Letter: Work and waste (1989)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work and waste

Dear Editors,

You believe that in a future socialist society work will be shared. Yet no system will be so efficient as to train everyone to master every skill needed to keep a technological society running—it takes a half-lifetime to master only one profession!

Even if it were possible, the laws of the division of labour hold that someone is still going to have to do boring shop floor work and that will mean that they will have a low status. Such inequality can hardly be described as a socialist ideal.

In addition, even you now agree with the opposition to nuclear power. But just as you now believe that it's impossible to have nuclear power without poisonous nuclear waste, so it's impossible to have industry without poisonous industrial waste. De-industrialisation will be an answer to our main solution: the pursuit for human happiness.

J.D. Moreno, 

London SW19

Reply:

The skills necessary for running a highly complex industrial society are collective not individual or personal. It will be for socialist society to choose how far to automate production in order to remove drudgery and danger. If they cannot be eliminated then the danger and drudgery will have to be shared by a society that will understand that the work needs to be done if socialism is to continue functioning effectively. It is in this sense that we say work will be shared. No-one will be expected to do the same repetitive and dangerous work for a lifetime.

We do not envisage socialist society as one in which everyone will have all the skills to do everything ("It's your turn to be the brain surgeon this week, George!"). What we do look forward to is a situation where skills and talents currently trapped and distorted by capitalism are given the opportunity of full and free expression according to personal taste and inclination to do "useful work not useless toil", to use the words of William Morris.

Socialism before anything else will be a society of equals. Status and inequality will be meaningless concepts recalled only as hateful features of class society.

Waste is not inevitable—it is only a by-product of production which cannot be reused profitably and disposed of without incurring a loss.

De-industrialisation is not an option for the human race. Who would wish to do without the means now available to provide comfort and sufficiency for all? At a more prosaic level, would our correspondent wish to have dental treatment in the absence of a pain-killer administered by a hypodermic syringe?

Editors.

"Nothing new" (1989)

From the December 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wealthy charity worker Elisabeth Symonds agrees with Prime Minister Bob Hawke that Australia is a two-class society.

Mrs Symonds, who lives in a multi-million dollar eastern suburbs home, said the rich had now established themselves on their own plateau.

“I don’t see how it can be otherwise”, she said.

“I don’t think Australia is unique. Anywhere you can think of in the world, it is like this.”

Her comments were echoed by Salvation Army spokesman, Major Neville Brooks.

“There have been two classes for a long, long time”, he said.

“It is a natural outcome of a democratic society to have this polarisation of wealth.

“The only thing is there are a lot more people struggling to survive.”

Major Brooks called for more relief for the “strugglers”, saying Australia had never had so many poor people since the Depression.

“Our experience is homelessness is increasing because of the rise in the cost of dirt and the battle with interest rates”, he said

Daily Mirror, Sydney, 20 March 1989

Sting in the Tail: Perm x from No. 11 (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perm x from No. 11

It has recently been reported that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a keen football pools investor.

We can only hope that he is a little bit more gifted in his pools forecasting efforts than in his budget forecasts.

For example in his budget of 1988 he confidently forecast that the inflation rate over the coming year would be 4 per cent and that the balance of payments deficit would be £4 billion.

In fact the inflation rate has turned out to be double his forecast and the balance of payments was more than treble his forecast.

Mr. Lawson received a terrible drubbing from his critics so his latest forecast is a little less confident. According to The Independent (11 April):

But Mr. Lawson was less certain of his predictions that the current account deficit would remain at £14.5 billion. The forecast, he said was "a genuine best guess" but "we Just simply don't know" whether It would be achieved.

In Mr. Lawson's defence it can be argued that the vagaries of form of Fulham or Partick Thistle are models of consistency compared to the unpredictability of the capitalist market place.

Libertarian?

Here's an interesting little publication from the Libertarian Alliance: Brian Micklethwait on Why I Support The Contras.

When it comes to fighting Communism, the most important rule is: win . . . it may well, for example, be unwise for the Contras to get caught torturing people, on the grounds that this hurts their support In Congress. But the answer is not for the Contras to surrender: It is for them to fight smarter and not get caught torturing people. If they can fight successfully without torturing people at all, then they should do that as well.

In Sickness and Health

In an attempt to generate funds the Mid-Glamorgan Health Authority has come up with a nice little earner.

According to a report in The Independent 11 April:

After shopping mails and one-armed bandits, contraception machines and the sale of puzzles and games to placate patients during the long wait in casualty, the NHS Is about to add another wheeze to the ranks of Its schemes for generating extra income — the car salesman.

Health is just another commodity Inside capitalism. If you have the money you can afford the £1,000 per night London Clinic, If not you can take your chance In the queue at some under-funded public hospital.

Red Sales in the Smart Set

Andrei Fyodorov lives in Moscow and his ambition is to become an old fashioned capitalist. He is all for the freedom of market forces, and is a real Russian Thatcherite. 

At present he is merely the manager of Moscow's first co-operative restaurant but he is about to branch into sales of computers and imported liquor. He also has a joint venture with Spanish businessmen to open a Spanish restaurant in Moscow and a Russian one in Barcelona.

His answer to complaints that his prices are too high is that he is in a monopoly situation and, like a good free marketeer, will charge whatever he can get away with.

Yet he is not a happy man, for although his workers have some shares in the business they don't work any harder than the ones he knew when he managed a state-controlled hotel.

But Fyodorov is no fool. He recognises that Russia is a long way from becoming a western-style economy because the workers cannot throw off overnight the anti free market history of the last 70 years.

He explains in The Guardian:

Millions of people in this country are against the market. They're afraid of prices going up. They fear inflation. They're against private enterprise because it’s a violation of socialism. Yet we don’t know what socialism is. It certainly doesn't exist here.

As we said, Andrei Is no fool.

Fyodorov and his like are as yet an insignificant force in Russia, but unless the die-hard central planners within Russia's ruling class manage to topple the dominant Gorbachev faction then these would-be capitalists will surely grow in wealth and seek a share in political power.

Holiday Planning

Last year the package holiday operators drew up their brochures for 1989. Thomson's, the biggest operator with 40 per cent of the market, estimated that the market would grow by 10 per cent but now find that It has SHRUNK by 10 per cent.

So Thomson's and its subsidiaries have cancelled around one million of their advertised holidays and some trade estimates put the number of cancellations by all the operators at two million, about 16 per cent of the total market.

Why did this happen? Well, the mild winter means that people don't have the same determination to "get some sun” when the holidays come round, and the big increase in interest rates for mortgages and personal borrowing ensures that many people will simply be unable to afford a holiday.

What it adds up to is that the anarchy of the market has triumphed once again. When the brochures were drawn up interest rates were much lower and the consumer spending spree was in full swing. Also, no one could forecast with any certainty what kind of winter we would be getting. True, the operators have their "experts" who try to take these and other factors into account but really, all they can do is make a guess and then hope.

