Lordly Perplexities (1952)

From the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Their Lordships, Beveridge and Beaverbrook, hereinafter called the two B's, appear to be concerned regarding the future. We shall take Lord Beveridge first

According to the Glasgow Herald (31/12/51) he broadcast “A Letter to posterity," the theme of which was the comments he would like to make on life in Britain in 1951 to the people of Britain in 2052, 100 years hence.

His broadcast commenced with the assertion that the abolition of poverty by levelling up incomes has been part of our social policy for many years. In addition, over the past ten years, there has been tremendous levelling down as well, to pay for wars, their consequences and preparation of fresh wars. He said, “ It is not possible for anyone now to enjoy great wealth or to pass it on to his children.”

We are somewhat perplexed, in view of the real facts, to discover how his Lordship arrived at this conclusion. It would appear that be is unaware of the millions of workers whose gross earnings are £6 per week or less. Also the steep rise in the cost of living since 1945. According to government figures the increase is approximately 29 per cent. Again industrial wage rates have not risen as much, production has been greatly increased, approximately 30 per cent. since 1947. This in conjunction with record profits being made in practically all industries can by no stretch of the imagination be called abolishing poverty. It is in fact the reverse, viz. the intensification of poverty. In this regard perhaps we should recommend that he scan the National Assistance Board figures published in the “Economist” 7th July, ’51. He will find that whereas in 1948 the total number of people in receipt of relief, excluding blind and T.B. cases, was about 785 thousand, by 1950 it had increased to 1272 thousand. Possibly this was only a little extra beer and baccy money for some more of the new “privileged class,” the workers. The same paper (24th Feb. ’51) indicates the absurdity of his claims re levelling down. Figures are given showing that 1 per cent. of the population own 50 per cent. of the wealth. The Economist's comments being—”This is an unimpressive result of forty years of death duties.” Figures given in The Tribune (26th Jan. ’51) show that 16 million people are at the bottom of the social scale with estates of less than £100.

A Lordly nostalgia: —We are informed that he had to leave Fuggal Hall and move into a “middle income group house” in order to make ends meet. He states— “The Baronial Hall with troops of servants laying coal fires in every room was giving place to rows and rows of council houses, each with a radiator and a television aerial.” Shed a tear ye privileged idle and pampered proletarians for the poor, poor rich.

His concern regarding future leadership appears to be considerable. In his opinion the men and women on the stage need leaders. "Just from where in our classless collection of men and women the leadership will come . . . I do not know.” Aristocratic tradition, in his opinion, is a factor of major importance in correct leadership and we are faced with carrying on an aristocratic tradition without the aristocrats. It is of course true your Lordship that people “inherit” traditions; they also dispose of useless traditions. Perhaps your wish is for your tradition to inherit the people. We shall deal with this question further in our conclusion.

His Lordship Beaverbrook is well known for his “modesty and wisdom" through the medium of his newspapers, especially the Daily Express. The opinion column of Scottish Daily Express (31.12.51) while moaning of the loss of Abadan and the rising cost of living states that there is also cause for joy—“The joy that Socialism has been discarded and Mr. Churchill again returned to power.” Further joy—We have escaped war and are still on talking terms with Russia; also, peace in Korea is within grasp and Churchill is on the stage directing and lending the wisdom of his council. In general, the war danger recedes as each hour adds to mounting Western strength. May we remind your Lordship of your very frequently published claims in the Daily Express during 1938 and '39 that there would be no war this year, or next year, or any other year. In fact your last statement, in bold headlines, to this effect was published merely days before the outbreak of war in 1939. How very wrong you were despite your, undoubtedly excellent, facilities for information. Every informed person saw the rapid approach of war from 1935 onwards. Again, since when did an arms race result in anything other than war? You are equally confused regarding Socialism. Capitalism administered by the Labour party or any other parties can never be Socialism. Your judgments in these matters do not at all seem to be reliable. In fact they appear to be parallel with the guesses of Old Moore’s Almanac and should be treated accordingly.

Regarding 1952 and the years beyond, you ask— “Is Britain to have peace without prosperity? Is she to remain for evermore a pinchpenny land in which people live meanly and eat miserably.” When during the existence of capitalism has it been otherwise for the great majority of the people? It will always remain so while capitalism remains, irrespective of the government being an Attlee-Morrison-Bevan, or Churchill-Eden combination. Prosperity, with or without peace, is an almost exclusive enjoyment of the capitalist class. Slums and lack of them, blood and tears, and toil and sweat, whether in times of depression, or prosperity with or without peace has been labour’s reward for honest hard work.

In conclusion a word to the two B’s. Capitalism, the present social system which suits you both eminently shall be abolished eventually. The interest of peace, security, culture and the general welfare of mankind demand it, the sooner the better. A new sane and humane system, Socialism, shall take its place. In this regard you need not worry about leadership, aristocratic or otherwise, as leadership shall also go overboard with other lumber. When one reviews the past and visualises the shabby pretentious collection of bombastic people who have been “our leaders;” whose self-seeking blunders have shamefully abused and squandered wealth and drenched the world in blood, then one realises that the end of leadership cannot be too soon. Intelligent working men and women who organise for the establishment of Socialism have no need for leaders. The end or object, Socialism, means the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, the end of idleness and luxury for your class, the ending of stately baronial mansions, likewise the finish of poverty, misery and slums. The Labour Government have been very good friends to your class. It shall be very very different when, for the first time in history. Socialists take control out of the hands of the capitalist class for the purpose of carrying out the revolutionary task, the establishing of Socialism. The Socialist Party of Great Britain carries on its task of making socialists confident that the future belongs to us. Chums, you’ve almost  " ’ad it.”

John Higgins

Paradise what? (1986)

From the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

". . . having lunch with Bryan Cogwill at Thames Television . . .  he suggested that 1 might write a story covering the period in England since the war . . ." In these resplendency comfortable words John Mortimer describes the genesis of his novel Paradise Postponed. He is — who doesn't know — a barrister, author, playwright and wit. in fact a personality, which is why he can have lunch with important people in television. His fame as the TV adaptor of Brideshead Revisited and as the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey foretold a wide interest in Paradise Postponed. The critics, it seemed certain, would have to take the book very seriously if all the money spent on it were not to be wasted. But need so many of them, perhaps searching for an elusive deeper meaning, have acclaimed it as a perceptive lament for the fine hopes nurtured by successive Labour governments since the war? Fiction, after all. must not lose all touch with reality.

Like any sensible novelist writing for television. Mortimer divides his characters starkly into goodies and baddies. Prominent among the goodies is Simeon Simcox. a stupid, cliche-dependent clergyman who punctiliously chases every possible left wing reformist issue, driving his bishop mad with letters about nuclear disarmament, lower rents for rural proletariats and the like. Prime among the baddies is Leslie Titmuss. who claws a determined way from village odd-job boy down to Thatcherite cabinet minister. These caricatures are surrounded by predictable cardboard characters — the village doctor who kids himself he is all forthright human feeling but who is really a prejudiced and irritating buffoon; the local squire who wearily longs for life to be like one long chivalrous game of pre-1914 cricket with everyone accepting their place in the batting order. There is a supporting cast of drudges who minister to the needs of the local bigwigs.

Of course this isn't Paradise and is not meant to be. Mortimer's village is moving, as the cynics take over from the simpletons and the property developers desecrate the High Street, in the opposite direction. But did Paradise ever exist? Was it ever likely to. or planned to? Was it really postponed to some time in the future? Will we ever get there, with the vicar and the squire and the village drudges?

