socialism. At indoor and outdoor meetings his support could always be relied upon. At places like Earls Court and Hyde Park he defended the platform on many occasions, not only in argument but against those whose purpose was physical disruption (he had been quite a good boxer in the army!) He was an energetic and enthusiastic literature seller and contributed to the success of countless meetings in this way.

Over the last five years he worked at our head office on a part-time basis, undertaking a wide variety of administrative jobs. He was always willing to help with whatever new demands came along. Three years ago when the Publicity Committee was re-organised, he worked with the committee to ensure prompt replies to enquiries. Comrade Garnham was also a member of the Executive Committee for several years.

Until the time of his retirement, Jim was an active member of the Electrical Trades Union (as it then was). He was a Union delegate to various Congresses and Conferences.

Though rather a quiet person, he was sustained by a thorough knowledge of Socialist theory, which he never tired of discussing with anybody who was interested. His patient down-to-earth approach to the class struggle was clear and effective.

Those of us who knew him feel the loss of a man who was the essence of a Socialist. Our warmest sympathies go to those of his family who survive him.

South West London Branch

Obituary: Ernie McKone (1978)

Obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Death struck Haringey Branch for the third time in recent months with the passing of Comrade E.L. (Ernie) McKone at the age of 79. Ernie first came in contact with the Party in 1918 through its outdoor meetings. He had been in the army during the First World War but deserted in France after stopping by a pond to take a drink and seeing a human arm floating in the water. At one point in the early forties there were four McKone’s in the Party — Ernie, his son and two brothers. Like a number of members, he had to drop out of Party activities during the 1939-45 War but rejoined in 1956.

Being self-employed he was able to speak his mind freely and would often button-hole passers-by outside his house and put the Socialist case to them. Despite declining health in later years he was a regular attender at the Branch and was constantly urging it into activity. Our sympathies go to his wife and family

Julian Vein

Obituary: George Edkins (1978)

Obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another old member has left our ranks with the death of Gearge Edkins, aged 78. He joined the West Ham Branch in 1928, and was active at outdoor and indoor meetings in the area until the 1940’s, when he and his wife went to Devon to run a guest house. Although out of the mainstream George continued as a Central Branch member and retained contact with many London members some of whom spent their holidays at George’s establishment. To the end of his life he remained a firm and committed Socialist and after his retirement often regretted that his location prevented more involvement in Party activity. We extend our sympathy to his wife Phyllis.

Alice Kerr

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

50 Years Ago: Do we want a Censor (1978)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is unique in keeping open platform for the expression of the point of view of opponents.

We oppose all forms of suppression, not in response to some abstract principle, but because we recognise that socialist society demands for its operation, as for its achievement, a responsible, intelligent population, used to drawing its own conclusions from the observation of facts and the weighing up of the arguments of opposing schools of thought. We only know our position to be correct because it survives continuous criticism. We do not deny that suppression may be immediately useful to the British or Irish governing class. We do deny that it can serve the purpose of the socialist movement.

From an editorial "Do we want a Censor?" Socialist Standard, November 1928.

This is our life (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Urban crises; Dockland rehabilitation; Housing problems; Educational choice; Urban renewal; Transport co-ordination. These phrases drip from the lips of pompous politicians and the pens of ‘specialist’ journalists to the point of sheer boredom.

They speak and write about the world in which we live, or at least those features of it they think are problems needing solution. Without always knowing it, they are referring to aspects of the capitalist set-up. Its hallmark of class ownership of the means of production; its wages system; competition, profit motive; market economy. This system has been operating for a long time — far too long for us Socialists. Over decades it has developed on a world scale, more intensely in some areas than others. We have seen the growth of large cities to the point where they encompass all the frustrations of modern life: slums; traffic jams; pollution and an ever increasing housing problem.

We are talking about LIFE for the working class. Not just from when we get a job, but from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Let us look at some aspects more fully, bearing in mind that they are part of the social fabric. They cannot be dealt with in isolation; one relates to the other. Even if you have a roof over your head you cannot escape the housing problem. But it is a social problem affecting hundreds of thousands, concentrated mainly in the large cities. As the Daily Express said (July 24 1978), “After 33 years of post-war development, housing is still the great British disaster story . . . the statistics of human distress are grimmer than ever”. Efforts by political parties to deal with this problem have failed. What they have done in many cases has foundered on the rocks of ‘an economic figure for building’.