But now that they've cancelled all those bedrooms in Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, etc., what if we get a cold wet June or people make a late decision to get away after all? They will be clamouring for a holiday in the sun but the operators will be unable to supply them.

What was that about the perfectability of the market?

About ourselves (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the Socialist Party?

An independent political party which stands opposed to all others in this country, including the Labour and Communist parties. Our only links are with similar socialist parties in some other parts of the world.

What is your aim?

The replacement of the existing capitalist system of society by a new and different system we call socialism.

What is capitalism?

A system based on the ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth (land, industry, railways, offices and the like) by a section only of society who thus form a privileged class. The others, who in return for a wage or salary produce wealth for sale with a view to profit, make up the producing or working class. In Britain less than five per cent of the population belong to the owning or capitalist class. Most people — those who work in offices as well as those who work in the factories — are in the working class.

What is socialism?

A democratic world community without frontiers based on the ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth by society as a whole. Socialism will abolish classes and free all humanity from exploitation and oppression. The basis of socialism is this ownership of all the means of production by the whole community; control over their use will rest in the hands of the community through democratic institutions. Wealth will be produced not for sale or profit, but solely to satisfy human needs. This means the end of buying and selling and all the other financial and commercial institutions like money, prices, wages and banks. People will co-operate to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs.

Will everything belong to the State?

No. The State does not represent the whole community; it serves the interests only of those who own the means of production. State ownership or nationalisation is one of the ways in which this class controls industry. When the State takes over industries (like the railways and coalmines in Britain) it does so in their interests. State ownership leaves unchanged the class basis of society, the profit motive and the wages system, all of which socialism will abolish. Nationalisation is just State capitalism.

What system exists in Russia?

Russian society is part of world capitalist society. It shows all the essential features of capitalism: a class who control the means of production through their control of political power: another class forced to work for wages: production of goods for sale with a view to profit and the accumulation of capital out of profits. The same goes for countries like China, Cuba and Yugoslavia. They like Russia have State capitalism.

Do you want something like the kibbutzim in Israel?

Socialism can only be a world community without frontiers. It cannot be established in one country let alone on one farm. The kibbutzim do show that human beings can live without money and can work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so that young people are tending to leave them. In practice they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and some have themselves become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

How do you advocate socialism should be established?

By the class of wage and salary earners, once a majority of them want and understand socialism, taking democratic political action to change the basis of society from the class to the common ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Why must there be a majority in favour of the change to socialism before it can be made?

Socialism, by its nature as a system involving voluntary co-operation, could only be kept going by those who really wanted it and knew what it involved. Any attempt to establish socialism without a majority first being in favour is bound to fail.

Do you repudiate undemocratic minority action to achieve socialism?

Most definitely. No leaders, however sincere or able, can lead a non-socialist working class to socialism. Leaders who take power while a majority do not understand socialism have no choice but to develop and administer capitalism, as has been shown in Russia and by the various labour governments in Britain. When a majority do want and understand socialism they have no need of leaders, but only to organise themselves democratically.

Why do you advocate political action to achieve socialism?

It is their control of the machinery of government that now allows the capitalist class to protect their privileged position as the owners of the means of production. In Britain it is parliament that makes the laws granting them property rights and it is the police and the Courts, and if need be the army, that enforce these laws. The socialist majority must win political power in order to remove the protection the government machine now gives to class ownership and to carry through the establishment of the common ownership of the means of production.

How do you advocate the socialist majority should win political power?

By using their votes to elect socialist delegates to Parliament and the local councils. A socialist victory in a democratically-run election would demonstrate to all that a majority were in favour of the change to socialism.

Why are you opposed to all other political parties?

All of them accept the capitalist system and believe that current social problems can be solved within its framework.

Why do you think that reforms of the capitalist system are not the solution?

These problems are caused by the class ownership of the means of production which all reforms leave unchanged. The policy of trying to deal with social problems one by one by reforms of capitalism is futile, as this is to deal with effects and not the cause. We call this policy "reformism" and are opposed to it.

But surely you are not against all reforms?

We are not opposed to reforms which may bring temporary relief to some workers, but we do not regard it as the task of a socialist party to propose reforms of capitalism. Were we to do this we could easily soon become just another reformist party. To avoid this danger we advocate socialism only.

Why have all the other parties failed?

Basically because capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interests of the class of wage and salary earners. It is a class system that can only work for those who own the means of production. Any party, be it Labour or Conservative, which takes power under capitalism is forced to run that system in the only way it can be and so is inevitably brought into conflict with the mass of people who work for a wage or salary. This has been proved time and again.

So it is not because the politicians are not determined enough or are incompetent or dishonest that they fail?

No. No matter how determined or able or sincere the members of a government may be they still could not make capitalism work for the good of all. The politicians fail because they have to accept the class system which causes the problems they are always promising to solve.

If you agree with these views or have any questions, please write to us or come along to one of our meetings

Passing Show (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jockeying for position

Had he been a footballer, John Prescott would have been right under the moon about the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle last November. Perhaps as punishment for standing against Roy Hattersley for the deputy leadership, he lost his job as Energy spokesman and was instead put to shadowing the Ministry of Transport, which was not highly rated as fertile ground for a sprouting political ambition.

It did not help his case that Prescott, who looks and sounds like a bulldog about to savage an imprudent burglar, promised to be more aggressive in the conduct of the meaningless parliamentary sparring and larking which is called opposition to the government. The other hopefuls in Labour's seething ranks are more discreet than to make such criticisms of their leader. There is the eminently sober duo of John Smith and Gordon Brown, who would like to organise the financial affairs of British capitalism as Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is boyish, articulate Tony Blair, who has Prescott's old job as shadow Energy minister and who is a formidable TV performer — which means that he is precociously skilful at evading difficult questions while making the most of any similar evasion by an uncomfortable opponent. There is smooth Michael Meacher, who first made his name by discovering the amazing fact that however capitalism may be reformed there remain millions who suffer from the direr pressures of poverty. Meacher recently angered Labour's top brass by speaking out for the legalising of sympathetic strikes and secondary picketing, just as if the winter of discontent had never been and just as if his party is not now desperately trying to obscure its trade union connection.

These burgeoning ambitions are feeding off Labour's inability to seduce the voters away from what seems a chronic addiction to the Thatcher way of running British capitalism. Labour's policy review may be the beginning of Kinnock's last stand, a desperate attempt to make the Labour Party resemble the Tories so closely that the voting public won't know which one to vote for — or won't care — and so may end up. in their utter confusion, by electing another Labour government. According to another aspirant leader, Bryan Gould, the policy review ". . . will, we hope show that Labour is ready to take up the reins of government in the 1990's”. But if the review doesn't have that effect, if it fails to attract the votes so that Labour suffers yet another emphatic electoral defeat, Kinnock may be forced to disappear from the scene, to swap reminiscences with Michael Foot.

