Letter: Explaining Wages (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Explaining Wages

Socialists know the Marxian labour theory of value: that wages is the price of labour-power or cost of production of the one commodity that overproduces itself, i.e. the ability to work and create useful things.

But how is the figure of £10,000 and upwards a year for managerial class arrived at? Directors’ fees and in several companies at once, many of them absentees, and golden handshakes on retirement or redundancy?

Is their cost of production so steep or is it that the working class having produced such a vast amount of surplus-value it must be squandered on useless luxury for the few?

Harold Shaw

Tetbury

Reply:

As you point out, labour-power is a commodity and wages are its price. Price is the monetary expression of value, i.e. it indicates the amount of labour-time embodied in a commodity, and this applies to labour-power as to everything else. Wages correspond, in general, with what it takes to produce, maintain and reproduce particular kinds of workers.

Some workers’ labour-power is a relatively cheap commodity. It requires the minimum of education and training, and does not need to be sustained by a high standard of living. Other workers sell a comparatively more expensive product. They have had to acquire special skills or knowledge, perhaps be educated much longer; it is expected that they should live fittingly and that their children be schooled for a similar future. This is the difference between wages of £2,000 and £10,000 a year.

The price of labour-power can be affected, in common with other prices, by supply and demand. Another factor is the strength of trade-union organization in particular industries and professions and its success in getting wage increases under favourable conditions. Higher-paid workers are not a separate class and are as much at the mercy of the wages system as the rest. In recent years executives and managers have been losing their jobs, having to change the life-style they may have thought was divinely ordained for them, and going to the Social Security office.

Directors’ fees are a different matter from wages. Since changes in the taxation laws made “unearned income’’ subject to heavier tax rates, it has become the practice for capitalists to have nominal occupations of which “director” is the most common one.

Editors

Letter: Not That Sort of War (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not That Sort of War

I am not a member of the SPGB. Why? I object to Principle 8, line 4. War can prove nothing but who has more money or more brawn.

Winifred Mawson 

Horsham

Reply:

Your objection comes from too literal a reading. The statement that we “wage war against all other political parties” means that we oppose them uncompromisingly and seek to dissuade workers from supporting them, not that we envisage using armed force (or even fisticuffs) against them. War with weapons is not an instrument which Socialists can use. Means have to harmonize with ends. A regime brought into being by force thereafter depends on force: our instrument is understanding.

Editors

Letter: Morris and Marx (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morris and Marx

In the article “The Poverty of Sociology” in the January Socialist Standard you say that William Morris had never read Marx. However, this is not so, and I quote from Morris’s How I Became a Socialist: “Well, having joined a Socialist body I put some conscience in trying to learn the economic side of Socialism, and even tackled Marx (in French) though I must confess that, whereas I thoroughly enjoyed the historical part of ‘Capital’, I suffered agonies of confusion of the brain over reading the pure economics of that great work. Anyhow, I read what I would, and will hope that such information stuck to me from my reading . . .”

So Morris certainly read Marx even though he may not have easily understood the economics.

F. Ansell

Goole

Reply:

We accept the correction with thanks.

Letter: Socialism & Religion (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism & Religion

It does not necessarily follow that a religious person cannot take an active part in the abolition of the capitalist system of society. The belief in any view of the immortality of the soul does not spring from any particular mode of production. Such beliefs can be used for the good or the ill of man, just as a razor can be used for shaving or cutting one’s throat (or some other one’s). It is sheer super-optimism to believe that in a reasonable given time the majority of the world’s workers will discard their religious beliefs in favour of a materialistic outlook on life and death.

It is in the manner in which religion is used that it becomes the opium of the people. So I cannot see what prevents a religious person advocating and working for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man in the economic field.

Please note: You can cut this short letter if you wish. If you do so, it will be interesting to see which parts you censor.

Ron Smith

Dundee

Reply:

That religion is “the opium of the people” is only part of the Socialist case against it. Underlying all religious belief is idealism — the assumption that ideas have an existence of their own and can be the operative force in changing society “for the good or the ill of man”, as you say.

Scientific materialism rejects this belief. The drive to Socialism is not a pursuit of ideas, but the expression of a class interest. Revolutionary social changes in the past have been brought about (and resisted) by classes seeking the fulfilment of their material interests. People holding religious or otherwise idealist views have, therefore, an obstruction to their understanding of society: contrary to what you say, it does necessarily follow “that a religious person cannot take an active part in the abolition of the capitalist system”.

You tell us it is mistaken to expect that the majority of the world’s workers will reject religion and see things materialistically. Look round. The capitalist system itself requires materialist thinking and is helping to effect the conversion. A poll reported in the Guardian on 14th October 1974 concluded that only 33 per cent, of young people today believe in God or an after-life.

As regards your ending: don’t be childish. Letters are shortened for space reasons, not censorship. If other letters on these pages had not been reduced in length yours might not appear, and vice versa.

Editors

The "Free Health Scheme" Myth (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

It was all worked out so that sick people in Britain could be looked after and seek treatment undeterred by the financial disaster it previously entailed. So they were told — but it didn’t work out that way. In capitalist society you get nothing for nothing and the politicians (outright callous Tory or two-faced hypocritical Labour) make no bones about their ‘need’ to modify workers’ wages for (and limit the benefits of) a health scheme which fails to satisfy the “cheap healthy work force” expedient of those who planned it.

For let there be no mistake about the motive of those who devised the idea of a National Health Service, telling the world it was to ensure unfettered medical attention for all who needed it. It was (as many publications inadvertently disclose) to cut the cost to British capitalism in working hours lost to their businesses through workers’ sickness.

Now, these Capitalist interests are not happy with their own deal. They feel that British doctors are not doing their bit in the cheap maintenance of healthy wage slaves, but are spending too much capitalist money in the process by “overprescribing” for the sick who turn to them for help. A “free” health scheme (in fact it costs 20p per item on each prescription and there’s a lot of Parliamentary agitation to make it more) is all very well in the interests of the country’s employers — but if general practitioners take the thing too far they will have to be pulled into line. Thus Mr. Mike Thomas, Labour MP for Newcastle, has introduced a Bill demanding that registered medical practitioners be limited in the drugs they may prescribe to a small list and that their surgery treatment notes be made available to a panel who may have to “discuss” with them the treatment they arc making available to patients on the “National Health”.