Houses built in the 1950s in the New Town of Corby, Northants, recently handed over to the local council for administration, need replacement of all windows and repairs to brickwork, chimneys, roofs etc. Nine thousand houses in all need an urgent repair programme costing £4 million. “The condition of New Town houses is regularly being found to stem from bad basic design” (Guardian 27.7.78.). In short, working class housing is built as cheaply as possible. A more recent case concerns nearly five hundred council homes at Ashford, Kent, built in the late 60s. Total repairs are in the region of £2 millions, but the council are debating whether demolition would be cheaper. At the other end of the scale, a house in Cadogan Square, London is on the market for £1¼ million; it has of course been renovated.

Liverpool, with a housing problem second to none, has long been the football of feuding councils. Flats and houses by the thousand are being offered for sale. Not at £1¼ millions each, but at 10p and 5p. In fact, any offer will be considered. Most have been vandalised, but as the report of Liverpool Housing Committee said last year, “Because of their reputation, location and design, they will now never make any positive contribution to meeting the housing needs of the city”.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which numbers among its residents none other than Princess Margaret and the Soviet and other Embassies, has a waiting list of nearly eight thousand families for rehousing. (Her Royal Highness and their Excellencies, the various ambassadors are not on the list). The Borough posess some of the worst and most overcrowded housing in London. Housing Charities such as Shelter are constantly bemoaning the fact that the Council will not take its finger out. Isn’t it time they realised, Councils are not there to solve this problem, despite what various Acts might say.

The Inner London Docks have been a headache for years. With a revolution in the handling of cargo (containers, unit loading etc) the demand for traditional facilities has fallen away. 8½ square miles of dockland is to be redeveloped, and with the latest overtures from the Port of London Authority to close further docks, the area available may be much larger This development plan has long been a pipe dream. The overall cost is £233 millions to include 9,000 houses, industrial sectors, better transport etc. Industry is to be encouraged to come to the area after years of Government policy to get industry to move out of London into new development zones. The nine thousand houses are estimated to cost £98 millions. About £11,000 a house — a ‘reasonable’ figure for a working class residence.

Training for life
If you’ve got a house, what about a job. Jobs in the big cities are becoming harder to find. Unemployment is knocking around 1.6 millions and there is an even chance of this increasing by another ¼ million over the next year or so. This is no passing phase. Unemployment is part and parcel of this system and many commentators and politicians now refer to it as a structural part of society. But they keep trying new ways to lessen the impact. The Government, among other schemes, have recently announced a new £1 million training programme in ‘life and social skills’ for about five hundred youngsters in the Liverpool/Manchester areas. Called Training for Life, it will give these people a chance to study banking, finance and social and legal rights. Plus courses on sex and coping with freedom. The scheme is aimed at the hardcore of young unemployed people, who have few or no academic qualifications and who may only expect to get low paid manual work. Anything to take them off the labour-market. They should be told of the many young people, with University degrees, who have little hope of a job involving the subject in which they have qualified. Was our Prime Minister being a little more honest than usual when, as Foreign Secretary after a Brussels Conference, he said that the Commissions analysis “will show how a serious structural unemployment situation is developing”. The Commission had formed a committee to look at the problem of unemployment, and honest Jim stated . . . “None of us has any answers, and I do not suppose they have either (Guardian 14.12.76).

You’ve got a house and a job. Your next worry is getting to and from work. As men shoot to the moon at unbelievable speeds, the journey from Hackney to Piccadilly or Willesden to Victoria becomes increasingly difficult. And if you live in the country, a car is almost essential to get and keep a job. Roads in the cities are cluttered with private cars, a large proportion of which are company owned. Hundreds of travellers and reps chasing around for business. And as the juggernauts thunder their way across the country, the British Road Federation claims that cutting back the road programme is costing British industry millions every year and endangering road safety. Their claim that lowering design standards on trunk roads threatens more accidents is possibly true, but accentuated by the need of profit.

To get from one place to another in the shortest possible lime is assessed in monetary values. If capitalism is to continue, with its constant need for trade, we can envisage this island as a criss cross of concrete runways. But for a brief moment think of more leisurely ways of transport — the slow moving canal and its low slung barges. The Government are to reconstruct a section of the Sheffield and S. Yorks canal, enabling barges of 400 tons capacity to reach Rotherham. The waterway is already there and could eventually link up with the Port of Hull for large barge consignments. But the dockers, seeing their jobs threatened by a revolution in barge traffic (akin to the development of contained traffic), look askance at the scheme. Canal transport obviously has a role to play in any society and a less pernicious one when it comes to pollution safety etc, but here is a classic example of the conflict among workers on the industrial field, when capitalism dominates their ideas and the way they live.

