Press Exposure: Bloody Awful (1995)

Beaverbrook by David Low.

The Press Exposure column from the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bloody Awful

It must have worked wonders for the sales of the Daily Express when, in the 1960s, no less an expert than the Duke of Edinburgh told some people in Latin America that it was "a bloody awful newspaper”. After all, any man on the promenade in Rhyl or in the back streets of Derby must have sensed that a newspaper which earns that sort of description from a massively boorish social parasite like the Duke must have something to be said for it.

In fact at that time Prince Philip seemed to be locked in unceasing conflict with much of die British press, who gleefully reported all his public relations blunders. For example there was the time he genially soaked an assembly of hacks on a lawn at the Chelsea Flower Show by turning on the sprinkler. The antagonism became so intense that, in the midst of the Profumo affair, the Sunday Express published a remarkable article which, after recounting some of the Duke’s more colourful criticisms of the press, warned that unless he held his tongue the Express newspapers might find it their unavoidable duty as a responsible newspaper serving the great British public to reveal some acutely embarrassing details of his private life.

Empathy

Those were heady days for the Express which, under the eccentric ownership of Lord Beaverbrook, could take comfort from a circulation of about 4¼ million and a reputation for employing some famous journalists. The paper's success was said to spring from their natural empathy with the sort of people to be found in Rhyl or Derby (other papers, of course, had a direct line with passengers on buses in Clapham; all of them seemed to suffer from identical bigotries and delusions). It is unlikely that the Duke would bother to criticise the Express now when its circulation hovers precariously on 1¼ million after a fall of about 6.5 percent over the past year.

Beaverbrook bought the Daily Express for £ 17,500 in 1916 and a couple of years later started up its stablemate on Sundays. To say that he stamped his—rather objectionable—personality on the paper would be an understatement, although he did not baulk [balk?] at employing journalists like Michael Foot and Tom Driberg who had political disagreements with him. He was not always frank about his motives. In 1927 he pretended to give up his interest in the papers by passing his controlling interest over to his son. In 1954 it was the Beaverbrook Foundation, supposedly too purely objective to be interested in any sordid political ambitions, which was said to have been given the ownership. He was more open when he gave his evidence to the Royal Commission on the Press in 1947: "I run the paper purely for the purpose of making propaganda and with no other motive."

Harlots

Of course other people saw Beaverbrook’s motives in a rather different light We have already mentioned how wounded were the delicate sensitivities of Prince Philip. He was only one of the more recent examples. In 1930 Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, smarting under some particularly savage attacks in the papers, included Beaverbrook in the press barons who aimed at “. . . power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages."

Well, whatever else may be said about this particular harlot no one can accuse her of having a knack for infallible forecasts. In May 1938 the Daily Express assured its readers that Germany would not seize Czechoslovakia. In September that year it declared on its front page that "Britain will not be involved in a European war this year, or next year either.” Staunchly supportive of the Tory Party, it ran a typically flamboyant selective and disastrous campaign in the 1945 general election. Time will tell whether it got it right when it supported Major in the recent Tory leadership election.

The long drawn out decline of the Daily Express set in after the death of Beaverbrook and has continued through several changes of ownership and management. After Beaverbrook there was his son Max Aitken whose talents as a fighter pilot and a playboy did not extend to running a newspaper. There was Jocelyn Stevens who was sacked by Lord Matthews who ran the great combine Trafalgar House. Stevens, who was a millionaire merchant banker, maintained the Express tradition for getting it wrong when he said in 1987 that the stock market fall should be ignored as it was only a computer blip. The present Managing Director, Andrew Cameron, recently announced an economy drive in which 220 workers would lose their jobs ". . . to put us into fighting shape. (The cuts) are about securing the future."

Poverty

There may be people—in Rhyl, in Derby—who will ask what shape, what future, what security? In other places too. In July the MP for Manchester Gorton, Gerald Kaufman, told the Commons about how some of the people in that city live. Taking the national mortality rate as 100, in Manchester it is 163 for men and 148 for women. The rate for stillbirths in England and Wales is 4.2 percent, in Manchester it is 6.4 percent. For infant mortality Manchester rates 8.4 percent against 6.5 percent for the rest of Britain. These are symptoms of the extremes of poverty, of the stresses of unemployment which force down the wages of whose who are in work; Kaufman mentioned one man who works 64 and 72 hours a week whose hourly rate of pay has been cut from £3.02 to £2.35.

The poverty endured by these people is extreme in comparison but not too exceptional in its nature. Rather, it is conventional to capitalism, part of the process which produces rich people like Lords Beaverbrook, Matthews and Stevens we are supposed to admire and poor people, in Rhyl, Derby. Manchester or wherever, we are encouraged to despise. The Express may be a bloody awful newspaper but there are no bloody good ones and it speaks for a bloody dreadful social system.

Ivan

Quiz – Ten questions to answer (2003)

From the April 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

All these quotations are genuine comments, made by the people named – except that we have put in a single sentence in each interview what the person did not say. See if you can guess which is the made-up sentence we have put in.

1. Jack Straw, British Foreign Minister, speaking after a suicide bomb attack in Haifa which killed fifteen people (Times, 6 March): “There is no justification for attacks on innocent civilians. Except, of course, if we carry out the American generals’ plan to send 800 cruise missiles in to Baghdad in the first 48 hours of the planned war.”

2. Ari Fleischer, President Bush’s spokesman, speaking after the same attack in Haifa (Times, 6 March): “We will continue to pursue the path of peace in the Middle East. Except, that is, when we pursue the path of war against Iraq.”

3. Prince Philip (Observer, 29 December): “If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate how much more comfortable aircraft have become; that is, unless you travel on something called economy class, which sounds ghastly. Of course, most things about the lives of poorer people are ghastly, which is why it is so surprising that so many of them turn out at each election and vote for capitalism.”

4. Senior Vatican official (Observer, 29 December): “Illness is a consequence of sin. So the Pope is going to live for ever.”

5. Tony Blair (Times, 1 March): “At some point, you have a duty if you are to offer any leadership to your country in saying why it is we believe there is a real threat from terrorism and these appalling weapons to the security of our countries and to the wider world. Unless, of course, we had Socialism, when neither Iraq nor America nor Britain would have any appalling weapons, and there wouldn’t be any ‘leadership’ either, since people would be able to think and act for themselves.”

6. The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, and the Archbishop of Westminster, head of the Catholic Church in Britain (Times, 20 February): “It is vital, therefore, that all sides in this crisis engage through the United Nations fully and urgently in a process, including continued weapons inspections, that could and should render the trauma and tragedy of war unnecessary. An even better way to render not only this planned war but all future wars unnecessary – in fact, impossible – is to establish Socialism.”

7. President Bush (Eastern Daily Press, 19 February): “The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security – in this case, security of the people. And if you don’t like leaders, taking decisions which may kill thousands of innocent people, you could always get rid of them by having Socialism.”

8. In an opinion poll, 65 percent of people questioned in the UK (Times, 12 February) said that “although it is right in principle to accept genuine asylum-seekers, we have now accepted our fair share, and cannot accept any more. It is not as if any British people have ever gone to live in other countries, like Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and so on.”

9. The Pope (Times, 10 February): “One cannot do nothing in the face of terrorist attacks, but equally we cannot be idle in the face of the threats now on the horizon. War is not inevitable. But even if we avoid this war, there are plenty of violent conflicts round the world now as I speak, and there will be a lot of wars in the years to come – you will have to establish Socialism if you really want to make war impossible.”