Quote, from the doctors’ periodical Pulse 10.7.76: —

‘‘The Government may be forced into taking more radical action to reduce the level of prescribing, both within general practice and the hospital service in order to peg the rising drugs bill. Minister of State for Health, Dr. David Owen has called for ‘better prescribing overall’ and has reminded the profession, yet again, that it is now having to make economic decisions within the context of tightly reined resources. Unfortunately both Dr. Owen and Social Services Minister, Mr. David Ennals have reached that stage where they are issuing repeated warnings on the need for constraint in each sector of the Health Service, but no one knows precisely how the Government intends to cut back costs or what level of toughness it is prepared to use. The Department of Health circular issued last week, for example, was supposed to represent ‘Guidelines’ on the much-vaunted review of NHS management costs . . . Dodging the perfectly justifiable suggestions from one Tory questioner that there was need for a realistic uprating of prescription charges which still remain at their pre-inflation rate, Dr. Owen replied: “What is needed is better prescribing overall and a recognition by patients that not every ailment is cured by pills . . . The medical profession must recognize that it has to make economic decisions. At present the prescription Bill has no cash limit and is open-ended . . . But if the medical profession is not able to show some form of economic restraint in its budget, any Government would be forced to look at other measures ... At the moment we prefer to rely on education and we hope to keep the drugs bill within reasonable bounds by that method.’ ”

The article in Pulse continues:

The drugs bill to which Dr. Owen was referring amounted to £379 million during the last financial year in England. At £7.00 a year per person, was that not good value for money? Dr. Owen took this opportunity, replying to Labour back-bencher Dr. Maurice Miller, to confirm that the pharmaceutical industry was not guilty of drawing any excess profits — and that any blame for the escalating drugs bill lay with an over-demanding public and over-generous profession.

In other words, Dr. Owen has the gall to represent himself as unaware of how notorious drug firms are for their enormous profits, and upset by patient’s demands for adequate treatment and doctor’s desires to provide it!

Health at a Price

Quoting from the doctors’ periodical General Practitioner, 16.7.76, on page 8 we read:

A blunt warning that the National Health Service must ‘live within its means’ was given by the Prime Minister last week. Only 24 hours after the Cabinet began a series of meetings to prepare for public spending cuts totalling about £1,000 million next year, Mr. Callaghan made it clear that the NHS would not escape the treasury act. He told members of the Royal College of Surgeons at a dinner in London that ‘difficult choices and unwelcome decisions’ lay ahead in many areas of public expenditure. Doctors would be faced in their everyday work with a difficult period of adjustment from a fairly rapid rise in the amount of resources available in recent years to more stringent conditions.

This, of course, is a typical politician’s mealy-mouthed way of avoiding saying that National Health Service patients will have to suffer neglect by being denied benefits once promised by the British capitalist class. But to add insult to injury, listen to the sheer two-faced double-talk the Labour Leader follows it up with. Quote: “At a time when the ordinary wage earner is voluntarily cutting his own standards, the health service too must live within its means.”

In other words, Mr. Callaghan feels that if workers are being deprived in one way it is only fair that they also be deprived in another! This is the depth to which opportunist politicians will sink and a measure of the contempt they have for their wage slaves’ discernment.

This is but one of the many degrading aspects of life under capitalism, where men can dictate how much medical attention and care their fellows are “entitled to.” In a Socialist society such inhuman parsimony would be impossible. There would be no leaders able to hoodwink anyone, and not just  health care but all goods and services would be free to every one.

R. B. Gill

Filthy Rich (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the main points of the argument put forward by the SPGB is that capitalist society is divided into two classes; the working class, the largely propertlyless majority, and the capitalist class, those who own most of the wealth produced in the world and the physical means to make more of it. It is easy to identify the working class. For example you can see them at certain hours of the day pouring into the factories, offices, shops, mines railway stations etc. in order to work. That is why they are called workers. They receive at the end of their week or month’s work, a pay packet or salary cheque — the price at which they have sold their labour-power to the boss. Basically this will permit them to purchase sufficient to allow themselves and their families to subsist until the next pay packet. That’s simple.

But it is sometimes not quite so easy physically to identify the capitalist class. True you see the odd chauffeur driven Rolls with its owner frequently sprawled across the back seat, the assembly at Ascot, and those going in and out of Claridges, the Ritz etc. But some highly paid workers will use Claridges, so that can be confusing. And many members of the working class will go to Ascot to mimic the pastimes of their class exploiters. So identification lines can become blurred. In particular, when wealth ownership itself has become a most complicated and intricate network of title to deeds, bonds, shares etc. it all adds to the difficulty of identification It is no wonder many people are confused and ask the SPGB “Who are the capitalist class?” “Where are the capitalist class?” and so on.

Where there's a will

Well ironicaly, one of the easiest methods of identifying someone’s class position is not by the facts of his life, but by the effects of his death. When a worker dies, after funeral expenses have been paid, the H.P. company sorted out etc. there is not usually much left. Very often nothing at all. Born with nothing, the worker dies with nothing, leaving “not a rack behind” as Shakespeare put it. But the death of a capitalist is a different matter. For one thing it is noted in the papers — it is news. The Times for example runs a short daily column headed “Latest Wills”. Now these are not any old Wills — when you die, not only will they not bother to write your obituary in the Times, they won’t put in their latest Wills column how much you left to your family and friends. But a glance at the column for any day will show something interesting. The paper’s column for Wednesday July 14th 1976 (chosen entirely at random) is quite short. It reads as follows:

Lord Elphinsone of Drumkilbo, Meigle, Tayside, a first cousin of the Queen, has left estate totalling £890,907 gross according to his will published in Perth yesterday. It included £178,019 abroad. Other estates, include . . . Atkin, Mrs. Anita Constance Irene of Tonbridge £163,424; Bennett, Lady of Highgate, wife of Sir Thomas Bennett £143,390; Hawkin, Mrs. Levu Colin, of Caine, butcher, £345,293; Segravc, Mr. Charles Rodney of Chobham £515,275.

(The figures do not show the tax that will be payable on the deaths. Equally they do not show the amount the individual may have “disposed of” prior to death in part to avoid taxes. The true representation of the individual’s wealth may be much higher than the amount given.)