Cost effectiveness

The house, job and transport are fixed up. Now there’s the kids schooling. Discussion still runs riot on the effectiveness of comprehensive versus grammar schools. But what about those in the villages, with the old Victorian buildings and, in many cases, sanitary accommodation that leaves much to be desired. In many ways the school is part of a village community. But says capitalism, Big is Beautiful and certainly Big is more economic according to the experts. Over the past ten years, it is estimated that more than 2,000 primary schools with fewer than a hundred pupils have been closed down and the properties put up for sale. The closing of such a school is not just the end of education for kids on their ‘home ground’. The premises are often used for a range of community activities. Capitalism has little thought for people. Can we afford it; does it pay, is its constant theme.

So a couple of weeks holiday. There are some nice beaches in Brittany and East Anglia, but both have been the scene of devastating pollution by oil spillage from crippled tankers. A problem that could be tackled using all the resources at our disposal. But the Department of Trade, Marine Division says, “To be always prepared for the worst would cost too much when it comes to oil pollution disasters”. But the Department is not letting the matter rest. Every effort, they say, should be made to prevent accidents which cause pollution. You will be pleased to know another committee is looking into this.

So, as old age silently creeps up on you, don’t think you can opt out. An independent body, Personal Social Services Council, set up by the Government to advise them, claims that the pace of developments in services for the elderly, mentally ill etc. is far too slow to meet increasing demand. And that it will take 14 years to reach Government guidelines of 200 meals-on-wheels per week, per 1,000 elderly people. So try and hang on until 1992 if you are over 65.

The world is rich and underdeveloped in many ways. The greater part of Japan consists of unused forest-clad mountains, while vast areas in Australia consist of unused deserts and semi-desert. As Arnold Toynbee in his book Cities on the Move says . . .“The proximate reason why, in both countries these tracts are unused is that the cost of transforming them into economically productive areas would not bring adequate returns”. And this world is owned by a few. Why not consider the possibility of us, the producers in this world, taking it over and running it in the interest of all, with human needs the dominant factor.

Cyril May

Political Notebook: At The Seaside (1978)

The Political Notebook Column from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

At The Seaside

In case you failed to notice, another season of seaside political conferences has passed. The three large parties carefully go through the charade of participation by the faithful and then proceed to ignore the wishes of the membership. This, they call democracy. The Labour Party have some experts in this field. Their former leader (more anon) is famous for his resolute refusal to take a blind bit of notice of the Labour Party Conference decisions from 1966 to 1970.

We can all remember Ted Heath’s famous U-turn on economic policy but we shall have to find another letter of the alphabet to fit the change which is apparently being contemplated now by Callaghan’s government.

To begin with, a little recent history. Labour came back to power in 1974 on a clear pledge that there would be no more interference with the unions’ bargaining strength. Their policy in the October 1974 election said, in part:

    The Social Contract . . .  is the agreed basis upon which the Labour Party and the trade unions define their common purpose . . . The unions in response confirm how they will seek to exercise the newly restored right of free collective bargaining.

Well we have seen what happened to the so-called free collective bargaining, as Healey has tried to impose successively lower limits on wage rises. But even more striking was the change in policy which Callaghan was threatening, when this year’s Labour Party conference rejected Healey's proposed 5 per cent limit on rises.

    “. . . if, as a result inflation starts to move up”, said Callaghan, "the government will take offsetting action to keep inflation down through monetary and fiscal measures”.

Now this is exactly the policy which has been put forward, as the solution to the current problems of British capitalism, by the likes of Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher who, says the Labour Party, have a burning ambition to discipline the workers with the scourge of unemployment.

Of course there is nothing new in Labour and Conservative Parties adopting each other’s policies; that is all part of the fact that they have basically the same policy — the maintenance of capitalism and, within that social system, the protection of the interests of the British capitalist class.

Dirty Hands Make Light Work

The Labour Party has other problems, too. George (now Lord) Thomson accuses Harold (now Sir) Wilson of having dirty hands; soaked in oil flowing into the illegal (“matter of weeks, not months”) Rhodesian Regime. Harold denies knowing anything about it. George says he has a copy of a letter sent to Harold when Harold was P.M. pointing out that petrol companies were breaking the sanctions. As The Times (21.9.78.) put it so diplomatically after the publication of the Bingham Report:

     Sir Harold has said that he never received any report of British Oil Companies being involved in supplying oil to Rhodesia. Lord Thomson maintained that he informed the Prime Minister of the time and other Ministers most directly concerned, of everything that happened at the meeting.