10. Rezan Fakhraden, a woman badly gassed at the age of five, when Saddam Hussein dropped poison gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, killing over 5,000 civilians and injuring many more (Times, 22 February): “I cannot climb more than ten stairs. I cannot run. Sometimes my lungs bleed. I cannot stop coughing and I am often sick. I don’t trust Britain or America at all. They have said nothing about our plight due to the gases for fifteen years. They even supported Saddam then. We have received no medicines from Britain or America in all that time to help us, and now we have no more protection against chemical attack than we had then. Yet we may be the first to get struck. But, of course, hypocrisy is an essential characteristic of all capitalist politicians, including those now using the Halabja gassing to justify attacking Iraq.”

Answers: We have made up the last sentence, and only the last sentence, in each of these statements. All the other quotations on this page are genuine.

Score: 1 – 9: Keep trying. 10. You must have read the Socialist Standard before.

Alwyn Edgar

Sting in the Tail: Jobs for the boys (1993)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jobs for the boys

When capitalism's economy is booming then some sections of the working class can make considerable gains. This, reformists assure us, is proof that their strategy of “getting something now” is more rewarding than our insistence on the need for socialism.

But what happens when the economic climate changes? Then many of the gains inevitably come under attack and will be completely lost.

An example of this is happening in Sweden now. For decades women there benefitted from the job opportunities in the growing public sector and had the highest level of workplace equality in the world:

They entered the labour market in such numbers that the term hemmafru (housewife) became a virtual anachronism within a decade. (Guardian, 13 April).

Now a huge government economy drive means tens of thousands of women are to lose their jobs and there are plans to introduce financial incentives for mothers to stay home and look after the children.

“Getting something now" is difficult enough in capitalism but hanging on to it is the really tricky bit.

Monet and Money

Alfred Barnes was a rich American who was heavily into modern art. His collection, which includes many paintings by Matisse, Cezanne, Renoir and others, is unequalled and is valued at $6 billion.

Late Again (BBC2, 17 April) revealed how Barnes only allowed a select few to see his collection. When he died in 1951 his will instructed the Barnes Foundation that the collection must never be sold, loaned or even moved.

Now, those who control the foundation want to raise money to repair the building where the collection is housed and they have won the courts' permission to take part of the collection on tour.

Even this outraged much of the art establishment. “The integrity of the collection is threatened, it will never come together again", they moaned, but their big argument was that “a dead man's wishes were being flouted".

All of this art was only possible because society provided the artists with the food, clothing, shelter, materials, education and, often, the inspiration they required. Art is a social product and should he freely available to all and not just to an elitist bunch of ’’art lovers" backed by the whim of a man long-since dead.

Cause and effect

Under headlines such as “Italians dance for joy after huge poll victory on reforms”, the newspapers have reported that the anti-Mafia movement are claiming that a new electoral system will stop “decades of waste, corruption and Mafia outrage".

What are these miraculous changes? In future 75 percent of the 315-seat Senate, or upper house, will be decided by the same first-past-the-post system as applies to Britain's House of Commons.

It is interesting to note that reformers in the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties favour some form of proportional representation in Britain. They decry the first-past-the-post system as undemocratic.

The electoral system makes no difference. No matter which system is favoured, capitalism is a social system that will always cause “waste, corruption and outrage". What is needed is not a change in the electoral system, but a change in the social system from capitalism to socialism.

Royal bricklayers

Amidst universal rejoicing, the government has announced that the Queen's private chapel, which was badly damaged in the Windsor Castle fire last year, is to be rebuilt in a contemporary style. One can hear the shouts of joy ringing out from cardboard city at the news.

Of course, such a prestigious venture must have a steady hand on the tiller. But we can sleep easy in this one too. “The Duke of Edinhurgh will take the lead for the Royal Household in the rebuilding programme. (Independent on Sunday, 25 April).

We hope no naive reader imagines that the Duke will actually be doing any work. No hod carrier he. No, the rebuilding by the Duke of Edinburgh will be like all the “building" that kings, queens, dukes, duchesses and plain old millionaires carry out. They may lay a ceremonial foundation stone or unveil a plaque, but you can be sure all the useful toil will be carried out by members of the working class.

Another patriot

What do the Labour Party really think about military matters? When the Royal Air Force's offer to fly over Bosnia was rejected, we found out.

Commentary on the decision not to deploy UK Tornado fighters, Mr George Foulkes, Labour defence spokesman, said : “I am surprised that, if offered, they were not to he included. We have got probably one of the best strike records of anyone, anywhere, as exemplified by our record in the Gulf. I would have thought it was essential that if there was to be an effective deployment to ensure the no-fly zone that there was a strong British presence. It sounds to me a bit like a snub if British aircraft have been offered and not included. ” (Glasgow Herald, 8 April).

So there you have it. The Labour Party are upset that British workers' lives are not be to risked. It has been said before, but it is worth repeating: “A patriot is someone that wants you to die for his country".

Modern times

Great interest has been expressed by the military about a new heat-resistant plastic that can withstand the heat of a nuclear explosion. Discussing various possibilities of its use the Observer (11 April) mentioned in passing some of the other things that the military are researching at present:

In this sci-fi world, generals are testing the efficacy of frying soldiers’ blood and brains with lasers.

Running Commentary: Relief work (1982)

The Running Commentary column from the July 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Relief work

There are many well-intentioned charitable organisations, some quite small, some very large, which seek to alleviate the socially produced hardships of the profit-system. Prominent among these are three major international agencies which specialise in operating food aid for the underdeveloped world: the United Nations’ World Food Programme; and the United States’ two voluntary organisations CARE (Co-operative for American Relief Everywhere) and CRS (Catholic Relief Services).

Capitalism is a social system, however, which works on the basis of producing things to be sold at a profit. Producing things simply to be consumed and enjoyed because people need them is not what the system of profit is all about, and all the striving of the charity organisations is relentlessly negated by the way production is socially arranged. Although the three major agencies distributed food to more than sixty million people in 1979, there were still thirty million deaths the following year caused by starvation.

The latest policy for allocating food supplied introduced Food For Work projects which connect food distribution to socially useful development (Guardian, 11 June ’82). Here the motives are sometimes less philanthropic than prompted by a concern to cultivate workforces and industrial territories into which existing ruling-class interests can expand. The Brandt Commission endorsed the linking of food aid to promotion to agriculture and employment in the South.

The Failure of meagre “handouts” and even training for skills to improve the general condition of the world's destitute is conceded by Tony Jackson in his book Against the Grain (published by Oxfam). He observes the case, for example, of one island off Haiti which now boasts about 200 miles of roads built under a Food for Work project. There is no commercial traffic of any kind on this island. The few vehicles that do use the roads belong to missionaries and food agency staff. The islanders continue to travel on foot or by mule.

The condition of the person reliant on Food for Work projects for his or her subsistence is in many ways worse than that of a classical slave, for at least the latter was maintained while there was no work to be done. In Bangladesh there are over 7,000,000 recipients of food aid from the United States each year, but Food for Work projects have generally benefited the local landowners through provision of roads and irrigation systems. The landless labourers involved are in exactly the same position at the end of a project as they were when it began — destitute.

Royal rubbish

On a BBC1 programme last month we were given the opportunity to listen to HRH, Prince Philip putting forward political arguments in defence of class-divided society. The Duke, in a modestly appointed room in Buckingham Palace, was being interviewed by a painfully deferential Gerald Priestland about the latest royal contribution to modern political philosophy a book of essays called A Question of Balance. This was also the name of the programme and in reply to the first question — what did he really mean by “A Question of Balance”? — the Duke began his apology for privilege as cogently as his entire argument was to run. “1 wish I knew!” was his reply. Looking around at the chronic social problems of poverty, unemployment and destruction, the Duke attributes the causes of these problems to the personal shortcomings of particular people:

  Until each of us accepts that our problems are not created by such abstract concepts as Industry, Religion, Capitalism, The Third Word, the Bourgeosie or the world economy but by our own individual standards of morality, behaviour and competence, we shall never begin to cope with the causes of our discontents.