To be sure, a vision not far short of a sort of Paradise was being offered as the future when the post-war Labour government came to power under Clement Attlee ("and a little mouse shall lead them" disloyally noted Attlee's first Chancellor Hugh Dalton, which was one of his many misjudgements. There were misjudgements on the other side too: "I feel that my entrails have been pulled right out of me" was the effect of the election on Tory Chief Whip James Stuart). What actually happened was far from paradisical. The British working class were told, again and again, that they were in an economic and financial crisis of unusual severity. In truth it was the British capitalist class who were in

that crisis — which had not been accounted for in the Labour government's assumptions about how they would run things:

We all thought that this post-war period was going to be easier than it has. in fact, turned out to be. in the economic sphere: and we have been trying to deal with it ever since by a series of temporary expedients which have led to a series of crises as each expedient became exhausted.

wailed Chancellor Stafford Cripps on the day he imposed another temporary expedient — the devaluation of the pound. "We work", the government informed the working class, "or want", meaning work much harder for less real wages. In any case people whose entire lives were shaped by their awareness that if they couldn't find an employer to buy their labour power they would suffer the harshest poverty hardly needed reminding of their reliance on working for their living. What the Labour government intended was to abate the crisis by imposing more intense exploitation of the workers but the little mouse and his ministers knew better than to put it that way. After all some of them, while this was going on, continued to describe themselves as socialists.

Paradise was also supposed to have a corner reserved for more amicable relations with the Stalinist rulers in Moscow, whose massive atrocities had been temporarily blanketed during the war by official propaganda. "Left can speak to left in comradeship and confidence" was how it was put by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, whose comradeship was not something to be lightly accepted by the nervous. Perhaps that government might have decided, as others have done, on an alliance with the robbers and murderers in Stalin's Kremlin. But there were solid reasons, all to do with protecting and promoting the interests of the British ruling class in world capitalism, for choosing an alliance with the bandits and killers in Washington instead. So they went, wholeheartedly, into the Korean war and into many campaigns against nationalist guerrillas in what were still then British colonies. Or rather we — the working class went in. Labour ministers played their part in those conflicts by signing alliances, lengthening the term of conscription and delivering speeches telling us that the austerity and repression would have to continue — that Paradise had indeed been postponed.

There were many other aspects to that government which Simeon Simcox did not seem to be aware of. He saw nothing inconsistent in marching with CND while supporting the Labour Party, whose consistent policy on nuclear weapons has been far from disarmament. From the beginning the Attlee government gave their blessing to the atomising of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which, let it be remembered, are the only occasions so far when the bomb has been used on living human beings. Anxious that the British capitalist class should hold some sway on the ruthless international scene, they launched the programme to make a hydrogen bomb in this country and to set up a chain of nuclear power stations.

When they were eventually removed from office, having convinced many workers that socialism was a crackpot theory which really meant even more austerity in their lives than usual, society in Britain was still split into two classes who were continually at war with each other. One — the capitalist, ruling, class had kept their position of riches and privilege and power, their sumptuous homes, their secure and parasitical life style. The other — the working, exploited, class — still lived in degradation, still struggled in the mire of disadvantage, in their slum homes, the stresses of their poverty.

It was easy for disgruntled Labourites like Simcox (and Mortimer?) to write all this off as a betrayal of the faith. If only Attlee had not been Prime Minister, or Dalton had been Foreign Secretary, if only Cripps had lived or Morrison had died. . . . None of this, they consoled themselves in cheerless, abandoned committee rooms after their defeat, need have happened. Never mind, it was only a postponement of Paradise; there was that young Harold Wilson who showed such promise and who was a true left-winger. Of course in his time Wilson provoked the same anguish, the same doubts, the same excuses, the same stubborn defence of the party, right or wrong. It was the same with Wilson's successor Callaghan, whose government went down in bitter memories of breaking the firemen's strike, of fighting the workers in hospitals and local authorities. Unemployment had doubled and Denis Healey at the Exchequer had done much of the groundwork for Thatcher's policy of reacting to the gathering slump with cuts in expenditure.

By 1979 the argument that there was something accidental and avoidable about Labour's record in government had been worn out by reality. Labour supporters were suffering a discomfort which they could have eliminated by simply recognising the obvious fact that the crises which all governments face have nothing to do with the personnel of those governments. They are rooted in the very nature of capitalism, in the fact that the system is founded on the class ownership of everything that is used to produce and distribute wealth. From this the rest follows — class conflict, poverty amid plenty, exploitation. war. . . .

It is incorrect to argue that it all went wrong for the Labour governments; in truth it all went right. They administered capitalism just as it demands to be — in the interests of the minority class of social parasites and against the interests of the majority class of workers and producers. If they get power once more it will happen again for them — the exposure, the disillusionment, the despair. This may give someone the idea of writing another blockbusting, silly book which will enrich them but is very bad for the rest of us. And it is all because workers persist in voting for Paradise rather than taking over the Earth.

Ivan

Blogger's Note:

Steve Coleman's also wrote about John Mortimer's Paradise Postponed in the Between the Lines column in the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard.

The Passing Show (1948)

From the November 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The attempts of our rulers and spiritual advisers to formulate the mode of procedure best fitted to keep the workers quiet are becoming so fantastic as to cause even their docile dupes to wonder if there is not some leg-pulling going on somewhere; the hope of heaven on earth promised at the last election has gone with the wind. The way of the transgressing wage-slave is indeed hard; he suffers for the sins committed in Capitalism’s interest and bears all the burdens of his exploiters during the process; he is becoming weary and inclined to flag, but this cannot be allowed. “What we want is more production.”

It will be noticed that during those periods when the worker, driven beyond endurance, ventures to quit, he is always out of order (practically all strikes are unofficial). The Labour Leader of the Union and the Labour politician unite in condemning his rebellious conduct; and the capitalist press wholeheartedly support them. Denounced by the leader of his union, attacked in Parliament by his own Labour member, shown the error of his ways by the Church and universally vilified by the capitalist press, he may be excused if he doubts the evidence of his senses, but in spite of all these handicaps, he still keeps up the fight; he feels he must; his instincts bred of the class struggle he feels to be correct; he is becoming conscious of himself ; he is beginning to realise what history has called upon him to do. Upon the worker’s action rests the fate of humanity and every socialist on the planet is sustained during these perilous times by the firm conviction that he will not fail.

It is interesting to consider the views of the pioneers of scientific Socialism on the functions of the trade unions. Lucien Laurat, on pages 74 and 75 of his book. “Marxism and Democracy,” states that Marx made a number of important statements to Hamann, the treasurer of the Metal Worker’s Union. The discussion took place in Hanover in 1869. Among other things, Marx is reported as saying the following:—

“The trade unions must never be associated with or dependent upon a political group. Otherwise they would never be able to fulfil their task, and they would receive a mortal blow. The trade unions are the schools of Socialism. In the trade unions the workers become socialists because they see every day before their own eyes the struggle against capital. Political parties, whatever they may be, can arouse the enthusiasm of the working masses only temporarily for a time only, whilst the unions hold their loyalty much more securely, and it is only these unions which can be a real working class party and erect a bulwark against the power of Capital.”

This is what Marx is alleged to have said about 80 years ago. It is questionable if he would repeat the statement were he alive to-day.

Long before this, Engels, in his “Condition of the Working Class in England,” stressed the importance of the economic movement, and Marx, in his “Poverty of Philosophy,” fiercely attacked Proudhon for his hostility to trade unions and to strikes.

Wherever the unions are mentioned in Marx’s writings we find he defends them. In another quotation in the book above referred to he stated: “The struggle of class against class is a political struggle.” 

When the Chartist movement was analysed by the old timers the fact that the trade unions did not as a whole support the Chartists was referred to with regret. 

In “Value, Price and Profit,” the part played by the unions was dealt with, their limitations clearly shown, together with their utility, but it is pointed out they could be more successful if they used their power more intelligently: they should have as their watchword not a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but the revolutionary “abolition of the wages system.”

Since the founders of the movement passed away the workers have acquired considerable knowledge as a result of their experience..