One of them is lying. It is so difficult to know which to believe, but as Harold is only a mere “Sir” and George is a “Lord”, I suppose most people will believe George . . .

One of the problems at the Labour Conference was whether Harold would turn up at all, and if so, what he would say, and what would be said to him. In pre-conference gossip, the Daily Mirror said Harold had applied for a ticket but his presence was “by no means assured” (29.9.78.). His assured presence was certainly dinted when a Canadian T.V. Reporter had the cheek to ask him directly about the sanction busting. Harold just stopped the interview. How dare they ask him such awkward questions!

Incompetent Criminals

The Liberal Party has similar problems. Their main difficulty seems to be in shaking off the scandal so obstinately sticking to them. What with missing funds, and the police swooping around their conference, they had indigestible problems enough. But these shrank to trifles compared to the unsavoury dishes being served up to Jeremy Thorpe; little matters like allegations of conspiracy to murder are not good for the image of the Party of good losers.

The majority of the current leadership tried to ensure Thorpe was isolated prior to the October general election that never was. They issued an injunction imprisoning him in his Devon Constituency. Treated like the chief carrier of the latest smallpox outbreak, Jeremy was banished from the Liberals National Campaign. He was also asked not to turn up at the Liberal Conference in September at Southport. Nevertheless, up he turned. The press loved it; perhaps they realise that the policies of the Liberal Party are about as interesting as steak to a vegetarian. But a bit of scandal . . . nothing sells better. So The Daily Mirror (15.9.78.) could write theatrical reports like “Everybody felt the tension, everybody knew he was out there, away from sight, standing in the wings, waiting for the signal to make his entrance”. Even The Times got carried away with the amateur dramatics of it all and ran a headline the same day saying "Mr Thorpe Takes The Limelight”. For those interested in these matters, Mr Thorpe is due to take more limelight at Minehead Magistrates Court on the 20th of this month.

This concentration on the bad boy of the moment annoyed the other Liberals at their Conference, so Cyril Smith made a long speech in which he explained just how good the Liberal Party really was. He spoke about its wonderful history and excellent record etc. Nice one Cyril! Nothing like self praise. Cyril also said with real feeling that the Liberal Party were sick of being painted as a bunch of “incompetent criminals" (The Times 15.9.78.). Suppose. Cyril, we call you and all capitalist politicians "competent criminals". Does that improve things? You are criminals because you deliberately deceive the working class into believing you can solve their problems, without a shred of evidence that you can actually do so. “Competent” because, alas, to date you succeed in your criminal enterprises.

Ronnie Warrington

Obituary: Maggie Hallard (1978)

Obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Members will be sorry to learn of the death of Maggie Hallard, a Party member for over 56 years. She was born in 1893 in Stratford, East London, a district in which she lived for the whole of her life. After Maggie left school she worked in the clothing trade as a machinist. and she soon came into contact with working class agitation and the class struggle. In her teens she went to the Socialist Sunday School — where one learnt not about religion, but the class basis of society. When she met and married Percy Hallard her long association with the Party began. Percy joined in 1918, and he did many valuable years of work for the Party, including the secretaryship of the vigorous West Ham branch for 37 years. Maggie and Percy had no children and the Party became the focal point of their lives, and for Maggie the members became her family. She loved to reminisce, and was a mine of information on old members and Party history. Until a few months before her death she never missed a branch meeting, and attended every other Party propaganda meeting that she could reach. Even when she was 83 she would turn up to Branch outdoor meetings on the draughty street corner opposite Ilford Station, bringing a cold drink for the speaker. It is hard to recall a Conference or Delegate meeting without Maggie, and we will miss seeing her indomitable old face amongst us

Alice Kerr

Race—having it both ways (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ruling class must look on racial tension in exactly the same way as lawyers look on law-breaking. There is a famous story of an Old Bailey barrister who said he wanted crime reduced, but not abolished entirely. The capitalists’ opinion of ill-feeling between the various colour groups in our cities, white and brown and black, is precisely the same: a little is good, too much is bad. Too much would cause trouble. People fighting in the streets overnight would not make good workers the next day, and so on. But in some respects a little of it can do nothing but good to the ruling class. If white workers blame their poor housing and working conditions on people with darker skins, while Asian and West Indian workers blame their troubles on prejudice and discrimination among people with lighter complexions, then workers of all colours will be kept from thinking about the real cause of their poverty — their class position in capitalist society. Hence the pious exhortations by politicians, church-leaders, and media spokesmen generally, telling the workers to love their neighbours and backing it up with threats to have the police and courts deal severely with anyone who does not love his neighbour enough, while at the same time both major parties deliberately keep the racialist pot boiling — Mr Callaghan by passing an Act to exclude British passport holders on the sole ground, in effect, that their skin is not pinky-grey and Mrs Thatcher by public forebodings that if coloured immigrants ever grew to as much as seven per cent of the population, the other ninety-three per cent might feel “rather swamped” by them.