According to this theory the millions of humans who die each year from malnutrition and the thousands who are thrown out of employment each month after years of hard work have only their own defective moral codes to blame, whereas it is a superior set of moral ideas, and nothing more, which secured for Philip his unearned income of over £100,000 a year and his other gigantic wealth. In an employers’ journal, The Engineer, Philip was once quoted as saying “The Welfare State is a protection against failure and exploitation” (November 1976), and from his position in society and the size of his dole cheque you can see what he meant.

At one point in the interview the Duke explained his views about areas of life where he thought that opinions of members of the working class should not intrude in decision making. Then, getting carried away with himself, he casually hypothesised.

  If I was going to go out to get a job, I don’t want to get a job with a chap that I have to tell how to run his business . . . and provided my conditions are reasonable, I’m prepared to put up with what he says has to be done because I reckon that’s part of his business to know.

Clearly then, Phil must have appplied for the job of being Duke of F.dinburgh on account of the “reasonable conditions” of service.

The Duke went on to ‘refute’ the arguments of Marx with all the wisdom and expertise of a Daily Express editorial writer, and quoted approvingly the ideas of the eighteenth-century conservative, Edmund Burke, the man who first referred to the working class as “the swinish multitude”. The Duke defended a society based on a privileged minority and an impoverished majority by reference to “human nature”: but for some one who seemed to have acquired a profound understanding of people, Philip used some curious analogies. Explaining how we should best deal with the “avalanche of lawlessness threatening to engulf our civilisation” he outlined his criminological theory of the measures required to keep the rabble in order. “Having had to deal with dogs and horses and things of

that sort, and tried to train them to do certain things, the process of teaching them to do what you want them to do is a process of rewards and punishments.” With expertise of this calibre the defenders of the wages-system would do more good for their cause by keeping quiet and concealing their prejudices from public examination.

A1 for Lloyds

It was just as well the Pope turned up because, apart from the sustenance he provided for the delusions of millions of Catholics (and other religions) in Britain, the visit was supposed to make a bit of money. It failed in this, but not for want of trying.

The Catholic Church had put two years of planning and over £6 million into the event. No wonder they mapped out so concentrated, relentless a schedule for this elderly man only recently recovered from serious gunshot wounds.

The Church hoped to receive about £5 million, mainly from a ten per cent royalty on the sale of “approved” souvenirs like teaspoons, ballpoints, mugs and sweets. A lot of other trash was unapproved, churned out by manufacturers equally eager to make something from the papal endurances.

Overseeing the official marketing operation was IMG (not those well-known gadflies of the political left, but the International Management Group) who cashed in for 20 per cent of the royalties, as well as a share of savings from any improved efficiency they could organise.

This was no foreign field for IMG, whose clients include many famous sports starts and showbiz personalities other than the Pope. With the cold eye of commercial reality, they firmly discouraged any delusion that the Catholic Church is unconcerned about the financial balance sheet.

Prudently the whole show was insured: one report said the London insurance market stood to lose £7½ million if the visit had been called off. There was much easier breathing in Leadenhall Street as the Pope first stepped from his aeroplane and kissed the earth.

It is not outrageous that a church should be so concerned with a profitable operation. Religion has always existed comfortably in capitalism, a willing purveyor of the morality of class exploitation.

Patriotism at a price

Lord Matthews is famous for being a very patriotic man. With his readiness to sacrifice all for his country—and to tell us about this at every opportunity he is an object lesson to all the cynics and Doubting Thomases. No wonder they made him a Lord.

Of course he owns a lot of ships and hotels and the odd newspaper or two. He has made a lot of money from the exploitation of British workers so it is natural he should think this is a wonderful country full of generous people.

One of his proudest possessions is the great ocean liner the QE2. A little while ago Lord Matthews angered a lot of his fellow patriots by wanting to register his ships under flags of convenience. The idea was to enable his companies to employ foreign crews, who could be paid less than British workers. Somehow, he managed to reconcile this scheme with his professed patriotism.

He was a proud man too when the government took over some of his ships—including the QE2—for the war in the Falklands. No question about his patriotism here—and in any case there was the compensation which was a useful windfall when the shipping industry is so depressed.

Unluckily—or rather through the recklessness of some Argentine airmen—one of Lord Matthews’ ships got sunk, which must have upset some other patriots at Lloyds who had insured it. Now that the QE2 is back, preparing to resume its career as an expensive cruise liner, the question arises of replacing the lost ship, the Atlantic Conveyor.

And here again Lord Matthews is showing himself to be hard headed as well as patriotic. The Atlantic Conveyor, he has announced, will be replaced by a ship built in Japan. Now this is very curious because, as any admirer of the British forces in the Falklands knows, the Japanese have not been among the most fervent supporters of the British effort there.

So why is Matthews the patriot giving the Japanese his custom? The answer is that, like those crews under the flags of convenience, he can get a cheaper job done there—a more profitable job, better for his company’s balance sheet.

Lord Matthews is a member of the capitalist class so his patriotism will naturally be limited to what is profitable to him. It is the other class, the people who go to war in the capitalists’ interests, who are persuaded that patriotism has no boundaries. After all, they are disciplined to make the ultimate, boundless sacrifice of death, so that people like Matthews can remain in their position of privileged superiority.

That is the true cynicism, the boundless deceit of patriotism.

A Duke Distorts Marx (1986)

Book Review from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

“This, it seems to me, is Marx’s legacy to the world. For love, tolerance and compassion he has substituted hatred, envy and oppression. For honesty and justice he has substituted the interest of the party. Although it is a sad commentary on human nature that so many people are eager to adopt such doctrines of violence and conflict, there is one thing we must all learn from Marx. It is now more important than ever that we learn and understand the guiding principles of our own system, if we are to make it fulfil our ambitions to live in freedom, in harmony, in prosperity and in justice.” (HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, A Question of Balance, p.30).

So ends the Duke of Edinburgh’s published attack on the ideas of Marxism. Before we turn to deal with the distortion, be it intended or ignorant, contained in that attack, it is worth congratulating this titled spokesman for legalised robbery for taking the bother to commit his ideas to print. Too often the nonsensical dogmas of anti-Marxism are offered as casual asides or vague references, so making them harder to answer. Here we have a clear account of why one member of the capitalist class thinks that Marxism is wrong. Let us examine his criticisms.

The Duke—or whoever might have assisted him in composing his attack—has taken the trouble to find out a little about who Marx was and what he wrote. On page 6 we are presented with a concise biographical sketch, deficient more in its omissions than in relation to any false information. The reader is told that Marx “appears to have had an enormous capacity for painstaking work, a vivid and forceful literary style, considerable imagination, and a single-minded devotion to a particular philosophy”. It is stated that Marx held that “the bourgeoisie had . . .  to be destroyed by the abolition of all private property”. This is half right. In fact, both state and private property must be abolished and Marx was advocating the abolition of class relationships, particularly that of wage labour and capital, therefore the bourgeoisie (or capitalist class) will be destroyed as a class personifying capital, but not as individual people. The Duke contends that “capitalism has proved to be a great deal more flexible than (Marx) ever imagined”. There is probably some validity in this.