The wage-slave sells his labour-power to the capitalist, and competing with him is his fellow slave. The identity of interests of the workers on the economic field is obscured.

When labour-power is in demand the sellers of that commodity, by means of their organizations, try and raise the price, but when the demand falls off, and the unemployed become numerous their organizations weaken and the price falls. There is nothing in trade union action that can take labour-power out of the category of commodities. Trade unions are often the means of enabling the workers to obtain a rise in wages before they otherwise would do and also in preventing a rapid fall when circumstances are in favour of the exploiter. They are, in addition, a vehicle for obtaining better conditions which through custom sometimes become more or less permanent, Their value to the worker cannot be questioned, but they cannot emancipate the toiler from wage slavery.

It is not the function of a political party to interfere with the operations of the unions.

The movement in Britain has not been helped by the political levy and the fusion of some unions with the Labour Party: the unions have not benefited: the trade union leader is now often in opposition to the aspirations of the rank and file, and is backed, on almost every occasion, by the Labour politician in resisting efforts to use the organisations for the purpose for which they were originally formed.

It is inspiring nevertheless to see the gradual spread of class consciousness : it is slow, but sure in its coming. Capitalism is up against problems it cannot solve. There is no power that can prevent the advance of the workers permanently, but it can be helped along by socialist knowledge.

The socialist aims at the removal of Capitalism : the trade unionist who is not a socialist thinks he can get something worth while out of the present mode of production. Sooner or later it will dawn upon the working class that trade union action can’t beat the capitalist system.

In 1850, at the time of the split in the Communist League, Marx judged it necessary to tell the workers “You will have to go through fifteen, twenty, perhaps fifty years of civil and international wars, not merely to change conditions, but to change yourselves, and make yourselves fit to take over political power.” He was optimistic; the workers are still in the wilderness, but his vision was clear. A long preparation was necessary before they could be equipped with knowledge sufficient to enable them to take possession of the promised land.

We have now undoubtedly arrived at a point from which the wage-slaves can see where to head for.

Charles Lestor

Blogger's Note:

Lucien Laurat's Marxism and Democracy was reviewed in the February 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Editorial: Labourism Proposes – Capitalism Disposes (1946)

Editorial from the November 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are not among those short-sighted electors who, having helped to elect a Labour Government to power, are now turning in astonished resentment to rend their idol of a year ago. We never had any illusions about Labour government.

Socialism cannot be achieved until there is a majority of socialists and they gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of abolishing capitalism. Until then, notwithstanding all the efforts of reformers to improve the existing system and administer it differently, the evils of class society, based on the exploitation of the workers, will remain to throttle the progress of the human race. The Labour Party rejected this conception and holds that a Labour government, backed by non-Socialist voters, can administer capitalism on non-capitalist principles and mould it gradually so that in the ultimate a different system will emerge. Outlining his Party’s point of view, Mr. Attlee wrote in "The Labour Party in Perspective" (Gollancz, 1937, p. 138) : “Some future historian will not be able to point to a particular date as that on which the Socialist State was established . . .” That is the Labour Party’s view, but it is wrong. Socialist society is not being gradually introduced by Labour government; it will start when, and only when, a socialist working class comes to power. That will be the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one and later historians will not be in any doubt when it happened.

Sharing Mr. Attlee’s belief, millions of workers, who last year gloried in the Labour electoral triumph, thought that at last they would have a government able to control, improve and gradually to eliminate the capitalist system of society. Never did anyone cherish a more baseless illusion. Having no mandate to introduce Socialism, Mr. Attlee and his Cabinet colleagues have no alternative, even if they desired one, but to administer capitalism. They are riding the tiger and have to go where it takes them.

In the book quoted above Mr. Attlee said “The Labour Party is, of course, opposed to imperialism  . . .” (p.230); but opposed or not, the Labour Government is committed to the maintenance of the British Colonial Empire, to the policy of protecting British “spheres of influence,” to the policy of using military force to keep control over strategic bases, trade routes and foreign territories where vital raw materials are found. British Forces prop up the Greek Monarchy, stand in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere, and British capitalist interests clash in all quarters of the world with the like-minded imperialisms of Russia, U.S.A. and other powers. The Labour Party in opposition dreamed dreams of world brotherhood, but the Labour Government in power must willy-nilly pursue a policy suited to the needs of British capitalism. Thrusting a vastly increased flood of British exports into the markets of the world may look like a friendly act to the British exporter, but it has a more sinister aspect to the rival powers trying to keep or to conquer the same markets for their own exports.

Linked up with the export drive is the Labour Government’s pledge to provide “full employment.” Those who have eyes to see can already glimpse the shape of things to come. More and more workers are being employed on producing goods for export, and we are told there is an unlimited demand for these goods. But what will happen when capitalism lurches into its next inevitable crisis of “over-production ‘? Already we have seen the writing on the wall in the shape of the stock exchange depression in U.S.A. in September. The City editors of the London and New York papers were all at sixes and sevens about the immediate cause and likely duration of the depression but on one thing they nearly all agreed – that the crisis of “over-production ” is bound to come. A typical comment was that of the New York Correspondent of the Observer (8/9/46) —

“Americans generally . . . take it for granted that there will eventually be a crash of some kind to offset the present boom. Their hope is that the crash will be brief …”

Another appeared in the Daily Express (23/9/46) : 

“The Wall Street slump marks the end of the first post-war boom just as the similar break of November, 1919, signalled the world trade depression of 1920-21. That is the view of some of the best brains in the City.”

A world trade crisis is bound to come, and the more the Labour Government succeeds in increasing the dependence of British industry on selling goods abroad, the more certain it will be that the full effect of the crisis will be felt here immediately.

Another example of the way Labour Party policy has swerved away from its early preachings is in the forms taken by nationalisation. A book that was once very popular in Labour circles was "The Case for Socialism", by Mr. Fred Henderson. In it he frankly, faced up to the fact that Socialism involves dispossessing the capitalist class and that it is mere self-deception to suppose that you can both make over their property in the means of production to the community and at the same time give them full compensation for it. “If the nation gave them compensation, in the sense of giving them an equivalent for what it is proposed to take from them, we should fail in our purpose” (p. 20-21). A later, modified view, Mr. Attlee’s, for example, in his "Labour Party in Perspective", was that it would be unfair to expropriate the capitalists gradually, industry by industry, because the first to fall would have a legitimate grievance; also it would be better tactics to give them all “reasonable and just compensation” and then rely on taxation to eliminate the gulf between the capitalist class and the working class.

In practice the capitalists in the nationalised industries are being given what even Cabinet Ministers call “generous” compensation and at the same time Mr. Dalton’s first budget did not increase, but decreased taxation on companies in the form of the Excess Profits Tax. Taxing the rich out of existence may look all right in an election programme, but capitalism will only function if the capitalist has confidence in his ability to make a profit, so the Labour Government has had to safeguard profits and warn the workers against pressing too much for higher wages The rich are still with us in full force and nothing the Labour Government will do will alter it. Mr. Attlee may say “The abolition of classes is fundamental to the Socialist conception of society ” (p. 145) just as the Conservative Party can now give lip service to the same idea – “Mr. Churchill was telling them that England was moving towards a classless society and that the Conservative Party should not just accept the fact but actively promote this historic change” (Mr. D. Eccles, Conservative M.P., Times, 14/10/46) – but capitalism and classes are here to stay until Socialism ends them.

Also on nationalisation of industries, it used to be a Labour Party demand that the workers should be in control. Mr. Attlee ("Socialism for Trade Unionists", 1922) declared that “the general direction . . . will be in the hands of representatives of the workers in the industry in consultation with representatives of the users of the service.” Another Labour writer, Mr. E. E. Hunter, particularly warned against “the danger of national ownership being given over to committees of business experts.” “Democratic control,” he said, was an “essential part of any ideal scheme of nationalisation” ("Socialism at Work", I.L.P., 1921)

Nowhere in the nationalisation schemes now being put into operation will any vestige of these allegedly essential principles be found — they are incompatible with the functioning of capitalism and have had to go.

