Between the Lines: The Day War Broke Out (1991)

The Between the Lines column from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The Day War Broke Out

This was the most planned for war in history. The cameras were waiting in the desert, eager for the first fireworks display. CNN reporters locked themselves in their hotel room and described the bombing of Baghdad as it started, even poking their microphone out the window so that the viewers could hear the big bangs. This was televised warfare — murder by media.

When the bombing started (16 January) the TV reporters affected an air of surprise, as if the whole shooting match was out of the blue. Had they not spent five months previous to this telling the workers that such mass slaughter was inevitable and then that it would begin on the first night after 15 January?

The second night of the war saw the first Iraqi attack on Israel. CNN reported that it was a chemical missile attack. This misinformation was reported for over three hours. The CNN reporter in Jerusalem, asked to describe the attack, recalled hearing a huge explosion close to his office. It later turned out that there was no missile attack on Jerusalem.

The ITN reporter, trapped in his sealed room in Tel Aviv and reporting that there had been a chemical missile attack, was asked what Israeli TV was saying. He replied that he could not tell us because the TV messages were in Hebrew — the language of Israel. What qualifications do you need to be an ITV reporter? An Israeli journalist on the BBC was asked to tell the viewers how scared he felt. He replied that he was in his flat with his family whom he rarely managed to be with and that they were watching Monty Python on TV. Were they the only ones, we asked ourselves.

Agreement Time

We all know that there is little difference between capitalist politicians. In time of war the little turns into nothing.

On Question Time (BBC1, 10.10pm, 17 January) the two panels of politicians did nothing but tell each other how much they were on the same side. Hattersley, Labour’s deputy leader, praised Major for his war leadership; Clarke, the Tory Minister, said how pleasing it was to see all parties united in Britain's hour of need; Kaufman, Labour's Foreign Affairs man, was so eager to support the war that he sounded more like Thatcher than Major does; Ashdown, the Liberal leader, let it ^be known that he was the only party leader to have served in Kuwait as a'' marine. One woman in the audience heckled, saying that they were all boring politicians saying the same thing. The audience had a jolly good laugh — all good clean English fun.

Three days later the BBC issued an edict to all disc jockeys: no pro-peace records could be played while the war is on. Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance is now banned in British broadcasting. Playful heckling of capitalist politicians who have the whole of Question Time in which to spew out their vicious pro-war filth is permissible, but lyrics which might just change workers’ minds - No fear.

The Con that kills

Remember those cosy TV ads about joining the army and seeing the world? Didn’t they make you want to rush to the recruiting office and learn to be a chef? Those T.A. recruitment ads used to tell wage slaves how they could give up a few weekends and have fun playing "Bang, bang, you're dead" games.

There was even one newspaper ad which showed the Socialist Party platform in Hyde Park. London, and suggested that if you join the army you would be becoming a sort of special protector of free speech. What they did not tell you was about the chemical weapons, the sweltering desert heat, the body bags, the pointless murdering and being attacked all in the name of oil profits.

A war for their class

This war is being fought so that capitalists can stay rich. Every wage slave in uniform who dies, including the poor conscripts in the Iraqi killing force, will die in vain. It is a war, as all wars, about capitalist power - on this occasion, the power to own and control oil production.

Alas. Channel Four's Class By Class (Fridays. 8pm) did not have the first clue what class is about. The presenter, Ray Gosling, perpetuated the stale old fallacy that class is a matter of lifestyle.

A month earlier BBC's Forty Minutes was about prostitution in the King's Cross area of London. It was an unpretentious documentary which made no claim to offer any grand theory of class. A number of prostitute women were interviewed who made it abundantly clear that their reason for doing their dirty work was that they needed money — they were poor.

Also interviewed on the programme was a socialist, David Hines, who has written an excellent play about prostitution (it is called Bondage and is highly recommended). He explained that hookers were no different from taxi drivers — both had to sell themselves on the market to the first bidder. This is true of all workers: wage slavery is prostitution.

Having said that, there is prostitution and prostitution, and there is something more dignified about selling quick sexual thrills or taxi rides than spreading war propaganda.

                                                                                                                             Steve Coleman

Between the Lines: After Warrington (1993)

The Between the Lines Column from the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Warrington

Colin and Wendy Parry lost their son, Tim, aged twelve, to an IRA bomb. Their response was to try to find out why he was killed. Panorama (BBC 1, 9.30 pm, 6 September) followed them as they visited the rival factions in search of their tribal motives. It was moving and compelling viewing, but, above all, it was frustrating. The Parrys are the kind of reasonable people socialists like to meet; their minds were genuinely exercised by the question "Why?". But the responses of those they met on their quest for knowledge ranged from the entrenchedly bigoted to the enthusiastically stupid.

This TV viewer has grown bored of watching ghetto catholics and protestants pleading a defence for their blinkered outlooks. The self-pitying nationalists who want us to imagine that the Great Famine is still going on and that it constitutes some kind of an excuse for blowing up children should dry their eyes and stop whining; nobody beyond the drunken barroom rebels of Boston cares less about their persistent self-indulging in a patriotism which puts kids in graves. And as for the protestant bigots, always shown to us on our screens from their siege headquarters in the Shankhill Road, they should be informed in no uncertain terms that their vociferous paranoia in defence of a Union which confines them to slums and slogans is a form of nationalist arrogance, made worse by the fact that they too are wage-slaves and have nothing but their illusion of ascendancy to defend. Who cares about these people with their shallow, offensive ethical defences for the prejudices which keep the undertakers busy.

But worse than these home-grown fools, whose only hope now lies in the recognition that instead of fighting to protect their poverty they have a world and not a nation to win, there were the fellow-travelling republicans in Boston — the Noraid brigade who want to see bodybags for their bucks. Who could but admire the patience of Colin Parry, a man whose son was murdered with the support of these remote-control warriors, when one of them (no doubt the son of a nephew of a man who claimed once to spend his boyhood in Kerry) told him that his position of opposing all violence was too easy? No doubt they would prefer it it he came to the war in Ireland by their lofty route: by sitting in a bar in Boston drinking imported stout, singing rebel songs which they do not understand and which decent people have long ago forgotten the words of, and putting dollars in collections so that more Tim Parrys can leave home one morning and arrive at the mortuary before it is dark.

Pretty Woman meets Reality

Not being much of a cinema-goer, ITV’s showing of Pretty Woman (9 m, 5 September), starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, was this writer’s first opportunity to see this tale of Cinderella encountering the delights of the free market. The romance is quite simple: Gere, a millionaire whose description of his uselessness as a property speculator was good stuff, picks up Roberts, a hooker who looks like a Hollywood movie star. He pays her huge amounts of money; she gives him sex and then falls in love with him. According to the Beatles, money can’t buy you love, but times have changed and if you want to spend the rest of your life with Julia Roberts, open a deposit account now. Then on Wednesday, 8 September BBC 1’s Inside Story ran the sequel to the film. It was not intended to be a follow-up; it was a documentary about prostitutes and their lives. None of them looked much like Julia Roberts did, but a few of them might have done had they not suffered years of being beaten up by ruthless pimps who wanted their money’s worth out of their investments. It was a story of the daily struggle which our opponents celebrate as the free marker. It’s a strange medium, TV: you watch a romance about buying sex and smile at the happy ending; if the documentary would have been shown immediately before the film its offensive message might just have been a little clearer.

Steve Coleman

No More Family Life. (1908)

From the January 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the awful pronouncement which greeted readers of the Daily Distress one morning in October. Said the Editor:—

“We have proved from the writings of Socialist leaders that atheism is one of their principal creeds, and that the marriage ties are not considered to be of any importance. But our exposures have caused consternation at the Socialist headquarters, and every effort is being made to deny our charges in order to allay the fears of those who have succumbed to the blandishments of the smooth-tongued street-corner orators. Socialism cannot endure exposure. It flourishes in the dark.”