Having stated those points where the Duke was correct or nearly, so let us list his numerous errors and distortions.

 . . . it becomes apparent that at the heart f the terrorist campaign, or of the liberation army… or of civil unrest, there is a hard core of Marxists. Furthermore it cannot be entirely coincidence that wherever such a state of conflict exists the terrorists, liberators or revolutionaries are almost invariably supported by money, arms or men and women from countries under Marxist regimes. (p.5)

Are we to assume from this that any army or government or individual psychopath who chooses to adopt the label Marxist will be regarded by those attacking Marxism as representatives of Marxist ideas? The Russian dictators and sections of the IRA and various anti-social organisers of civil disorder adopt the Marxist label, but that makes such people no more “Marxists” than is the German Democratic Republic democratic. The linking of a label with an idea is only valid if those being labelled hold the ideas and act on the ideas to which the label refers. The Duke gives no evidence to show that terrorists are carrying out principles to be found in the writings of Marx; not a scrap of evidence is offered to show that “Marxist regimes” are Marxist societies. This is a classical distortion tactic, used by those who find it easier to smear than to prove.

In fact, on page 26 the Duke states that “Marxism has given ambitious politicians an absolutely ideal method of acquiring and keeping absolute power”. Indeed, many capitalist leaders have usurped the rhetoric of Marxism in order to run the system of oppression which genuine Marxists seek to destroy. If the Duke of Edinburgh cares to read the history of British Royalty he will discover that by manipulating the ideas of religion the British monarchy was able to attain absolute power, justified by the doctrine of divine right. If the Duke was informed he would realise that it is necessary to check the credentials of those who pose as Marxist governments and activists, if he is informed, then he is dishonest, for he will know that their credentials are bogus.

“His weakness, if that is the appropriate word for it, seems to have been a hopelessly unrealistic understanding of human nature.”

We must assume from this that the Duke does understand “human nature”. Odd, then, that he at no point attempts to define it. The reason could be that it is a totally nonsensical concept, used too often by people who speak before they think. Marx argued that human behaviour is socially determined and that our ideas and actions are not inherently produced. Rather than asserting that this is “hopelessly unrealistic”, where is the evidence against it? The Duke states that Marx’s “obsession with science and scientific socialism . . . seems to have blinded him to the power, variety and irrational nature of human emotions and talents and to the fact that such qualities of human nature are equally distributed among all people regardless of class or intellect”. (p.7) Does this mean that there are as many slum-dwellers obtaining Oxford degrees as millionaires’ children? Are there as many princes suffering the frustration of the dole queue as sons and daughters of miners? And what is this “irrational nature” which the Duke finds in human emotions? Human thought and feeling is linked to the rational pursuit of survival and comfort, if he has discovered some irrational content beyond this material interpretation, let the Duke spell it out for us rather than making vague and pointless references. Human nature has always been the concept most loved by the defender of the status quo. The slave-owner of old would say that it was human nature for negroes to be owned by white masters. The Duke of Edinburgh invokes the same undefined theory in defence of the modem form of slavery, the wages system.

“Marx, like many before and since his time, went to considerable lengths to make his selection of facts fit his particular theories.”

These aristocratic liars obviously believe that they have only to assert a view and it will be accepted. If Marx distorted the facts to fit his interpretation of capitalism why has there been no satisfactory effort made to offer other facts which will show Marx’s ideas to be false? Where are the “facts”, to show that poverty is not caused by the system under which the few own and control the means of wealth production and distribution? What “facts” exist to demonstrate that workers are not exploited at the point of production by being paid a wage which is less than the value of what we produce? Where are the “facts” denying that the history of property society is a history of class struggle? Wise men have had over a century since Marx’s death to provide us with “facts” that will not fit in with “his particular theories”. Wise men have yet to disprove Marx’s facts, and the Duke, who is not “wise”, hasn’t done this either.

“Marx believed very strongly that it was impossible to have a satisfactory society where there was such a crude division between those who owned property and capital and those who owned nothing but their wages. Naturally in a purely static situation this would be intolerable, but no human system is static and the freer the system the more quickly the self-correcting mechanism works and the greater the movement between classes is likely to be.”

So the Duke agrees with Marx that the crude division between those who own property and those who are wage slaves is “intolerable”. But the argument he puts is that, given a free society, the poor will be able to correct this situation and be come capitalists. A century after Marx’s death the crude class division still exists. in Britain the richest one per cent of the population own more of the accumulated wealth than the poorest eighty per cent added together. How long do as the Duke think it will take for this “self-correcting mechanism” to move those who are dependent on selling their abilities for wages or salaries to gain entry into the capitalist class? Of course, this will never happen because the capitalist minority can only survive by living parasitically off of the labour of the wealth-creating majority. It is “intolerable” that this division exists but, unlike the Duke, Marxists are not expecting the system to correct the problem.

“There was a utopian belief that every human problem could be solved by scientific analysis and the operation of altruistic human will. All that was necessary was to identify and eradicate the cause of the problem and everything would immediately become all sweetness and light. Marx was convinced that be had achieved all this in his theory of historical materialism.”

Nowhere did Marx ever state such a point of view. it has been invented by the dishonest Duke. It would be “utopian” to assert that “every human problem” can be solved by science but Marx was talking about problems caused by the social system, not those of natural causation. A system which makes wars inevitable can be removed and there will be no more wars. It is a basic principle of science that effects are eradicated by first removing their cause –Marx did not invent such an idea and the Duke cannot disprove it. Marx made no reference to “the operation of altruistic human will”. this is yet another of the Duke’s absurd phrases. In fact, the establishment of socialism depends on material self-interest, not abstract altruism. Socialism will not be “all sweetness and light” and Marx never used such a silly phrase. We can say that it will be an efficient, co-operative, peaceful social system, free from the bitterness and darkness of world capitalism. If the Duke cares to argue with that he will have a debate on his hands; any old fool can knock down a utopian dream which Marx was not indulging in, but not any old fool will be allowed to get away with it.

“One of the features of Marxist analysis is the constant use of group denominations and particularly the references to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, as if there was no such thing as individual will. What sort of an argument is it to say that because all my colleagues and contemporaries are behaving in a certain way, that is the way that historical materialism has ordained I must believe?”

Needless to say, the Duke does not define this mysterious “individual will”—this man is a master of the undefined concept. My individual will is to live in Buckingham Palace: but which is more influential—my “will” or my class position? All people are either workers or they are capitalists and if they are in the former class they are robbed and they are relatively poor and they have a world to win, if they are in the latter class they are exploiters and they are relatively rich and the world is theirs. There are those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess. As for “individual will”, the Duke can buy mine from me for the price of one of his Rolls Royces. A person’s class position generally determines their ideas: that is why it is not surprising to find the husband of the richest woman in the world opposing Marxism. When members of the boss class start flocking into the Socialist Party we shall take more seriously the claim that historical materialism does not ordain how humans think and behave.

“As Marx’s ideas entailed the confiscation from private capitalists of all means of production, distribution, transport and communication, all these things would have to be centralised in the hands of the State, by which he meant the hands of the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”

Here the Duke asserts that Marx stood for centralised state capitalism. Untrue. The abolition of class monopoly necessitates the removal of the state, which Marx pointed out is merely the executive committee of the exploiting class. Marx argued that with the emancipation of the working class there will be no class left to be exploited and the logical implication of that is that there will be no socialist state. So, when the proletariat (or workers) are organised as the ruling class, which will happen when the state is democratically conquered, that will at the same time be the end of classes, including a ruling class, and the end of the state. The centralised state has nothing to do with socialism, but is a feature of coercive capitalism. A great deal of the Duke’s attack on Marxism rests on the assumption that a centralised state will create an elitist bureaucracy which will become a new ruling class. This is correct. The Duke opposes such a new ruling class, of the type which took over from the Tsars in Russia, because he is a defender of the old ruling class; Marxists oppose state and private capitalism: they are opposed to all ruling classes.