The reason is that the Labour Party is dedicated to winning political power over British capitalism. This is not so trite and obvious a statement as it may seem, for there are plenty of Labour supporters who are sustained by the delusion that their party is still based on the principles of socialism, that it aims to bring about a fundamental change in social relationships and will continue to advocate that change whether it is popular or not. The truth is that Labour will promise almost any reform, almost any policy, which will attract votes. It will try to exploit any issue when it thinks that this will gain it some support and it will shy away from any issue which is likely to lose it votes. If necessary it will perform the sort of policy U-turn to impress Ted Heath (for example Bryan Gould writes: “We are clear that the market and the private sector have an enormously important and valuable role to play in any modern industrial society . . .").

That is why Labour is going through yet another policy re-appraisal and why the party leadership begins to look like a steeplechase when the horses are coming to the last fence and the run in to the winning post.

Prescott's luck

And that brings us back to John Prescott and his job as transport spokesman. When he was reshuffled the media were still juggling with the most recent exposure, by the capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise and the fire at Kings Cross, of the fact that capitalism's priority has to be profit before safety. This is perfectly apparent to anyone with any insight into what happens in the world, and why it happens, but insight and clarity are things which the media are not noted for.

Since then a series of outrages, misnamed accidents, have provided Prescott with one opportunity after another to boost his public image. At one stage it seemed as if no day was complete unless it included Prescott on our TV screen, snarling and snapping and posing as the outraged guardian of the travelling public. Slack security, after the Lockerbie crash, was exposed by a series of journalists and other pranksters wangling their way on to aircraft. Botched production standards and inadequate maintenance caused the Boeing 737 to come down on the M1. The Clapham rail crash came about because electricians were being overworked to the point of exhaustion The only way we could put all this to rights was . . . to get bulldoggish Mr Prescott in charge at the Ministry of Transport, or better still at Number Ten.

Channon's pure genius

A rather different person is the target of many of Prescott’s barbs. Paul Channon is an extremely wealthy member of the Guinness family. He sits for the Southend constituency which is regarded as more or less the electoral property of his family; it was previously held by his father who was one of capitalism's mega-parasites and who didn't seem to care who knew it. Channon cannot match Prescott for being bulldoggish: he looks more like a mournful turtle with a complexion which often signals an over-indulgence in the beverage on which the family fortunes are based. Or perhaps he spends too much time in the sun; he owns a place in the West Indian paradise island of Mustique. where only the super-rich can afford to enjoy the silver sands, the turquoise sea and the temperature held steady in the eighties.

It was to Mustique that Channon sped, just after the Lockerbie crash, excusing himself by saying that he wanted to spend Christmas with his family like everyone else — which did not. of course, include the people killed in the crash and their families. Since then the Guardian has revealed his contemptuous treatment of a couple whose son was killed at Lockerbie, an incident which hints that Channon has a view of society which, as a Tory politician, he would do better not to make so obvious.

Channon’s wealth originates from the labour of the workers employed by the Guinness company. It comes from their unpaid labour time, from the wealth they produce which is surplus to what they receive for the sale of their ability to work. This is called (although so unpleasant a word probably never sullies the lips of a member of the Guinness clan) exploitation. The exploited people in society — the working class — are the majority: they are the non-parasites, the useful, productive people. Yet they do not have, nor are they expected to desire, any real say in how society is run, in how significant decisions are taken. It is assumed that they will accept their lot — their poverty, repression, their needlessly truncated lives — without complaint or question. If they should die in one of capitalism's "accidents”, in a capsized ferry or a train trapped by a faulty signal — why. they are sacrifices to the god of profit and that, after all the hypocrisy about their deaths, should be satisfaction enough for them.

If that is degrading — well, so is this social system. Capitalism is kept going by working class sacrifice. It churns out the wealth of people like Channon and it boosts the ambitions of those like Prescott. Perhaps sacrifice is the wrong word; perhaps suicide would be better.

Ivan.

Euro-capitalism or world socialism (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

June 15th 1989 is your opportunity to register your support for The Socialist Party candidate in the European elections. You may not have heard of The Socialist Party before so what is it?

We are a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. We stand for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed on the back of this manifesto were adopted by The Socialist Party at its formation in 1904. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles and they too remain independent of all other political parties.

SO WHAT DO WE MEAN “EURO-CAPITALISM OR WORLD SOCIALISM?”

Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world (including Russia, China, etc). Under this system the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices, newspapers, etc) are owned by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us the majority working class, who sell our physical and mental energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of production is primarily to produce profits for the capitalists (less than 5% of the population) by selling on the market goods and services created by us the workers. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.

Food mountains and wine lakes exist throughout the EEC. Farmers are paid subsidies not to grow food and yet, at the same time, people throughout the world starve or go hungry.

The formation of the EEC in 1957 and the widely advertised removal of barriers to trade by 1992 are examples of capitalist production relating to new economic circumstances. This is what we mean by referring to the EEC as 'euro-capitalism'.

The other parties taking part in this election, such as the Labour Party or the Green Party are in effect telling you that capitalism can be reformed in our interests. This is untrue for, as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such a promise is like offering to run the slaughter house in the interests of the cattle!

SO WHAT IS THIS ALTERNATIVE OF SOCIALISM WHICH WE WISH TO ESTABLISH?

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the Earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners in this classless society: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self-defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary cooperation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying and selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet Earth.

HOW WILL SOCIALISM SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIETY?

Capitalism with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future: almost one in four families with children live below the poverty line: many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation—tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment houses stand empty and thousands of building workers are unemployed; yet many people are homeless or inhabiting slums. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more; yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses: yet it is not “economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.

The election of our candidate would not, in itself, bring about Socialism. It would be one step in the process of capturing political control in the interests of us, the working class of the world. It would give us a useful platform to put our ideas across on the world stage. If you agree with us, 

VOTE KILGALLON (Socialist Party of Great Britain), Tyne and Wear constituency.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard, see 'European Election Manifesto'.

Brave new world (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 4 January 1941 Special Issue of Picture Post was devoted to A PLAN FOR BRITAIN, looking ahead to the post-war world. It was a wide-ranging review, covering work, social services, urban development, housing, farming, education, health and leisure. Forty-eight years on it is interesting to compare what was envisaged with reality.

The introduction is a letter written to Picture Post by a Welsh worker who had left the land to become a miner.

So, one day in late autumn, when the unwanted apples were killing the grass in the orchard, I went eighty miles away to work in the mines. That night, in my new home. I found that apples were dear and scarce. The people would hardly believe that I had seen them left to rot.

Equally he found that coal, which was scarce and expensive in the country, held no value where it was mined even though nearby out-of-work miners were picking over disused tips in the hope of finding bits of coal among the rubble. He ended his letter:

Between the dear coal and the cheap cutting. the scarce apples and those that rot. I think I can see the peace aim I would like to achieve. It is security — security against war and exploitation, by man or by country. And what I ask for ourselves should be granted to the whole world.

Amen to that; as good a definition of socialism as we have heard!

WORK FOR ALL lists a number of aims (including lower Income Tax, state control and state managed investments, and a job for every able-bodied man) and outlines a "national plan" related to an "international plan”. Thomas Baiogh calls for planning control and stimulated demand to ensure full employment (in spite of the role women played in industry in the First and Second World War, he specifies only jobs for men!). He warns against a post-war boom which would “create big profits for a few and high wages for a minority of workers”, saying that "there must be no return to what used to be called 'normal' — that is, complete freedom for the speculator to make high profits". Towards the end he says:

If we are to make a success of such a system it would have to be based on practical international understanding . . . It is obvious that such planning is not possible while maintaining the traditional concepts of sovereignty. They will have to go.

What Professor Baiogh failed to grasp is that while capitalism exists the need to generate profit and the ongoing fight for markets between competing factions, nationally and internationally, will prevent the achievement of even his limited aims. The situation has not changed from that outlined by the unemployed Welsh miner.

The next two articles dealt with social security and urban planning. Most of us at some time have experienced first hand the continuous honing down of the former, and we did not need the heir to the throne to point out the hideous character of much urban development and the inadequacies of high rise and other working class housing, which turns into slums a decade after it has been built. A warning against crystal-qazing is in the pictures of hospitals, factories and housing estates then held to be desirable, which few would not condemn today.

PLAN THE HOME. Here Elizabeth Denby, described as a "housing consultant whose chief interest is planning working class homes”, puts her view of the desirable future. The first thing which strikes you is that conditions shown in a miserable slum picture of 1941 can still be found in many parts of town and country, despite innumerable promises by Labour and Tory politicians to solve “The Housing Problem" during the intervening decades. The "planned kitchen" and “spacious, sunlit, cheery" living room pictured would today be described as hopelessly outmoded and spartan, but the aim that “hot water should be immediately available at any time of day or night, at every bath, sink and basin in the house" is still, in 1989, wishful thinking for many who cannot even boast a bath, never mind constant hot water.

A PLAN FOR EDUCATION has a topical ring. The aim set out by A.D. Lindsay is to give equal learning opportunities to all children and eliminate the elitist privileges of the rich; making education from primary school to university available to all on the basis of ability rather than cash. (Incidentally, here again the writer refers only to boys, which is strange because even though Balliol, at which he was Master, did not admit women, quite a few were nevertheless going to university and had been doing so for many years.) Mr. Baker's proposals show how far we have (not!) progressed towards achieving even the very limited aims of Professor Lindsay. The need is still to train the workforce for the tasks they will be required to perform; if there has been any change at all, it is that today’s Tory government is more open about that than was the wartime Coalition of 1941.

HEALTH FOR ALL and A REAL MEDICAL SERVICE. The picture of the crowded outpatients' waiting room in a hospital is familiar; only the clothes look a bit old- fashioned. Another showing a patient getting special preventative treatment is captioned “This is out of reach of most people, who must wait for serious illness to receive attention". Forecasts of immediate free explorative X-rays, dental treatment and chiropody are especially ironic today, when not only are waiting lists growing ever longer but both examination and treatment have again become fee-charging in the case of the latter two.

The final article, WHEN WORK IS OVER deals with how we shall be spending our leisure time. Compared to the "exotic” cruises, foreign and far-away places we want (and pay for) during our two or three weeks off the chain, their expectations were indeed modest. Would J. B. Priestley say today, as he did in Picture Post, “Nor can I agree with those theorists who believe that this . . . silly style of amusement is something deliberately imposed upon the masses by wicked capitalists". While we agree with him that creative activity is a satisfying use of leisure time, his view that woman needs more leisure time than a man to enable her to "cultivate all the small graces of living and making herself and her domestic surroundings look more attractive" is quaint, to say the least, on two counts. It is not only the idea of the “little home-maker", but the notion that housework is leisure!

At the end of the Special Issue, Picture Post asked readers for their views on the PLAN FOR BRITAIN. Although too late for publication (Picture Post was long ago laid to rest) we give them now. This is not with the benefit of hindsight, but in the certain knowledge that our comrades would have said the same thing in 1941.

However good the intention, while society is ruled by the profit motive, it cannot be made to run for the benefit of the majority, the workers. Capitalism cannot be reformed to any significant degree. The only alternative is to replace it with socialism. We will then achieve not just a Better Britain but a Better World.

Eva Goodman

Socialism on tape (1989)

 From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

From the list above the following recordings are available on the SPGB website:

• Is Britain Worth Dying For? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Lady Olga Maitland (Women and Families for Defence) (1984).
• After The Miners Strike — Which Way Forward For Socialists? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party (speaker Colin Tipton) (1985).
• Is Inequality Natural? Speaker Clifford Slapper (1985).
• Did Lenin Distort Marx? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Monty Johnstone (Communist Party. Marxism Today) (1982).
• Why Tony Benn Should Be A Socialist. Speaker Dick Donnelly (1980).
• The Crisis In Capitalism — What Is The Next Step? DEBATE between The Socialist Party (speaker Clifford Slapper) and Bill Etherington (General Secretary. Durham Mechanics NUM) (1986)
• Historical Materialism: Theory And Action. Speakers Janie Percy-Smith. Steve Coleman (1987)
• Marxian Economics And Capitalist Textbooks. Speaker Adam Buick. (1987)
• Marx's Conception Of Socialism. Speaker E. Hardy (1987)

Education Series: Socialist Thinkers — People Who History 
Made. Speaker Steve Coleman (1982).

• Plekhanov And Historical Materialism.
• Dietzgen And Dialectical Thought.
• Kautsky's Critique Of Religion.
• Bronterre O'Brien And Working Class Radicalism.
• Belfort Bax And The "Ethics’ Of Socialism.
• William Morris' Vision Of Socialism.
• Martov And The Anti-Bolshevik Approach To Revolution.

50 Years Ago: Fascism & Democracy in Germany (1989)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The constitution of the German "Weimar" Republic — already doomed before Hitler took power — was formally one of the most democratic in the world. Nevertheless, so miserable had the existence of wide masses of the German people become, that in the last free election held in Germany a majority of the electorate voted for the abolition of democracy. For in spite of the concern for democracy which is expressed by the Communists nowadays, at the time of that election both National Socialists and German Communists were united in their hatred of what they called “bourgeois democracy". For the Communists to assert at this time of the day that the downfall of German democracy was due to the refusal of the German Social Democrats to form a united front is nothing less than sheer effrontery; they wouldn't have touched the then "social fascists" (as they described the Social-Democrats) with a barge pole. The chief difference between the followers of the Communists and Nazis was that they chose different vehicles through which to express their hatred of democracy. Lacking an understanding of their social position, disgusted by the antics and ineptitudes of self-styled socialists, the mass of the German people found the source of the grievances not in the capitalist nature of the social system, but in the democratic form in which it was administered.

[From an article "Fascism and Democracy". Socialist Standard, June 1939.]

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

More gruel, anyone? (1989)

From the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

As if life is not hard enough already for them, the people who depend on Social Security benefits for their living are now being targetted. And what, you might ask (unless you are on benefit yourself, in which case you know the answer) does that mean? To begin with we might consider the fact that "targetted’’ is a non-word, a verb created out of a noun. Such creations are not uncommon and often taken to be evidence of fresh, innovative thinking. If the new word catches on, in quarters where there is a real fear of not being thought of as fresh and innovative, it may become set into jargon, without which no speech or article commands proper attention and which is useful to evade an inconvenient reality or to confuse a simple issue.

Targetting, according to the rich Tory ministers who run the Department of Social Security, means rearranging the system of state benefits so that they are paid only to those who can prove to be in the greatest need. It is. they say, a reform long overdue. A recent TV programme about the difficulties experienced by claimants who try to get money from the meticulously targetted Social Fund included the contrasting case of a mother in a large, mock-Tudor house on the greener fringes of Croydon. She declared that she drew her recklessly non-targetted Child Benefit once every few months, when she remembered, and then only to pay it straight into her bank account.

The policy of paying flat-rate benefits to everyone in certain categories, regardless of need, was laid down as long ago as the Beveridge Report. When the policy was written into legislation there was a great shudder of relief among those who, whether through personal experience or not, understood what the Means Test had meant — a harrowing, degrading probing by officialdom for reasons to disqualify desperately poor people from benefit. The Means Test, we were told, had been abolished for ever. But targetted benefits are Means tested benefits, albeit under a zappy. freshly-created — distorting — name.

Dependency culture

It is true that means-tested benefits are recommended to us by Tory ministers as an essential antidote to the widespread scourge of the dependency culture, than which nothing is more dangerous to our morale. Dependency encourages us to live off others instead of using our abilities to contribute to the social good. Those who wondered whether these verbal assaults were targetted at the ruling class, whose income from the labours of the rest of us enables them to jet around the world's playgrounds. may have been reassured by the recent stream of bracing advice from ministers on how we can avoid falling into dependency. The common theme of this advice was that anyone who is poor, cold, hungry or homeless has only themselves to blame. Edwina Currie, before she made the bad mistake of upsetting the farming lobby, came unscathed through the anger provoked by her patronising dissertation to pensioners and any other potential sufferers from hypothermia about the advantages of warm underwear. Peter Lloyd, an Under Secretary at the DSS, recommends clothing ourselves from jumble sales (which many workers do in any case):

I am a great attender of second-hand sales for charities in my constituency. You can get very good bargains. (Daily Telegraph, 12 January 1989)

Lloyd is a member of Lloyds (no relation, presumably), which means that he has. apart from anything else, at least £100,000 which he can afford to lose in an adverse insurance deal. Someone with that kind of money may buy second-hand stuff at jumble sales — it’s all good clean fun, helps out some local charity which targetted claimants are applying to in unprecedented numbers and maybe wins a few votes by showing what a cheery, caring fellow he is. But living in need is not good, clean fun. Getting by on cast-off bargains is a way of life reserved for the class who, directly or indirectly, contribute through their exploitation to Lloyd s fortune and add also to his political comfort by voting him into parliament.

Young people — in whose hands, as politicians so often tell us, The Future Of The Country Rests — are finding their benefit so efficiently targetted that it is shot out of existence. This is happening because the government prefer to have them working. A recent leaflet from the DSS informs them, in terms which suggest that it is the best news they have had for a long time:

From September 1988 if you are under 18 you will normally not be able to get Income Support.

It then puts, and answers, a number of suspiciously docile questions:

Why can't I get Income Support?

Because there is a guaranteed Youth Training Scheme (YTS) place for everyone under 18 who does not go into a job. 

Must I go on YTS?

No. The choice is yours. But if you don't go on YTS any money your parents get for you will stop at the end of your extended Child Benefit period.

Removing workers from the scope of benefit by presenting them with this kind of “choice" does wonders for the unemployment statistics and it is right in the historic tradition of punishing people for being poor. Under the Tudors this was a matter of brutal persecution which, as more and more peasants were driven off the land, had to be modified into the subtler repressions of the Poor Law. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries relief was based on, and administrated by, the parishes, which caused paupers who were unsettled to be carted backwards and forwards across parish boundaries as each tried to cast off responsibility for them. There was, of course, always the workhouse, which in the eighteenth century developed, through a process of reasoning which was a stranger to logic let alone humane concerns, as a deterrent to the condition it was supposed to relieve:

The great object of the poor law board is to ensure a constant unvarying and efficient discipline during the entire residence of the pauper within the workhouse. He rises to the minute: he works to the minute: he eats to the minute. He must be clean, respectful, industrious and obedient. In short the habits inculcated in the house are precisely those the possession of which would have prevented his becoming an inmate. (Chairman of the Sheffield Guardians. November 1855)

Undeserving poor

Another tradition — or perhaps a better word would be tactic — is to divide the people on the lower rungs of poverty into the deserving and underserving poor. The penury of the deserving poor is recognised as largely beyond their control: they are old. or unpredictably redundant (provided they have not neglected the approved ways of guarding against its consequences) or the victims of a sudden disaster. They may also be sick — except that a failure to join BUPA at the proper time may mean they don't deserve to be among the deserving. On the other hand there are the undeserving poor, tainted by a stigma so profound that only a brash rogue like Shaw's Alfred Doolittle would willingly confess to it: “I'm one of the undeserving poor, that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man." The undeserving poor are cunningly work-shy, preferring to live on state benefits to submitting themselves to a good day's exploitation. If they do work they dissipate their wages on booze or gambling. Before the days of smokeless zones, they kept coal in the bath. Nowadays they loll about all day watching the latest videos on an outsize TV set in the corner.

Nobody has yet been able to explain why the undeserving poor have a habit of increasing and decreasing all together and why they tend to concentrate in certain areas. For years — decades even — the undeserving poor lie dormant in their various employments and then suddenly sprout into indolence, their growth being especially luxuriant in places like South Wales. Scotland or Northern Ireland. For example a recent (16 December 1988) article in New Statesman and Society reported that in the region of Strathclyde 28 per cent of the population now live at or below the official poverty line. This includes about one third of the region's children, who are not yet able to choose whether to be deserving or undeserving, and 42 per cent of its old people, who are probably past caring how they are classified and only wish they were a bit better off. This mass descent from the normal poverty of employment into the lower reaches of destitution is largely due to unemployment (what Edwina Currie would call being workshy) which, according to the Strathclyde Council, now amounts to almost a quarter of a million people. A lot of these are trying to bridge the gap between their income and their needs by living on credit. For a while this method may work, in the same way as alcohol or any other drug, by blotting out reality. But the reckoning is unavoidable: the misery of Strathclyde's never-never hangover can be assessed by the fact that its Citizens' Advice Bureau is now dealing with almost 70,000 enquiries from people in credit-crisis — almost twice as many as they were in 1982

So what happened to the targetting of benefits? The National Association of Citizen's Advice Bureaux states that the changes in Social Security last April, which were supposed to bring a great rationalising of poverty into security, have left 82 per cent of the poorer claimants worse off. Some of this is due to the abolition of special needs grants and their replacement with, very often, loans from the Social Fund. There is a Catch 22 here which would impress Joseph Heller, because a loan will be agreed only when the applicant can repay it from their benefit but by definition anyone on Social Security who needs a loan is unlikely to be able to do this. As a result many claimants don't apply for a loan or if they do apply they are refused — which drives them to experiment with the tender mercies of the local loan sharks while about half the money allocated to the Social Fund lies unused.