Another column which frequently pinpoints the capitalist at his hour of death is the obituary column. You don’t need to have done anything of note to merit an entry — provided you were very rich. J. Paul Getty died on 7th June this year. Some of the points about him which appeared from the Times of the next day are the following; at his death he was “estimated” (i.e. he was so rich they could not even count all his money and it had to be guessed) to be worth £1,000 million; he “lived simply amid considerable splendour at Sutton Place, near Guildford, the Elizabethan mansion set in 1,000 acres”; lest this home was not “simple” enough (how much more fawning can the capitalist press be than to say he lived “simply” — the reporter ought to visit some working class homes, or look round his own, and then see if Getty lived simply) he was having another house built for him at Malibu California where “he had built a museum to house his £100 million art collection”; by the age of 21 he had “made” 2 million dollars (but he had of course a rather good send off from his millionaire father), and by the same age he had had 2 divorces, (3 more marriages and divorces to follow); this displeased his “earnest Methodist” father, so much so that when the father died, he gave Getty only 500,000 dollars of his estate of 10 million dollars; but fear not, our hero was “not disheartened by the smallness of the legacy for he already had 4 million dollars of his own”; and on and on.

Thrift and Humbug

Like so many members of the class that has no social function whatever other than to accumulate the wealth produced by workers, Getty was fond of giving his opinions to all who cared to listen (and he was so rich many people did listen). The capitalist press repeat these pearls so that the swine before whom they are cast and who produced the wealth for him can be suitably impressed by the wisdom of their masters. For example; “The advice he was prone to give to others he had followed himself. This was to ‘be thrifty, save a little money and have a small surplus for investment’.” Or what about this gem: “He did not believe in charity. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, 'why I should distribute money right and left to people because they ask for it’”! well, quite right too! after all, if the world is so madly organized as to allow most people to live in want and provide Getty with such a crazy superabundance why should he be such a damn fool (as his methodist father with his religion humbug would no doubt have put it) as to give it back to them?

That’s one sadly deceased member of the parasite class. What about some living ones? The death of Getty brought forth speculations as to who was the richest person in the world now that both Getty and Howard Hughes are dead. As the Sunday Times reported (9/6/76) there is no shortage of candidates. Some of the most obvious candidates are to quote the Sunday Times “comparatively hard up”. Into that category they put people like Henry Ford, Woodruff of Coca Cola, Benton of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Forest E. Mars of Mars Bar fame and Dewott Wallace of Readers Digest. Some of the legendary wealthy American families (Rockefellers and the like) can’t compete for the title either because they have been too “busily giving their money away to distant members of the family in a desperate effort to avoid tax.” One possible candidate is Al Tajir. He is the ambassador to Britain from the United Arab Emirates and also their advisor on oil. He “has accrued his vast wealth from a variety of sources — mining in Africa, property in Western Europe, businesses in the Persian Gulf and Lebanon . . . he did once boast that whereas many governments would find it hard — if not impossible — to raise a billion dollars . . . it would take him only a morning” However the Sunday Times suggests that the man who must take the crown is currently little-known 78-year-old American, Daniel K. Ludwig.

Although it appears that Ludwig is somewhat coy about disclosing the extent of his interests (and he may not know — as Getty is supposed to have said, “you can’t be that rich if you know how much you have got”, it seems they include the following: “The American company National Bulk Carriers, a huge fleet of tankers, a shipyard in Japan, a large share in the National Mortgage Bank in America, a deep water port in Florida, a big interest in potash in Ethiopia, iron ore in India, oranges in Panama, a million acres of Venezuela, 3 million acres of Brazil and large chunks of Australia and the United States.”

A Bijou Nest

Another quietly comfortable family is the “Royal”. Despite the cries of poverty from them that have in recent years tugged at the worker’s heartstrings, the owners of the little home standing in the exclusive 40 acres of ground at Buckingham Palace (an estate agent’s dream) can’t be that hard up. They have recently bought a small present for their son-in-law and daughter. It is, according to the Daily Mail (24/6/76 a “730 acre property — complete with trout lake, a conservatory as long as a cricket pitch, 200 acres of mature woodland, a 530 acre farm, a folly and stables.” Mind you according to the report the stables probably need doing up, the kitchen (not that the dear couple can be expected to be doing that much washing up themselves) needs a coat or two of paint, the billiard room has a “dusty unused look and has been used as a store” (how low can you get?) and in general the 5 principal bedrooms, five secondary bedrooms (for the staff) and the four reception rooms clearly need tarting up. No doubt the locals will be able to see Anne and Mark on Saturday afternoon, their shirt sleeves rolled up to their royal elbows, scrubbing away for many years to come. No wonder the Queen only paid a bargain £750,000 for it.

Enough has been said to show that the capitalist class are still alive and well and thriving off the wealth produced by the workers. Though whether it is possible to identify them makes no difference to the system itself, or those that suffer from it. Whether you see your exploiter or not, he still exists. The workers in the so-called nationalized industries do not “know” their boss. Nonetheless they are still working for the sole benefit of a class other than their own, and it is from their work that all that wealth (only some examples of which have been mentioned in this article) comes. The wealth is produced not by the brains of the capitalist class but by the work of their employees. Quite simply what happens is that when the worker draws his wage, he does not receive from the boss the equivalent of what he has produced for him. He gets back just a proportion of the amount he has produced. The balance, i.e. the profit, is pocketed by the capitalist class and used to allow the Gettys and the ordinary rich to thrive. And they will continue to suck like the social leeches they are, until the working class as a whole say “Enough!" and decide to end property society once and for all.

Ronnie Warrington

For the Battle of Britain Sunday (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where's Blunsdon?

“Uncle Bert, where’s Blunsdon?”

“Blunsdon? Now only in my mind old chap.

The shapes of buildings are still clear But names and faces aren’t I fear.

My memory’s a leaking tap.”

“Uncle Bert, what were they like?”

“Who?”

“Blunsdon people. Just like you?”

“What questions! — some ways yes, like me. 

They ate and drank and worked and swore 

And after, drank and swore some more.

In these ways people are like me.”

“Did they sing hymns 

Like we do here at school?”

“Of course. Some did, although not all,

In several churches, one quite old —

(St. Leonards) — and it was dammed cold,

And — ah yes! I now recall 

A school service on a drowsy day,

Outside the church we heard a noise 

And, jumping with excitement, (as do boys)

We saw some bomber planes “at play.”

There they were, winking in their silver grace, 

Heading East, a pretence in fun 

To direct bombs at a Blunsdon 

in some ungodly foreign place.”

(Aye! The Lord speaks through his preachers, versed

In schizoid phrases such as these:

“By all means love thy enemies,

But for Christ’s sake kill ’em first”).

So They Say: New Book — Old Story (1976)

The So They Say Column from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Book — Old Story

In an interview published by the Times on 2nd August, Sir Harold Wilson let it be known that he has completed the first draft of a book called The Government of Britain. Apparently the work has much to commend it. “Every sentence was an intellectual challenge to try to remember things which will be useful as a kind of text-book, which in the past have been mainly written by academics from outside.” Such a description suggests a semi-autobiographical account of the attempts to administer capitalism over recent decades, and as such it can only be a commentary on the various acts of expediency employed in order to paper over the basic contradictions. Acts of expediency in our description, governments choose to call them “policies.”