“Of all Marx’s ideas the most explosive was his choice of one particular class or group of citizens within a society—distinguished only by their relative wealth and occupations—to be held responsible for everything that is unsatisfactory in that society.”

Once again the Duke demonstrates his failure to grasp –or his ability to distort –Marxism. It is not a Marxist contention that the capitalists as individuals are the cause of the problems of the working class. It is not a question of individual will. The whole point of Marx’s writings is that the capitalist system demands that capitalists must act in certain ways if they are not to descend into the working class –a miserable fate, as we are sure the Duke will agree. The point of Marxism is not to blame this group or that class, but to expose the system and to show that it can never be run in the interest of the wealth producers, even if all the bosses were jolly decent chaps.

“…(Marxists) whole ideology is based on the idea that any degree of force, subversion, terrorism, persecution and dishonesty is justified in achieving and maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

This is rich, coming from a defender of British capitalism. The very tactics listed have all been used by the Duke’s own class in order to preserve the dictatorship of King Capital. In no way did Marx ever advocate or defend these methods. It was Karl Marx who stated that “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves”, the same principle has been advocated by The Socialist Party, the only Marxist party in Britain, since 1904. We seek to establish a free and democratic society and we are the first to point out that this will never be brought about by any of the tactics used by our class enemies, such as those listed above. We seek to establish a society of mutual co-operation, not a dictatorship—a society which will be classless. We have congratulated our class enemy on having the openness to commit his ideas to paper, it is a pity that we are not able to offer similar congratulations on his honesty, intelligence and clarity, all of which are far too undignified to enter the mind of this pompous Royal distorter.

Steve Coleman

Running Commentary: Tap, tap (1985)

The Running Commentary column from the April 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tap, tap

When will the people who support capitalism stop expecting it to do the impossible? When, having voted for a social system based on the minority ownership of the means of production, will they cease to be surprised when the system works in the interests of that minority? When will those who give sustenance to capitalism on the grounds that it is the most rational, progressive and efficient way of ordering human affairs accept that in reality it is an insane, reactionary and chaotic society?

It is pertinent to ask these questions at all times but they are given special point in the aftermath of the Ponting trial and the TV programme which exposed — as if it needed to — the fact that the Special Branch keep a close, intrusive eye on people who are in organisations which they consider likely to be a disturbing influence in this most rational, progressive and efficient society.

These events were followed by the customary bouts of outraged questioning about an apparent readiness by ministers to deceive parliament, and the people who vote them into their seats there, and about the secret operations which are carried out by part of the state machine.

The assumption behind all the questioning was that such things do not have to be. It is, the argument runs, unnecessary for ministers in charge of important departments like "Defence" to conceal the truth about their "work". It is, the argument further runs, an infringement of something called civil liberties for anyone to have the right to listen in to the telephone calls of others, to open their mail, to follow them about.

Life under capitalism would be a strange business indeed if the people who rule over the system's operations always told the truth. What would happen if, each time there is an economic crisis, the Chancellor got up and. instead of mouthing some weary assurances about bringing the problem under control, confessed to a complete absence of knowledge about how to do anything about it? What if a Minister of "Defence", when arguing for the money to keep the armed forces going, owned up to the fact that they are kept in existence to protect the interests of the capitalist minority?

This cannot be an open society. States must have their secrets, commercial as well as military. So there must be organisations which protect those secrets through being themselves clandestine; secrets, after all, cannot be safeguarded in the open. Of course, the thing can sometimes get out of hand, so that a pointless paranoia takes over and makes the whole operation look something of a joke.

But joke it emphatically is not. Capitalism cannot be a society which has any regard for human interests or values. People come a long way down the scale, when its priorities are operating. There has never been anything to gain from protesting about this, except if the protest is part of a conscious resolve to abolish the system altogether.

Royal foot in mouth

It will not do, to condemn too hastily the recent musings of the Duke of Edinburgh on the problem of unemployment. Rather, a measure of patience and understanding is called for. There have never been any reasons to place the Prince among the world's great thinkers so any efforts on his part to be original, or even reflective, should be seen as the best that can be expected from very poor material.

Speaking to a bunch of replete business people, the Prince urged us not to get so depressed about over three million people being out of work because there are a lot more than that still going through the daily routine of exploitation to keep parasites like him in their privileged position. One obvious drawback to this argument is that it has a much wider application.

Official figures tell us that there are about 15 million people in this country who are living at or below the government's poverty line. This represents a frightful burden of human misery; but of course there are about four times as many people in Britain, which means that the sufferers are in a minority. Then there are the figures for those who each winter die of hypothermia or of related diseases, which some authorities put at tens of thousands. What lies behind these statistics are incredible agonies and degrading deaths — all quite unnecessary. But of course even if the deaths do run into tens of thousands these, too. are also a minority so we don't have to worry.

Then what about the little matter of world starvation, in which the Duke is inclined to take a passing interest? He recently took his well-nurtured self to drought-ravaged Mali, where food aid is efficiently diverted to government officials, where people try to survive on the husks of grain and off eating leaves. "It is", he observed in yet another blinding misconception, "a great natural disaster, but one that has been aggravated by the population explosion . . ." He did not explain why he was anxious that the government deal with the problem; the tens of millions who endure famine each year are still only a relatively small part of the world's population so their suffering should be kept in that perspective.

In fact the Prince must know something about minorities since he belongs to one himself — the very small group of people who own the means of life and who live off the labours of the majority. There is another minority, of socialists, who are alive to this and although the Prince might not think us very noticeable at present he and his class will find the power of socialist ideas irresistible. By which time it will be too late for them to be able to do anything about it.

Back to work

What now for the miners? Scargill's scalp now hangs, along with many others, on Thatcher's thickly festooned belt. Some observers fear that the unions have been castrated and talk of the Labour Party facing a generation out of power. Workers who fear redundancy have nothing to hope for in a Labour government who also slashed the coal and steel industries when they were in power.

It was, in fact, Neil Kinnock who defended the Callaghan government in this, at a by-election meeting in 1978, when he called for a "grown-up" acceptance of the need to close down large sections of industry — by which he meant an acceptance of the need to run capitalism in the interests of the capitalists, as the Labour government were trying to do.

During the strike the NUM warned that the government's long term plan was to trim the mines down to a few profitable pits and then sell these off to private owners. This prospect was raised as a kind of bogey but it was misconceived, for state ownership does nothing to change the class division of capitalism, nor does it eliminate the profit motive, nor has it exempted the miners from exploitation.

It was, after all, the NCB, and not private owners, the NUM were striking against and who starved the miners back to work. If the workers conclude from the strike that the Labour Party would run capitalism more acceptably, or that there is some gain for the workers in nationalisation, then the whole thing was indeed an exercise in delusion.

The defeat of the miners, as the established pace-makers in union militancy, may render them unable to take on the employers again for a very long time and may drastically affect the union movement as a whole. With capitalism in slump this is a buyers' market in labour power and no workers should forget it. The real lesson of the strike is about the natural, everyday laws of capitalism, of their inability to order an efficient, progressive, humane society and therefore of the urgency that workers think beyond the picket lines.

Kings and Cabbages (1969)

From the July 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British monarchy, which in theory is divine, eternal, and immutable, has changed as much as many other institutions of privileged society. Today, the royal family is a pretty bloodless lot, and no matter how much the Duke of Edinburgh may play for the headlines with cheeky, irascible turns of phrase, they know their place — and keep it.

This was not always so. The Prince Regent was active in the political battles and intrigues of his day and did his best to hasten his own ascension by aggravating his father’s illness. But a monarch actively involved had to take the consequences and the London mob was not slow to show its disapproval of the man who became George IV.

Victoria also was more than inclined to meddle. She tried to obstruct Liberal policy after the 1880 election and conspired against Gladstone’s government of 1886. She condemned the cause of female suffrage as a ‘mad, wicked folly’. But she was sustained by the propaganda which represented her as the embodiment of the growing wealth and power of the capitalist class of Victorian Britain. Workers endured their miseries, children starved, soldiers died, praying for long life for the queen. This did much to refurbish the image of the monarchy, and to re-establish it as a propaganda weapon of the ruling class.

Even so, Victoria came in for some criticism when, after her husband’s death, she withdrew from wholehearted devotion to her job. When her son, Edward VII, came to the throne the monarchy became associated with the dubious activities of high society — gambling, overeating, and of course the prodigious sexual adventures of the king himself who, despite this hectic existence, was lovingly known among the slum-dwelling proletariat as 'Teddy’. The reign of Edward VII did little to improve the stability of the monarchy.

The ruling class were clearly determined that there was to be no more of this and when George V succeeded he did so as a ‘constitutional monarch—in other words, one who did as he was told. It is true that he was drawn into the fringes of the bitter struggle between Lloyd George and the 1914-18 generals but George V never committed himself and certainly did not try, once the politicians had won, to jeopardise their victory. As a whole his reign made the monarchy more secure; and this at a time during which, in other parts of the world, five emperors, eight kings, and eighteen minor dynasties disappeared.

Reluctant hero 
George V had little talent or ability (left wingers used to call him George the Fish) and the fact that he unwaveringly trod the ‘constitutional’ path was enough for this arid man to be written into British history as a ‘good’ king. His son, Edward VIII, conformed to the same requirements and emphasised the fact that the capitalist class virtually employed the monarch as their figurehead and super salesman, when he was dismissed from the job because he wanted to choose his wife for himself.

The Abdication might have been a serious blow to the royal institution and this was the signal for the public relations boys to go to work. The unfortunate subject of their labours was George VI, who seemed to be a shy, awkward, and nervous, but likeable, fellow and who was certainly a reluctant hero. This delicate man had to work hard to plug the holes in the dyke and his employers made sure they got their money's worth, subjecting him to extremities of working conditions which would have provoked the most moderate trade unionist into an immediate strike. When the press prostitutes wrote that the strain of being king killed George VI, they were probably, for once, telling the truth.

Elizabeth II has followed the same well trodden path as her father. Indeed, so colourless has been her devotion to the job that men like Malcolm Muggeridge and John Carigg (when he was Lord Altrincham), who cannot be described as fiery revolutionaries, were once moved to protest at the regularly inane platitudes of her speeches. But this, of course, is what she is paid for; a special Coronation issue of the Economist, published on May 30, 1953, made the point, delicately but firmly, when it said:

  If, in the person of Elizabeth II, Her Majesty is more majestic than in the person of the great Victoria, it is because she seeks to rule only in the hearts of her people.

As any reader of the daily press knows, the Duke of Edinburgh has done his best to have the best of both worlds. Naturally it is perfectly permissible for him, in his capacity of chief export salesman for British capitalism, to criticise British export techniques and to tell businessmen to get their fingers out (how they laughed at that during the tea-breaks in the factories and typing pools!). It is even more acceptable for him to be rude about strikers and importunate students.

But even the Duke must not overstep the boundaries of his job and Philip has run into serious trouble over his attitude to the press. At one time he kept up a continuous campaign against newspapermen, covering the range from publicly saying that the Daily Express was a 'bloody awful’ paper to the childish prank of turning on a lawn sprinkler at the Chelsea Flower Show and soaking some nearby reporters.

The press does not normally take this kind of treatment lying down. The Daily Mirror rounded off its efforts in the Profumo affair with its famous front page denial of the rumour that the Duke had been another of Christine Keeler’s customers — a denial which was obviously intended to add strength to the rumour. About the same time the Sunday Express published a remarkable middle-page article which attacked Philip for his statements about the press and on other issues. The article ended by telling the Duke to lay off and warning him that if he did not the Express had some nasty facts to reveal about him.

Since then the publicity about the royal family, which has sometimes plumbed the deepest depths of monotonous stupidity, has fallen off. The comparatively low cost of Prince Charles’s investiture — £200,000 — continues the trend although it is probable that, after the investiture, we are in for another increase in publicity, with almost every newspaper and magazine competing for the silliest story about the prince’s good looks, wisdom, grace, athletic ability, courage, erudition, wit, artistry, generosity, modesty . . .

Riddled with lies

One thing which is certain is that when Charles comes to the throne we shall get a lot of nonsense about Charles I and II, all of it riddled with lies about the Stuarts being a lot of dashing cavaliers whose reigns were notable as a rollicking merry time for people of England. It is astonishing, how even the more sober organs of capitalist opinion dish out this kind of tripe — that same coronation issue of the Economist, for example, came out with this drool about Elizabeth II:

  Queens have been lucky for this country. and young queens especially. By name, Her. Majesty recalls the magical springtime of Elizabeth 1. But the parallel is closer— and equally happy—with Victoria, and either augury gives ample reason to salute Quern Elizabeth II with high hearts and hopes.

It does not need an elephantine memory to recall the super-crises and the disastrous (from the Economist's point of view) decline in the fortunes of British capitalism which have marked the years since Elizabeth II became queen. And it does not need any great powers of reasoning to conclude from this, that the personality who happens to be on the throne at any one time does not influence the course of events of capitalism.

To many people, this is a clinching argument in favour of a republic. If a monarch does nothing, they argue, if he has no influence over events, wouldn’t it be better to abolish the institution and replace it with a president who would at least be an active and participating politician? There might be something to be said for this argument were it not for the fact that presidents, too, are impotent in face of capitalism’s anarchies; they also react to events with the additional unfortunate (for them) result that all too often they lose their job if they react in the wrong way or the events are too fierce.

In truth, republics are no more stable, no more prosperous, no more controlled, than monarchies. The lives of workers in republics, like France and America, are generally the same as those of workers in monarchies like Britain and the Scandinavian countries — and any differences are not caused by the differing constitutions. Republics need have no less flummery and ceremony than monarchies and their state occasions can cost as much (as if that matters) as any coronation or royal investiture.

Working class problems are not caused by the existence of an aristocracy but by the private property society which might need an aristocrat as a ceremonial figurehead. Workers should remember this, if they decide (as they should) that they have no cause to wave a flag for their kings, queens, and princes (although they might go along to boggle at the stupefying grandeur of it all). But it is important that they should abstain for the right reasons, and see clearly that the cause of their poverty and exploitation is not to be found in palaces. To put it another way, until the working class stop acting like cabbages we shall continue to have, in one form or another, our kings.

Ivan

So They Say: For Ever England (1973)

The So They Say Column from the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

For Ever England

The petrol companies have agreed to stop competing with “free gifts" to customers: no more soup-bowls, Famous Paintings, one-size tights, or the sets of imitation medallions which looked like becoming the successors to cigarette cards.