Socialism flourishes in the dark, you see. Only a day or so previously a leading article in the same veracious journal impressed upon its intelligent clientele that “the greatest mistake we can make in dealing with the Socialists is to debate with them. It is just what they want.” It is painfully evident that we Socialists don’t know when we are well off. After all, why should we seek the light of debate when, so the Express says, we “flourish in the dark” ? To us, our hundreds of meetings in the open air, in parks, at street corners, at factory gates, have savoured of extreme publicity, and the invariable presence of the police would appear to warrant the assumption. We have nurtured a phantom. On the authority of the Express we have been in Stygian blackness the whole time. Hence our flourishing condition. This, of course, is Express reasoning. If the editorial tongue were not so plainly visible within the editorial cheek, a plain man might be tempted to style it twaddle. Mr. Pearson further informs us that:

“Under advanced Socialism every child is to belong to the “State.” Parental responsibility in every shape is to be ended. Feeding, clothing, training, educating—the State is to do it all. One stands aghast, and wonders whether the result would be more disastrous to the parent than to the child,”

but on page 4 of the same issue a Mr. Claude Lowther “dealing” with the “Canker of Socialism” says “of course we recognise that the child belongs to the community and that the health of the child is the well-being of the State.” So it would appear that Socialism has stolen a march upon us and is here in all its hideous nakedness. And the mother don’t seem to mind. Or shall we say that Mr. Lowther would be well advised if in future he compared notes with the Editor before rushing into type ? There is a possibility of a glimmer of sense creeping in by accident whilst the present haphazard arrangement lasts. Don’t risk it, Claude.

Education again, we always understood, was the particular concern of the State. But read this first :

BARRACK NURSERIES

And what about character ? What about individual care ? What about family life and that affection which makes childhood’s days so sweet in the remembering ? Because many homes are unhappy; because many poor little children cry for food in the slums ; because some parents are without love and kindness, are all children to be without parents and to have a barrack for a nursery and a soulless “State” for a mother’s care ?

THE HOME IS TO GO. FAMILY LIFE HAS TO GO. Let the little ones wake in the night and cry for their parents — Let the mother stretch out for the child.

It is not hers at all. It is the State’s !

Socialism has no care for empty arms and wistful mothers. The child is the State’s, and mothers must go desolate. The little shoes, the little baby clothes—the kind “State” will provide those, and they will be all of a pattern and all alike.

Under Socialism every child will be a workhouse child. If the mothers dressed them, one would be prettier than another—and that would not be Socialism.”

Let me emphasise the fact that the article here quoted appeared in the Daily Express, Oct. 8th, not in Punch as perhaps might be imagined.

Only one thing is lacking to complete the harrowing picture. Why not prevail upon the talented artist who enlivened the last L.C.C. election with his beautiful and soulful conceptions to endeavour to depict the interior of a “barrack nursery.” Nothing appeals to the masses like a picture, and one such of a very long room, tall and broad, filled with hundreds of squalling infants, each seated before a “soulless” half yard of indiarubber pipe, through which the State pumped nutriment, would carry conviction. I present the idea to the Daily Express for what it is worth.

But coming down to hard facts and above all, those of present-day life, how does this strike the Editor of the Daily Distress and those who think with him that human society has reached its highest possible expression in that of to-day, so completely does it meet the individual wants of its components ? This is from the Boston American, July 28th :—

”MINOR EMPLOYES OF STEEL TRUST SOLD BODY AND SOUL.

Parents Are Compelled to Sign Release Deed Before Work is Secured.

Hundreds Execute It.

Worcester, July 27.—The American Steel and Wire Trust is buying children in Worcester for one dollar a head.

Several hundred have already been sold to slave in the three huge mills of the trust in this city, and the sale of hundreds of others will soon be consummated it the State authorities do not interfere.

Many parents have refused to sell their children into slavery, and it is expected that they will soon have to find employment elsewhere than in the trust mills for their boys and girls.

The Steel and Wire Trust is determined that it shall own its employes body and soul.

To secure absolute control of the children the trust recently demanded that their parents sign “A MINOR’S RELEASE.”

Each parent who signs this receives one dollar, and for that dollar he or she waives forever all control over the child: all right to collect his or her pay and all legal rights, in the opinion of the trust’s attorney, to collect damages should the child be killed or maimed in the mills.

Here is a copy of the “minor’s release,” by which the parent makes his child a slave for a mite of the trust’s gold:

MINOR’S RELEASE. 

Know all men by these presents, That, in consideration of the sum of One Dollar and other good and valuable considerations, to me in hand paid, I ………. of …….. have emancipated and do hereby emancipate …… of …… my son, of and from any and all liability to render or account for his services to me, and all obligations to me of whatsoever kind or nature, and do hereby release and forever waive any and all right which I may have in and to his services, or any wages or salary earned by him; and do hereby authorize any and all persons whomsoever to contract with my said son without any liability to me, and to pay him his wages, and to do any and all things and make any and all contracts, with said son, without any liability to me ; and authorize the said son to appropriate and receive, for his own use and benefit, without any liability to me, his services, and pay and all proceeds or avails thereof.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal at …… this …… day of 190…

Witness : ……………………………………………………………………

(Seal)”

Comment is almost needless. The Socialist is simply charged with certain proposals : here is an actuality. What of family life ? “Let the little ones wake in the night and cry for their parents—let the mother stretch out for her child.”

It is not hers at all. It is the Trusts !

“And what about character? What about individual care? What about family life and that affection which makes childhood’s days so sweet in the remembering ?”

How awkward for the Express that we here can speak in the present tense. THE HOME HAS GONE. FAMILY LIFE AS WELL.

And the American Socialists have denounced it. And the American prototypes of the Express have denounced the Socialists.

We need not travel so far as Tariff-protected America for indications of the ineffable state of bliss, marital and otherwise, in which the working class exists. We are indebted to capitalist sources almost exclusively for our best and most illuminating arguments and statistics.

The census returns show about 43 millions of human beings as inhabiting the British Isles. Of these 38 millions take just over half the national yearly production of wealth, the other 5 millions taking the remainder. The average income of the larger division is less than £160 per head. Thirteen millions are perpetually on or below the poverty line, and nearly a million receive Poor Law relief. What a bed of roses ! What possibilities for the formation of character and that affection which makes childhood’s day’s etc., ad nauseum. Beautiful language the Express people pour forth. “Because many homes are unhappy; because many poor little children cry for food in the slums ; because some parents are without love and kindness; are all children to be without parents and to have a barrack for a nursery and a soulless “State” for a mother’s care? ”

I reply : Because a paltry, parasitic, useless, one-ninth of the population absorbs nearly 50 per cent. of the national income and own seven-eighths of the whole wealth of the country; because less than one-thousandth per cent. of the population owns more than 50 per cent. of the total area of land ; because 5 millions of the lazy plunder 38 millions of the industrious; because of these and scores of similar facts, are 13 millions of wealth producers to be perpetually on the brink of starvation ? Are nearly 90,000 human beings to die in workhouses, lunatic asylums and similar institutions annually ? Are 120,000 workers, the only people who matter, to be robbed of life or limb every year, whilst creating wealth they never enjoy ? Are nearly a million fellow-creatures to be so reduced by privation that they are compelled to claim public assistance and become, despite the repressive measures adopted by “sweet charity,” paupers, in the midst of colossal wealth?

A million married women are compelled to work for wages. What of home life ? And childhood’s days so sweet in the remembering? Nearly 140 in every 1,000 never have any childhood’s days to remember, for they die before their first year of “life” is completed. And family life too ! What of that ? Yes, what of family life ? The average age of the worker is 29 years. The lunacy figures have doubled during the last 40 years. The unemployed problem becomes ever more intense. The worker’s wife and children have now to turn out on the labour market and help to keep a roof over their heads until the arrival of the undertaker—at the age of 29 or thereabouts.

“The home is to go” wails the Express. “Family life too” it sobs. Pass on ! it makes one peevish.

And now what of the Socialist proposals. Of course volumes could be written and have been written upon the institutions of religion and marriage. But briefly, very briefly, the position occupied by the Socialist in viewing the institutions named is very simple and readily understood. It is this.

Before man can formulate a religion, or a social custom like marriage, it is fairly apparent that he must be living in a community, and that the nature of that community will depend largely upon the methods by which the material wants, primarily food, are supplied. For instance, where animal or vegetable food is difficult of access, there, as history shows, one can confidently expect to find cannibalism. The social customs of that community will be an exact reflex of the way they are compelled to get their living. Their god will be as partial to human flesh as they. Their frailties, passions and virtues will find a truthful mirror in their deity. This is so historically and logically true that the wonder is that any person is to be found who, having given a very moderate amount of study to the question, can for a moment doubt it. Take the ancient Norsemen : men of pillage, rapine and plunder ; wild, restless, roving pirates, as fond of wine as they were of war. Their gods, Thor, Wodin, etc., were glorified counterparts of themselves. Higher in the scale the Greeks, a people who had brought the arts to a marvellous pitch of perfection, personified the arts and graces, that is, they made their gods and goddesses after their own image, and then deified and worshipped them. With the decay of the Greek civilisation, their deities died of the same complaint. So that as regards religion the Socialist position should be fairly clear. Change the economic condition of a people and their god or gods obediently dance to the altered tune. A moment’s reflection should make this abundantly clear. Even in the case of Christianity it is continually changing as the minds of its adherents change. “It is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdon of Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” said Christianity’s great expositor 2,000 years ago. But a system of society has arisen in which the rich capitalist is looked upon as the mainspring by which Society is enabled to move: a society in which the followers of the humble Nazarene become the possessors of enormous wealth. And—mark what happens. Dr. Akeds arise in scores to prove that Christ did not really mean it. Theologians go to extreme pains to prove that the eye of a needle was something entirely different to our domestic implement. The camel’s task was really very easy : only a bit of a squeeze and he was through. Same with the rich man, and so on.

And now regarding the custom of marriage. There is something decidedly humorous in the spectacle of the introducers of the Divorce Courts reproaching anyone with sinister designs upon the “sacred contract.” The severing of the marriage tie by means of divorce is a measure that surely no one will lay to the door of the Socialists. And who is it that fills the Divorce Court ? The very people who are now accusing the Socialist of designs upon the purity and sanctity of home life. Who are the greatest patrons of the horrible social ulcer known as prostitution ? The question is almost automatically answered. Regent Strest and Piccadilly are not working-class quarters; they are not even, remotely “tainted” with the “canker of Socialism.” Yet the bare names of these thoroughfares have become synonymous for the vice which flourishes, unashamed and practically unchecked, upon them. The average man (who is not a Socialist) will tell you that prostitution is a necessary evil, and that the unfortunates who are its victims should receive State recognition and be licensed, as on the Continent. The upholders of the present system cannot conceive of human society without it. “It always has been and always will be” sums up the whole of their philosophy.

The true Socialist position is that the present marriage contract is by no means the last word to be said upon the subject. History shows that as the economic basis of human society has changed, so the customs of that society have altered, including, necessarily, marriage. The present social system is based upon the ownership of private property, and the marriage contract is in essence a property contract. The single sentence from the Marriage Service, “with all my worldly goods I thee endow” is indicative of this, especially as the recipient of this cornucopean shower immediately surrenders all control over it by promising to “love, honour and obey” the benevolent “bestower.” The Married Women’s Property Act legalises the holding of property by married women, but even this becomes an expedient by means of which the bankrupt can secure some of his “hard-earned” plunder against the inroads of his swindled creditors, provided he has sufficient foresight.

It should be clear, then, that present-day society is organised upon a basis of private property in the means whereby the wealth creators live and that necessarily the customs of Society will partake of the general structure. With the change in the basis, necessarily the superstructure must follow suit. Abolish a system where the mainspring of all effort is the glorification, and aggrandisement of the individual at the expense of the community ; where the ideal is tersely expressed as “every man for himself and devil take the hindmost,” and substitute a community whose driving factor shall be collective effort for the mental and material well-being of all, and whose chief concern shall he the free and unfettered development of all its component units ; abolish the one, we say, and substitute the other and the way is easy for a marriage based upon mutual esteem; upon Love in actuality and not as at present, merely as an accessory after the fact—the fact of the possession of a “decent berth” or a banking account.

One thing the Express and those of its kidney appear to overlook is this. In any society where woman were the social equal of man, is it to be imagined for one moment that she would acquiesce in anything the Express portion of the population cared to suggest? No ! Capitalist morals, bourgeois ethics, would follow the Express into the oblivion of a hideous past. Under Socialism there will be no sex barrier. Elementary logic would appear to show that the individuals most interested, or rather more affected, by social changes, should at least be among the first to be consulted. It does not seem to have occurred to the Express that woman would have a voice in the ordering of her sex-relationship. Need her answer be anticipated ? Think it over !

W. T. Hopley

The Proletariat (The Working Class). By Karl Kautsky (1907)

From the October 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

Specially translated for The Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

2.—Wages.

Wages cannot be so high as to make it impossible for the capitalist to carry on his business and to live from it. For under these circumstances it would be more advantageous for the capitalist to give up business altogether. Hence the wages of the worker can never rise high enough to equal the value of his product. They must always leave a margin, a surplus value, for only the prospect of this margin induces the capitalist to buy labour-power. Thus in capitalist society wages can never rise so high that the exploitation of the worker comes to an end.

But the margin, the surplus value, is greater than is generally supposed. It consists not only of the profit of the manufacturer, but also much that is reckoned as cost of production and sale, viz., ground rent, interest on invested capital, discount for the merchant who disposes of the goods produced by the industrialist, taxes, rates, etc. All this comes out of the surplus value which the product of the worker yields above his wages. This margin must consequently be considerable if an undertaking is to prove profitable. Wages can, therefore, never rise sufficiently high to enable the worker to receive in his wages anything approaching the value he has created. The capitalist wage system means under all circumstances exploitation of the worker. It is impossible to abolish exploitation so long as that system exists, and even where high wages are being paid the exploitation of the worker must be extensive.

But wages hardly ever reach the highest possible point, more often, however, they fall to the very lowest. That point is reached when the wages of the worker cease to purchase his very necessaries of life. If the worker not only starves but starves quickly, his work ceases altogether.

Between these two limits wages fluctuate, becoming lower as the customary wants of life of the workers decrease, as the supply of labour-power in the labour market increases, and as the power of resistance on the part of the workers decreases.

Generally wages must, of course, be high enough to keep the worker in a fit state to work, or better said, wages must be so high as to ensure to the capitalist the measure of labour-power needed by him. Wages must hence be high enough to make it possible for the worker not only to maintain himself in a fit state to work but also to reproduce children fit to work.

The economic development shows the tendency—so favourable to the capitalist—of reducing the cost of maintenance of the workers and of thereby decreasing wages.

Skill and strength were in times gone by indispensable to the worker. The period of apprenticeship of the handicraftsman was a very long one, and the cost of his maintenance was considerable. Progress in the division of labour and in machine construction caused special skill and strength in production to become superfluous. This progress makes it possible to replace skilled by unskilled—that is cheaper— labour-power; it makes it also possible to replace the labour of men by that of weak women, and even children. Even in manufacture this tendency was perceptible; but only with the introduction of machinery begins wholesale exploitation of women and of children of tender age, exploitation of the most helpless of the helpless who fall victims to revolting ill-treatment and spoliation. Here we get acquainted with a new characteristic of the machine in the hands of Capital.

The wage-worker who did not belong to the family of the employer had originally to receive in his wages not only the cost of his own maintenance but also that of his family if he were to be in a position to reproduce his species, to regenerate his labour-power. Without this reproduction of labour-power the heirs of the capitalist would find no proletariat to exploit. But if the wife, and, from early childhood, also the children of the worker are in a position to provide for themselves, the wages of the male worker can almost entirely he reduced to the cost of maintenance of his own person without the slightest danger to the reproduction of labour-power. And the labour of women and children has the further advantage of their being less capable of resistance than men. Moreover, through their entering the ranks of labour the supply of labour-power in the labour market is tremendously increased.

The labour of women and children does not only lower the cost of maintaining the worker, it reduces also his power of resistance and increases the supply of labour-power—in short, it has the effect under any of these circumstances of causing the wages of the worker to fall.

3.—The Dissolution of the Proletarian Family. 