Even Wilson appears to acknowledge that the “Governance” in his title is only alleged when he remarks “In the compulsions of taking decisions, of course, you cannot forecast whether this decision will come off.” Of course. Capitalism is a system of society in which there is no social control over the means of wealth production and distribution. The owners, a non-working minority, allow production to take place only when there is a likelihood of a profit. Wilson and the Labour Party have preferred to tinker with the effects of such a system and shy clear of the revolutionary solution — hence the never-ending “compulsions” they have been faced with. The frequency of the calls upon Wilson’s juggling ability meant that among other things his reading suffered.

I have never even read Marx, couldn’t get past the second page because of that whacking great footnote which bores me every time I ever try to read it. Although I think I have a vague idea of what he was after in his concept, it is not what I understand by British socialism.

Were Marx alive, we feel sure he would concur with the conclusion.

The Devil You Know

George Bernard Shaw wrote somewhat sarcastically that “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world.” Recently those most reasonable of men, the Labour Party Tribune Group, have been giving an excellent display of their adaptability. The Conservatives tabled a motion in Parliament for the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s salary (£15,000) to be halved. This amounted, in the words of the Times report of 2nd August, to “a criticism of the public expenditure cuts announced on July 22nd, and a condemnation of the Government’s economic and financial policies in general.” Amid the hot air and other gaseous emissions in that Palace, Tribune group members have been loud in their criticism of the cuts. Consequently the possibility of their abstention from the vote with a resultant government defeat was raised. The time for these men of principle had come.

However, adaptability prevailed. First they issued what we have come to expect from Tribune Group MPs — “a token protest.” The “left” pulls no punches, their amendment called for a reduction in Healey’s salary of £5.00 per annum. Next Mr. Norman Atkinson, one of their leading if somewhat dim lights, explained why his group should not risk a government defeat.

The Government have made it clear that they support the central banks about the use of international credits . . . It seems logical therefore, that all those who seek to sustain the Government in office must accept the bankers' cuts in principle, not in their entirety, but in principle. The only alternative was to force the Government to go to the country for a general election. But such action would make little sense . . . because if Labour won it would be taken as an endorsement of the bankers’ policies and it would mute the left for a long time to come.

This, we understand, is known as keeping all the options open. The Tribune Group wish to preserve the Labour Government because they prefer to mouth disagreement from the government benches. In this way their posturing attracts more attention than it otherwise would. Mr. Atkinson was simply overflowing with sweet reason and “left-wing” principle:

Only the 2 per cent levy on employers through national insurance contributions will attract combined opposition from the Tories, the nationalists and the Liberals, he said. Because the measure must mean at least 50,000 sackings in addition to those already announced, the left must face the sacrifice of jobs to keep the Government in office. We have no alternative, and neither has the Trades Union Congress in four week’s time, that is the brutal reality.

Facing reality must necessarily strike the Tribune Group as brutal, they are more used to dealing in hypocrisy.

Con on Class

While giving a public pep-talk to fellow conservatives in the columns of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Geoffrey Howe MP indicated that times are a-changing. He argued that changes had to be made to the Conservative Party image if the electorate was to be persuaded that the party did not stand “only for bosses, rich people, upper classes.” Unless the common man discarded such misapprehensions, Howe ominously concludes, “This could bode ill for the future.” Apparently he has been inspired to speak out following numerous reports that the typical response to Conservative canvassers has been “We re all Labour voters in this house. We’ve got to be haven’t we? We’re a working class family you see.” We do not deal with this ill-founded statement here, but note the politician’s attitude to it.

It makes it difficult to argue that class is not a significant factor in British politics.

Daily Telegraph, 2nd August ’76

Which is extremely tiresome for politicians no doubt. A class-divided society necessarily produces such handicaps for them. However, Mr. Howe, who thinks that there are several classes rather than two, is ready to throw one of them overboard in his search for conservative voters.

The son of a successful entrepreneur — even the grand daughter of a Prime Minister — is bound to acquire knowledge and experience that will confer advantage in the next generation. But let us certainly reject the suggestion that we favour the concept of a ruling class or anything like it.

But wait, he would only reject the suggestion that they favour the concept. The ruling class, no doubt rattled, can breathe again.

Will He, Wont He?

A glittering exchange took place between Mrs. Thatcher and the Prime Minister shortly before the parliamentary recess. The Conservative leader asked what the Prime Minister expected to be the maximum number of people unemployed in 1976. Mr. Callaghan replied:

The Chancellor has said he expects unemployment to begin to go down by the end of the year. I cannot improve on that forecast. I have come without the figures in any case.

Times, 6th August ’76

After other remarks, Mrs. Thatcher rose again.

The Chancellor did not give any figures. He refused to give figures when cross-examined by both sides of the House. I would have thought that the Prime Minister would automatically have informed himself about one of the main figures, which is the maximum unemployment expected during the next year. Is he saying he has not?

With considerable politeness, Mr. Callaghan informed the enquirer “Yes, I am saying that because I find these forecasts often cancel out . . .” He also had some advice for her.

I would beg her not to take too much notice of forecasts. So many of them often proved wrong over the last six months . . .

The performance and the show (the longest-running in the west and) will continue after the interval.

From Bad to Bad

However there is a time and place for everything, and Mr. Callaghan is not adverse to making forecasts when it suits him. In October 1975 he informed us that over the (then) oncoming year “British families will suffer a sharp drop in their living standards.” His description was “a temporary sacrifice.” We ventured to suggest then that the “temporary” label might be forgotten and apparently it has.

I think industry can say the conditions are present to enable us to have a reasonable bet on the prospects of viable expansion that will continue. I don’t want to boom and bust. The real traumatic period for this country is between now and 1980 and this is the period we’ve got to concentrate on.

Daily Telegraph, 9th August ’76

Members of the working class take note, the traumas will be yours. Unless you are prepared to study Socialist ideas and work for the abolition of the private property system, the only “reasonable bet” to be had here is that shortly before the end of 1980, Mr. Callaghan or his equivalent (we include conservatives) will be telling us that the forecasts had been wrong; the real traumatic period was to be extended until the mid-1980s. In the meantime working-class poverty will continue.

Alan D'Arcy

Chrysler and the Cabinet: How the Deal was Done (1976)

Pamphlet Review from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Chrysler and the Cabinet: How the Deal was Done. Granada Television, 35p.