Texaco’s series of reproduction Army badges is therefore the last of its kind, and it is almost worth the 25p for the album to find a cat let out of the bag in an unexpected place. “Great British Regiments” has an introduction by Lieut.-General Sir Brian Horrocks, and he says:

  In my opinion, however, their greatest contribution to the British Empire which is rarely mentioned has been the protection they have given to our indomitable British merchants who, in search of fresh markets, spread our influence all over the world. For some this has involved spending many years in distant garrisons where their casualties from disease were often far greater than those suffered in active service.

Young collectors may find that enlightening. They should remember it when they are being told the Army is there to defend freedom and combat oppression, and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.


If Things Don't Alter . . .

Sir Geoffrey Howe, Minister for Consumer Affairs, has been trying to impress with a muscular posture. On the front of the Observer on 24th June, under the headline “Minister’s Warning on Profits”, it was reported that he had

  yesterday warned businessmen that they would be wise to remember that if they were making good profits the Price Commission could compel them to reduce their prices.

The same issue of the Observer shows, elsewhere, plenty of scope for Sir Geoffrey. On page II Weston Pharmaceuticals, who have 197 retail branches, reported that their profits rose from £459,070 in 1972 to £1,872,586 this year. The dividend was 27.3 per cent., and the “earnings” per share went up from 5.6p to to 8.1p. On page 13 Lead Industries Group Ltd. state an increase in profit before tax from £6,585,000 in 1971 to £7,040,000 in 1972, and in gross dividends from 11.5 per cent, to 12.075 per cent.

Both these companies appear to be making “good profits”. Are they alarmed by Sir Geoffrey’s warning? The annual report of Lead Industries Group says:

   There must inevitably be uncertainties as to the effects on profitability of the Governments’ anti-inflation policy and fluctuating currencies, nevertheless the present picture is a cheerful one overall and prospects for the current year look good.

In other words, they are “being wise” — and expect to go on doing well.


. . . they'll Stay as They are.

The strongest uncertainties, in fact, appear to be Sir Geoffrey Howe’s — as to what is going to happen anyway. The report of his speech ends:

  He quoted the view of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that commodity prices would fall back from their recent high levels . . .  if the national institute was right, he said, ‘we can certainly expect a significant reduction, in the months ahead, in the pace of inflation that has beset us all’.

This recalls the classic headline-question: Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed? What the Minister says, summarized, is that he could try to make prices come down, but if they do it will be of their own accord.

The inability of governments to control the economic working of capitalism could hardly be demonstrated more clearly. While Sir Geoffrey waits for the answer, anyone with £25,000 can try phoning Bevington Lowndes Ltd. (20 lines, 24-hour service) — who, in the Sunday Times the same day, were advertising “the lifelong investment that beats inflation”. That sum will bring you £2,500 a year tax-free, and to heck with the Price Commission.


Into Europe

We recently reproduced an item from The London Property Letter, which tells its subscribers how to play the regulations and exploit the housing situation. Its publishers, Stonehart Publications Ltd., are now launching The European Property Letter, again with Robert Troop of the Sunday Times as editor. The annual subscription is £25.

The introductory leaflet is headed 1975: The Year of the Property Gold-Rush, and begins:

  Over these past months British property companies have taken a quickening interest in Europe. Samuel Properties spent £8,000,000 on an office block in Frankfurt. Abbey Life £7,500,000 on one in Brussels. This is clearly the right moment for UK investors, large and small, to begin exploring the EEC — not simply because Britain has now joined, but because there is bound to be a huge rush of funds into European property and a consequent rise in prices when exchange controls are lifted, somewhere about 1975.

They promise to present:

  Street-by-street profiles of cities and towns where property is still underpriced.
  How to exploit the many investment anomalies that still exist in European backwaters.
  Advice on land: where to buy, what to pay, whether you’re permitted to hold.
  Planning: where it’s easiest to get it and why.

And other good things — for capitalists. Thrilling to be in Europe, is it not?


Meanwhile, back at Mon Repos —

Still in property, The Guardian had something cryptic in its house-market page on 6th July. Stating that mortgage repayments have gone up on average from £19.75 a month at the end of 1970 to £32.74 at the end of 1972, Nicholas Heman wondered how people were finding the money “when wages and salaries have not risen by anything like the same amount". His view was that

   the greater number of first-time purchasers may be explained by the fact that they are now regarded much more favourably by building societies who previously would have been more demanding in their requirements.

Which sounds like saying that building societies lend money to people who cannot afford to repay it with interest. And on 11th July The Guardian reported “the whole chilling picture" given by Shelter Housing Aid Centre, headlined “Shelter Finds Better-Off Have Housing Problems". It said:

   In this situation, people are more willing to commit themselves to higher mortgage payments than they can really afford. SHAC encountered one example of a 37½ per cent rate of interest. One man was paying a £140 a month mortgage on a £200 a month salary . . . “In 1973, a family needs an income of at least £2,500 and savings of £1,000 minimum before house purchase in London becomes a possibility."

There is something wrong with The Guardian’s headline. These people are not “better-off”: they are living in crippling poverty.

Give the Fellow a Break

“What you've got to remember about Prince Philip is that he is in a dead-end job.” — A Pressman in “The World at One”, 11th July.

Robert Barltrop

The Review Column: Non! (1968)

The Review Column from the February 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Non!

France’s veto on the British approach to the Common Market added a little more to President de Gaulle’s reputation.

The cartoonists feverishly added another lump to his nose, another crease to his face, another shadow around his eyes. The leader writers dipped their pens deeper into the vitriol and Wilson virtually wished the General dead, when he said that time was on the side of the British application.

Bogymen are always useful to capitalism’s apologists; they are convenient outlets for frustrated nationalism and scapegoats for the unavoidable problems of the system.

In Britain, these apologists often demand that the government follow something like the policies of de Gaulle, who is determined to expand French influence and power.

This is unpopular in Britain only because it runs counter to the present interests of the British ruling class, Since the war they have seriously misjudged the course of events in Europe, first paying lip-service to European unity, then deliberately trying to frustrate the negotiations for that unity, then choosing to keep the trading links with the Commonwealth rather than join the Common Market.

The erosion of British interests in the Commonwealth, and the hope that there were fatter pickings to be had on the Continent has caused another look at Europe. But the British ruling class still want to have it both ways, to have the EEC fashioned to their design. The French conception of European unity, on the other hand, is one dominated by the interests of French capital.

The fact that the Six are divided over the rejection of the British application shows that even the organisations which are supposed to be based on common interests have their conflicts. If the British government eventually joins, the disputes will continue, over other issues and throwing up other bogymen.

Capitalism is a mass of diverging interests; even its unities are full of conflict


No Arms for South Africa

Most of the criticism which followed the government’s ban on arms sales to South Africa assumed that the decision was almost the single handed work of Harold Wilson.

The Prime Minister was supposed to have been inspired by opposition to racism—in other words, by political principle. This might be more convincing, were it not for the fact that the whole thing blew up at the end of a year which the Labour government had devoted to proving that its political principles do not exist.

The ban will of course make little difference to the South African government who will obviously get the arms they need elsewhere; few weapon salesmen can resist a fat contract. But presumably this had little influence on Wilson who must have acted, if not for political principle then for political reasons.

One of these could well have been that the government’s record has put a severe strain upon the loyalty of its supporters. Last year was one of unbroken gloom for them, culminating in devaluation, another upward lurch in prices and the promise of an even gloomier 1968.

Then Wilson’s policy on Rhodesia is clearly a stagnant failure; no amount of indignant patriotism can expunge the image of the “toothless bulldog”.

If the Labour government had been seen openly to be giving support to the South African regime there would have been a further strain on the Labour Party’s loyalty and on the government’s relations with the new African states.

This settled, Wilson’s superior political skill gave him an easy victory over Healey, Callaghan and Brown; he could appear before his party and the world as the unspotted, high principled defender of the brotherhood of man.

The only remaining question is whether Wilson misjudged his members. Over the past three years they have absorbed a tremendous amount of disillusionment, including the government’s about-face on immigration control. Who can be sure that arms for South Africa was their sticking point? In a party without principle anything is possible.

Backing Whose Britain

Of course Prince Phillip was heartened by the news that some workers were volunteering to work an extra half-hour a day without pay. He is the figurehead of the British capitalist class and if anyone is going to gain out of this it will be them.

For the workers it can only be a dead loss—adding to their working day without getting anything for it. For the employers it might be a clear gain—extra work, extra production which they don’t pay for.

Cutting dividends makes no difference to this. The level of dividends does not affect the amount of profit made from the exploitation of the workers; to cut dividends simply means that more money stays in the company, to be reinvested, distributed later in dividends or used in some other way the directors decide. Whatever happens, it belongs to the employers.

The Prince said that extra work for nothing would soon lick all our problems. But whatever the level of pay, whatever the length of the working day, the working class have always suffered the problems of poverty.

The employers’ problems, too, have always been there. Well-publicised, gimmicky campaigns will do nothing to help them. Apart from anything else, however hard the workers work the things they make cannot be sold without a market. The employers have no control over this; that is why firms go broke and why workers often find themselves out of a job.

Perhaps the few typists who started it all—although others before them had done the same thing, but without such a clever and well-managed publicity drive—did so from the best of motives. Perhaps they thought they were making a sacrifice for the common good—a reasonable enough incentive.

The tragic fact is that they are misled. They have no Britain to back; to think that they have a common interest with their masters is to fasten their chains more securely upon themselves.

If the representatives of the privileged class are heartened by this it is only because it must keep them more secure in their social and economic superiority.

The Passing Show: "Double-Think" (1963)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

When George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-four, he was concerned in particular with what he called “double-think.” This was the term used to illustrate the crazy practice of reconciling one's self to an evil by equating it with its opposite, summed up in such terms as “War is Peace." What impressed Socialists when reading Orwell's book was that some at least of the facets mentioned in it were with us already, particularly “doublethink." Private property society has always had its double-think to help justify its existence to the underdogs, but double-think has become sharpened and enhanced under capitalism to a degree.

Take "War is Peace” for example. Countless times have we been told that we must arm to the teeth to preserve peace, never mind the abundant evidence to show the futility of such action that it does anything but preserve what uneasy peace we may enjoy. Labour, Liberal and Tory parties have all preached the same tragic drivel, and the working class have largely agreed with them.

And should war come, there will no doubt be plenty of them now to urge us to “fight for peace” (another bit of double-think), or rather for the recovery of the peace which their policies have so blatantly failed to preserve. But by then they will have quietly forgotten their previous words. In the meantime, they will continue to vote for “defence” expenditure (more double-think; no power ever has "offence” expenditure), and assure us how much in our interests it all is.

Propaganda goes on the whole time to keep us conditioned to the idea. Sometime, it is more of an undertone, but it is there nevertheless. An example of this was the row which blew up recently over the Australian government's decision to order the American TFX bomber to equip its air-force instead of the British TSR-2. In a subsequent attack on the Tory Government, Labour M.P. Denis Healey said:

  It is said that the whole (TSR-2) programme will cost us about £1,000 millions, which works out at £20 millions for every aircraft ordered . . .  does this make sense in military terms, particularly when the army is still crying out . . .  for helicopters and other transport aircraft which could be bought for only a tiny fraction of the sum? ” (Guardian, 5/11 /63.)

You get our meaning? Mr. Healey did not spend precious minutes arguing a case for armaments as such. The whole assumption behind his statement was that, of course, you agreed they were desirable. It was just a question of which armaments, when, and how much they would cost. Note in addition how you are asked to believe that it is your money which is at stake and that therefore you have an interest in seeing how it is spent.

But in truth, such is not for you. An interest like that is for the capitalist class and their spokesmen, like Mr. Healey, because the colossal sums spent on war weapons as well as other state expenditure cannot by any stretch of the imagination come from workers’ pockets. Workers get their wage packets and the rest belongs to the capitalist class, but strenuous efforts are made to delude workers otherwise. For without their support, armaments are impossible. Indeed, without it, so is capitalism. There’s the lesson to learn.


Hypocrisy

There was once and still is a man called Dr. Nkrumah who was imprisoned by the British but later became prime minister of the new West African state of Ghana. Later still he became Ghana's first president when it was declared a republic.

Not long after his rise to premiership, ugly rumours began to circulate about his dictatorial ambitions. Some of his more outspoken opponents just “disappeared” and threats and intimidation were levelled against others. During his lifetime as premier, the Ghanaian parliament passed in 1958 the infamous Preventive Detention Act which enabled his government to imprison for up to five years without trial, anyone considered a danger to the state.

Now we read that this act has been amended to add yet another five years to the period of imprisonment where the for release under the old act. “A distasteful necessity,” claimed the minister of defence in his support of the new move. Now where have we heard such words before? Ah, yes. In South Africa recently when similar powers were given to the Verwoed government.

And talking of South Africa, this brings us to the whole point. There was another of those demonstrations in Trafalgar Square on November 3rd, this time in protest against apartheid. Among the many messages of sympathy and support was one from none other than—Dr. Nkrumah. Somebody once said that those who live in glass houses should never throw stones, but clearly this does not apply to capitalist politicians. Cant, humbug and hypocrisy are political meat and bread to them. Nkrumah is certainly no exception.


The Duke again

The Duke of Edinburgh certainly gets around and simply loves making speeches. On October 30 he spoke at the Coal Industry Society’s luncheon, on the next day at a flight safety conference, and on November 5 at a nature conservation study group. A record enough to turn any politician green with envy, you might think, though it was the first of these speeches which interested us most.

“How much longer could we go on exploiting every feature of this country for gain?” he demanded to know, and continued : “Is it possible to reconcile the national need to increase prosperity with the national need to use this prosperity for the benefit of the human population?'’ He said he did not pretend to know the answer, but a few thoughts do occur to us.

First of all “we"; if by that he means the majority of us [we] do not, in fact cannot, exploit any aspect of this or any other country for gain. We are the working class, and all that we “gain” from our labours is a wage packet. That doesn’t make us very prosperous. Conversely, of course, there is the other ten per cent., and this includes the Duke, who do the exploiting and reap the benefits of ease and comfort. This other “we,” if they were honest, would answer the Duke's leading question with the words: "For just as long as we can." Or, to put it another way. “For as long as the workers are mugs enough to let us.”

Blessed are the Poor . . .

Who said that? Well whoever said it, there's one body which doesn’t believe it, and that is the Church of England. The total revenue to the Church Commissioners for the financial year ending March 31 was over £17 millions, of which more than £9 millions was from stock exchange investments and about £5½ millions from real estate rentals. In fact, stock exchange and property deals have more than doubled the Commissioners' income in the past fifteen years. Their capital assets are valued at more than £300 millions.

Rich, very rich, you would say? So would we, but not the Commissioners. Another report followed a few days after their financial one, telling us that they were not really wealthy after all. Apparently the Commissioners contribute only about half of the money needed to keep the Church working. Be that as it may, it does not really concern us. A fool and his money may soon be parted, but what interests us is where his huge sums of money come from in the first place. There is only one answer— from the exploitation of the working class.

Eddie Critchfield