The industrial labour of woman in capitalist society means the entire destruction of the worker’s family life without substituting a higher form of family. The capitalist mode of production, in most cases, does not dissolve the individual working-class household, but it deprives it of all its brightness, leaving only its dark side with the waste of woman’s energy and her exclusion from public life. The industrial labour of woman to-day does not mean her relief from household duties, it means adding a fresh burden to those she already bears. But one cannot serve two masters. The household of the worker goes to wreck and ruin if his wife has to assist in earning subsistence for the family ; but what present society puts in place of the individual household and the individual family is miserable refuse: the soup-kitchen and the day-nursery in which the leavings of the physical and mental nourishment of the rich are thrown to the lower classes.

Socialism is accused of aiming at the destruction of the family. Well, we know that each particular mode of production has its particular form of household to which corresponds a particular form of family. We do not consider the present form of family to be the last, and expect that a new form of Society will also develop a new form of family. But such expectation is something altogether different to an endeavour to dissolve all family ties. Those who destroy the family —who not merely want to do, but actually DO destroy it before our eyes—are not the Socialists but the capitalists. Many a slave-owner in the past has torn husband from wife, parents from children able to work : but capitalist methods surpass the abominations of slavery ; they tear the suckling from the mother, forcing her to entrust her infant to the care of strangers. And a society in which that occurs daily in hundreds and thousands of cases, a society that has specially founded “charitable institutions patronised by the ‘nobility'” for the purpose of making it easier for the mother to part from her child—such a society has the audacity to reproach us with intending to dissolve the family, because we are convinced that household-work will develop into a special branch of industry, thereby transforming the character of the household and of family life.

4. Prostitution.

Besides being reproached with the intention of dissolving the family we are accused of aiming at community of women. This reproach is as void of foundation as the other. We assert on the contrary that the very opposite of community of women, of sexual compulsion and immorality, namely, ideal love, will form the basis of all marital relations in the Socialist Commonwealth, and such love can generally prevail only in such a state of Society. But what do we see to-day ? The want of resistance on the part of women who have hitherto been confined to their households and have mostly but a faint conception of public life and the power of organisation—is so great, that the capitalist employer dare pay them wages which do not suffice for their sustenance, and incite them to prostitution as a means of augmenting their wages. An increase in the industrial employment of women has everywhere the tendency of causing au increase in prostitution. In the modern state of the fear of God and pious morals there exist entire “flourishing” branches of industry in which the women workers are so badly paid that they would have to starve to death were they not to stoop to prostitution. And the employers declare that just upon these low wages depends the possibility of their successful competition, and that higher wages would rain them.

Prostitution is as old as the contradiction between poverty and riches. But in ages gone by prostitutes occupied in the social scale a position falling between those of beggars and scamps, constituting a luxury in which Society could afford to indulge, and the loss of which would by no means have endangered the very existence of that society. To-day it is not only the women of the loafing proletariat but working women, who are compelled to sell their bodies for money. This selling of their bodies is no longer only a matter of luxury, no, it has become the basis of industrial development. In the capitalist system of production prostitution becomes one of the pillars of Society. The defenders of this society themselves practise community of women, the vice of which they accuse us; of course, community with women of the Proletariat. And this method of community of women has taken root so deeply in present society that its representatives declare prostitution to be a necessity. They cannot conceive that the abolition of the Proletariat must mean the abolition of prostitution, because they cannot possibly conceive a society without community of women.

The community of women of to-day is an invention of the “higher” grades of Society, not of the Proletariat. This community of women is one of the ways of exploiting the Proletariat. It is not Socialism, but its very opposite.

Blogger's Note:

It was the German SPGBer, Hans Neumann, who translated Kautsky's writings from the German into English for the Socialist Standard.

Our Indian Sisters (1945)

From the September 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The debased condition of women in India is both a reflection of India’s economic backwardness and a bar to its progress. In the limits of an article we can only examine a few of the aspects of this problem.

It has been said that comparisons are odious, but nevertheless they have their uses in that they heighten contrasts. Only by relating the status of women in India to the status of women in Western countries may we appreciate the deplorable state of the former.

In the West nowadays every girl receives some education, usually earns her living for a period and attains a degree of independence unknown even a hundred years ago. She chooses her husband and, if wise enough, determines if and when she will have children. She chooses her religion or discards it, appears in public and possesses the franchise. With what she will enjoy under Socialism it is meagre, but by comparison with her Indian sister she has a world within her grasp.

Before examining the position of Indian women it may be useful to explain, though very briefly, how it came about.

Peoples evolve in a similar manner, but do so unevenly, and in India we see capitalism side by side with relics of Feudalism. In the isolated villages primitive communism is only just disappearing before the inroads of modern industry. India has been invaded by many different groups of people throughout her history, but the principle invaders have been Turkish people. India has therefore many religions, but the predominating religions are Hindoism and Mohammadanisni. Out of every 100 persons in India 68 are Hindus and 22 are Mohammadans (Muslims).

With the development of property women came to be regarded as chattels and religion adopted that status in its evolution. The Muslims secluded their women in order to secure them from robbery and the Hindus adopted this method. It is known as the Purdah system and consists of secluding the girl when she attains puberty. Religion also decreed, as in many early religions that the woman’s god on earth is her husband and she must serve him as such. Her life is only really justified when she bears a son wlio will assist her husband’s soul to continue its journey to its next life, which is one of many. The Brahamins (priestly group) dominate the Hindu religion and at birth, death, marriage, etc., the Brahmin must be paid. The Brahmin makes it incumbent on parents to arrange marriages early for their children, at birth or shortly after. At puberty the girl is sent to her husband despite the fact that the Sanda Act of 1929 penalises the marriage of girls under 14 and of youths under 18, this act has never been adequately enforced. The woman has no rights of divorce or property under Hindu law mainly it is explained because marriage is a sacrament.

The Muslim woman comes off better in theory than her Hindu sister as marriage is to her “a contract for the procreation of children” and as such may be dissolved by both parties. The Muslim woman has property rights and the custody of her children after a divorce, but it is in the main a facade of freedom as Purdah shuts her off from the world and makes enforcement of rights difficult and, due to lack of education, she may even be ignorant of them. Her husband’s divorce is easier than hers, and he may illtreat her and take other wives.

The seclusion of both Hindu and Moslem women is really the worst crime perpetrated against them, property rights began it, religion sanctioned it and the dead hand of custom continues it. Tuberculosis is rife among Purdah women.

“In Calcutta between the ages of 10 and 15 years for every boy that dies of tuberculosis 3 girls die. Between the ages of 15 and 20 for every boy that dies of tuberculosis five girls die.”

(Quoted from “Key of Progress,” a symposium written by Indian and other writers and edited by A R. Caton, 1930. Page 108). Early marriage is the main factor responsible for the high rate of tuberculosis among women.

Venereal diseases are rife in India and the stock is therefore often infected at the start, and early marriage produces a very high rate of abortions among the girls below sixteen. The maternal mortality rate in India is three times—great as in U.S.A.—24.5 against 8.5. Full-term pregnancy may prove to be a catastrophe also. The girl who is kept indoors away from air and sunlight and fed mainly on vegetables and rice nearly always has some degree of rickets and in Purdah continues to develop adult rickets known as osteomalacia. The bones soften and bend and the pelvis may becomes so completely altered from its normal snape as to render normal delivery impossible and Caesarian section is the only method possible should the girl be got to hospital in time. The girls require ante-natal care more than then western sisters but seldom get it. The so called midwives or dais are worse than untrained and have no knowledge of even the rudiments of cleanliness; the wonder is that any mothers survive. More hospitals are being provided but Purdah women are slow to make use of them and in any case they must be completely staffed by women, for the Purdah woman is so well schooled in her creed that she would rather die undelivered than be attended by a male doctor.

The Indian mother possesses much maternal instinct but little maternal capacity for she is still only a child herself. She lives in the joint family system which operates in most parts of India and here her mother-in-law assumes control and trains her in the bad old ways. The Hindu religion whilst on the one hand debasing women on the other it makes the grandmother a matriarchal symbol of great veneration, hence her power, but alas she has had no opportunity to learn aught save a few outmoded superstitions. Religion also teaches that over zealous care of babies angers the jealous gods against them, making neglect preferable. Whilst this is bad in any country, in disease ridden tropical India it is disastrous and the infant mortality rate per 1,000 births is 162 as against Australia’s 38.

The girl’s ignorance is not only limited to infant care but to all branches of knowledge. Literacy among the women of India in 1941 was 5 per cent., the following indicates the reason why :—

“It is not so much the view that ‘education is unbecoming the modesty of the sex,’ as the view that education is entirely futile and has no bearing on home life which must to-day be combated. And who could deny that a year, or perhaps two, spent in parrot-like repetitions of meaningless words, is an absolute waste of time? Even as a creche (the usual use to which primary schools are put), the primary school is hopelessly unattractive. There is none of the apparatus little children love, no sand heaps, coloured books, chalks, or handwork; only an abracadabra of sounds and signs leading nowhere. . . . Over the middle and high schools where literacy at least might be attained, Purdah and early marriage have cast their long shadows.”— (“Key of Progress,” page 18), and again, “In no province does one girl out of five attend school; in some provinces not one of 20 or 25.” (page 3).

Schools for girls have only existed since the middle of the last century and it must be remembered that co-education is rarely permitted. Girls must be taught by women, and parents are rarely interested in careers for girls, so the vicious circle continues resulting in a lack of women teachers, nurses, and doctors. What schools exist are mainly in the towns and though the population of the towns is almost that of America yet 80 per cent. of India’s population live in the villages.

Education is administered by the provincial governments and these have failed to obtain sufficient money to establish an adequate number of schools; co-education is, however, permitted in Madras, but hardly anywhere else. A further problem is that of the caste division; an untouchable may not attend school with the Brahmin, etc., and requires a separate school, rarely attained. Until present customs are broken down the activities of the Indian woman in the sphere of education are greatly restricted.

The life of the Indian village women may be less strict in the observance of Purdah if she be very poor, but education will be nil. Village life has become poorer due to facts beyond the scope of this article which are bound up with the destruction of native crafts, lessened productivity of the soil, heavy taxation and religious customs requiring payments. During the last century tea and coffee plantations were set up, factories built in the towns, mines opened up and railways laid down. Many of the impoverished peasants offered their labour power, but the man was so exploited that it became necessary for the wife and family to share his toil. Modern industry acknowledges no religious laws so the wife exchanged Purdah for a confinement of another sort.

Women work in the mines in India, and though eliminated from them in 1935, have been brought back during the present war. The 1931 census stated there were 8,600 women employed in “the exploitation of minerals” and the 1942 census gave 281,563 women employed in factories. Comparatively few women therefore work away from the home, and industry is mainly confined to the towns where payment and housing are very poor.

“In Bombay a woman earns half of what a man earns, in Ahmedabad it is more than half and in Sholapur it is much less than half. It would be absurd to suggest that the relative efficiency and productivity vary in this way in these three industrial centres. An assumption therefore that the employers are able to exploit woman labour in different degrees in these places is perhaps nearer the truth.” (page 155, “Our Cause,” edited S. K. Nehru).

Workers are always badly housed, but in India this means something worse than in other countries.

“A description of the housing of factory workers in Ahmedabad shows that out of 23,706 tenements observed, 5,669 had no provision of water, 5,360 had no latrines, few had any kind of drainage. . . . the tenements of Bombay provide unsanitary housing on large scale in a more compact shape.” (Page 150, “Our Cause”)

No study of women in India would be complete without consideration of prostitution which exists on a large scale and may be divided for purposes of discussion into religious and commercial, needless to say both are now commercial.

The religious prostitutes or devadasis, to give them their proper name, are girls vowed to the temple service by their parents, and are “married” to the god. Their duties consist of singing and dancing before the idol at certain times, and at others they are at the disposal of pilgrims, whose contributions go to tho temple whilst the girls receive maintenance. The community in Madras alone numbers 200,000 ! Many wish to free themselves from this slavery but legislation on their behalf is slow. Dr. Reddi, who has been active on their behalf comments: —

“Government officials in the assembly have always ignored the progressive Indian view in social matters, while they have showed too much anxiety to respect orthodox sentiments which have been suicidal to the social and moral welfare of the Indian masses.” (P. 184.185, “Key of Progress.”)

Commercial prostitution is also on a large scale. The 1931 census figures for female “beggars, vagrants and prostitutes” were 486,539. The rise of Industry is a partial explanation of its existence as it is almost nil in country districts; soldiers and sailors frequent towns and ports and evidence shows that the Government in the past has endeavoured to keep a special group for the use of the British Army in order that the incidence of V.D. might in some measure be controlled. Many of the prostitutes are recruited from India’s widows.

Before the advent of the British it had been customary to burn the widow with the husband’s corpse because it was believed she was the cause of the death. The British rendered it illegal but were powerless to remove the stigma attached to widowhood. In 1931 there were 25,496,660 widows who are treated as outcasts, half-starved and abused by their families, and many turn to prostitution.

Other recruits for the profession come through Pathan money lenders who terrorize poor people into giving up their daughters when they cannot pay the money borrowed. Once in these hideous dens of vice the girls lead a life that is a hell on earth, the keepers take all the money merely feeding the women and forcing them to serve whether ill or well, even when suffering from acute forms of venereal disease.

The position of women in India therefore is one which evokes horror. We find mere babes married, divorced, widowed and prostituted, the former and the latter appearing equally evil. The cause of widows is particularly bad although a few societies are springing up to educate them as teachers. The women who have escaped Purdah to enter factories or mines have gone, under present conditions of exploitation, from one slavery to another. Many work earnestly for the cause of women, but in India as elsewhere the fate of women is bound up with that of men and only a change in the social system will work any real salvation.

In Turkey and parts of Russia, where previously the conditions of women resembled that of India, intense industrialization was the determining factor in changing their way of life. Capitalist society demanded female labour for the factories and got it, with the blessings of Kemel Ataturk and Stalin : Industry, though growing in India during the present war, is infinitesimal in comparison with the wealth of the country and the needs of its peoples. Indian would-be capitalists are stirring and will either open up the country themselves or force this situation upon the British who have hitherto preferred to keep it as a dumping ground for their own imports : India’s wealth will be exploited and with it, her people. The change will not be a happy one until the workers become experienced enough to make their claims heard, but the position of Indian women at least cannot be worsened. Modern industry when firmly established requires moderately healthy, literate workers as the Russians discovered. We can only await that time and when it comes India’s women and men will be receptive to Socialist ideas and finally demand Socialism, which is the only solution to the problem of the Indian workers as it is to the problems of the rest of the workers throughout the world to-day.

W. P.

Sting in the Tail: Good news, bad news (1995)

The Sting in the Tail column from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Good news, bad news

The publication of a 400-page Genome Directory as a supplement to Nature Magazine should be really good news. It is an attempt to provide a map of a large portion of the 100,000 or so human genes. Medical experts believe it could be a step on the road to finding the genetic causes, and eventually the cure, of many killer diseases.

But we live in capitalism, so this good news has a major downside to it. In America where many companies provide their workers with health care insurance as part of their wage, we learn how such advances are being used to cut the capitalists' health care liabilities:

“To avoid hiring people with ‘disease genes' some companies ask job applicants about their family medical histories or ask for samples of blood or cell tissue without revealing that they will be used for genetic tests " (Herald. 19 October).

Job losses inevitable

That proposed merger of Lloyd's bank and the TSB has once again had banking unions complaining about likely job losses. They pointed to the increased profits of the Big Four last year—up £1.5 billion to £5 billion, and Ed Sweeney of BIFU argued that:

“The shareholder will do very nicely and top executives will get fatter pay cheques. The least they can do is ensure staff there will be no sackings ” (Guardian, 11 October).

Those increased profits are mainly due to fewer bad debts and not to any growth in banking activity. Then there is fierce competition for business from building societies and now the insurance companies are entering into banking. Also, new technology means that banks simply don’t need as many workers now, so the pressure is on to cut costs.

Fair enough, unions must protest at job losses, but oh for even a glimmer of recognition from them that their real enemy is capitalism and not mere mergers, executives or shareholders.

Of cops and hookers

Members of the working class have to sell their abilities to work for wages and salaries. Some even have to sell their bodies.

“Prostitution is not legalised, yet in genteel Edinburgh there are about 400 women at work in saunas or massage parlours, earning £2,000 per month, according to a recent survey.

"Trying to stop prostitution is like trying to compress water: all you do is displace it. It will come squeezing out of the sides somewhere else, ’ says Tom Wood, assistant Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders police." (Independent, 26 September).

If the assistant Chief Constable had prefaced his remark with “Inside a buying and selling system like capitalism . . ." no-one could have disagreed. But he didn’t, so let us be quite plain about this matter.

The only way to stop prostitution is the establishment of the classless, private property-less society. Inside that system the 400 hookers and the even more numerous policemen can start doing worthwhile and dignified work for the first time.

Hell drivers

Ever felt a little queasy on the motorway as you passed one of those mammoth heavy lorries and wondered if it was swaying a bit on the road? Well start feeling really queasy for a report in the Observer (22 October) makes frightening reading:

“Lorry drivers forced to work illegal hours by unscrupulous employers are to blame for up to 200 road deaths a year. Haulage firms, prompted by the recession to cut costs to the minimum, are pushing drivers to break the law or face dismissal."

When you read that between 600 and 1,000 people die in accidents involving HGVs every year in Britain; that 20 percent of these are caused by lorry driver fatigue and that up to 40 percent of the drivers have been asked to exceed the legal limit of 10 hours a day, you may come to the conclusion that the sway you detected was because the driver was half-asleep at the wheel.

It is just another example of capitalism lowering costs to boost profits and to hell with people’s lives.

“Support” — Tory style

Last November we mentioned on this page that the Young Conservatives were “set for the chop” because they had become an embarrassment to the Tory Party. This provoked an indignant letter in the January issue from a YC who told us:

“The Young Conservatives are not for the chop; both the Prime Minister and the Party Chairman have pledged their support for the organisation. ”

What this “support” amounts to was revealed in the Guardian (13 October). Tory’ Central Office has closed its youth department and the YCs now have to share the services of “one tenth of a person” at Central Office with Conservative Students.

Often, when the Tories have wanted to kill off some state benefit or allowance but without causing a row, they have left it to, in their own words, “wither on the vine”. The YCs are looking like a bunch of mouldy grapes to us.

Liberating Women's Lib (1979)

From the December 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fact of women's oppression in many eras and in many places is undeniable; the determination of the ‘women’s movement’ to end this oppression is understandable; but their specific aims are much more dubious. They make their views known in many spheres with various demands: 24-hour nurseries, abortion on demand, wages for housework, freedom for women to work in manual trades, to name a few. None of these reforms is worth fighting for within the framework of capitalism, for even if they are achieved they could not radically alter the position of women as members of the working class, any more than reformist action will genuinely improve the position of any other oppressed group. Black people, children, the disabled, the old, for example, all have pressure groups devoting their energies to reforms which will supposedly alleviate their particular problems.

The futility of such reformist aims can be demonstrated by taking a look at some recent examples of women’s liberation campaigns taken to their logical conclusions. One such is the question of prostitution. Recently, at a well-attended meeting at Central Hall, Westminster, baronesses, MPs, and leading figures in the women’s movement shared a platform with prostitutes fighting for recognition of their right to sell their bodies freely without harassment from the police. This was followed by the first national meeting of PROS, which is campaigning to end the imprisonment of prostitutes, to abolish the offences of loitering and soliciting for the purpose of prostitution and to stop the use of the term ‘common prostitute’ in legal proceedings. They also want to “get more street women involved on a regular basis so that they are taking the initiatives and finding a voice for themselves. That is where real change will come from" (our italics) (Guardian, October 9, 1979). Just how such reforms could make any appreciable difference to the life of a prostitute is hard to imagine. Nearly all prostitutes are driven into their trade by poverty and no matter how many reforms are enacted this will not change. Yet we have the spectacle of ‘liberated’ women seriously suggesting that removing a few restrictions and harassments will enable prostitutes to ply their trade with dignity and honour.

Another example of the absurdity of certain women’s campaigns relates to the ‘inferior’ position of women in the armed forces. Here we are expected to struggle for equal “rights” of women to fight and kill alongside men, and unfavourable comparison is made between the British armed forces, where women may only perform auxiliary duties, and the armed forces of Israel and the USA, where they are entitled to undertake full combat duty. In other words “liberated” women should be calling for the right to kill their fellow workers (men and women alike) in other countries an example of emancipation at which the mind can only reel.

Similarly, the fact that only one per cent of bank managers and two per cent of chartered accountants are women (Observer, 23 September 1979) must reflect the subordinate position of women. But are we to demand that these professions, which exist merely to service capitalism, should henceforth employ equal numbers of men and women? If, overnight, 50 per cent of bank managers and accountants were women, capitalism would be exactly the same and socialism no nearer. Even with total equality in the labour market women will remain wage-slaves, like men.

It is mistaken to assume that men, because their pay is generally higher, and because hitherto they have done some jobs to the exclusion of women, and because they usually go out to work for most of their adult lives, therefore have something that is worth striving for. The serried rows of clerks, factory hands, salesmen, plumbers no more have jobs which are intrinsically satisfying than housework and childcare are intrinsically stultifying. This is not to say that women are better off staying at home but it is a warning that exchanging one situation for another is not an act of liberation. The main, if not only reason most members of the working class—male and female—go out to work is for the small brown envelope they receive on Fridays; and it confers not dignity but humiliation that their worth as human beings should be so narrowly defined. The fact that many men have misconceptions about their role in society and their relationship with women does not warrant either wholesale hostility to them nor the belief that equality with men within capitalism will lead to emancipation.

Another example of women tying themselves in knots in furtherance of their cause is the support given by some sections of the women's movement to Margaret Thatcher: simply by virtue of her sex we were encouraged to vote for her, what she might or might not do in power being apparently of secondary importance. Although some of those who took up this position before the election have now repented, there are those even now who cling to this absurd notion; the writer of a letter to Spare Rib (July 1979), although abhorring the Tory Party, writes, “But when I read or hear the words ‘the Prime Minister was present. She said . . . ’ I am filled with a deep, half-incredulous satisfaction”. Another example of equal irrelevance to women’s real interests, is the decision by the Swedish Parliament to make “the monarch’s first-born child rather than the first male child heir to the throne” (Guardian, 8 November 1979), thus disinheriting the young prince in favour of his elder sister. Big deal.

There are many other areas where women seek to remove petty restrictions and barriers which make no real difference at all, and yet they are hailed as some kind of achievement. We learn, for example, that American Catholics may remove ‘sexist language’ from prayers; apparently sexist “language in liturgy has been a target of feminist groups”, so now a revised prayer instead of reading Christ’s blood is “shed for you and for all men” would read “shed for you and for all” (Guardian. 25 October 1979). Now there's something to make us feel better.

Women are rightly disgusted by blatantly sexual advertisements which display their bodies to sell products, but although putting stickers on these posters to express their outrage will make some women feel better, it will have little effect. The capitalists must sell their products in order to realise their profits, and they will use whatever means they find most effective to do so. Furthermore, men are just as degraded by the macho, he-men advertisements also used to sell products, or the “It’s a Man’s Life in the Army” type of approach used to incite workers to kill other workers on behalf of their masters. But what about the television advertisements which, in the pre-Christmas period, aim to inspire in children a crazy lust for worthless toys? Even if an organisation such as Affirm—"a feminist alliance against ads, articles and images that exploit women” were to succeed in its aims “to abolish all sexism in the media” (Spare Rib. July 1978), where would that leave us? Advertising would still be there, capitalism would be intact. Protesting about any of these advertisements is useless without tackling the underlying cause.

The most positive thing to emerge from the women’s movement will be the active involvement of large numbers women in questioning their role in society. Let us hope it is not too long before they turn their attention to a more constructive approach to the problems which face us all, men and women.

J.

The Wolfenden Report: Committee frank but clueless (1957)

From the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

“In my realms,” Queen Victoria is reputed to have said, “there are no such women.” If the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee become law, that happy state may be restored: not the one in which no prostitutes exist, but the realm wherein old ladies may assume that the unseen is the unreal.

The main findings of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution are by now too well known to need recounting. Briefly, they urge easier laws on homosexuality and harder ones on prostitution—that is, on street soliciting, the only offence with which prostitutes may be charged. There is no gesture towards ending or reducing prostitution; the Committee’s aim is simply to brush the dirt under the carpet—to remove what the Manchester Guardian called "the scandalous spectacle now commonly presented by some streets in London and other big cities.”

There can hardly be much objection to that, as far as it goes. The parade of streetwalkers is a sordid sight. How far does it go, however? Is anyone really going to feel better or more satisfied through knowing that they are on the ’phone and not the kerb, or because the invitation to five minutes of commercial, loveless love, is made indoors instead of in doorways?

That is not to imply that the Wolfenden Committee has been hypocritical. On the contrary it has done the only thing possible for it and, incidentally, accepted what some reformers will not see: that, in a social framework such as ours, prostitution cannot be done away with. “The law by itself cannot do so,” says the Report. The alternative, therefore, was to regulate the prostitutes and try at least to see that their activities were addressed to whom they might concern.

Why cannot prostitution be stopped? The Report speaks of a need first for education and a changed moral sense among the community. The fact is, however, that there is almost nobody who would not like to see prostitution disappear and is not aware of the squalidness of everything and everybody connected with it; no words, for example, convey deeper contempt than “ponce” and “pimp.” Moreover, it is overlooked that the toleration of prostitution owes a good deal to moralists who have condoned it as a kind of safety-valve for the family institution. Lecky, in his History of European Morals, wrote:—

“That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak, who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed for the most part to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death . . .  is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted . . . On that degraded and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame.”

To look for the causes of prostitution via such questions as: "Why do women take to it?" is fatuous. The Wolfenden Report does state categorically, however, that “economic factors” enter into it scarcely at all nowadays. In a limited sense of “economic,” meaning that girls do not now go on the streets as the alternative to destitution, this can be taken as true. Beyond that, it means very little. Many prostitutes, like the one who spoke on television, do it just for money—not out of distress, but because they want the things money buys. And this is no perversity, but our society's commonest ideal. Sir Miles Thomas said vehemently in a television programme a little time ago that anyone who did things for any other reason was insane (did he tell that to his workers, one wonders; or to Sir John Wolfenden?)

The real causes of prostitution are the economic and social conditions in which it lives and flourishes. It is, in fact, a product of the monogamous marriage system within the framework of buying-and-selling societies; its proverbial oldness is simply the long history of those societies. The ancient civilizations, which were highly commercial ones and had strong marriage traditions involving usually the subjugation of women, all had a great deal of prostitution. The Middle Ages had it, though the extent is uncertain. The earlier, pre-industrial Revolution stages of capitalism had more than ever of it, just as they had more than ever of begging, squalor and crime. And almost any of Queen Victoria's subjects could have put her right: Lecky, or Charles Mayhew, or W. T. Stead who, to show what was going on, bought a girl of thirteen from her parents for £5—the understanding being that she was to enter a brothel.

Because prostitution has gone on so long, many people think it must be human nature. Well, it may become an enforced need, but it certainly isn’t human nature to buy and sell that. In the primitive places and communities where you would expect human nature to be rampant, prostitution is unknown (at any rate until the traders and colonists arrive). Indeed, sex is a matter in which human nature needs only half a chance to assert itself in good and satisfying relationships between men and women, and one of the terrible things about capitalism is the number of people to whom even that half-chance is denied.

Of course, prostitution can be abolished. Do away with property-based, sale-and-profit society, and you do away also with the ubiquitous trading, bargaining and hawking which condition or take the place of all human relationships. Set down a no-property, common-ownership basis, and social relationships then express only human beings' needs—of which prostitution is not one. The Wolfenden Committee confesses impotence: reformers have foiled with this as they foil with almost everything. Attitudes-to prostitution have varied from ferocity to sentimentality, and today's “social problem” approach, but prostitution remains. You cannot, after all, remove the ugly rash without cleansing the patient's system.

The Committee's other concern, homosexuality, has had the lion's share of the press and broadcast discussion. In spite of all the arguing, the proposal that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults should cease to be a crime is not new or sensational. Edward Carpenter was stating their case, with the support of medical experts, over forty years ago; so was J. A. Symonds. Various bodies for penal and moral reform (including the Catholic and Anglican Churches) have supported the proposal. Indeed, if it becomes law it will simply bring English law into line with that of France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Belgium.

The real, age-old taboo on homosexuality is rooted in its antithesis to the family institution. Thus, it was punishable by death in the Old Testament tribes, because it threatened the birth-rate; thus though the Catholic Church wants it removed from the list of crimes, it remains “the sin crying to heaven for vengeance ” in the Catholic Catechism. Its exact appraisal by society at large has always been related to the state of the family; here and there in history—in Greece, in Rome, in the Persia of the Arabian Nights—the circumstances have allowed toleration and even some degree of approval. Possibly the outcry against Oscar Wilde derived a good deal from the fact that most people, in the days of the platoon-sized family, were only too well bound to normal sexuality.

There is no reason for not being gratified that a small group of people may be released from the fear of vindictive legal penalties on their behaviour; equally, no reason for passing over the fact that another group now stands faced with harsher penalties. What remains, after three years' investigation and deliberation by the Wolfenden Committee, is that the Sunday papers will not be deprived of anything in material for their perennial Exposures of Vice. Perhaps it is unfair to mention only the Sunday papers, however: in his boyhood this writer heard preachers chill their audiences by speaking of the dens of vice that existed “ in this very town; here, around us . . ." Not for some years did be realize—and his curiosity abate that the working-class district in which he lived, in the days of mass unemployment, would not have kept a single prostitute for a single week.

Such problems as these are inseparable from the civilization in which we live. The prostitute and her customer, the homosexual with his secret, the ponce, the blackmailer, and the pervert are not outside but part of that civilization. With them stand the class division, the moral values, the family structure, the education, the "living standards,” the entire social fabric which we know. Take a look, gentle reader, and ask: Is it worth it?

Robert Barltrop

Suffer little children (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Monday, 15th August, at King’s Cross, a crowd of irate men and women roughly handled an eighteen year old girl who was alleged to have thrown scalding water into the face of a two-year old girl. One can well understand their indignation. No one in his right mind can see a helpless child misused —or can he?

A few years ago, between the years 1939 and 1945, children were being killed, maimed and wounded by the countless hundred. True, people were indignant. They threw up their hands in horror—cursed the men whose vile duty it was to release these missiles—and went home to knit comforts for their compatriots who were performing the same deeds upon children of another country.

And when the war was over, hundreds of children on the continent of Europe, orphaned or completely divorced from their families by the war, lived like wild animals in bombed cities. Their world was a jungle. They learned that scrounging and stealing, sharp practice and prostitution were their only means of livelihood. Italy supported many such misfits. Who can see the film “Sciuscià” or read Giussepe Berto’s “The Sky is Red”—of young boys locked in barrack-like prisons, or of girls, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen or even less, selling their immature bodies for a handful of food or a bar of soap—without wanting to weep or vomit?

Into these conditions come the mealy mouthed social workers. A recent “March of Time” film proudly announced that several hundred of these children had been reclaimed “ in the glory of God.” For what? To learn the virtues of hard work and honesty, of religion and cant: to be convinced that it is both righteous and correct that at some time in the future they shall be the instruments by which a further generation is pitched into the degradation from which they themselves have risen.

But is there really need to look to the exceptional circumstances of war? Take a stroll round the mean streets of any industrial area and view those grim three-storied buildings that masquerade as schools. Listen to the lessons imparted therein. How are kids to know that French workers are more than sub-humans living upon snails and filthy postcards; that the Germans (or are they Russians to-day ?) do other things besides rob, plunder and devour their young? How are kids to realise that when mother says “she can’t afford it” to their simplest demand, it is an indirect result of the humility and toleration that they themselves are taught? An ageing schoolmaster once told the writer that when he came down from college he too had high ideals, but “you’re beating your heads against a brick wall.” He did not recognise that just like a miner or a factory hand he is employed to train children as cheaply as possible.

Education! The word itself derives from the verb “educe,” which means to “draw out.” The teacher’s job is not to draw out potentialities but to cram in— to cram in the bare amount of facts and the abundance of fantasy that will keep the worker fit and happy in his position of slavery.

And when school is over for the day, what then? Football in a side street, a game of cricket in the park, or down the market with Mum learning how to save a penny here and there and how to ask for two separate pounds of potatoes to get a double “ turn of the scale.” Of course, there are some wonderful institutions for kids. They can join a youth club and learn “citizenship” or the Air and Army Cadets and learn how to kill. Yes, truly wonderful institutions!

Suffer little children! Whether it be individually at the hands of some poor warped mind or en masse as the children of a subjected class, suffer they must in this system of society, whether the conditions be boom, slump, war or peace—and the road of escape will not be found in the classroom. The experiences of the factory, the dole queue, the army, the battlefields provide your education. The world is your university. Wake up and use it!

Ronald.

The Cynicism of Capitalism: 2: Partners Wanted (1972)

From the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The company’s prospectus is a colourful document of orange, red, yellow and gold paper. Pages are perforated by cut-outs of hearts. If all this seems a bit unusual, the prospectus offering is more so, as The Guardian (17th January) revealed. It is an invitation to the West German public by Kohle Liengeschaften to purchase limited partnership in an operation currently consisting of brothels in Konstanz, a town on Germany’s Swiss border, and Kaiserslautern which is near Mannheim and a NATO base.

“The oldest profession in the world is also the solidest,” the Company says on the cover of the prospectus. And an accompanying letter to potential investors suggests that purchasing a partnership in the enterprise “is an investment worth while because Irma La Douce never has a recession.”

The profession may have been around for a long time but it is believed that the Kohle venture is the first time capital has been publicly — and legally — raised in West Germany for an enterprise of this kind. And the financial enticements are substantial since the company is guaranteeing a minimum annual return of 9 per cent. “This is a better investment than stock,” asserts Herr Kohle, founder and managing director.

In Germany prostitution is considered a social necessity. The administration generally approves the existence of bordellos on the ground that they keep prostitutes off the streets (brothel bedrooms are officially referred to as places of work). So accepted is the profession in fact that there is even a slickly-written travel guide to West German brothels and red-light districts that lists each house and its location on a city-by-city basis and rates the house according to parking facilities, prices, service and amenities.

Prostitution is not a new venture for Kohle Liengeschaften. The real estate operation currently derives its income from renting small apartments to prostitutes and from concessionaires such as the night-club operators at the Kaiserslautern facility. The company, Herr Kohle emphasises, receives no direct part of any prostitutes earnings. Herr Kohle says that there are currently forty-seven “lady tenants” at Kaiserslautern and thirty-five at Konstanz. Generally, he says, a girl stays for three or four years. How long she stays usually depends upon whether she is making money and whether she feels secure.

The brothels are advantageously situated. The Kaiserslautern operation is the only one of its kind near the NATO base, while the Konstanz operation is near a casino and just across the border from Switzerland, where prostitution is illegal. The brothels’ “lady tenants” are checked by the management for police records, among other things. "We don’t take all the girls who apply,” Herr Kohle says. “For example, we don’t want wild women.” The girls, he adds, come from all over Europe. In return, the girls sign rental contracts for an indefinite period. In addition to protection, Herr Kohle says the company also provides apartments at Kaiserslautern where the girls’ relatives can stay when they visit. He adds that the company is also considering construction of a separate facility next year at Kaiserslautern for children of the prostitutes. These features, Herr Kohle says, offer the girls some security and "take some of the harshness out of the profession”.

Herr Kohle’s “new style” operations have borne financial fruit. So far nearly £600,000 in limited partnerships has been purchased by 120 to 130 investors. The limited partnerships are sold in £5,500 units. However, to attract the small investor and to provide anonymity, several investors may each put up £550 and pool their investments to make the minimum for a partnership unit. According to its prospectus, Kohle Liengeschaften is currently offering equity capital equivalent to £1 million or about £150,000 less than the estimated market value of the two properties. By the end of 1973 the company hopes to have eight brothels in Germany and Austria. To reach this goal he says about £4.5 million will have to be raised.

The company is advertising in newspapers and is selling partnerships through investment consultants and through its own sales office, which includes some former IOS Mutual Fund salesmen. Herr Kohle is a 43-year- old entrepreneur who is also in the construction and investment business and says that he put together Kohle Liengeschaften because "there was still room for adventure” in his life. He says he is optimistic about the future of the venture. “Prostitution has weathered all the storms over the past 2,000 years without a crisis and I don’t see one now unless the human race changes,” he says.

Here we have an example of the mentality that views all things as commodities, including the female sexual capacity. The brothel in this case is the market place, the buyers desirous males. Herr Kohle need fear no change in the human race, but he has left out of his calculation the fact that a section of the human race — the working-class section — will change conditions and, as a consequence, will change the behaviour of the human race. This is a change that will remove the commodity status from society and thus eliminate all forms of prostitution — and prevent the likes of him from exploiting women.

R. Ambridge

50 Years Ago: Vice - 1913 Version (1963)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In February of this year—within three months of the White Slave Bill being passed—Hull was excited about the arrest of “a leading citizen,” named Edward Buckton Cargill. He was the Chairman of the Hull Steam Trawlers Owners Company, of the Humber Conservancy Board, was chosen by the shipowners of Hull as a representative of the fishing trade of the port, and was appointed by the Board of Trade on the North Sea Fisheries Committee, besides holding many other leading positions in the property owning world.

He was charged with offences against several girls under 16 years of age. He obtained the services of several noted K.C.S and other lawyers and detectives to help him, and they scoured the cities to try and get matter whereby the girls could be seen in the worst light—morally. Needless to state, the girls belonged to the working class.

When the judge ordered him nine months hard labour the poor dupes of Liberalism and Toryism thought it showed the sincerity, and wisdom of our governors—But—wait and see!

He was sentenced at the end of February. At the beginning of May, or shortly after two months had elapsed, the Hull Press announced the release of Cargill on the ground of indisposition. He was removed to his home, prison life not agreeing with this tender plant. And a member of the town council ventured the opinion that if he had been a poor man he would have been in prison yet.

They were going to deal with “the great traffickers in human beings.” They were going to strike at “the international ring of procurers.” Ah, yes! a story of going to do. When, owing to an oversight, no doubt, a sumptuous flat in Piccadilly was raided, the flat keeper, calling herself Queenie Gerald, was charged with procuring girls. In the course of the evidence at Marlboro' Street, however, it transpired that prominent men were associated with the business—and the usual thing took place.

The case came on at the sessions watered down to one of "exercising influence over the movements of prostitutes for the purpose of gain.” At the police court she had pleaded not guilty, but now she answered: "Guilty!” the result being that no evidence was taken against her on the charges made, the jury were not sworn, all in spite of the fact that Mr. Travers Humphrey, the prosecuting counsel had at the Police Court stated that (vide "Daily Telegraph,” June 21st) “There were a large number of letters which made it quite clear that, apart from the prisoner's earnings herself, and apart from what she received from the girls, she was carrying on the trade of a procuress.”

The public were excluded from the Court and the Press representatives were told they were only there as a privilege, and were to report no names and be careful not to let much leak out. They were ordered not to divulge the real name of Queenie Gerald—and all for what reason!

BECAUSE LEADING MEMBERS OF MODERN SOCIETY WERE PATRONS OF THIS PICCADILLY FLAT.

Conclusive evidence of procuring was given earlier at the Police Court proceedings, but that didn't stop the charge being dropped at the Quarter Sessions. One of the letters written to “a gentleman at the Ritz Hotel” ran as follows:

“Your friend wishing to meet a few society ladies. I can arrange for three on Sunday. They are the real thing and frightfully expensive. Will you ask the Prince what he is prepared to give.”

From the Socialist Standard, September, 1913.