This is the transcript of a TV programme shown on 9th February 1976, in which the Cabinet discussions of the Chrysler UK motor company were simulated. The parts of Wilson, Healey, other Ministers and the Chrysler officials were played by political and financial journalists, and the programme was generally thought to have come close to the reality.

The Chrysler Corporation of USA proposed closing down its British subsidiary which had made losses in six of the last nine years, amounting to £60 millions, and was expected to lose another £40 millions in the next year. The Government’s concern was with the unemployment — 25,000 jobs or more — which would be created by the close-down. However, the Government’s newly agreed “industrial strategy” prohibited financing obviously unprofitable companies; at the outset of these discussions the only voice in favour of giving help is that of the Secretary of State for Scotland, where Chrysler is a major employer.

A report from the Central Policy Review Staff (the “Think Tank”) had said the British car industry had already 25 per cent, over-capacity. From the viewpoint of the British Leyland company, which the Government had recently bought for £1,300 millions, Chrysler was an undesired rival; nor, for the same commercial reasons, was there any case for merging Chrysler with Leyland. The loss of jobs was agreed to be a regrettable necessity, summed up thus by Healey’s impersonator: “There’s nothing socialist about preserving existing jobs for their own sake.”

The conclusion was foregone — and yet the Government did undertake to support Chrysler, to the extent of about £145 millions. Why, with everything apparently against it? First, political fear of losing votes, in Scotland particularly. Second, the existence of a Chrysler contract to export to Iran (Healey: “Persia is becoming an increasingly important trading partner with us and the Shah is a touchy fellow.”).

The third reason was not stated explicitly in the TV programme but emerges implicitly from it. This is the inability of governments to manage capitalism even on its own terms. The sapient Ministers talked of “the long term” and “the future”, meaning “if we can keep out of trouble this afternoon perhaps tomorrow’s mail will bring an unforeseen lucky break”. While the discussions with Chrysler went on, attempts were made (fruitlessly) to attract Japanese car manufacturers to Scotland. If unemployment was prevented by the Chrysler deal, how will its transfer to other companies be prevented? What sort of “strategy” is firmly agreed, then has to be abandoned at the first engagement?

This is an interesting booklet, more relevant to what goes on in capitalism than some expensive volumes of retired Ministers’ memoirs.

That Party and its Promises! (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

By “that party” we mean of course the Labour Party, sometimes called the Socialist Party, but which does not stand for Socialism.

In the opinion of Ron Hayward — and he should know — the Labour Party stands for “equality in education”. At least that’s what he told the writer on an LBC phone-in. Whether “equality in education” is feasible or not, desirable or not, is hardly worth investigating. The dole queues are full of graduates, and millions of well-educated women find themselves reluctantly at the kitchen sink. Let us, however, take a good look at what the Labour Party in office has done about education and compare its record with its promises.

The Labour Government has been proposing cuts in local authority spending, and as the biggest share of local authority spending goes on education, the schools are going to take the brunt. Surrey County Council is reported (Guardian, 5th July) as planning to cease all nursery education, to increase class sizes in the schools and to raise the fees for higher education courses. This is a pattern which we can expect to see followed by most other education authorities.

Let us compare this situation with the picture presented in Labour’s 1959 manifesto — The Future Labour Offers You. Under the heading “Our Children”. Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan and Co. told us:

The worst handicap a child can face at school is the oversize class. Overcrowding in the schools is a nightmare to teachers and to parents. That is why our first task must be to cut classes in primary as well as secondary schools to a maximum of thirty.” (our emphasis.)

Contrast this “first task” brainwave with the actual reality. Many children going through what the state calls “education” have done so, even in the good years and “good” areas, in classes of 35, some rising to 40 or more. Now the size of classes is likely to rise again, not from a real shortage of qualified teachers, but because there is not enough money forthcoming from the Treasury to pay the teachers.

In 1959, Labour also told us: “Most important of all, our plans will require many more teachers. We shall launch a big drive to recruit and train them as swiftly as possible.” Well, at least one of our recent governments has done that. And the result is that with the present Labour Government saying “less money for education”, a large proportion of these expensively-trained teachers are experiencing the frustration of joblessness. While the classes get bigger and bigger. Talk about waste!

Returning to 1959 we find the Labour Party declaring : “The main fault with our present State education is that there is not enough of it. In order to give every child a fair chance to choose a career and to train for it, we must be prepared to spend more.”

Exactly the opposite of what they are doing now. The fact is that the political parties’ manifestoes are like the apples the greengrocer puts in his front window. They look mouthwatering! So you go inside on the promise of all that lovely, glossy, sound-looking fruit, only to get sold wrinkled, bruised, unsound fruit that the greengrocer dredges up from under the counter or some dark corner that you can’t quite see.

The professional reformist politician is like the most unscrupulous greengrocer you could ever have the misfortune to meet! You even become so carried away in your enthusiasm that you don’t stop to ask the vital question “Can he produce the goods?”

If you did ask, you’d get no meaningful answers out of him, but only specious assurances. Here’s a sample from that 1959 Labour manifesto: “A programme for one Parliament is not a blueprint for Utopia. What we have summarised here can be done in that limited time. We can make such great social advances as bringing real security into old age through our National Superannuation scheme. We can cut down the size of school classes. We can turn shabby old houses into modern homes. So this is a practical assessment of the jobs to be done, and a realistic account of the way we propose to do it.”

Which means that they want to do these things and hope we’ll take their word for it that they can. To which we reply: if it could be done, why wasn’t it? And conversely, if it was not possible except when the economic climate was right, why claim so confidently that it could be done? This charge of making promises that cannot be carried out is one that can equally be levelled at the Tories, the Liberals, and other assorted reformists, including the Nationalists among those who have swindled the electorate.

The moral of the story is this. A political party without principles is merely a vote-catching machine, governed by expediency. Its soup-kitchen philosophy of being kind to the kiddies is easily ditched whenever it should appear to be in conflict with the short-term economic interests of capitalism.

Capitalism just does not work for our benefit: it’s the bosses’ benefit show, not ours. There is only one way we can use our votes in line with our economic and social interests as workers. And that is by voting and working for Socialism and the end of this wages, waste and want system.

Charmian Skelton

The Class Struggle in Poland (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the end of June, following the announcement of huge increases in food prices, strikes and riots broke out in many Polish towns. The government subsequently altered its proposals. At the end of 1970 strikes and riots were started by the dockers and shipyard workers of Gdansk (Danzig), in which the police shot down and killed at least six workers. The 1970 strikes led to a change in the leadership of the “Communist” Party with Gierek, the present Party leader, replacing Gomulka (who had himself come to power following strikes and riots in Poznan in 1956 in which 38 workers were murdered by the police).