The predictable response to this mess from the poverty lobby is to suggest that more money be allocated to the needy. This always has a certain appeal for it can't be denied that poverty in all its degrees is symptomised by a lack of money and rich people don't involuntarily live in slums or suffer from hypothermia or malnutrition. Neither are they to be seen queuing at their local DSS to have their domestic innards probed by the Biro of some harassed, sometimes callous, clerk on the other side of the shatter-proof screen. But the calculations of the poverty lobby tend to overlook the fact that the present situation, with its levels of destitution, was supposed to have been legislated out of existence by the so-called Welfare State modelled on the Beveridge Report. Since then there have been numerous re-arranging of benefits; the available money has been shuffled about, allocated first to this type of claimant and then to another. How successful this has been can be gauged from the suffering workers of Strathclyde and the despairing staff of any inner-city DSS office.

Redistributing poverty

All the plans to reform poverty out of existence ignore the vital fact that what counts is the source of our income — how we get our living — for that determines which class we are in and whether we live secure lives or are constantly under the burden of want. People who depend on being employed for a living are members of the working class, the group who experience poverty which can soon slide into destitution if they fall sick, or have more children than they can afford, or are made redundant, or become addicted to alcohol or some other drug. In this class are the people in places like Glasgow, the people whose budgets can be disastrously thrown out by an increase in their mortgage repayments, who can be quickly changed from a proud "owner-occupier'' into a wretched unit of homelessness In this class are the people whose abilities lie unused in a slump and who come to rely on state benefits to live, making themselves targets in the sights of any government looking for economies in its expenditure.

The other class are not to be found in inner-city slums and nor do they worry about temporary changes in capitalism's economy. They can afford to have as many children as they like and the best medical treatment in the most exclusive clinics when they are ill. Although they are socially redundant, as a class they do not suffer from being out of a job because they need never be employed in the first place. They live — in their several houses, their easy security, their luxury — off the exploitation of the working class. They are the people who really exist in a dependency culture for they rely on the workers labour. They are the class whose taxes finance schemes like Social Security and it is their representatives in government who are now concerned to reduce what is being paid out in state benefits". The "Welfare State" was not an act of generosity, a gift of historic proportions from the capitalist class to the workers. Destitution does not come cheaply for such is its cost in terms of crime, loss of production and social dislocation that to alleviate it through a system of state benefits is an investment rather than a gift. National schemes for sickness, unemployment and old age were designed to spread the load of that investment over the ruling class as a whole, even if clever politicians represented them as specifically intended to relieve distress among workers. That deception is now being eroded by the Tories equally specious claim that security for workers is to be found in less cohesive private schemes which will, through the wages they pay to their employees, adjust the burden among the employers.

What does it matter, if in the process a few thousand more people — children, their parents, retired workers, the sick and the elderly — suffer the stress of poverty that bites that much deeper? The indignant campaigners of the poverty lobby are strong on indictment, but like the boys in Dickens' orphanage their worry is that the gruel is too thin. Poverty need not mean an impoverished idea about how society works and how we can make it better.

Ivan

Sting in the Tail: An Outbreak of Truth (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Outbreak of Truth

Edwina Currie the former Under Secretary of Health had to resign because she upset a powerful section of the capitalist class.

Her comment on ITV 3rd December, '88 that "most of the egg production in this country is now infected by salmonella" caused an uproar among that section of the capitalist class who have their capital invested in egg production. As sales, and of course profits, fell they mounted a campaign to get rid of her.

Now socialists have no sympathy with capitalist lick-spittles like Currie. Her insulting remarks on workers dying of hypothermia (lack of food and warmth) — "they should knit themselves woolly nightcaps” — recall the "let them eat cake" of the pre-revolutionary French aristocracy.

But her forced resignation is really somewhat unique. She had to resign because she told the truth!

An outbreak of truth in the Houses of Parliament would certainly be extremely refreshing. Say Nigel Lawson admitting that capitalism controls governments and not the other way about. That he is powerless to control slumps and booms. Or Neil Kinnock admitting that he is opposed to socialism and just wants to run the buying and selling system.

Alas, it appears that truth is less catching than salmonella and Edwina Currie's case is an isolated one.

Lake Plonk

A search through a European Atlas will not reveal its location. But it's there somewhere . . . unchartered, its location unsuspected.

It's Surplusland, a European country with a weird geography. We know something of its topography from newspaper reports. It has Beef Hills, Butter Mountains and a Wine Lake.

In The Independent 24 January ' 89 we were given some of the details of the Wine Lake.

There were 250 million gallons of surplus alcohol (distilled wine alcohol) for disposal last year. Another 118 million gallons is expected this year. A further 92 million gallons is due for disposal Inside of the next three years.

Why not give it away?, you ask. Well to those of you who fancy a couple of free glasses of wine with your Salmonella Chicken Supreme, the Select Committee on European Legislation (Third Report) has the answer.

In practice there appears to be little demand for wine alcohol as such which reflects the cost of production .

In other words — it's not profitable !

A society that produces and stores surpluses of beef, butter, wheat and wine while millions starve is an absolute obscenity.

It's not Cricket

Annoyed at the cricketing authorities' decision to ban players from the England Test team If they played in South Africa, Mr. Norris McWhirter of the Freedom Association has attempted to take action through the courts.

The Independent 25th January, 1989 referring to the Association's defence of Zola Budd and its recent cricket legal case, stated:

The inevitable conclusion is that it must support the race policies of the South African government but this is not so. Both cases the association says, concern the freedom of individuals to carry out their business or affairs as they chose without interference from bullying authorities.

Mr. McWhirter's organisation makes great play of defending a sportsman or woman's right to go anywhere they wish in their sporting careers irrespective of politics.

This apparent disinterest in politics seems a little strange when one recalls that the same McWhirter wrote to British athletes prior to the Moscow Olympics urging them not to go to that country because of Russia's invasion of j Afghanistan.

Writing to Linsey MacDonald, the Scottish runner, he referred to athletes who didn't win medals and said:

. . . having gained no medals you will have earned the contempt of millions of your countrymen.

Such a letter to a sixteen year old schoolgirl is as good an example of bullying as we’ve come across.

The whitewash attempt of The Independent should fool no one. The Freedom Association is just another bunch of well-heeled toffs anxious to protect their class privilege against any real or imagined threat.

Its deep involvement in the Grunwick dispute of 1976, its anti-trade union stance recently against the postal workers proves that "freedom" to the quaintly named "Freedom Association" means freedom to exploit and grow fat on the unpaid labour of the working class.

What's up Doc ?

David Mellor, the Minister of State for Health, is concerned at the long hours worked by junior hospital doctors.

But not too concerned, for according to The Independent 25th January 1989:

But he confirmed the government's intention to oppose the backbench Bill scheduled for debate In the Lords tonight setting a 72 hour maximum legal limit on the junior doctor's working week.

After a survey in Bristol of junior doctors Dr. Ruth Gilbert (quoted In The Independent same day) said :

Suffering from sleep deprivation, Junior doctors are likely to perform monotonous tasks badly, make mistakes over drug dosages and experience mood changes that will make them less sympathetic to their patients.

When asked about the worst aspects of their work 85 per cent of the men and 95 per cent of the women said "exhaustion and hours of work" followed by "acting as dogsbodies doing unrewarding work."

In February 1848 a pamphlet written in German was published in London. It referred to the position of doctors inside capitalism. It stated:

The bourgeoise has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The pamphlet was The Communist Manifesto. The authors were Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

About ourselves (1989)

From the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the Socialist Party?

An independent political party which stands opposed to all others in this country, including the Labour and Communist parties. Our only links are with similar socialist parties in some other parts of the world.

What is your aim?

The replacement of the existing capitalist system of society by a new and different system we call socialism.

What is capitalism?

A system based on the ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth (land, industry, railways, offices and the like) by a section only of society who thus form a privileged class. The others, who in return for a wage or salary produce wealth for sale with a view to profit, make up the producing or working class. In Britain less than five per cent of the population belong to the owning or capitalist class. Most people — those who work in offices as well as those who work in the factories — are in the working class.

What is socialism?

A democratic world community without frontiers based on the ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth by society as a whole. Socialism will abolish classes and free all humanity from exploitation and oppression. The basis of socialism is this ownership of all the means of production by the whole community; control over their use will rest in the hands of the community through democratic institutions. Wealth will be produced not for sale or profit, but solely to satisfy human needs. This means the end of buying and selling and all the other financial and commercial institutions like money, prices, wages and banks. People will cooperate to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs.

Will everything belong to the State?

No. The State does not represent the whole community; it serves the interests only of those who own the means of production. State ownership or nationalisation is one of the ways in which this class controls industry. When the State takes over industries (like the railways and coalmines in Britain) it does so in their interests. State ownership leaves unchanged the class basis of society, the profit motive and the wages system, all of which socialism will abolish. Nationalisation is just State capitalism.

What system exists in Russia?

Russian society is part of world capitalist society. It shows all the essential features of capitalism: a class who control the means of production through their control of political power; another class forced to work for wages; production of goods for sale with a view to profit and the accumulation of capital out of profits. The same goes for countries like China. Cuba and Yugoslavia. They like Russia have State capitalism.

Do you want something like the kibbutzim in Israel?

Socialism can only be a world community without frontiers. It cannot be established in one country let alone on one farm. The kibbutzim do show that human beings can live without money and can work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so that young people are tending to leave them. In practice they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and some have themselves become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

How do you advocate socialism should be established?

By the class of wage and salary earners, once a majority of them want and understand socialism, taking democratic political action to change the basis of society from the class to the common ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Why must there be a majority in favour of the change to socialism before it can be made?

Socialism, by its nature as a system involving voluntary co-operation, could only be kept going by those who really wanted it and knew what it involved. Any attempt to establish socialism without a majority first being in favour is bound to fail.

Do you repudiate undemocratic minority action to achieve socialism?

Most definitely. No leaders, however sincere or able, can lead a non-socialist working class to socialism. Leaders who take power while a majority do not understand socialism have no choice but to develop and administer capitalism, as has been shown in Russia and by the various labour governments in Britain. When a majority do want and understand socialism they have no need of leaders, but only to organise themselves democratically.

Why do you advocate political action to achieve socialism?

It is their control of the machinery of government that now allows the capitalist class to protect their privileged position as the owners of the means of production. In Britain it is parliament that makes the laws granting them property rights and it is the police and the Courts, and if need be the army, that enforce these laws. The socialist majority must win political power in order to remove the protection the government machine now gives to class ownership and to carry through the establishment of the common ownership of the means of production.

How do you advocate the socialist majority should win political power?

By using their votes to elect socialist delegates to Parliament and the local councils. A socialist victory in a democratically-run election would demonstrate to all that a majority were in favour of the change to socialism.

Why are you opposed to all other political parties?

All of them accept the capitalist system and believe that current social problems can be solved within its framework.

Why do you think that reforms of the capitalist system are not the solution? 

These problems are caused by the class ownership of the means of production which all reforms leave unchanged. The policy of trying to deal with social problems one by one by reforms of capitalism is futile, as this is to deal with effects and not the cause. We call this policy “reformism" and are opposed to it.

But surely you are not against all reforms? 

We are not opposed to reforms which may bring temporary relief to some workers, but we do not regard it as the task of a socialist party to propose reforms of capitalism. Were we to do this we could easily soon become just another reformist party. To avoid this danger we advocate socialism only.

Why have all the other parties failed? 

Basically because capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interests of the class of wage and salary earners. It is a class system that can only work for those who own the means of production. Any party, be it Labour or Conservative, which takes power under capitalism is forced to run that system in the only way it can be and so is inevitably brought into conflict with the mass of people who work for a wage or salary. This has been proved time and again.

So it is not because the politicians are not determined enough or are incompetent or dishonest that they fail?

No. No matter how determined or able or sincere the members of a government may be they still could not make capitalism work for the good of all. The politicians fail because they have to accept the class system which causes the problems they are always promising to solve.

If you have read this set of principles and agree with some or all of them, contact the Socialist Party with your questions and ideas about what you can do to help speed the progress towards Socialism.

Not—so—bon appetit (1989)

From the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

One thing is clear in all the fuss and confusion about salmonella in eggs, listeria in cheese and BSE in beef: the statements of, and advice from, ministers have not been fit for human consumption. There is nothing new in that: at the time when the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl passed over Britain, letting fall its lethal chemicals with the rain onto the sheep of North Wales and Cumberland, the then Minister of Agriculture was self-sacrificially emphatic about how harmless it was. He declared that he was going to spend that week-end “enthusiastically" eating British lamb. So far he has not grown two heads, but evidence has emerged that the meat in those parts was dangerous to eat then and will remain so years after the fall-out.

Although the most recent row became public with Edwina Currie's famous remark about how widespread salmonella is in egg production, that was by no means the beginning of the affair. Currie's reputation for valuing career-sustaining self publicity over facts made her vulnerable to the kind of assault which the farming interests launched on her. When we saw TV pictures of adorably fluffy chicks on their way to being gassed because of her ill-considered words, her fate was sealed.

But anyone with the most cursory acquaintance with what passes for farming and methods of the food industry had known for a long time about the active threats to health which they represented. There has been no shortage of information, available to anyone who wanted it, about the effects on cattle and on the people who eat beef of pumping the poor beasts full of hormones, not to cure them of some disease but to make them more copious producers of milk and beef. Yet another hormone — bovine somatropin — is now under test, although an unusually sensitive National Farmers' Union seems to be opposed to its use, presumably because they are anxious to avoid more bad publicity for their members.

Battery hens — quite apart from the sickening conditions in which they spend their brief, wretched lives — have long been known to be a source of salmonella poisoning, made worse by the fact that they have commonly been fed on the already diseased remains of slaughtered hens. That is why there have been warnings, albeit muted, about the need to cook chickens thoroughly and to avoid re-heating them.

So why didn't the government simply publicise the whole issue, a long time ago? Why didn't they tell us not to touch any intensively reared meat, or eggs from battery hens, or soft cheese? Or, more effective, why didn't they rush through parliament some sort of legislation to outlaw the production methods which cause the illnesses?

We saw the answers to these questions in the Currie affair. Intensive food production was developed because it is more profitable than the old, slower, less certain methods. The big drugs companies have enormous investments tied up in the production of the chemicals which the farmers shove into their animals. If enough people become scared of buying the food, demand for it can collapse to the point at which it becomes unprofitable to produce it. That may save a few lives and prevent a lot of very distressing sickness but it would play havoc with the profits of the farmers and the drug companies and that is not what the government is there for. Governments exist, not to look after the wellbeing of what is called the consumer — workers who spend their wages on the things they need to re-produce their energies — but to protect the profits of the class who own the means of production, which in this case means the farming industry. the food production firms and the drug companies.

That is why the first official reaction to the slightest breath of truth about something like salmonella in eggs is to rush to conceal the facts. If public pressure becomes so fierce that some of the facts must be allowed out they will often be so mangled and restricted as to be unreconcilable with the truth. This stubborn rearguard action can go on for a very long time, while workers endure painful and possibly fatal illnesses because of their ignorance of the facts.

The great food scandal brings us once again up against the reality that capitalism puts profits before people. Currie's big mistake was that, while she so ardently supports this social system, she allowed herself to voice a passing doubt about the effects of this principle. The penalty she paid, was a lot less distressing than what was endured by those who experienced what it meant from the business end of a sick-bed.

Letter: Co-operatives and capitalism (1989)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Co-operatives and capitalism

Dear Editors

R. Lloyd in the November 1988 issue asserts as an absolute dogma that "Cooperatives do not give workers security of employment; do not free them from exploitation; and do not allow the luxury of producing goods outside the parameters of commodity production. Co-operatives under capitalism cannot be organised in any other way".

Accepting with certain reservations, that "cooperatives under capitalism cannot be organised in any other way", I should like to know how the Socialist Party envisages cooperatives could function in the circumstances where there is a considerable degree of socialist consciousness. It seems to me quite ludicrous to suggest that a significant growth of socialist consciousness will not bring about a concomitant reduction in the scale and extent of capitalist economic relations. Surely, both the desire and the opportunities, to transcend the market place and produce things directly for need, starting with small scale and localised activities, are bound the grow with the growth of the socialist movement itself? It seems to me wholly reasonable to suggest that cooperatives represent one particular form, amongst many, through which these expanding non-market productive relationships will be able to take hold at the expense of capitalist relations. This is not at all the same as saying that co-ops can produce for need within the framework of capitalism. Rather, it means they can only do so outside that framework, which would be possible because the framework itself would have contracted. Nor does this mean that socialist should not still aim for the political abolition of capitalism but only that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. They are complementary, production, which only operates through the prospect of profit, can possibly operate prior to the political capture of power when the socialist aim to abolish the profit system becomes itself a serious prospect?

Louise Cox

Haslemere

Reply:

We are not in the habit of asserting absolute dogmas. The passage our correspondent quotes was based on hard evidence of the experience of co-operatives under capitalism. She in fact more or less accepts this conclusion, but questions whether it must always be so, suggesting that “where there is a considerable degree of socialist consciousness” co-operatives will be able to "transcend the marketplace and produce things directly for need”.

When there is a "considerable degree of socialist consciousness" (when, that is, millions of people are against the money-prices-wages system and want to replace it with a world of free access and production for need), we can indeed “envisage" a lot of things. That, for instance, capitalist politicians and governments will lean over backwards to offer reforms; that trade union will become more democratic and more militant; that the capitalist state will have an increasing problem to recruit workers to serve in its armed forces, to mention some things have long been a subject of speculation among socialists. We can also envisage the co-operative movement too being affected by this ferment of ideas, by becoming more democratic and even by expanding to a limited extent. Why not? After all, who knows?

Our correspondent, however, is asking us to envisage much more than this. She sees the co-operatives as representing "one particular form, amongst many, through which expanding non-market productive relationships will be able to take hold at the expense of capitalist relations".

We can't agree that this is at all a reasonable assumption. Remember, we are talking about a time when there is to be a considerable number of socialists but not yet a majority. This means that the capitalist class, basing themselves on the non-socialist majority, will still control political power and so still monopolise the means of production. How, in these circumstances. could any co-operative detach itself from the rest of the economy, which would remain geared to producing goods for sale on a market with a view to profit, and begin producing goods to consumers could have free access according to need? Where, to get down to the bottom line, would the money come from to acquire the raw materials and power needed to produce the goods that are to be given away free? Surely our correspondent doesn't imagine that capitalist firms would generously agree to supply these free of charge! The fact is that, as long as the capitalist class control political power, which they will be able to continue to do for as long as there is a majority of non-socialists. capitalist economic relationships (commodity production, wage- labour, production for profit will be bound to prevail, however large the minority of socialist might be.

Of course some might regard all this as speculation and they would be right to a certain extent, but such theoretical questions are important since to have a correct practice now it is necessary to have a correct theory. Our correspondent's theoretically unsound views lead her to advocate an unsound practice now. namely, encouraging present-day co-operatives, despite their capitalist character, as a potentially "socialistic" form in the future. She thereby places herself in the same camp as those we criticised in our original article, who she must regard as being right if for the wrong reasons.

Finally, our correspondent has misunderstood our position. We have never said that "the only approach available is the capture of political power". Certainly this is the main goal which the socialist movement must set itself, since until political power has been taken out of capitalist hands the socialist transformation of society cannot be carried out. We note, in passing, that our correspondant too regards winning control of political power as necessary.

There are indeed other things which a considerable number of socialists can do within capitalism apart from the propaganda and electoral activity that any movement seeking to win political control by democratic means must engage in. We have always recognised "the need for the growing socialist movement to formulate its general plans in advance of the capture of political control, so that society might be transformed in a smooth and speedy manner" (as we put it in the Introduction to our pamphlet Socialism as a Practical Alternative). This would no doubt involve the socialist movement, and workers generally, preparing programmes of action for immediate implementation at workplaces and in such fields as education and health once political control has been taken out of capitalist hands. Needless to say. today we cannot do much more than say this will be necessary, since the exact details of such plans will have to be left to the time when the socialist movement will be very much stronger than it now is.

Editors.