So one by one the Labour Party’s well-intentioned but ill-conceived schemes for bettering the capitalist system are sacrificed by the Labour Government in office. It could not be otherwise. The idea was that on taking office a Labour Government goes forward with the work of undermining capitalism and encroaching on the powers and wealth of the capitalists. The reality is that on the day a Labour Government takes office to administer capitalism it is forced to turn about arid begin the retreat from its beliefs so that capitalism may be kept running. The Labour voters believe that the Labour Government is in command of the situation. In truth — and doubtless by now even the most obtuse Labour minister begins to realise it — capitalism has the Labour Government in an iron grip. The Labour Government hoped to serve two masters, what they call the policy of serving the interests of all sections of the community. As time goes on and the working class become restive about the non-appearing fruits of labourism the Government will find itself more and more divorced from the workers and from its own pre-election promises.

Business men worried about the fall of world trade (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

“At a time when this country has to contend with conditions flowing from the credit squeeze and difficulties in the motor vehicle industry, it is not too pleasant to read that there is likely to be a reduction in the rate of growth of world trade this year. The United Nations’ World Economic Survey for 1955 suggests that this decline will follow the reduced rate of expansion in demand and output in the industrial countries. This will affect countries dependent on exports for expansion of economic activity. The report finds that the economic record of the past few years is better than that of the ten years following World War I. There are several grounds for serious concern, however. The growth hitherto has been due only in part to favourable long-term forces. It had been largely based on temporary or special factors, and some of these have been disappearing. It is properly suggested that one decade of prosperity affords no proof that the world has acquired permanent immunity against the business cycle, or that the national or international remedies in its medicine chests would prove sufficiently potent to cope with another outcropping of the disease. Having regard to the changing aspect of world markets, to the increasing tempo and strength of foreign competition and to the domestic difficulties in this country, there is. indeed, no assurance that the comparatively good time through which we have passed in recent years will be prolonged''--(Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Journal, August, 1956.)

Tooth, Nail and Tiger-Skin (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Britain’s traditional cultural intercourse with Europe has in the past hundred years been supplemented—and possibly, to some extent, supplanted—by a transatlantic inter-traffic. Having no barrier of language to surmount, the exchange between Britain and America has included popular as well as academic culture; aided by radio, talking pictures and, most recently, the long residence of thousands of American servicemen in Britain, the features of everyday life in America have impinged more and more upon British custom.

National culture in America has no long history preceding the mechanization of work and leisure, and so the slick, trashy product is more easily accepted there, while its importation into Britain has frequently caused concern to those who stand as guardians of public taste and morality. The adjective “American,” is often one of disapproval; and never has the disapproval been stronger than for a contemporary art-form which, hard as the moralists try, keeps on growing in popularity—American comics.

American comics are not comic. Their subject- matter is cowboys, crime, horror, adventure, sex and space-travel. Something over fifty million copies are sold every month in the United States, and since the war there has been a growing readership in this country. They are marketed by syndicates which operate on both sides of the Atlantic, and are produced by artists working in assembly-line fashion—one drawing the figures, another doing the lettering, and so on. America calls them “squinkies,” and their stock-in-trade is beatings, bludgeonings and fee faw fums.

The beginnings of strip drawings are ancient Egyptian rock tombs have sets of pictures recording the phases of wrestling bouts and acrobatic feats. The modern comic strip began in the American popular press near the end of the nineteenth century and, until recent years, drew its material almost wholely from workaday and domestic life; the awful child, the henpecked husband and the pert stenographer were its dramatis personae. With humour as the chief intention, the technique and conventions of the strip were perfected.

It was during the great depression that humour gave way to adventure, suspense and muscle-parade; possibly everyday life was too grim to be funny any longer. Tarzan and Superman took over, and the comics turned to worlds where nobody asked: “Brother, can you spare a dime?” The squinkies were born. Their theme was action, and they were uninhibited in portraying it; the war stimulated them to greater extravagances.

The aim of the squinkie artist is to create arresting, vigorous movement and easily recognizable character-types; the limitation of the small squares—and part of them is taken up by the speech “balloons’’—prohibits fastidiousness or subtlety. Technical quality varies considerably, from slick, stylish work to that of talentless amateurs. All characters are clearly labelled. Villains have black hair and thin moustaches, scientists are lean and bespectacled, and heroes have a superabundance of muscle (Ka’anga, Lord of the Jungle, has calf muscles slightly larger than his head). Heroines are wasp-waisted, but otherwise pneumatic.

Musical comedy costume is everyday wear in the squinkie world. Janga, Flower of the Wilds, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and Tiger Girl all appear in chic animal-skin swimsuits, while Dara of the Vikings prefers a two-piece, with helmet. The jungle men keep to trunks, of course, and the skymen—Superman, Captain Marvel and the rest—go about in long red underwear. There are rigid conventions of speech, too. In the jungle and other far away places, including outer space, they use archaic English, while all spies talk with strong foreign accents. Girls in danger have to scream “Eeek!” and villains coming to their inevitable sticky ends are obliged to shout “Aarghhh!”

These are the superficial conventions of the American comics. They present, for the most part, fantasy worlds. Into these, however, they project beliefs and customs of the actual world; thus their real content is not in their local colour but in their themes, and carries a much more significant set of conventions.

The simplest, broadest and most obvious of these conventions is that good—which is equated with law and patriotism—must always triumph over its opposite. The squinkies are as determined about this as all other juvenile literature, but infinitely more ruthless; when Captain Thunder or Tiger Girl grapples with evil, the end justifies any means. In the crime strips, the violences of the gangsters and killers are exceeded by those of the police, while the various jungle lords and space conquerors manhandle wrongdoers in ways which make all-in wrestling look soft stuff.

The only circumstances in which good does not always win by a knock-out are those in which unearthly powers are involved. The squinkies have great respect for the supernatural, and make it score freely off the lay population. “The Monster from the Pit," for example, a shaggy, shark-toothed immortal from Transylvania who changes into a New York policeman by day and goes out for blood at night, is last seen taking a large bite at his would-be slayer’s throat after a graveyard fracas. The postscript asks: “How many more lives will be snuffed out by the evil Grakhu . . . before he is once more sent to the pit of evil which spawned him? None can tell.” The moral clearly is that witches, warlocks, boggarts and long-leggity beasties are a different thing altogether.

If supernatural beings are the highest class of villains, foreigners are the lowest. To be foreign in the squinkies is to be a suspicious character. Spies and saboteurs are easy game, while the perversity of murderers, mad doctors and jungle marauders is explained from their lack of fluent English. Easterners are horrific unless they are the faithful servants of jungle princesses, in which case they are simpletons, or unless they are young women, in which case they are exotic but sinister. The credulous reader can hardly avoid being persuaded that the English-speaking nations breed the best types.

Love is virtually taboo in the squinkies, but they have a high sex content The exploits of the heroines lead them into comprehensive displays of their startling universal physique. Senorita Rio, a Government counter-spy, spends much of her working time being up-ended. Most of the jungle nobility have mates, whom they continually rescue and occasionally call "my love.” Much of the paraphernalia of perversion—inter-woman fights, whips and so on—finds places in the comics, and brings to mind that their era of popularity has also been that of the Hadley Chase school of novelists.

Since their introduction to this country, squinkies have been continually under fire. Educationalists, clergy and the press have united to denounce them as a danger to morals, an incentive to mental laziness, and a cause of delinquency. As has been remarked, that has not reduced their circulation and may even have increased it. Obviously, there is something about American comics. What cultural and social significance have they? And are the charges against them true?

In the hands of accomplished or thoughtful writers and artists, the least agreeable subject-matter can be presented to some value. That cannot be said for the comics. Their situations, dialogue and characterization are crude; their drawing is never better, and usually worse, than competent; they are badly printed in gaudy colours on the cheapest paper. On their intrinsic merits, they could be written off as contemptible or laughable, or—more correctly—classified with lavatory-wall graffiti. Their paramount element, however, is one to which the lavatory wall never pretends: they present ideals and patterns of behaviour.

The principal ideals promoted by the comics have already been noted. Summarized, they are that good always wins in the end, the end justifies any means, being good means being strong, foreigners are nearly always bad. the supernatural is to be respected, and women are to be judged in terms of physical desirability. None of these is a new or unconventional proposition, though the loudest cry against the comics is that they are subversive to morality. These are, in fact, the commonly accepted standards of our society at the present time; it is significant that the last war, which established in public consciousness that ends justify' means, also brought forth the squinkies. The ethics of the strip are the ethics of dropping atom-bombs on Japanese cities. It is not a case of saying that the brutalities of the comics are insignificant compared with the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though that is true; the important point is that the morality which accepted the atom-bombs as regrettable but necessary means for a “good” cause to subdue an “evil” one is precisely the same as that of the comic, down to the inclusion of such details as the anthropologists’ explanation that the Japanese are not quite the same as other people—scarcely human, in fact.

The behaviour-pattern of the comics, therefore, is an effect primarily and not a cause of modifications in morality, and—more important still—the modifications themselves are produced by the ever-changing stream of social necessity. Morality is the scheme of behaviour needed to safeguard the institutions of a social group; our society, in which the nation-state is constantly preoccupied with war and its preoccupations, has had to modify its scheme to meet the needs of increased belligerency.

The question of sexual morality is not distinct from that of morality generally. The family, the institution which it protects in our society, has in recent years weakened as a coherent and durable group; the result has been a sharp slackening in the formerly rigid code of sexual morals. The carnality of the comics mirrors rather than promotes this trend; in fact, there are few popular papers and magazines which do not deem it necessary for their circulations' sake to titillate their readers' sexual imaginations. The juxtaposition of venery and violence in the comics has additional significance. Popular fiction and the films show an increasing addiction to this sort of subject-matter; its emergence as a dominant theme in the past has preceded the ends of social epochs—the decline of Rome, the seventeenth century in England, and the years before the revolution in Russia.

The anger against American comics, then, is anger against the changing conventions of our time—in some cases, perhaps, the rage of Caliban at seeing his face in the glass. It remains to consider the other charge against them, that they are encouragements to mental laziness. If this were true, it would apply also to the popular press and most of the agencies for supplying information and entertainment. The publishers of comics, like the press and the entertainment industries, give the public what the public can cope with. The truth is that the education given to a great number of working people provides them with neither the verbal skill nor the critical outlook necessary to serious reading. They are equipped to read comics, tabloid newspapers, simple-phrased stories, and very little else. A great deal is heard about the near-illiteracy of Army recruits (one hears nothing, however, of illiteracy among young women—presumably because they are not conscripted for anything); their lack of simple verbal mechanics being known, it seems hardly consistent to accuse them of mental laziness because they like comics.

The squinkies, then, are part of the cultural pattern of our time, and reflect its consciousness just as the popular domestic novel reflected that of Victorian England. Their simple function is to provide escape, but their illusory or distant worlds form backgrounds against which the modern morality play is acted; that the morality is brutal and prurient is a comment upon our society, not upon the passing phenomena which mirror it. The exclusion of American comics from this country would mean no loss. Neither, however, would it contribute to the re-establishment of moral standards which are no longer compatible with the driving forces of society, or to an improvement in the literacy of Army recruits. The sincere, worried people who want the comics banned have failed to understand the relationship between a popular art-form and its irreversible social environment; if they could do so, there would be less concern with the rash on the face and more with the organic causes of the malaise of our society.

Robert Barltrop

Some implications of Socialism (1949)

From the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the end of the war the workers have been the target of production campaigns, on the screen, on the platforms and in print, urging them to work harder because the world at large was suffering from a tremendous shortage of goods; a shortage that it was claimed would continue for many years. In the last few weeks, however, the tune has begun to change and there are ominous whispers that we are on the verge of another crisis of “overproduction”; this in spite of rationing and of the genuine shortage suffered by the mass of the population. It is the old old story of capitalism that will continue as long as capitalism lasts; its basis is the class ownership of the means of production under which goods are only produced for the purpose of realising a profit to the class that owns the means of production and distribution.

When the Labour Party took over the government and commenced nationalising some industries many workers were misled into the belief that capitalist private ownership was passing away. It was overlooked that the wage system in all its vileness still remained and that the former shareholders in the industries that had been nationalised had simply changed into holders of government securities, the interest on which had to be provided out of the nationalised industry; that these securities were, on the whole, as lucrative as the former shares had been and, moreover, were much safer because the interest was guaranteed at a fixed rate by the government.

Nationalisation has been a good thing for the capitalists but it has tied the worker more firmly to the wheels of industry, limiting the range of employment for those who cannot keep up the pace and tightening up the system of recording how, where and when each worker employs his energy.

The threatened onset of another crisis in a world where the mass of the people are still going short is irrefutable proof that capitalism cannot solve the problems it throws up, including the terrible problem of war for which all nations are at present preparing by building up gigantic armaments with a despairing fatalism.

Only the Socialist has the answer to these major social problems because only Socialism, the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, can guarantee to the whole of the people of the earth comfort, security, and a world freed for ever from the shadows of war and the perplexities of economic crises.

Let us consider some of the implications of Socialism.

As the means for meeting the needs of all the people will be commonly owned and democratically controlled, everyone being on an equal footing economically and politically, there will be no privileged groups, nor will there be privileged individuals, except of course the old, the infirm and the young.

From this it also follows that there will be no State nor will there be State ownership of anything, A State only exists where there is privilege, and it is the purpose of a State to make and administer laws that are based upon the existence of privilege; to defend the privileged group from attacks upon their privileges, either by the unprivileged or by an external privileged group. The crimes that give occupation to thousands upon thousands of police, lawyers, judges and other legal functionaries are crimes against property, or arising out of private property based society, which would disappear with the disappearance of private property. Thus, when we see that every country in the world, including Russia and its satellites, has either a strongly organised state or one in the process of development, we know, without the need for further evidence, that in every country there are privileged and unprivileged classes, and all the evils that flow from this class division.

Under Socialism there will be no buying, no selling and no money; the latter only exists as a means to buy and sell. As each person will have free access to what is produced, in the same way as he has free access to air, there will be nothing to buy, nothing to sell and, therefore, money will have no function to perform. There was a time, in the primitive communistic groups that flourished before civilisation began, when money was unknown; it only came into existence when property, and with property buying and selling, invaded and finally broke up the old tribal communities. Books of the last century contain the innocent amazement of travellers in backward areas who came across groups of natives who knew nothing whatever of money or its uses.

Another implication of Socialism is that there will be no class distinctions of any political or economic kind. Class distinctions are an attribute of privilege. The class distinction of modern times, that is between capitalist and worker, is reflected in many forms of snobbery that have caused disunion in the working class movement. These forms of snobbery are slowly passing away as the bonds of wage slavery sear the flesh of all with equal fierceness, but they still have some influence on the outlook of sections of the working class. Two forms of snobbery, in particular, still persist both of which are based upon the false distinction between the so-called professional worker and those that are not included in this category; the scientist, the artist, and the rest of the workers. Although commercialism is gradually killing these fictitious distinctions they still have considerable sway. Both derive from the past when the professional groups were hangers-on, or panderers to the whims and luxuries of the ruling aristocracies. The growing body of scientists is greatly afflicted with the idea that they are a class apart from and above the sordid everyday struggle. When it suits the members of the ruling class they foster this idea— when it does not suit them the scientist is brought to heel. There was an example of this in recent cases connected with the disclosure of atom bomb secrets. It may be added that under Socialism there will be no “secrets”; all information and all steps forward in conquering the forces of nature will be spread as widely and as rapidly as possible to assist the people of the world to take full advantage of the inexhaustible fertility of the human brain. All the people of the world being on an equal footing there will be none of the distinctions, false or real, that trouble the world today.