Tapping a new reservoir

The capitalist class and its state brought in the coloured immigrants. When capitalism was having one of its periodic booms, there were fears of workers being in short supply. That might have led, the ruling class thought, to an upward pressure on wages. So other workers were deliberately brought in, from areas where the standard of living was even lower than the lowest normal standards in this country, to make sure that the native-born British proletariat did not take advantage of the situation. David Wood, the main political correspondent of The Times, recalled (in an article on 6.3.78) that he felt uneasy about the influx in the 1950s. He asked “a senior Conservative” what was happening, and the naive young journalist got a straight answer, in which current capitalist tactics were frankly explained to him. “In conditions of full employment and without an incomes policy, how could any economic minister or any industrialist keep down wage rates without tapping a new reservoir of cheap labour? Were scarce nurses underpaid? Then let the Ministry of Health recruit in the Caribbean”. (Which they were doing, incidentally, when Enoch Powell was Minister of Health).

So coloured immigration took place in order to supply British industrialists and the British state with “cheap labour”.

The limits of brainwashing

The growth of racialism, and the strong support obtained by the National Front in some areas, is itself a testimony to the excellence of the propaganda machine which serves capitalism. So far it has succeeded in preventing most of the workers — the large majority of the population, dirty-handed or white-collared — from discovering the real reasons for their discontent. With a sustained barrage deafening every one of us from the cradle to the grave, in the schools, on radio, TV, and films, in the press and in the pulpit, the message has ben hammered home that the present capitalist system is unchangeable and will inevitably continue to the end of time, that it is the best system ever devised by the wit of man, and that no worker can ever have any fundamental grievances. Yet as soon as the worker — thus unendingly brainwashed to accept the system under which he suffers — finds another group in his vicinity whom he can, however implausibly, blame for his condition, how fiercely does he immediately begin to blame them! The worker is told repeatedly that his living and working conditions are as good as they could possibly be, and moreover that they are getting better all the time — and yet, as soon as the slightest apparent opportunity occurs, how much bile pours out forthwith! The pressure that exists, tightly restrained, in a boiler, can best be seen when a small valve is opened and a scalding jet of steam immediately escapes.

Having it both ways

So long as racialism is kept to mere dislike among different groups, providing each race with a scapegoat to blame and averting any approach to the real problem, the ruling class can enjoy the benefits of working-class disunity without running the risks of open conflict among the workforce. They can reflect, too, on the achievements of their educational system. To the capitalist state, education is always a difficult problem. It must educate the workers to run the factories, mines, farms, transport systems and so on, providing both the rank-and-file labourers and the foremen and managers; yet at the same time it must avoid encouraging people’s intellects to develop to the point where they will begin to think for themselves (at which point they would introduce a system run for their benefit and not for the benefit of their present rulers). The various irrational propositions widely accepted in the arguments over immigration show how successful the educational system has been in preventing such a development. For example, we are told that immigration must be stopped, because Britain cannot take in any more people; this in a country where emigration exceeds immigration, and has done each year since 1964. If all migration was stopped, therefore, we are likely to have not fewer, but more, inhabitants. Again, it is alleged that a small minority will swamp the vast majority: a new departure in the history of swamping. The British have claimed for centuries the right to travel and settle anywhere in the world — America, Australia, Africa, Asia, everywhere; there is scarcely a corner of the globe that has not seen its British immigrants, usually as rulers telling the natives what to do, moreover. But now, as soon as a few non-Britons — a mere handful in proportion to the British exodus — decide to come the other way, the air is suddenly full of British voices explaining how obviously right it is that everyone should stay at home. Again, we are informed that all these immigrants are coming here and “stealing our jobs”: and in the same breath, it appears, they are coming here and refusing to steal our jobs, and are living on social security. The immigrants, the cry goes up, are taking over all the best council houses, and are living the life of Reilly; and at the same time, they are existing with whole families crammed into single rooms, and are threatening public health standards.

There cannot be much wrong with education from a ruling-class point of view, while it produces millions prepared to accept unthinkingly such propositions as these.

Alwyn Edgar