The Polish working class like workers the world over, has had to resist attempts by their capitalist rulers to reduce their living standards. If the protest has taken the form of rioting and looting, as well as going on strike, it is partly because there are no independent trade unions in Poland: though no doubt there are political axe-grinders urging workers that this is what they should do. The organizations calling themselves “trade unions” are merely government agencies for disciplining workers and getting them to work harder.

The strikes in Poland show clearly that, even in state-capitalist countries ruled by a dictatorial “Communist” party, the class struggle of the working class against their exploiters cannot be suppressed. It is a myth that the exploitation of the working class has been abolished and Socialism established in Poland, as claimed by the government. The workers of Poland are exploited by the privileged minority who, through their dictatorial control of the State machine, monopolize the use of the means of production just as much as the private capitalists of the West.

An increase in food prices without a compensating increase in wages means of course a cut in living standards; it was to object to the size of the cut that the Polish workers went on strike. For the present the government has postponed its plans, but it has no choice in this matter because the world crisis has led to Poland developing a serious trade deficit. Exports have fallen and import prices risen, so squeezing the profits of the country’s state-capitalist enterprises, the source of income both for capital accumulation and the privileged consumption of the Polish ruling class. As The Times (26th June) put it:

The increases had become an economic necessity. Since 1970, real wages have risen by about 7 per cent a year while food prices have been artificially frozen. At the same time, world inflation has been pressing in on Poland. Government subsidies for protecting the consumer have reached enormous proportions and became a particularly heavy burden because Poland needs desperately to pay off its heavy foreign debts.

So working-class living standards are to be reduced in order to pay off the debts of the Polish state capitalist ruling class! A familiar story and a proof that the establishment of state capitalism with a State monopoly of foreign trade, in place of private capitalism does nothing to free a country from the pressures of capitalism on the working class. A further proof that there is no national solution to working-class problems.

Our message to the workers of Poland is to urge them to recognize this and, while doing what they can and must to maintain their living standards, to join with their fellow workers in other countries with a view to replacing world capitalism, in both its private and State forms, by world socialism. 

Adam Buick

Letter: Immigration: one view . . . (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Immigration: one view  . . .

The front over of the Socialist Standard (July) is emblazoned with a definition by Ambrose Bierce: “Immigrant: an unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.”

Presumably, this means the Socialist Standard regards Karl Marx as an “unenlightened person”. He left Germany and spent most of his life living in Britain. Actually, the development of socialist theory was fostered as a result. Con Lehane (an unenlightened Irish immigrant) became the SPGB’s first general secretary. Hans Neumann (an unenlightened German immigrant) arranged the first meeting of the SPGB’s executive committee. Charlie Lestor (an unenlightened Canadian immigrant) was for many years one of the finest orators the SPGB possessed. Does the SPGB condemn Lehane for being an immigrant? Hapless Lehane could not secure employment anywhere. Is the Socialist Standard suggesting that he should have continued looking for work in Ireland rather than coming over to Britain and helping to form the SPGB?

Doubtless the fascists of the National Front go a long way to agreeing with Bierce’s definition: in the opinion of Tyndall and his thugs “immigrants are unenlightened people”. Socialists should have an entirely different approach. Hunger and poverty in the underdeveloped countries is directly as a result of imperialism. Dire necessity forces thousands of people to leave these regions and look for a better life elsewhere. Like British workers, they are victims of exploitation, but of an exploitation of a much more intense kind.

It is vital that socialists strive to build links of solidarity between British and coloured workers. Essentially we have the same class enemy: only through unity can the enemy be overcome. For this reason, the demand must be made for the repeal of the immigration laws, racist legislation which excludes people from this country merely because of the colour of their skins. If, as the Communist Manifesto says, workers have no fatherland, then the barriers created by immigration laws must be swept aside. Workers must be free to leave and enter Britain as they choose.

To be in accord with these sentiments, the definition of Ambrose Bierce requires modification: “An opponent of immigration is an unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.”

Dr. Raymond Challinor 

Whitley Bay

Reply:

The quotation to which you object was used because it disparages nationalism and comments, aptly in our opinion, on the situation of very many migrants. Its tone is ironical, and we ran the risk of someone’s not perceiving that. To spell it out, the word “unenlightened” relates to the remainder of the sentence: a person who thinks one country better than another requires enlightenment in that respect, but not necessarily in others. Marx and the other people you mention were not under that impression. As for racists finding that issue of the Socialist Standard agreeable — see the letter from John Binder below.

However, you appear not to have read the article on immigration inside the cover. Doing so would have dispelled the misunderstanding in the later part of your letter as well as the above one. The article pointed out that “legislation which excludes people from this country merely because of the colour of their skins” is swept aside when that suits capitalism in Britain and elsewhere. This is, precisely, the trap into which reformism leads. Liberal-minded reformers urge, as you do, that a legislative change will benefit the working class; and then find it does the ruling class a good turn instead.

To say Socialists must “strive to build links of solidarity” between white and black workers is a grandiose way of ignoring the important questions. The majority of black workers, like the majority of white, uphold the capitalist system. They include nationalists, Tories, and people who themselves hold strong race-prejudices. If it were suggested that we aim at "links of solidarity” with white people holding such views, that would cause indignation; but you ask us to do so on the grounds, apparently, that colour transcends everything else. We do not accept such a position. The task for Socialists is to spread among all workers and understanding of their class standing and interests, which come first and foremost. This means the rejection of all ideas of race and national superiority. If you are intent on re-wiring the quotation, here is another version: Opponents and advocates of immigration alike are hidebound by the idea of national frontiers which Socialism will abolish.

Editors.

Letter: . . . And another view (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

. . .  And another view 

Socialists have always attributed slums to capitalism, yet I have yet to hear them protest against the influx of immigrants into the slums. Have you? This shows how much they care about them, but of course they all have to toe the line like a regiment of soldiers. If all socialists were compelled to put up with immigrants in their houses they would call it downright dictatorship and that is what compulsory integration is nothing less. The landlords and property tycoons want the so-called socialists to tell the workers immigrants do no harm over here and while these money-grabbers are getting fatter the slum-dweller is stuck on a waiting list for a house because the capitalist classes with the co-operation of so-called socialists won’t let them have the houses that they can afford to rent because they are occupied by immigrants.