Still another implication of Socialism is that there will be no national frontiers as the people of the world will be one vast family, regardless of colour or alleged race. Each will be free to wander over the earth as the primitive savage was to wander in the primeval forests before the growth of property placed bars across his path, eventually secluding some into reservations and driving others, the unluckier ones, into the bosom of eternity.

From the foregoing it will be seen that Socialism signifies a fundamental social revolution, a complete change in the basis of society from private ownership to its opposite. There can be no half-way house between private ownership and common ownership. Private ownership cannot be abolished little by little and bit by bit. Some supporters of the Labour Party claim that it can, but after four years of Labour Government, jewels, fur coats and fortunes are still the lot of the privileged and there are rich harvests for burglars, both the legal and the illegal. The burglars, like the poor, we always have with us, and for the same reason.

Finally let us mention one more implication of Socialism—that democracy is essential. The Socialist movement is a movement of the working class in the interests of society as a whole and, therefore, freedom of discussion, freedom of expression, freedom of meetings and the like are essential in order that the foundations of the new society may be laid in lasting fashion.

There is no productive bar to the establishment of Socialism tomorrow; the only bar is lack of understanding and desire on the part of the workers of the world. The capacity to meet the needs of every man, woman and child in the world exists today but most of this capacity is wasted. One need only look at the vast amount of energy wasted on war preparations, on materials such as coal and steel that are only connected with war purposes, as well as the energy wasted on the multitudinous matters solely connected with buying and selling, to realize what a vast amount of productive and distributive capacity slumbers in the bosom of capitalism. And, further, what inventive capacities will be released when no longer curbed by the system that demands the production of only those articles which can command sufficient paying customers to provide unearned incomes for the class that lives like leeches on the backs of the workers.

Gilmac.

By-Elections: The Government’s reverses (1962)

From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

That was an interesting flurry of by-elections. Now that the votes have been counted, the shouting has died and the government are left with some nasty wounds to lick, it is time for the summing up. Not, mark you, in the sense that the political correspondent of the Daily This or the Sunday That has summed up. They can tell us efficiently enough why one candidate beat another, and what effect this might have upon the government. There is need, now, for a different perspective to be put on these matters. What are the by-elections worth? Will they change anything?

The government are certainly in difficulties although there is of course nothing unusual in that. Have we ever known a government which has not run into squalls in its attempts to organise capitalism? Even so, at least one of the present problems is in some ways unique. We refer, of course, to the Common Market negotiations, which face the British capitalist class with their most agonising decision for a long time. The gamble they took years ago, that the European Economic Community would not become a viable enough organisation to cast doubt on the value of the Commonwealth Preference system, has not come off. This has left the British ruling class in the humiliating situation of having to bargain away some of their cherished advantages for a chance at the European market—provided they can also break the stony resistance of de Gaulle.

Should they abandon New Zealand to its fate in the world meat and dairy market? Can they persuade the six in Europe to let them keep the protective tariffs for some Commonwealth products and still take advantage of the Common Market? These problems are such that the Empire builders in the palmy days of Victoria never thought to be confronted with. Neither did their modern counterparts in the Conservative Party. That is why the Tories—and the Labour Party, for that matter —are split over the Common Market.

Nor is all well on the home front, where the government are desperately trying to hold a broken line on their wages policy. Keeping wages in check has always been a problem for capitalism's governments, in this country and abroad. For governments are there to run society in the interests of its ruling class, who rule because they own. The ruling class are the people, in one way and another, whom we work for and who pay us our wages. The big problem, for us as well as for them, is that the more we get as wages the less they get as profit. That is why wages are such a persistent cause of dispute to capitalism and why governments have to try to hold them down. Since the war, with employment at a high level, the pressure has been for wages to go up. And since the war, from Cripps' freeze to Lloyd’s pause and guiding light, governments have tried to keep them in check.

The Tories have presented their wages policy as sober and responsible and have damned anybody who runs counter to it as the blackest of black sheep. Mr. Macmillan told the last Conservative women’s conference:

Some employers, selfishly secure in the knowledge that they can recoup themselves from higher prices at home, may give in too easily to unreasonable demands. Some unions, arrogant with organised power, will try to grab too large a slice of the cake.

This, and the other speeches in the same style, may have impressed the well-hatted Tory women but its effect upon, say, the dockers and the nurses (who, said the Prime Minister, should have a large and immediate increase — “ If we could be guided solely by our hearts ”) and the other workers in the pay queue was probably negligible.

Because workers, whether they are “respectable” civil servants or less “respectable” dockers, and whether they are called selfish and arrogant or any other name, will always struggle to improve their wages. They cannot get away from it; the relationship of worker to employer which pervades capitalist society sees to that. While capitalism lasts, there will always be a class struggle over wages and other conditions of employment.

But if the Common Market and wages are two of the government’s worries, can we say that they had any influence on the by-elections? Do workers weigh up such matters and cast their vote accordingly? If they do, there must be a crushing majority in this country in favour of the Common Market, to judge from the lost deposit of the anti-Common Market candidate in Derbyshire West. And if the workers do weigh up the issues involved in an. election, how thoroughly do they do so? They apparently missed the fact that the post war Labour government, despite its professions to having human interests at heart, started the British hydrogen bomb programme and took this country into the Korean war, which might at one stage have exploded into a world conflict. Whatever the reasons for the Labour Party's defeat in 1951, its zeal for prosecuting capitalism's wars was not amongst them.

Similarly, the Conservative Party is kept in power by the ignorant docility of the working class. The Tories do not see their votes decline as a result of their being the men who gambled with world war in their Suez adventure. They do not lose M.P.'s because they are the government in charge of the British bomb tests, which play their part in poisoning the atmosphere in the search for an all-powerful weapon of destruction. If the Tories do suffer a decline, as they did in 1957 and 1958, it is not for these reasons and they can soon come bouncing back into favour and into an even more secure majority, as they did in 1959.

Why, then, are the votes at present running against the government? The people who profess to know —the newspapers’ political correspondents — have their theories. The Guardian thinks that it can be put down to “impatience” (they are impatient with the government themselves); The Economist has spoken of ineffective public relations; another observer has said the electorate are “bored” with the government. If these reasons have any substance, it would be nice to know why the electoral mood can change so easily. Were the workers bored and impatient in 1958 but patiently interested enough in 1959 to put in an overwhelming Tory vote? And why, basically, are they bored and impatient?

The truth is that workers vote for capitalism, whether it is capitalism organised by a Labour or a Conservative government. These governments can often be made to look foolish and impotent by the caprices of the very social system they are trying to run. The Attlee government did look foolish over the 1947 fuel crisis and over potato rationing. The Tories are impotent to control the opposing pressures of wage claims and the temptation to inflate the currency. It is an easy thing to poke fun at a government which is in such difficulties. Yet simply to vote against a government, to switch support from one capitalist party to another, is just as foolish and futile. And worse; because to do this is to fly in the face of all facts, all the evidence, all history, it is a depressingly ignorant thing that the millions of working class voters do at election time.

Yet we do not need to look very hard at the world around us to realise that there is a desperate need for an end to the political ignorance of the workers. Consider, for example, the letter which The Guardian published on June 1st. last; a tragically moving letter from a mother whose little girl had died from leukaemia. This mother is convinced that her child's death was caused by radiation from bomb tests and perhaps she is right. Some radiation, we know, is natural but we also know that bomb tests can cause leukaemia and other frightful illnesses. And the men who decide on the bomb tests also know this, of course. The mother wrote bitterly of the world’s important statesmen assuring us that the danger from tests is “negligible” and of what the word means. For her, ‘negligible” risk meant a baby obese from the multitude of drugs which were pumped into her, a baby choking on its own blood in the night and crying for help to a helpless mother.

This is capitalism. The bomb tests go on, regardless of the pain and suffering they cause, because they are necessary to capitalism, and that is what the bored and the impatient and the ignorant vote for. That is the perspective in which we must view the by-elections. The dead child's mother pleads for the major political parties to take notice of what the ordinary people of this country want. But in fact she can only get the sort of world she wants when the ordinary people decide that they will not leave their wants to be interpreted by political leaders, major or minor. It is worth thinking over this one, the next time we have to put those crosses on the Ballot papers.

Ivan

The goose is bored (1950)

From the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

When capitalism was young and trade unionism was in its infancy, the masters took very little interest in the welfare and education of the “philanthropists” who provided their comforts. But with the development of the tools of production and the necessity for a more highly trained working population, the masters discovered, to their dismay, that the rabble had to be equipped with a certain amount of knowledge. Consequently, schools quickly sprung up and in a surprisingly short period of time the working class had mastered the three "Rs.” Of course, although the masters are well aware that their workers must read and write in order to run the system for them, the disadvantage is that there is no check upon what they read and write. Therefore it is necessary for the capitalist class to engage in a ceaseless barrage of propaganda through the medium of the press and radio, to convince workers that this is the best of all possible systems and that they (the Capitalists) are here to stay. Nevertheless it has become increasingly obvious to the masters that although the “Goose that lays the Golden Eggs” is still blissfully unaware of his amazing qualities and capabilities, there is a considerable amount of drudgery in the poor wretches' life which, if not arrested, might result in a smaller egg. Therefore during recent years it has been found advantageous to invest a little capital in brightening up factory conditions and providing all sorts of undreamt-of welfare amenities to make things more agreeable to the inmates.

It has been proved conclusively that we workers lend and apply ourselves far more willingly to the process of being exploited under congenial conditions., than under the dark and miserable conditions of years ago. This fact reflects itself immediately in an egg of considerably larger dimensions.

So much are our masters aware of the growing lethargy in our ranks that they often print bright little articles in the press suggesting ways and means that we ourselves can assist in making this life a little less humdrum. For instance, the person who travels to work by bus every day along the same old route with the same familiar faces, passing the same familiar objects; he should go by train for a change. Undoubtedly this momentous step in his life will present fresh fields to conquer and provide many exciting hours eagerly scanning fresh faces and scenery. Of course the period in between coming and going will unfortunately remain unchanged but no doubt this will lose some of its boredom with the anticipation of the new and exciting journey home.

Almost every day we read about young people who, rather than spend their lives unobtrusively in factory or office, revolt, and seek to satisfy their craving for colour and excitement along other channels. It is significant that today the prisons and mental institutions are overflowing with customers requiring treatment. It is more than coincidental that with the development of modern capitalism, the population of these respective centres has more than doubled during recent years, and given the continuation of capitalism it is extremely likely that we shall eventually run out of storage space for these unfortunate individuals.

On the industrial field we find that the inevitable trend of capitalism is to reduce previously complicated tasks that required individual attention and skill into simpler operations. The introduction of the conveyor belt system has banished the old craftsman and taken the joy of creating beautiful articles away from mankind, substituting the mass production of shoddy and cheap commodities. To such an extent has this change been accomplished that it is no wonder that society has temporarily forgotten how to appreciate well balanced design and beauty, even to the extent of preferring the ugly to the beautiful, or further, being incapable of distinguishing either.

It is comforting at least to know that capitalism, in spite of its apparent strength and universal acceptance, cannot exist for ever and that a new and better form of society will one day replace it. This will bring with it the joy of living and working for the benefit of all mankind and will instil new and finer characteristics into man’s mental and physical make up.

G. L.

Editorial: Capitalism and the food shortage (1946)

Editorial from the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE Governments of the world are worried about the food problem. Mr. Herbert Lehman, Director- General of U.N.R.R. A., declares that: “More men, women and children in Europe and the Far East are hungry this winter than at any time in modern history." He calls it “the greatest critical emergency which has faced the United Nations since the end of the war.” The defenders of capitalism do not admit that the existence of the problem and the inhuman and bungling way in which it is being handled are evidences of the inherent defects of that social system, but that is what they are. It is not true that the shortage exists only as a bye-product of war, for in pre-war years, when there were great surpluses of wheat and other products there were, alongside of them, millions of undernourished workers and peasants too poor to buy the food they needed. War is itself an inevitable outcome of capitalist trade rivalries and has, too, a result that is welcome from the capitalist standpoint, of removing for a time the huge unsaleable surpluses of raw materials and foodstuffs. One of the reasons why war propaganda like that of the Nazis was listened to by the workers was that it was linked up with promises that territorial expansion would provide more food. Presumably with this in mind, Mr. Clinton Anderson, Secretary of Agriculture in the United States, demanded, in a broadcast in October, 1945, that: “hunger must be eliminated as a primary cause of war,” and “ the United Nations must not permit the pangs of hunger to bring about the basic fears and greeds which result in war.” —The Times, 15 Oct., 1945.

He went on to say that “two-thirds of the world’s population was undernourished, yet science and technology had advanced to such a point that the earth’s agricultural resources could fill the need of all.”

In a Socialist world, if a general or local shortage of food existed all the resources of the world would at once be available to move foodstuffs to the area where they were needed, or to increase total production if that was necessary. If, as a temporary measure, consumption of food generally had to be reduced to help a locality where shortage existed, there would be no obstacles in the shape of private ownership and the profit motive.

In the world as it exists to-day not even the realisation that starvation or semi-starvation threatens millions of people can prevent capitalism from functioning in its normal way. People in Europe need dried eggs, while in America, according to the Daily Express (8 Feb., 1946), there is “a glut of eggs” and “poultry farmers are facing ruin as a result." In the same country farm output could have been increased, but because farmers consider the price offered for their grains is too low “ they prefer to feed them to their stock rather than to sell" (The Times, 9 Feb.), and they have deliberately kept output below what it could have been (Daily Telegraph, 9 Feb.). American farmers had not forgotten the ruin that faced them before the war because they had produced too much, not too much for the needs of the population, but more than they could sell at a profit. The Times (9 Feb.; says that with the ending of the war the “fears of agricultural surpluses which haunted the United States between the wars were revived. In spite of the golden prosperity brought by the war years, the farmers recollection of the deep agricultural depression of the twenties and thirties is as active a political force as the ghost of the hungry forties was for a long time in the political history of this country. But the fear of being under an avalanche of farm surpluses, attended by a catastrophic collapse of prices, has proved to have been a misreading of the portents, and the miscalculation has been aggravated by the determination of farmers to hoard grain as a protest against the price levels imposed by Washington.”

At the same time that millions are undernourished—in U.S.A., as well as in other countries—because they cannot afford to buy more, there is not a country in the world in which the rich cannot buy the best food; either openly or in the black market, in unrestricted amounts. In every country labour and resources that could be used to supply the needs of the ill-fed and ill-clothed masses of the population are being used, often with the deliberate encouragement of the Governments, on production of luxury articles for the wealthy or goods for the export drive, or armaments. Hundreds of millions of pounds being spent by the leading Powers on perfecting the bomb or building up peace-time armies, navies and air forces. In Britain, simultaneously with the declaration about the need for more food, we read of booming exports of British cars and other products. The Evening News (9 Feb.), under the heading “British Car Exports Booming,” reported that the Nuffield organisation alone will have sent abroad 20,000 cars by the end of June, when its production will have grown to 1,000 cars a week.

Britain is short of food and because we live under capitalism low-paid agricultural labourers are so anxious to escape to the relatively better paid work in industry that the Labour Government—while refusing to carry out the Labour Party’s own oft- repeated demand that land workers should have wages not less than those in industry—uses the war-time emergency powers to tie agricultural workers to their jobs.

Capitalism is indeed a mad and sorry system, which has long outlived its usefulness

Equality under capitalism (1951)

From the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article in the Sunday Observer (31/12/1950), Charles Davy poses the question, “ what will Britain be like in ten years’ time?” He wonders whether Britain should aim at a “classless” society, since he recognises that the so-called “Welfare State” is one “where class differences are still wide and well- marked.” Mr. Davy goes on to show that a classless society is understood by some people to be one in which “freedom will be maintained and equality at last achieved.” But Mr. Davy, like many before him, finds “equality” a stumbling-block. He wonders what it can mean in practical terms, since he sees “no obvious sense in which all men are equal, and so many ways in which they are not.”

In his “practical” way, Mr. Davy starts off with the viewpoint of the “child’s fear of being cheated" from which he traces a conception of justice “which implies equality before the law.” However, Mr. Davy himself in his wisdom realises that this lawyers’ well-worn phrase is meaningless. As he puts it:

“We can give men equal legal and voting rights; but we find that they are still subject to economic exploitation, and to gross family poverty which makes a mockery of the fair and equal chance.”

But even with the introduction of the “Welfare State” we find “that glaring inequalities persist.” So what can we do? One can now see Mr. Davy almost trembling with excitement; he daringly continues: “Should we then go further still, declaring that the very existence of rich people, while others are poor is an affront,”—and here at last comes the anti-climax —“and use taxation to narrow the gap until it is hardly noticeable?” But this is rejected, as it is only the viewpoint of some Labourites.

Mr. Davy himself is not so radical! He finds the solution in the “religious idea of equality,” which turns out to be—guess what?—the nineteenth century dogma of laissez-faire in twentieth century garb:

“ It requires that everyone should be given (as far as is humanly practicable) a fair chance in life.” This is the top-level of equality to Mr. Davy, above which “there should be freedom and variety: competition within the rules of fair play.” At last, he shows himself in his true colours: wistfully recalling that “in earlier societies, inequalities were accepted as part of the given order,” he regrets that “to-day it is very hard to get them accepted without envy and resentment.”

So inequality must now be disguised, it must be “seen and felt to be functional, derived not from privilege or influence but from the demands of the work in hand.” This is what Mr. Davy understands by a classless society, “ for the class to which a man belonged would not be fixed nor would it apply to him as a human being. It would simply be a working-dress.” This principle of functional partnership “would' call for far-reaching changes in the forms of ownership and association whereby power and authority are exercised, and rewards distributed in economic life." Thus Mr. Davy’s Britain of ten years hence would exemplify the “fundamental social paradox” of “ the equality and inequality of man”!

Of what “the far-reaching changes in the forms of ownership” will consist, their promulgator is not explicit. But no matter—he says they are only changes in form. This must mean that the substance of our present system of ownership will remain. This system consists in the class ownership of the means of production and distribution, whether through private or state forms, by the privileged minority, called capitalists. The propertyless majority of the members of society are forced by their economic condition to sell their labour-power for a wage or salary-to the privileged capitalists. A surplus-value is produced by the working-class over what they receive back in the form of wages; from this surplus-value all rent, interest and profit is derived. The motive of capitalistic production is to make profit. This is the basic economic disease of our time; from this arise the social inequalities. Mr. Davy is yet another of those social charlatans who see the symptoms but know not their cause. He is a typical apologist for the evils that are inherent in the nature of capitalist society. His concern is not to abolish inequality, but only to disguise it in such a form that the workers will no longer recognise it.

Socialists desire to show their fellow-workers that Socialism alone means equality. By Socialism is implied a system of society where the private ownership of the means of life, production for profit, a money or exchange system, and the existence of classes are all abolished. All the members of society will stand in a similar relation to the world’s wealth—all will be owners, or if you like, non-owners. Each will contribute what he can to society and take what he requires. There will be plenty for all. This is what Socialists understand by equality. In the words of Marx, “from each accord to his ability, to each according to his need."

D. A. Stern

50 Years Ago: If capitalism continues (1995)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

If capitalism continues, poverty, unemployment, insecurity and war will always be with us. Poverty for the masses, riches for the few. Wages for the workers barely sufficient to keep them alive; profits for the capitalists sufficient to keep them in indolent luxury. And unemployment. Has Beveridge shown us the way out? Why, of course not. Given conditions of production and distribution for sale and profit-making, when commodities find no market factories close down and widespread unemployment occurs. Great Britain since 1920 has had an unemployed army ranging from one to three millions, and the U.S.A.—that country of "high" wages and refrigerators—had figures reaching heights of 11 million. Poverty together with unemployment and perpetual economic insecurity are in themselves sufficient condemnation of capitalism. Besides all this, however, the various national sections of the world capitalist class periodically fall out with each other. No longer can their disagreements over private property issues be settled around conference tables; wars are declared and millions are massacred and maimed.

[From an article by Samuel Leight, Socialist Standard, February 1945]

". . . And too dear" (1948)

From the December 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is some months now since the present Government started its "More production” poster propaganda campaign. The first, and perhaps the most notorious, of this series of posters, was the one headed. "Work or Want.” Many workers dubbed this the "Work and Want” poster. There followed the "Ten-per-cent” poster, being an appeal by Mr. Attlee for a 10 per cent, all round increase in production. Since then there have been a number of similar large bills, pictorial and otherwise, decorating the hoardings.

The recent one carrying the doggerel:

"Some make big stuff, Some make small,

    More from each means more for all.” 

gave rise to wisecracks and humorous comment from some workers. Popular was the parody,

"Some make big stuff, some make small,

   But the boss sits around and makes sweet nothing at all.”

The latest edition in this poster campaign is far from funny. It sounds a note of warning. This poster boldly announces that it is issued by "His Majesty’s Government.” In view of the speeches and writings of some of the members of that Government in their less palmy days, one can only conclude that, either they are indulging in downright lying propaganda and know it, or else they are so stupid and ignorant of the manner in which Capitalism operates, that one can only marvel that they should have achieved their present position. 

The poster reads:

"Jobs. The danger to full employment is not producing too much, but producing too little —and too dear.”

The fact that it has been found necessary to make such a statement as this is an indication that the real cause of unemployment is fairly widely appreciated by the working class. It is fast becoming apparent to the workers that, when goods have been produced in such great quantities that the markets of the world cannot absorb them, then production will cease, or, at least, slow down. In either case it spells loss of employment to many.

The warning of the approach of that day is contained in the final phrase on this poster. “ —and too dear.” No longer is there a “sellers’ market.” The post-war day is almost past when the demand for goods is so great that extravagant prices can be asked—and obtained—for them. Governments in all parts of the world are urging their respective workers to hustle, to produce more, to work harder, to work longer, to abolish restrictive practices, etc. All are striving to make the most of that wonderful market, that dwindling market which provides such remarkable profits. And with the wealth of goods that the workers are producing, the market is becoming saturated. It is less easy to sell now. Competition is becoming more keen. That means that prices will be cut in an endeavour to undersell competitors. Lower prices mean lower profits, unless the cost of production can be lowered also. Lowering the cost of production means that, either fewer workers are to be employed to produce a given amount; the same number of workers must produce more at the same cost; or the same number of workers must produce the given amount at a lower cost. And that word "cost” means “wages” to the workers. It is, of course, the second alternative that is being urged at the moment, with just a suspicion of a hint at the third.

We note that the employers in the Ladies’ Hairdressing Trade are saying that the present price cutting war in that trade will mean that they may he unable to meet their employees’ wage demands. This line of argument will not be confined to one trade alone.

Those words "—and too dear” are indeed a warning, maybe even a threat.

W. Waters.