These immigrants have no sense of social responsibility, they come here knowing we are overcrowded, they drive up the rents of millions of workers, they occupy houses badly needed by our own people, they plant themselves in the slums where they are not wanted, they don’t know where they are wanted, and they are too lazy to fight for better conditions in their own country, and most people know what is meant by their country, but they have been taught that they have a right to stay here. I believe the slum-dweller should enjoy the same privilege as the rest of the community enjoy that is to keep immigrants out of their abodes, but that would be too democratic for integrationists.

Our “Moral Uplifters” tell us we should treat coloured immigrants with respect and decency. Should we really! Indeed! Do these black and white immigrants treat our own people with respect and decency? Do they not plant themselves in the very houses that are already overcrowded with previous immigrants and where they have no state protection from immigrants? It is true they are not wanted anywhere else but that is a sound reason for repatriation not to foist them onto the slum-dweller he has quite enough to put up with, without immigrants.

I have done my best to give a clear and logical answer to your article in the S.S. However if you hear of a more logical explanation for slums I do hope you will let me know.

John Binder

London W.4.

Reply:

Your letter in full would take up four pages of the Socialist Standard. Since it is largely repetitive, we have published a representative extract. We must add that, though you speak of “a clear and logical answer’’ to our article on immigration, most of your letter attacks Aunt Sallies in the form of views not stated by us at all. It also contains a fiction, repeated several times, that people are being forced to have immigrants living in their homes with them. This is not possible under existing legislation.

The single point you make that is relevant to our article is your contention about slums, and over this you present a series of striking self-contradictions. You complain of slums and say (1) that the slums are “lumbered with” immigrants, (2) that “without these immigrants the houses they are occupying would be available to our own people”. As far as we can see, this means that you want “our own people” to have the slums to themselves. You acknowledge that pre-war slums were not caused by immigration, but say “this does not invalidate the argument that immigrants are the cause of crowded slums”. That is not an argument: it is an assertion knowingly made against the facts.

However, what you miss altogether is consideration of the nature of slums. Slums are cheap housing. They are places unfit for habitation that are inhabited nevertheless. Why? Because the inhabitants cannot afford to live anywhere else. Our statement that capitalism causes slums refers to this and nothing else; their existence as dwellings is a direct consequence of working-class poverty. You do not explain how this would be changed by repatriating immigrants, which you advocate. Your assertion that “landlords and property tycoons” are getting “fatter than ever” through immigration is also mistaken. In recent years the number of dwellings let out by private individuals and companies has steadily declined because of the low return from it. This has nothing to do with immigration in any case, but is the result of housing legislation.

We therefore find your letter to be ill-informed, lacking argument, and founded on beliefs similar to those of the Hindu caste system.

Editors.

Letter: Forging ahead (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Forging ahead

Could you answer the following question: If there was a huge circulation of counterfeit money about, which could not be detected, what effect would it have on the economy?

J. W. Eastwood

London W.2.

Reply:

For the earlier part of your letter (not reproduced here) see the reply to D. J. Underwood, whose letter it closely resembles.

An excess of currency in circulation, made by private enterprise, has the same effect as an officially produced excess: it causes inflation. What you suggest as a hypothesis has happened several times. The outstanding example was “the great Portuguese note trick” of some years ago, when swindlers posing as representatives of the Portuguese government persuaded a British banknote-printing firm to produce an issue of notes for use in a Portuguese colony. In the subsequent action by the government of Portugal it was pointed out that the circulation of the notes had caused economic damage by pushing up prices in the colony.

During wartime, governments have introduced counterfeit notes into opponent countries with the object of causing disruption. The difficulty, as for the private forger, is finding means for the currency to get in circulation in sufficient quantities; the Portuguese swindlers had an accomplice in a bank. However, once notes are printed and accepted there are not separate sets of results for legal and illegal origins. An excess issue of an inconvertible paper currency causes prices to rise, regardless of who did the printing.

Editors.

Letter: Power, dictatorship & democracy (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Power, dictatorship & democracy

It has come to my notice that you fundamentally accept Marx’s economic interpretation of capitalism and the materialist conception of history. It would therefore logically follow that you accept Marx’s theory of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, but this is not so and instead you claim that society can be changed through Parliament. This is because you do not understand the true nature of the class struggle and the capitalist state. Even you must realize that the power of society does not lie in Parliament but in the economic wealth of the ruling class. There is no parliamentary road to socialism (as the Labour Party showed), and the way to achieve socialism is by violent revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state.

In no. 8 of your declaration of principles you say the SPGB is “determined to wage war against all other political parties’. Why? History is littered with instances of working-class parties linking up temporarily with other parties, which have been beneficial to the working-class movement. You are reducing Marxism to a dogma.

Lastly, I notice the SPGB refuse to participate in workers’ struggles for higher pay, against unemployment and public spending cuts etc. I accept that such action by itself will never achieve socialism but it will help to strengthen, organize and educate the workers’ party.

I therefore advise everyone to study Marx by all means, but also study Lenin.

Andrew Mounsey

Sunderland

Reply:

You say that Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history ought logically to lead to the acceptance of the view that “the power of society” lies in “the economic wealth of the ruling class”, and that the way to Socialism “is by violent revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state”.

To which the complete answer is that both views were explicitly repudiated by Marx (and Engels). They never ceased to insist that power is political, “the power of the state, the concentrated and organized force of society” (Marx, Capital Vol. 1, page 823, Kerr edn.). As our Declaration of Principles puts it, gaining control of “the machinery of government, including the armed forces”. It was control of the state machine that enabled the Tudor monarchy to plunder the great wealth of the Church and, as Marx showed in the section of Capital referred to above, it was political power which enabled the capitalists “to hasten, hothouse fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode . . . " .'

The suicidal tactic of “violent revolution” to smash the state instead of gaining control of it is not Marxist. As Engels wrote in the 1895 Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France: “The rebellion of old style, the street fight behind barricades, which up to 1848 gave the final decision has become antiquated.” It had become antiquated militarily but in addition, without the great majority of the working class having become convinced socialists, such a victory would be meaningless for the achievement of Socialism.

What the 19th century taught Engels (and the SPGB) is that where it is “a matter of the complete emancipation of society” no such violent “short cut” is of any use because “the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they must act”, and for this to be achieved "long and persistent work is required”. (Introduction to Class Struggles in France.) This means using the vote. It was Marx who wrote that “the carrying of universal franchise in England” would have as its “inevitable result” the “political supremacy of the working class” (article in New York Tribune, 25th August 1852).

You refer to “the dictatorship of the proletariat” without explaining what you have in mind. Is it the total misrepresentation to be seen in state-capitalist Russia where it is Communist Party military dictatorship over the working class; or Engels’s example of the Paris Commune where majority control was based on democratic elections, no suppression of newspapers or the propaganda of the majority, no denial of their right to vote?

Though you claim to be aiming to achieve Socialism, it is obvious that what you understand by Socialism is not what Marx (and the SPGB) were led to accept by Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history. For Marx and us it means “the abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself” (Communist Manifesto) and includes “the abolition of the wages system” (Marx, Value, Price and Profit). The fact that you are not aiming at this at all is shown by your astonishing statement that what “the Labour Party showed” has something to do with Socialism. The Labour Party does not aim and has never aimed at Socialism. Its declared aim is “the mixed economy” — a mixture of state and private capitalism. The Labour Government’s current policy includes reaffirmation of its desire to see capitalism profitable. Its aim is not to abolish capitalism but to show the electors that it can run capitalism more successfully (or less disastrously) than the Tories.

You state that history is “littered” with instances of working-class parties linking up temporarily with capitalist parties and that this has been “beneficial” to the working-class movement. It is true that organizations claiming to represent the workers have supported Tories and Liberals and the Labour Party, and their leaders from Disraeli and Gladstone to Churchill, MacDonald, Wilson and Callaghan — but where are the benefits that are supposed to have accrued? (“Littered” is the appropriate word to describe the non-results.)

Also we are told that the Socialist Party of Great Britain ought to divert effort from achieving Socialism in order to participate in the day-to-day struggles about the effects of capitalism, and that this would help to “educate”’ the workers. For a century and more organizations have pursued that policy, among them the Social Democratic Federation and the ILP. But where are the educational gains? Both of those organizations, after temporary flourishing, are now defunct, with as the only end product the Labour Party devoted to trying to reform capitalism.

One last comment: we note that you coyly abstain from naming the political party which has your support.

Editors.

Letter: Trade Unions (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trade Unions

Articles appear in the Socialist Standard which decry the work of the trade union movement and, whilst accepting certain of these criticisms, I feel that you dismiss their activity too glibly.

If working-class emancipation from capitalism is to be achieved, then the working-class movement must, as you say, become conscious of its socialist aim. However, this consciousness does not spontaneously arise of itself, it requires the scientific working out of socialist theory, the introduction of the theory into the working-class movement and the fight for it inside that movement. Few trade unionists have had any contact with the SPGB. Surely if more propaganda could be aimed at them, other groups, such as IS, would be shown up for what they are — merely another arm of state capitalism with limited, short-term political objectives.

As a newcomer to the Socialist Standard I have probably interpreted your methods wrongly but these observations are made in the belief that the publication and the Party has so much to offer that it seems a waste that more working people do not receive its message. After all, how many Ford’s workers or dockers stroll through Hyde Park on a Sunday?

E. H. Clark

Chingford

Reply:

We have always recognized that workers are in a better position to bargain over wages and conditions when organized in Trade Unions. However we have to point out the limitations of trade union action. It is of necessity defensive and will not change the position of the working class in society. This does not make us “anti-union”, the position is rather that trade unionists, like most other workers, are anti-Socialist. Being so immersed in the perpetual struggle to defend their living standards they do not yet appreciate that it is in their own best interests to abolish the wages system itself.

We have members in Trade Unions some of whom act as Union officials. But workers in Unions are prepared to give their support to members of this, or any other, party as officials only on the basis of what may be achieved on their behalf in the way of improved pay etc. NOT because of any agreement with, or interest in, their political aims. Bear in mind also that there are those who advocate the use of industrial action as an instrument of revolution. We have always to emphasise the need for the working class to gain control of the political machinery.

We too are anxious that Socialist knowledge should reach all sections of the working class as quickly as possible. Though we are as yet a small party our activities are by no means restricted to Hyde Park and the occasional election campaign. Where it is practicable members discuss the Party case, and sell Standards, at their places of work. Literature is also sold outside colleges, Stations, shopping centres and — yes — outside Ford’s Dagenham works, etc.

Editors.

Letter: Justification — No ! (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Justification — No !

I heard one of your speakers answer the question of “who would do the more important tasks if within a socialist society there were no wage systems to provide an incentive” by stating that the wage difference between a road sweeper and a skilled technician is justifiable within the present system, etc.

I have got news for that speaker. No socialist will ever take that point of view, simply because if the inequality of wealth and privilege that capitalism produces can be to any extent justifiable then so can the system. Socialism is out to abolish capitalism not compliment it on certain aspects of the wages system — or make such a miserable compromise in order to win a pair of attentive ears.

J. W. Pitt

Worthing

Reply:

The speaker may not have made himself clear, or the listener may have misunderstood what he heard. Either way, the explanation of the point you raise is as follows.

Wage differences exist in capitalism because everything is a commodity — that is, an article produced for sale — including labour-power. There are cheap and dear commodity-versions of all articles: cars, houses, clothes, furniture, whatever you care to name. The price of each is basically the monetary expression of its value; that is, it reflects the amount of labour that went into the commodity. Expensive houses and cars have more in them and are more carefully made than cheap ones. The same applies to labour-power, and this is why a skilled technician’s wages (the price of his labour-power) are higher than a road-sweeper’s.

We may add that the wage represents not only what it took to produce a particular kind of labour- power, but what it takes to reproduce it. The road-sweeper is not expected to be well housed, dress smartly, be equipped for up-to-date technical discourse, and raise his children ambitiously. The technician or manager is: like the road-sweeper he has to go to the limits of his income because that is what his income is for. That is what puts all workers, regardless of their particular wages, in the same boat. Justification does not come into the matter. It is the way capitalism works.

The idea of “important tasks”, as against others winch presumably don’t matter much, belongs to class- divided society and is capitalism’s justification for inequality. All useful jobs matter as much as one another. Socialism, the creation of a world of plenty, will be an incentive in itself.

Editors.

Letter: " . . . considerable worry” (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

D. J. Underwood (London W.9). We note your calculations, and that you desire the members of the SPGB to put in still more time in propagandist efforts to relieve you of “considerable worry” about the Party. We'll tell them.

Where to buy the Socialist Standard (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's only occasionally that I post this particular notice on the blog, but I do think it carries some interest to the casual reader. It's a fascinating snapshot of that period in history where there were a whole swathe of radical bookshops up and down the country. I caught the tail end of the phenomena in the late 1980s when I first got politicised but, even then, you were aware that the best days were long gone.

SPGB Meetings (1976)

Party News from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard