SPGB Meetings (1958)

Party News from the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Race prejudice is a barrier to Socialism (1963)

Editorial from the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who said that the last war was fought, among other things, for racial equality, are having to eat their words fast. Twenty years after the Warsaw Ghetto, we still see the ugly manifestations of racial intolerance and strife in many parts of the world.

Witness Birmingham, Alabama, scene of the latest battle in the struggle over desegregation, where more than nine hundred Negroes are arrested at one demonstration and Ku-Klux Klan bomb outrages wreck an agreement a few hours after it has been readied. Then go further North to Washington D.C., where the situation has produced the Black Moslem Movement, a bitterly anti-white. anti-Jewish organisation, aiming at the establishment of separate Negro States in the U.S.

Over in South Africa, racial oppression is sharpened by fresh laws giving sweeping powers of detention to the police, and to open your mouth too much in public is to invite a charge of treason and perhaps the death penalty. In another part of this unhappy continent, Nairobi based British troops riot in retaliation for the murder of one of their number.

Here at home, Chinese shops are smashed at St. Helens, Lancs, and there is the usual resentment against coloured bus workers—this time at Bristol. It is only a few months since the Colin Jordan affair and the tins of “Jew Killers.”

Racial prejudice and antagonism are with us all the time, but it is only now and then that they flare into headline news. Mostly they smoulder sullenly beneath publicity level, but ready to be sparked off. perhaps by some comparatively minor incident, into really nasty outbreaks of violence like the Notting Hill affairs a few years ago.

Then it is that ignorance and bigotry come fully into their own as hysterical fanatics hurl abuse and insults at coloured and other minorities. Scapegoats have now been found to blame for workers problems, it being conveniently forgotten that the problems existed long before the scapegoats ever appeared. Passions are inflamed and crime, one of the everyday hazards of private property society, now takes on a racial—almost political—significance.

In the welter of confusion it is not surprising that to many workers, race has become synonymous with nationality. It is a notion which the capitalist press has encouraged from time to time. During the last war, for instance, it was the policy of one paper at least to refer frequently to the “German Race” and to try and prove its essentially warlike nature. “Get back to your own country” is a remark often heard, and there was even one English father who refused his son permission to marry because the girl came from Wales, and who wanted frontiers established between the two countries.

Probably many people thought this quite ludicrous at the lime, yet it is really no more so than the whole notion of nationality which most workers support in a world made smaller almost daily by the advance of communications. It is the same notion which incidentally produced two opposing candidates in one ward in the recent municipal elections at Bradford, both standing for “Pakistani Interests.”

Socialists have always opposed racialist theories. There is no scientific evidence that one group is innately superior to another, and in fact it would be difficult to find a “pure” race in the world today, even if scientists could agree on a definition of the term. And among the capitalist class, too, there is a growing recognition that discrimination is decidedly damaging to their commercial interests. It was the “Business Community” in Birmingham, Alabama, which sought agreement with Martin Luther King.

While workers hold such ideas, there is the added danger that they will lend a ready ear to potential dictators, and that even today’s limited political democracy will suffer. But, above all, racialism is a barrier to the growth of Socialist knowledge and the recognition that the division between capitalist and worker is the only one which really matters. The interest of all workers everywhere is the same—the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism. Until they get this vital fact clear, they will stay in the mess that they are in today.

News in Review: Birmingham, Alabama (1963)

The News in Review column from the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Birmingham, Alabama

Alabama had to have its turn, sooner or later. Now that it has come, ignorance and violence seem to be taking command.

Ignorance because the ugly scenes in Birmingham have been caused by the assertion of the simple fact that differing skin colours is no reason why people should not share buses, restaurants, schools, and so on.

Violence because we live in a violent world, in which an indefensible idea can often be asserted by the breaking of heads—and worse.

And, as far as racial theories go, Alabama is the very pit of ignorance. That is the one state to have held out completely against the federally decreed desegregation of schools. That is the state where they still salute the Confederate flag, where they wish that the Civil War was being fought all over again. That is the state described by Attorney-General Robert Kennedy as like a foreign country.

It is no surprise that the Negroes have developed their own counterpart of Southern repression. The Black Muslims talk in the same terms as the most extreme segregationists, except that their policy is for black people to discriminate against white. Once again, the inevitable result of ignorance and violence has been to breed yet more of its kind. 

Is there no glimmer of hope? As American industry expands into Dixieland, it takes with it no nonsense about segregation. It wants to exploit them all, white and black.

This development is likely to give the Negroes the weapon they lack at the moment—the vote. When they have that (as President Kennedy acknowledged so blatantly in his 1960 campaign) they will be a political factor to reckon with. We shall probably see a lot of Southern Congressmen hurriedly changing their tune.

That still seems a long way off. At the moment the South presents a doleful picture, especially for Socialists, who know that the future of the world depends upon how long it takes the international working class to throw off its manifold ignorances and to unite for the establishment of a sane, humane society.

Spies for peace

It is in the nature of the misuse of words which characterises capitalist organisations that the Spies for Peace were not spying and that they were doing nothing for peace.

The existence of the Regional Seats of Government was a very loosely kept secret, one which was divulged to plenty of everyday Civil Defence volunteers. In any case, anyone who was not actually in the know need not have been a Sherlock Holmes to have deduced that such places existed. The capitalist class will obviously make their preparations to re-establish the government of property society after a nuclear holocaust.

What will the Spies for Peace achieve? They are unlikely to get hold of any secrets which really matter to British capitalism. If they do, it will hardly safeguard peace to reveal them to other capitalist powers, who will doubtless use them to bolster their own military machines.

All that the Spies can do for themselves is to fall foul of the law (which they all, by implication, support) and to stir up the irritation of the masses of workers who so ardently defend their masters' interests.

And when we have said that we are only just beginning.

What is so wearying about the Spies for Peace—and about the Committee of 100, and the March Must Decide brigade, and the CND itself—is that they are yet another group who steadfastly ignore the obvious.

Wars, and their weapons, are part of capitalist society. The only way to abolish all of them is to get rid of capitalism. Some unilateralists, in fact, would say that they agree with this.

Nevertheless, they continue with their antics and as each of the stunts fails to have any effect upon the build up of the world’s nuclear arsenals they carry on to other, sometimes sillier, escapades.

Anything, in fact, rather than work for Socialism.

As we said, it is very wearying.

Hunger and profit

We are now, in case you have not had a collecting box stuck under your nose, or have missed the big spread adverts, in the middle of another campaign, the Freedom from Hunger Campaign.

Hunger is certainly a massive, depressing problem. The third World Food Survey, published last April by the F.A.O., reported that between ten and fifteen per cent. of the world’s population is undernourished and up to one-half suffer from hunger or malnutrition. There are plenty of other eminently quotable statistics which all add up to the fact that a large chunk of the people on the earth simply do not get enough to eat.

Some people regard this as a problem of overpopulation, of the world’s resources being outstripped by human breeding powers. Others think that it is a problem of getting enough money to send a tractor here, or a shipload of fertiliser there. In fact, this is only playing with the problem.

Capitalism is the barrier between man and the solution of hunger. The physical difficulties of society will never be tackled sensibly as long as capitalism lasts. Take, for example, the case of the Dutch milk. Reported The Sunday Telegraph on May 12th last:

A plan to fine farmers who produce too much milk is being considered in Holland by Mr. V. G. M. Marynen, Minister of Agriculture.

The object is to cut production by four per cent. The scheme has been agreed with provisionally by the farmers and workers unions.

Mr. B. Van Dam, director of the Netherlands Milk Marketing Board, said: “ The time has come to set a new course for our milk producers. It is no use going on increasing production in view of the present state of the market.”

It is typical of the enduring stupidities of property society that millions of people starve in one part of the world while in another people are penalised for producing food. For capitalism, human suffering does not matter; the "state of the market” is what brings in the dividend cheques, and so that is what counts.

The Freedom from Hunger Campaign has recruited a great many sincere helpers. This sort of campaign usually does. The deeper their sincerity, the greater the tragedy that their efforts are always so wide of the mark.

The Labour Party itching for power

The Labour Party, itching for power, is like a man listening to the last few football results with seven draws on his pools coupon.

They suffer. They perspire. They are fearful lest a wrong word should shatter their glorious dream.

That was why the Labour Party was so worried about the railway strike which never got started. Perhaps the strike was something of a forlorn hope. But, after all, strikes are the only weapon workers have in their disputes with their employers.

The Labour Party, let it be recorded, did not oppose the strike for any reason connected with the welfare of the railway workers. They opposed it because they judged that it may have damaged their chance of winning the next election; it might have upset their Treble Chance. For Labour, as for other capitalist parties, votes are tremendously important.

Mr. Wilson is doing his best to gather as many of them as he can. He celebrated May Day, for example, by propounding a plan to “. . . make a reality of the Commonwealth . . .” (although there was nothing very new in what he said—just some more mucking about with Imperial Preferences).

He also threw in his now customary make weight about the Labour Party not being prepared to see Britain as a second rate power.

Now all this may have been palatable to retired colonels in Bournemouth and to the floating, drifting voters whom the Labour Party has wooed so coyly for so long. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the Socialism which Mr. Wilson protests he stands for, nor with the working class interests he professes to defend.

There must still be some members of the Labour Party who can remember the days when strikers were people to support and when patriotism was something of a dirty word. What do they think of their party, as they watch it take its inevitable path to the status of a fully fledged party of capitalism, with power as the one and only object of its miserable life?

Some Comments on the American Election (1956)

From the November 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

We take our elections somewhat more seriously than they appear to do in the United States. Here the stunts are a little more subtle, less reminiscent of circuses and music-hall shows. But there is something in the American way of life after all, for if we are going to have the farce every few years of “choosing” between capitalism and capitalism, let it at least be entertaining.

And no one can deny that the American elections are that. 

The “Choice"

In America the two major parties are the Republicans and Democrats, and it has been said that the difference between the two is that one is in power and the other is out. This is true in America even as it is in this country with the Labour and Conservative Parties. Tradition plays a large part in American support for their parties. The Democratic Party is traditionally “for labour,” although in practice this means little except that they can count on some support from the Trade Unions. Traditionally the deep South, with its violent opposition to any advancement for the negroes, is Democratic, but some Democrats of the North, who consider the Party to be “progressive,” are considerably embarrassed by the reliance that the Party places on its Southern support.

Personalities

Personalities are important in any election, so we should see who are the people hoping to get the votes in the present election.

The Republican candidate for President is, of course, Eisenhower. A man by experience not a politician, but a soldier, mainly useful to his Party because of his extraordinary popularity. He appears to be something in the nature of a figurehead in that, judging by his speeches, he does not show signs of having a great grasp of the problems that his government has to attempt to tackle, and his comments are usually vague generalities mixed with good will, such as when, speaking on the problems of de-segregation of schools, he said: "Here is a problem, charged with emotionalism, where everybody has got to' work hard with all of the strength he has, and I think that the more that work is done privately and behind the scenes rather than charging up on the platform and hammering desks, the better and more effective it will be.” This statement was in answer to a question as to his policy, and it will be seen that although be says quite clearly that we must all work hard to solve the problem, he does not suggest what the solution should be.

His running mate, for Vice-President, is Richard Nixon. A young man, with a reputation for ambition, and unpopular with both Parties, he would probably not have been nominated had not Eisenhower backed him.

On the Democratic side we have the Presidential candidate in Stevenson. He is the man who didn't want to be President, and who, in 1952, took a lot of persuading to agree to stand. This time it was easier. As one columnist said (before Stevenson agreed to stand in this election), it is a little difficult to play the reluctant virgin twice.

The reluctant egg-head

Stevenson has a great disadvantage in a politician in that he has a reputation for being intelligent. This is commonly known in the United States as being an “egg head.” and although in most countries intellectuals are looked upon with some suspicion, this is particularly so in the United States. In the last election Stevenson lost many votes because of his habit of using words of more than two syllables, but this time he is determined to overcome this disadvantage. In the recent Californian Primary election campaign he met "the common man ” on street cars, shook hands, kissed babies and young ladies, and spoke in a way that the people could understand. It worked, although it is said that Stevenson looked most uncomfortable in his new role. One of the minor aspects of his background that could affect the voting is that he has been divorced. Although be has not remarried, it is thought that some Catholic voters would feel unable to vote for him for that reason.

The Common Man himself

The Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate is Estes Kefauver. He is the man who wanted to be President, but has settled, for the moment, for the chance of being Vice-President. Kefauver goes in for all the gimmicks of elections—only more so than anyone else. He has put hand-shaking on an assembly line basis, and has worn more funny hats than any other American politician— his favourite being the coon-skin hat. Kefauver is a contradiction—a man who goes in for more electioneering tricks than the others, but a man who is generally liked by the public—especially in the farming areas, and disliked by other politicians. One voter explained that he liked Kefauver because you felt that if he came by when you were raking manure in a field, you felt sure that he was the sort of man who would take off his jacket and start raking beside you. On policy Kefauver is somewhat vague. One columnist described his attitude thus: “When asked precisely what he stands for, he is likely to hesitate, ponder painfully, and finally come up with some such phrase as 'a place in the sun for the farmer,' or 'the best interests of the plain people of this nation,' or ‘an even break for the average man."’ (Time, 17/9/56).

The two most important internal issues are: (1) The Farm Crisis, and (2) De-Segregation.

The Farm crisis has arisen partly from the encouragement that was given to farm production in wartime and from the unfortunate fact that since the war the harvests have been good! This means that in order to avoid swamping the market with foodstuffs, which would decrease the prices and the profits, the Government has for some years guaranteed the farmers certain prices, and has purchased surpluses which have been stored in larger and larger quantities. This has in time produced other quite serious problems, such as where to store the surpluses when all available warehouses and the holds of the “moth-ball" fleet aw packed full? This is what each party is trying to answer. The Republican answer is quite simple. Pay the farmers, they say, to take land out of production and allow it to lie fallow for a time. Thus, less land will be “in production," and consequently less food will be produced, and the Crisis (!) will be mitigated. The Democratic answer is the continuation of the present policy, except that greater guarantees should be given to the farmers.

It will be seen that neither of these policies attempts to deal with this basically farcical, as well as tragic, problem of capitalism. What a problem it is to have so much surplus food! Simple—make sure you have less in future. These are the policies propounded by those who are fond of saying that Socialism would not work because there would not be enough to go round under Socialism. If America attempts to sell off the surpluses at cheap prices abroad, they are liable to precipitate a crisis in another country (as was threatened recently in South America).

Segregation

Recently the Supreme Court in the U.S. gave judgment that segregation of white and coloured children in American schools was contrary to the Constitution. This provoked riots in the Southern States recently when the school year commenced and some coloured children tried to take their places in white schools. The Southern States are in most cases determined to avoid compliance with the Supreme Court ruling, and are in many cases attempting to devise laws that will achieve the same end (i.e., segregation) in an apparently legal manner. On this subject both parties are most cautious in making statements. At the recent Democratic Conference the following statement was adopted; “Recent decisions of the Supreme Court relating to segregation have brought consequences of vast importance to our nation as a whole and especially to communities directly affected. We reject all proposals for the use of force to interfere with the orderly determination of these matters by the Courts . . . (the Supreme Court's decisions) are part of the law of the land." An attempted addendum that “We pledge to carry out these Supreme Court decisions,” was rejected.

Earlier in the campaign the Republican Party also was loth to commit itself on the racial issue. However, within the last few weeks they have been more outspoken. Some commentators have suggested that this is due to the fact that the Republicans have resigned themselves to the fact that the Democrats are firmly entrenched in the South, and that even if the Republicans courted the Southern votes with opposition to de-segregation, they would not have much success. It is interesting to observe, however, the reasons given for support for advancement of the negro. Nixon, speaking at Louisville on the 27th September, was reported in the New York Herald Tribune as follows: “The U.S. cannot afford the cost of discrimination. The loss of negro intellectual resources fully developed amounts to $15,000,000,000 a year in terms of the gross national product, now running at a $400,000,000,000 rate." (28/9/56). Thus, no mention is made of any ideals of freedom or justice for the negro population—merely the economic loss suffered by the country's capitalists.

Policy?

Generally, the Republican Party in this election is, as Ike says, “relying on their record," which is “prosperity." This means, of course, prosperity for big business, for, as Stevenson says, “There are ugly patches of poverty and insecurity which still deny dignity, even decency, to the lives of almost one-fifth of all American families."

Stevenson’s answer to the problem is that if his party was in power things would be different, but when we examine the proposals that he makes for changes in policy, it is clear that his programme differs in no essential manner from that of the Republicans.

Western "Democracy"

So this is the much vaunted “two Party system" that is recommended by British and American politicians to countries with more complicated party systems, such as France and Italy, and to totalitarian countries such as those behind the iron curtain! From the point of view of the ruling class, there is much to be said for it. Given two parties that oppose each other but whose policies do not differ fundamentally, the people are likely to spend their political energies arguing the toss between the two, without realising that there is a practical alternative to the system of capitalism.

Our View

What has a Socialist to say about these parties and their personalities and policies?

What is clear in America, as in Britain, is that for the worker (and this includes the many who like to consider themselves “middle class") there is little to choose between the parties, and the only arguments are as to which can run capitalism in the more efficient manner.

A Socialist examines the record of those parties which have claimed to govern in the interests of the mass of the people. Any objective analysis of the past shows that all these attempts have failed. Why have they failed? Is it for lack of good will, corruption, lack of knowledge or intelligence or honesty? These factors crop up continually in politics where there are rich plums for the successful, but the reason for consistent failure by all contenders to save Capitalism is that the nature of Capitalism itself is that it is a class society, which can only be run in the interests of the ruling class, the Capitalists.

Some Election Slogans

Do you want the threat of war to continue and possibly become a fact? Do you want the continuance of poverty while food surpluses pile up and goods accumulate which the poor cannot afford to buy? Do you want a continuance of the insecurity which means that even if you have a job now, you may be unemployed tomorrow if there is a slump? Do you want to ensure that the housing problem will remain unsolved? Do you want to make sure that your children will have a life much like yours, with all these problems that will crush the humanity out of them, make them automatons, and take the joy out of life?

In a word, do you want Capitalism?

Of course, these aren’t the words that are used to ask for your votes. But this is what, in fact, is offered you at each election, and what is being offered to the American elector now.

To the voter in America or elsewhere we say—there is a real alternative. With your help we can establish Socialism. Without it we, along with you, will continue to have all the problems of Capitalism, whichever party is in power.

Socialism will be a world-wide society in which the means of production will be held in common and used for the benefit of the whole of society. It is profit and property which cause wars and poverty. It is Socialism that can make these problems things to read about in history books.

L. B.

Education and the Southern Negro (1956)

From the November 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some parts of the Southern States of America have recently been the scenes of intense anti-negro mob violence. This violence was part of resistance to the attempts by the American Government to integrate negro and white school children within the American system of education. One of the reasons given why the negro should be rejected is that he is “biologically inferior" to the white, and that integration of negro and white will ultimately create a general lowering of human standards, both biologically and socially. We of the Socialist Party do not accept these vicious assumptions. The question important to us is this: What is it about the biological make-up of the various branches of the human family that prevent it from living together in a universal harmony of mutual co-operation? The answer is nothing, and this is the principle that is a guide to Socialists on this issue.

It is now a little over two years since, in 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of negro and white students, within the American educational system, was unconstitutional. It is little over a year since the High Court ordered Federal District Judges to enforce this ruling “. . . with all deliberate speed." The Atlantic Edition of the New York Sunday Times (9th September) gives a State by State account of what has been accomplished toward the integration end since these decisions were made. Its message to those who claim such integration as an ideal, particularly when dealing with the States of “ the deep south," is grim.

“Virginia.—There has been no integration in the State’s public, elementary or high schools, nor is there likely to be any this year."

"North Carolina.—No negroes have entered the high or elementary schools of North Carolina.” 

“Georgia.—Relying upon legal safeguards enacted prior to and after the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the public schools, Georgians expect to operate their schools on the customary dual basis.”

“Florida.—In Florida a record number of students have started back to school—all in completely segregated classrooms—without incident.”

“Alabama.—There is no integration anywhere in Alabama’s public schools, except at the college level”

“Mississippi.—Not a single negro student has been integrated in a white school.”

“Louisiana.—Louisiana begins the school year with segregation still strictly enforced in all elementary and secondary schools.”

In all these States, which include a total of 1,900,000 negro school children, resistance to integration is being organized at the highest civic levels.

In Texas, Arkansas, Delaware, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, with a total of 550,000 negro school children a very casual interpretation has been placed on the directive “. . . all deliberate speed,” although some measure of integration has been achieved. In no sense is the principle of integration completely accepted by appropriate State Boards of Education.

Border States, such as Columbia, Missouri and Maryland, which contain 250,000 negro school children, whose populations are less than 10 per cent. negro, are steering a definite course in the direction of integration. In a word, action on the Supreme Court’s ruling, for the majority of America’s southern States, is being resisted in one way or another.

Both negroes and whites have founded organizations to protect what they think are their best interests. Negroes have founded the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples, and throughout the south this organization has attempted, by court order of Federal law, to enforce the ruling. On the other side of the tragic rift the White Citizen’s Councils exist solely as anti-negro bodies. Their doctrine is an irrational horror of “Jim Crow.” Their hopes and desires probably amount to nothing more than the realisation of the sentiments expressed in the corrupt version of the song sung to the tune of John Brown’s Body, “we’re gonna hang a nigger from a sour apple tree.” At all events, he should certainly be kept in his place.

This September began the new school term. In some border States of the south, where integration has been partial, some ambitious negro mothers packed their children off to schools which had formerly been exclusively white, and so were produced some explosive, very ugly situations. Clinton, Sturgis, Oliver Springs, Clay, and Mansfield were towns that received much publicity as scenes of mob violence.

Sturgis is a mining community of 2,500 in Kentucky. On Wednesday, the 5th September, nine negro students tried to register at the local high school. They were confronted by an angry mob. The New York Sunday Times (9th September) reported: “That night four units of the Kentucky National Guard moved into town: next day the guardsmen escorted the negro youths to school. A crowd of five hundred townspeople yelling for "nigger blood," tried to break through the ring of troops . . . As the negro youths left school Thursday the mob shouted: “We'll get you niggers if it takes all year." Friday the negroes did not go to school—several reported their parents had been threatened with loss of jobs unless they stayed home . . . But all across the south last week there were sporadic outbreaks—every day new demonstrations against desegregation were staged, and every night, in front of some southern schools, a cross was burned."

What are the motives behind the 1954 Supreme Court decision? In 1950, when President Eisenhower was president of Columbia University, he commissioned an enquiry into manpower wastage. The report of this enquiry was published in a book written by Dr. Eli Ginzberg, director of the enquiry, entitled “The Negro Potential." Reporting the results of this enquiry under file title “Waste of Human Resources," The Manchester Guardian (15th May, 1955) said: “America’s 15,000,000 negroes are its single most under developed human resource, and they cannot reach their full potential usefulness until they are thoroughly integrated with the white population . . . The report said that if education for negroes was raised to the level of that now available for whites, the annual rate of negro high school and college graduates would be more than doubled . . .  It said that file record of negro troops in the war (1939-45) was less good than that of white troops. It attributed the difference to the handicaps brought from civilian life by the negro soldiers and the fact that they were segregated. It said that records of Korea, where negroes were integrated, showed a marked improvement." Quoting the report itself, The Manchester Guardian further said: “Only when negro and white families can live together as neighbours, when negro children and white children can play together, study together, go to the same church—only then will the negro grow up properly prepared for his place in the world of work” (Our italics.)

The results of this enquiry, which are bound to have influenced the thinking of men in high administrative positions, should be noted in conjunction with other facts. The conference of Southern Governors held in Alabama in 1955, was told that in 1900 the south had only 9 per cent. of the nation’s manufacturing facilities; now it has 25 per cent. In 1939 the south’s industrial output amounted to 11,000 million dollars; in 1955 it reached 60,000 million dollars. In the next ten years the south expects to build 10,000 new factories

What does all this mean?' It means that in conditions of general boom, when the southern States are expanding their industries fairly rapidly, because of prejudice and segregation, the southern negro lacks the modern cultural equipment necessary to his efficiency as an American wage worker. It means that the vast mass of human material in the shape of the southern negro is not being exploited to its full capacity. The issue is not one involving any “forces of progress,” and the New York Sunday Times (9th September) will only assist confusion when it claims that the issue is “the right to learn." The real issue is that Capitalism, in its further development, in its further consolidation, is being fettered by the prejudices of local southern opinion.

What then is the role being played by the pro-integrationists and reformists in the south? The end to which they work is the integration and consolidation of the American working class as a stereotyped, regularised social grouping, efficient to the highest degree, regardless of colour, creed or clan. They seek to make all American workers the mass products themselves of a mass production technique, known as the American education system. This education is the cultural priming that the mentality of the modern wage worker presupposes. It is geared to the demands of industry. It accomplishes much more than a working knowledge of the three r’s. It cultivates a nationalist sentiment, it inculcates the values and moral concepts that provide the solid ideological pillars supporting modern propertied society.

The word integration, within the context of this problem, is used narrowly to mean negro school children receiving the same education as white children within the same classroom. This may or may not be accomplished. What is certain is that capitalism cannot contain any truly integrative principle. Capitalism of necessity sets man against man in one way or another. Even if negro children did receive the same schooling as white children, it still would not make the process of education integrative, for the education system constantly selects and excludes. Its streams and channels are selective, and its examinations are designed to exclude rather than incorporate. The education that a child receives marks his handicap or his advantage in the race, which at the lowest level starts out from being a dustman’s son and finishes ideally in being a bank manager, or perhaps even a doctor. But this is “success," and “success” comes only to the few. Education is one of the ladders by which it can be reached. At the bottom of the ladder is the broad thick base of “failures," but with selection and exclusion, the ladder is narrowed down until at its topmost pinnacle we find those for whom initiative was a virtue. They made the grade. The worker is in constant competition with the worker next to him, competing for places to live, competing to get food, competing to get jobs, and competing to hold them. Any truly integrated social situation would have to be outside this narrow individualistic competition. Only the society functioning along lines of mutual co-operation and meeting the real needs of man as a whole can be truly integrative.

One thing surely will frustrate the southern integrationist’s hopes, and that is a slump or a margin of unemployed. With little point in taking up the negro labour .slack, surely the fervour of the Government's bent on educational integration will be cooled, and events have taught us that in such a case we should expect an intensification of race hatred. Such events should teach the white worker that he is a victim not of any “black menace," but a victim of the indiscriminate vicissitudes of a system which is not concerned with his true human needs. The “black menace” problem for the white worker is a myth, just as the hope that educational integration under capitalism will bring the negro worker happiness is also a myth. In fact, with each other’s help, they have a new world to win—Socialism.

P. K. L.

Kennedy and after (1964)

From the January 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is part of the mystique essential to the leadership cult that the leaders themselves, dead and alive, are surrounded by myths. When they die in as dramatically horrible a way as the late President Kennedy, the myths may become more exaggerated than usual. Everyone, except for a few lunatics like the Deep South segregationists who cheered when they heard it, must have felt a chill of horror at the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Everyone must feel for Mrs. Kennedy in her endurance of an experience to haunt her for the rest of her life. It is never pleasant to look upon the results of violence, especially the sort of which simmers beneath the garish shell of a city like Dallas.

But the world is larger than one man, no matter how powerful he may be—and Kennedy was a very powerful man indeed. The eminence of the people who attended his funeral is proof—if more proof were needed—of the fact that the United States stands supreme in world capitalism today. But whatever sympathy we may feel for Kennedy we also feel for the millions of other people who suffer under capitalism. We feel it for those who meet, without headlines, equally horrible deaths in wartime. However much we sympathise with Mrs. Kennedy in her grief, we have the same feelings for the relatives of those who died in battle, or in air raids. We feel for all the unnecessary suffering which property society imposes on the human race—for the hunger and the fear and the cruel struggle that is so often the business of living.

Because we feel these things, and want to do something about them, we are Socialists. And because we are Socialists we try to dispel the myths which help to sustain capitalism, no matter what or whom they concern.

The first notion we have to examine is the one which is held, in different ways, by the man who shot the President and by the people who applauded, and by those who grieved, his death. This is the notion that murdering Kennedy will substantially alter the course of history. Predictably, there have been many comparisons with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the end of the American Civil War. Yet Lincoln’s murder did not change anything. It did not alter the fact that the North had won and that as a result the American Union would continue to be solidified and to develop into the great power that it is today. If the American Negro is still, in many parts of the United States, held in near slavery, that is only because one of the real factors in the moulding of history—the massive will of a people—wants him to remain so and not because a man who is mistakenly supposed to have stood for Negro freedom was murdered.

In the same way, the policies which Kennedy followed, whatever superficial effect he himself had upon them, were basically determined for him by the conditions of his time. Kennedy, it is said, regarded politics as the art of the possible which means, among other things, that he tried to acknowledge the realities of modern capitalism. The new President, Johnson, lost no time in declaring that he, too, would work within these realities. Thus there will probably be no change in Washington’s new attitude towards the Soviet Union. This attitude sprang, not from a change of heart on the part of Mr. Khrushchev, nor from a pacific impulse on the part of President Kennedy, but from the new balance of power after the rift between Russia and China. This rift, incidentally, was symbolised by different reactions to the news of Kennedy’s assassination—regret in Moscow, jubilation in Peking. This situation has brought about a change in Russo/American relations; American policy is now the compound of firmness and caution upon which the dead President put his stamp.

We are accustomed, now, to hearing such changes described as the actions of peace-loving leaders. President Johnson has run true to form on this; in, his first speech to Congress he said:

“We will be unceasing in the search for peace—resourceful in our pursuit of areas of agreement even with those with whom we differ—and loyal to those who join with us in common cause.”

There will, too, be no change on civil rights. Racial intolerance is a considerable obstacle to the advance of organised industry in some parts of America; any government which faces modern realities must be opposed to it. Here was one of Kennedy’s greatest difficulties. He knew the importance of desegregation but he also knew that to push a programme of equal rights would cost him votes. And so it did. He was, in fact, in Texas in an effort to heal a split in the local Democratic ranks, and to rally support for his presidential campaign next year, when he was shot down.

The Kennedy policies, then, will continue because they expressed the conditions and the needs of American capitalism today. If some Congressmen opposed them, if fanatical racialist Senators from the South persisted in regarding Kennedy as a dangerous revolutionary, that is only a measure of the fact that they reflect the ignorance of the people who elected them. This ignorance need not concern only such things as class consciousness; it can also apply, as it does in the case of racial intolerance, to the realities of modern capitalism. Johnson will also do his best to make the United States face these realities. “I hate this as much as you do,” he once shouted at some obstinate Congressman, “But this is happening.” Which is a typically Texan way of summing it up.

Kennedy’s image was of a gracefully relaxed, yet energetically driving, young man. A cultured, sincere man; a man whose good looks, background and accomplishments made him something of a model for every modern sales executive. Kennedy was rich enough to have had, and to have taken advantage of, a very good education. One report put his personal fortune at between £3½ million and £4¼ million, and that of his father at something like £100 million. His social regime in the White House showed that he was deeply appreciative of the arts. But at the same time Kennedy was a very cool politician. He planned years ahead for his assault upon the Presidency. The manner in which he convinced the Democratic Party that his comparative youth and his Roman Catholicism did not weaken his power to attract votes was a classical example of his single-minded political campaigning. His professed sincerity and ideals did not prevent him, when he named Johnson as his Vice-Presidential candidate, from working the vote-catching compromise which is usual in American presidential elections. The campaign itself was a masterpiece, with Kennedy the man very much in control. Alistair Cooke reporting the campaign for The Guardian, contrasted the possible reactions of the candidates if they lost. Nixon, he thought, would take defeat bitterly but Kennedy would not let it worry him—he would “sleep sound o’nights.” 

There is no reason to suppose that Kennedy’s death will basically change anything. Perhaps there will be different decorations at the White House, or fewer famous musicians performing there. But the ideas and the policies which come out will be to all intents and purposes the same as if Kennedy were still alive. This is what American investors thought; Wall Street slumped when the President was shot, but a couple of days later it recovered with a rise the like of which has not been seen for over thirty years. The Stock Exchange in London, and its equivalent in other capitals, were also not slow to express their opinion that, whoever is in the White House, capitalism is going to live on.

The Cuban crisis made Kennedy the first man ever to have wielded, in apparent earnest, the threat of nuclear war as an instrument in capitalism’s international disputes. The manner in which he handled that crisis may be enough to set him down as one of the world’s more incisive leaders. Because of this, he will be buried in the myth that a leader’s political skill, or lack of it, substantially alters history. In fact, Kennedy was very much like the men who were Presidents before him, and the man who has succeeded him. He worked within the art of the possible. Perhaps at times he hated what he was doing yet was compelled to do it—because it was happening.

Ivan

50 Years Ago: Education and the Southern Negro (2006)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some parts of the Southern States of America have recently been the scenes of intense anti-negro mob violence. This violence was part of resistance to the attempts by the American Government to integrate negro and white school children within the American system of education. One of the reasons given why the negro should be rejected is that he is “biologically inferior” to the white, and that integration of negro and white will ultimately create a general lowering of human standards, both biologically and socially. We of the Socialist Party do not accept these vicious assumptions. The question important to us is this: What is it about the biological make-up of the various branches of the human family that prevent it from living together in a universal harmony of mutual co-operation? The answer is nothing, and this is the principle that is a guide to Socialists on this issue ( . . .)

One thing surely will frustrate the southern integrationist’s hopes, and that is a slump or a margin of unemployed. With little point in taking up the negro labour slack, surely the fervour of the Government’s bent on educational integration will be cooled, and events have taught us that in such a case we should expect an intensification of race hatred. Such events should teach the white worker that he is a victim not of any “black menace,” but a victim of the indiscriminate vicissitudes of a system which is not concerned with his true human needs. The “black menace” problem for the white worker is a myth, just as the hope that educational integration under capitalism will bring the negro worker happiness is also a myth. In fact, with each other‘s help, they have a new world to win – Socialism.

(From an article by P. K. L., Socialist Standard, November 1956)

The Racial Problem: Conflict in the U.S.A. (1963)

From the August 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our comrades in North America are making most effective use of the radio in putting over the case for Socialism. They recently broadcast a talk over WBCN in Boston on the current racial disturbances in the United States. We believe that this on-the-spot Socialist analysis will be of interest to our readers and have pleasure in reproducing it below.

It took place in Birmingham, Alabama. Thousands filled the streets, hundreds of Negroes were jailed. The police and firemen used water and vicious dogs on the marching men, women, and children who practiced, as they marched, the doctrine of non-violence. Then an agreement was reached by the Negro spokesmen and the committee of the “white power structure ” made up of a group of “white” civic and business leaders.

A week before, swarms of Negroes overwhelmed the police lines and swept through the downtown area, so state troopers were called in to reinforce the local police.

After Birmingham was quiet for a few days the “white” activists struck, They bombed houses in the dead of the night of May 10, also a motel where many of the Negro leaders were staying. The reaction was a renewed frenzied wave of emotion. Mobs roamed the streets smashing windows, overturning cabs and seeking revenge. The situation finally was subdued but not until President Kennedy sent some 3,000 Federal troops to the area and alerted the national guard.

Whether the situation in Birmingham, Alabama, breaks out anew or remains quiet, there still will be the large question that the events in that city are bringing into focus. Where is the racial problem in the United States heading?

Throughout these remarks, when we refer to Negroes, we have in mind the overwhelming majority—the exploited Negro workers. Their interests are basically as one with the workers everywhere. There is a small section of the negroes who are capitalists (some millionaires, but mostly petty capitalists) and these have a common interest with their fellow capitalists, regardless of colour, country or creed.

This is the fourth of a series and we welcome this opportunity to make our case known to you, our listeners. We have limited funds as we are supported only by our membership and sympathizers. However, we are expending our funds and our energies in this manner because we seek your attention and your support.

Capitalism is beset with all kinds of problems. Last week we focused our attention on war, and we would be pleased if those who listened would communicate with us so that we might know how you feel. Tonight we will deal with the Racial Problem.

We maintain that it is not enough to be informed. It is important to have a point of view. We cannot be indifferent to our fellows having segregation forced on them, treated like inferiors, denied equal opportunities, and worse. We maintain that prejudice is basically economic. There are more than twice as many Negro workers unemployed as there are so-called White workers out of work. The question of racial discrimination is rooted m economic prejudice.

Why are more Negroes unemployed? Why is there an unemployment problem? It is our thesis that unemployment is inexcusable. That the profitability of the capitalist arrangement is dependent on having unemployment, as well as on other factors. The employers need a reserve army of men and women out of work for two good reasons:

1. In order that those who are working will properly respect their jobs and fear the loss thereof, and
2. To keep wages in check.

Supply and demand would send the price of labour-power (wages) soaring if there were not millions of workers looking desperately for job openings. For the capitalists it is a good thing to have their workers hungry and apprehensive and not too independent. This, incidentally, is another illustration of the conflict of interests that separates society into classes.

What does the worker want? He wants employment . . . steady . . . at top pay.

What does the boss want? He wants a labour pool available in order to select his workers and at wages that are as low as possible. The more workers competing for each job, the lower will be the rate that the employer will have to pay.

And the thing that marks off our contemporary times is the wholesale introduction of automation. What does this do? It throws out of work and into the street those workers whose skills are displaced by these new monster machines. The expression in economic statistics is no longer unemployment, but—disemployment. In the steel industry alone hundreds of thousands are out of jobs and due to these new methods and machines they will never be recalled. These new processes in the mass production industries that displaced labour (which, of course, is the primary reason for their introduction) have now created a level of unemployment that has remained constant for many years. It will go higher, it cannot go lower.

Now it seems that we have strayed from our subject. Not so. As a matter of practice the first group to be affected by disemployment is the unskilled worker. As a matter of reality, the Negroes make up a large percentage of the unskilled population. And the viciousness of the circle becomes even more acute because the Negroes are the first and the worst affected. They are the first to be fired and the last to be hired.

Our contention is that capitalism breeds unemployment. Just as my colleague demonstrated last week that war is inevitable, given the relationship of rival, competitive nations, we maintain that racial discrimination can only be eliminated when we get rid of capitalism with its prejudice-breeding competition for jobs.

Let us spend a moment on the subject of racial prejudice. We might start by asking ourselves: What is “race "? Because of the factor of time we will content ourselves with making a few general observations on the question and immediately refer anyone who wants to explore thus subject further to our literature list in The Western Socialist. It might be of interest to those of our listeners who have never heard of the World Socialist Party that we are part of an international group of organizations that have in common a Declaration of Socialist Principles. There is besides our own party, the Socialist Parties of Canada. Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the World Socialist Party of Ireland. One of the Principles which unite us is particular apropos at this time: . .  "The emancipation of the working-class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.”

So once again, what is “race”? Biologically, there is no such thing as race. If ever there was such a concept, modern investigation discloses that the mixing and mingling of the human animal homo sapiens, through the centuries and over the continents has completely sullied the purity of any grouping. The colour of a man's skin, the shape of his head, the thickness of his lips, the kinkiness of his hair, his height, his weight only proves how varied is Man. In Hawaii the mixing process of different groupings is in its infancy and already it is nigh impossible to identify any individual. In Brazil the Indians and the Europeans and the Negroes are so fused that there is no Indian problem. Nor is there a European problem or a Negro problem. In the United States where chattel slavery existed until 1865, the Negroes were imprisoned in one sector of the country. Upon their legal release at the end of the Civil War and all the way up until the events in Birmingham, they have still remained imprisoned by economic shackles. This may be a good time to define slavery.

It was Shakespeare who wrote: “He who owns the means by which I live, owns my very life.” The southern Negro escaped from chattel slavery into wage slavery. Under the former he worked for a master from sun-up until sun-down and in return he received his grub, hand-me-down rags and a roof over his head. Under the wages system, the worker toils by the clock for a boss in return for which he gets an amount of money, which barely enables him to buy food, clothing and shelter to maintain himself and his family, so that he can go back to repeat the -process. Most workers will resent the description of their lot as slavery. And we answer that none are so blind as those who will not see. This is not the time for too much elaboration but suffice it to say that the government statistics support this description. Average wages of the industrial workers faithfully match the cost of living index.

Following the Civil War some Negroes came North looking for freedom and opportunity. However, with few exceptions, most were herded into ghettos— Harlems and South Ends—and in the competition for the available jobs, they were always the scapegoats. They were forced to accept menial work as servants, as elevator operators, dishwashers and worse.

Today the situation is aggravated by events taking place elsewhere. The world is in turmoil. The drive to exploit every possibility on the part if imperialist nations finally has caused Africa to explode. What formerly was anti-colonialism now is a demand for independence. The Negroes now constituting approximately 10 per cent, of the population in the United States are showing signs of being fed up with being pushed around. They are still segregated, not only down South where the vestiges of the past persist, but in the North as well. And they resent it. The Negroes are segregated but they are not ex-communicated. They listen to TV and read newspapers. Every channel of communication flashes the injustice of their lot. Some turn to extremes such as the Black Muslim movement. Others are influenced by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and many other groups. It is the Socialist analysis that to get rid of so-called race prejudice there is only one method, to get rid of its cause, capitalism. There is no other way.

Previously we related the fact of unemployment and tied it in with competition for jobs breeding prejudice. How do the current political leaders deal with this7 Their approach is tragically ludicrous. How do they propose to reduce unemployment? By reducing taxes! With the reasoning that this will give the economy a shot in the arm, stimulate business and, lo and behold!, unemployment will be lessened This is like throwing the tide back by using a bucket.

The alternative that we propose is Socialism. Under Socialism the causes of race-prejudice will no longer exist. The entire population will co-operate in producing all the things required by society. Each person will contribute, irrespective of differences, what he is able to society—and will take from society what he needs. Under Socialism competition between human beings will cease to exist. Privilege will be abolished. People will live in harmony.

This is one of the few opportunities we have to underscore an important element in the Socialist case. Usually we get involved in answering away so many misconceptions about Socialism that we fail to bring home the fact that we stand for world co-operation—common ownership and democratic control. And in the language of every Socialist the expression Comrade is used, not in the derisive sense it has come to mean due to the distortion of our ideas when seen through the caricature in the U.S.S.R., but is a manner of addressing our brothers, joined in the greatest job in the world today, the job of educating and organizing for a Socialist world.

Capitalism 1956 (1956)

From the July 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The political parties which seek election on a programme of reforms, i.e., the Conservative, Labour, Communist and the now disappearing Liberal parties, all claim though some of them would deny it, that there is nothing basically wrong with capitalism; nothing that cannot be remedied without abolishing the wages system and establishing a classless society. Thus all that it is necessary for workers to do is to follow the right “leaders,” put their trust in promises and, given time, all would be well.

All of these parties have said and continue to say that the hardships and problems with which workers are plagued throughout their lives can be solved given the right leadership and the right policy.

The so-called Communist Party with its changing “cults” of worship is particularly hypocritical in this respect because its members are Communists in name only; obviously no party which believes that COMMUNISM (the abolition of the wages system, common ownership of the means of production and free access to wealth) is the ONLY answer to poverty, housing problems, wars and unemployment would advocate reforms and try to solve these problems within capitalism.

By the time this article is read, another series of Borough Council elections will have been held and workers will tragically once again have voted for the politicians who run the system that robs them.

Once again all the afore-mentioned parties have all promised the same things and childishly blamed one another for past failures in bringing the same “houses for the homeless,” “food for the hungry,” “pensions galore” and “better roads,” etc., as have been promised for many elections past.

One thing that should be glaringly obvious by now is that if any of them had ever redeemed their past promises there would be no need to keep coming back for re-election to do the same thing. This should clearly show to any thinking worker the utter futility of voting for any of them unless you want more in the future of what you have had in the past and if you do, then one could hardly call that thinking

We wish here to pin-point just two of the problems of capitalism, and we have taken, for purposes of illustration, examples of each problem, one at home and one abroad. The idea is to show the worldwide nature of capitalism and its problems and also the world-wide nature of the only solution, SOCIALISM.

First let us look at the housing problem. It is quite obvious from the start that the whole approach of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is very different from and opposed to that of the afore-mentioned parties of capitalism.

We recognise that Prince Rainier and his bride, along with the rest of the class of parasites to which they belong, will not be found in Battersea flat hunting. Shortage of proper housing accommodation is essentially a working class problem and the reason that workers go without adequate housing is the same reason why they go without a great deal of the other things THEY produce; NOT because there is a shortage but because they cannot afford them—they have only very limited access to goods and services of all kinds because they do not own the fruits of their labour they only get WAGES—part payment.

In this wondrous era of H-power, automation and universal “plenty” we read in the South London Press (April 27th, 1956) that “Battersea’s 3,000 housing applicants have no earthly chance of ever getting housed by the Borough.” This sad information comes from a London County Councillor, Douglas Rayment, who, as a Conservative Party politician, has the impudence to say “Too many people sit back and wait for us to do something for them, instead of stirring themselves;”

Was it not the Conservative Party whose Election Platform was based upon, among other things, the assertion that they could solve the housing problem?.

Does not the Conservative Party at ALL elections issue reform programmes of what they are going to do for people who, having voted Conservative, can “sit back” and have the world brought to them on a platter?

The despairing and apathetic attitude of workers is part of the fruits of their having blindly voted for people who promise them things.

The Councillor and some of his colleagues go on to explain that “nearly all new housing in the Borough would go to people moved from slums,” and, of the paltry 246 homes to be built in the “next five years” in “Winstanly Ward, only three go to housing applicants.”

We are told of course that the L.C.C. is not to blame, nor is the Borough Council; it is the fault “of the central planning authority in not allowing sufficient density.” It seems from this that the only thing which stops the L.C.C. and the Borough Council from packing dwellings (as they are aptly called) closer together and piling MORE people into file SAME space, is the central planning authority.

The point which all of these lamentable runners of capitalism miss, when trying to pardon their failure to run capitalism in the interests of the exploited majority, is that in their lying programmes they never say : “We will house you if slum dwellers do not move in from outside,” or “We will solve the housing problem if materials are cheap enough for workers to afford the rents,” “ or “We will bring peace unless war comes, prosperity, unless a slump comes and full employment unless unemployment sets in.” Could it be that to tell workers the truth before polling would be dangerous to their chances of election?

The second problem at which we will glance has had a great deal said and written about it, namely that of RACE. We have ourselves published a 78 page pamphlet on this matter which explodes the false theories of biological superiorities and other such prejudices. It analyses the whole problem from the Socialist point of view and goes into the subject with much greater detail than space permits here. We need only mention one incident as an illustration.

In what is boasted as the most “advanced” country in the world where a lot of shouting is done about “constitutions,” “citizens’ rights,” “freedom” and so on, a case is reported in the Daily Express (April 25th, 1956) of backward and ignorant conduct. The case being that of the segregation of negroes on ’buses in Montgomery, Alabama.

The facts as reported by the above newspaper indicate some “13 states with tough segregation laws” and a Police Commissioner, Sellers, who is a member of the so-called “White Citizens Council.” The Supreme Court having ruled that segregation on ’buses must end. this man said: “As far as I am concerned this damn thing applies to South Carolina only.” He threatened “to arrest any passenger who mixes with the opposite race.”

Of course to carry this threat out would be impossible if the “advanced” individual in question had to define the terms “opposite race” and give evidence that would hold water before he went any further.

It is of particular interest to note that although this threat was made by the chief of police, the ’bus company, despite the fact that the threat also applied to ’bus “drivers who permitted racial mixing on their ’buses,” sided with the Supreme Court ruling and told their employees they need no longer “give front seats to whites and rear seats to negroes.”'

We can understand the tenderheartedness of the *bus company; they were merely responding in the way Capitalists normally do when their gold coffers have been hit. The 50,000 negroes of Montgomery have boycotted the ’buses since last December and this has lost the company “over £1,000 daily.” The negroes, however, are keeping up their boycott “ until the confusion is ended.”

As Socialists we would say the action of the negroes in resisting this callous inequality is the only dignified and praiseworthy thing in the whole sordid and degrading affair.

The most tragic observation of all is not only that members of the working class should behave one to another in such a way, resenting skin colours of fellow members of their own exploited class while their common enemies, the exploiting Capitalist class, live on their backs, but that the move away from segregation came from outside and not from within the states concerned. Unfortunately, the ignorance of the economic forces at work within capitalism, from which this conduct springs, cannot be banished merely by the Supreme Court making rulings although to whatever degree events turn against segregation it is a healthier sign than its unchallenged continuation.

It will finally only be when workers turn to SOCIALISM that they will cease to be a prey to nationalist or racial prejudice of one variety or another, because only then will they no longer see themselves as one with their respective NATIONAL ruling class, but will see that their real oneness lies in union with the wage slaves all over the world, geography, sex and so-called race making no difference. We would conclude by saying that the “education” machine of capitalism whose function it is to turn out obedient, efficient wage slaves will never direct its efforts towards Socialism, but the hard facts of life and the common problems which universally smite all workers will direct their interest our way.

Meanwhile the politicians will go on with their “better world” promises and we for our part will go on vigorously advocating the abolition of the nightmare, which these hirelings seek to preserve, and its replacement by Socialism—the world of the social equality of all men and women of the world, of one community of interest based on holding the means of living in common, and production entirely and literally for use.

Harry Baldwin

Does race exist (1999)

Book Review from the August 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Racialization of America by Yehudi Webster. St Martins Press. 

In the pub after a meeting a socialist was arguing with a man with dreadlocks. “You’re not black,” he said. “Yes, I am,” the man replied. “No,” the socialist went on, “you are no more black than I’m white. We’re both human beings.” Yehudi Webster, the author of this book, would have appreciated this exchange; indeed, he became acquainted with the Socialist Party and our ideas when he was in Britain before moving on to America.

Webster’s basic argument is that the all-pervading classification of the population in America into “whites” and “blacks” is logically absurd, scientifically unsound, self-fulfilling, counter-productive and in fact racist. There are of course anatomical differences between human beings—millions of them in fact—but it is not nature which decides which of these are to be regarded as significant for purposes of classifying people into so-called “races”. That is done by humans and, in this case, on a completely arbitrary basis. Races don’t exist in nature but are an artificial politically-motivated creation.

A question on race was first included in the US Census of 1890, at a time when segregation was being consolidated and given a legal basis. But, nowadays, racial classification is championed more by people who consider themselves anti-racists than by open racists. Sociologists, educationalists and others routinely carry out studies based on comparing the education, health, level of employment, unemployment, wages, housing, etc of those they classify as “whites” and “blacks”. In fact, many universities now have special departments devoted to studying “race relations”. But, argues Webster, as this classification is scientifically absurd, it creates or at least perpetuates artificial “racial” divisions amongst the population by encouraging people to think of themselves as “whites” and “blacks” who are homogeneous groups competing with each other for access to limited resources. In other words, it encourages “racial consciousness” and so racism.

Some partisans of racial classification for social studies purposes, realising that the definition of races on the basis of anatomical characteristics is scientifically unjustifiable, seek to define race more in terms of culture than of anatomy; hence their talk of “ethnic groups” rather than races. But this, says Webster, is even more racist as it posits a link between a person’s psychology and behaviour and their supposed race. And of course, as all humans are capable of acquiring any culture, no particular culture can be, or is, exclusive to one supposed race.

Others, some imagining themselves to be Marxist, try to combine race and class and see those they call blacks as a super-exploited fraction of the working class. Webster has no trouble demonstrating the contradictions of this view. All he does is to point to the existence of “black” capitalists and better-paid “black” workers, thus showing that those “blacks” who are below the poverty line cannot be said to be poor just because they are black. In fact, in absolute numbers, there are more “white” people in America below the poverty line than there are “black” people. Clearly, then, poverty is not due to racism but to some other cause.

Although Webster shows himself to be well aware of the Marxian theory of class and class consciousness—at one point he denies the existence of a so-called middle class—apparently he no longer agrees with a class analysis of society (he sees capitalism as an irrational human social arrangement which prevents humans from living in a human way). Nevertheless, he still realises that a class analysis and a race (even a race/class) analysis of society are quite incompatible. Either you analyse society and history in terms of class or you analyse them in terms of race, but it is not possible to analyse them in terms of both.

This is why we as Socialists are so opposed not just to racism but to racial classification (we refused to answer this question when it was introduced, for the first time, intoBlogg the British Census in 1991). Both encourage racial consciousness while our task is to encourage class consciousness and, once classes have disappeared, a universalist human consciousness. We want people to think of themselves as members of a world working class and as members of a single human race, citizens of the world, Earthpeople, rather than as British, America, French or black or white.

Is Webster, then, denying that there is such a thing as racism and discrimination against people with black skin? Not at all, but he sees this as but one example of the many ways in which some humans treat or have treated other humans in an inhuman way. Those who oppose such discrimination should, he says, oppose all other inhuman treatments too and strive for a world in which all humans would treat each other in a human way. The answer to “racial” discrimination is not a multi-racial society in which each “race” would get exactly the same treatment (an equal percentage of unemployment, of people living below the poverty line, in bad housing, in bad health, etc) but a completely non-racial society from which the very concept of race would have disappeared. In his view, the first step towards such a society should be the ending of all racial classification, for whatever purpose, both by governments and by social scientists.

Adam Buick

Blogger's Note:

Link to a C-Span discussion from 1993 which features Yehudi Webster discussing the book.

The Myths of Race (1965)

From the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few years ago, an American professor created three fictitious races, gave them names, habits and customs and asked people what they thought of them. A large proportion of those tested were hostile to the non-existent races, and thought that they should be restricted. This is typical of the confusion which surrounds the subject of Race; confusion inspired at the best by misunderstanding and at the worst by calculated malice. A man will be dispassionately scientific when he is talking about the differences between his dog and his neighbour’s, but he will be exactly the opposite when he is discussing the differences between his neighbour and himself, if the neighbour happens to have a coloured skin. The very word Race is distorted and , misused more than most others. It is, for example, common to hear talk about the White Race, the Aryan Race, the British Race—all of which are different, indeed contradictory, ways of using the word.

A first step in clearing this confusion is to realise that the word Race is useful only in so far as it is restricted to a concept in the science of biology. It cannot be used for a political, or sociological, or historical, concept—although this happens too often.

Biology is concerned with the study of life and its processes, their classification and reduction, to order. The basis of the system of classification was laid down in the eighteenth century by the Swedish botanist Linnaeus; from this basis an efficient system has been evolved. Millions of distinct species—some living, some extinct—have now been defined, and their relationships with other species identified. And the work is still going on.

This system of classification originally depended wholly upon physical characteristics — stature, type of hair, skin colour and so forth, The rise of other sciences—of genetics (the study of heredity) and biochemistry (the chemistry of living organisms) in the present century has provided other means, which may turn out to be more useful.

The basic unit of biological classification is the species—a unit, of plants or animals, which can interbreed and so can form a single, natural breeding population. All existing men and women belong to the species homo sapiens. But as we all know, human beings, just like any other species, are not all exactly alike. The physical differences between, say, a Senegalese Negro and a fair haired, blue eyed Swede are all too obvious; they are, moreover, differences which have been inherited and which can be passed on to another generation.

It is clear, then, that the human race can be divided, on the basis of physical characteristics, into subspecies—into races. A race, says one biologist, is “a group of related intermarrying individuals, a population which differs from other populations in the relative commonness of certain hereditary traits.” But when we try to elaborate on this we encounter some important questions which show up our original proposition in a rather more doubtful light.

We meet these questions immediately we try to divide people on the basis of their colour. Any large gathering of “white” people is bound to include a variety of skins, from chalky white (considered to be very undesirable!) to swarthy. Any large gathering of Negroes will include many whose skins are not black, but varying shades of brown, some of them actually lighter than many of those who are considered white ”. Many “white” people have physical traits—a heavy mouth, a flat nose, fuzzy hair—which are supposed to be the identifying marks of a Negro and many Negroes have physical traits which are supposed to be exclusive to “whites ”.

We can extend the questions even farther. Where do we fit in those people in South East Asia, such as the Malays, who appear to be the result of a cross between ”brown” and “yellow” ancestors? Then, outside the field of skin colour, how do we classify the white Europeans who show clear evidence of racial mixing—for example those who bear remnants of the periodical raids into Europe, centuries ago, by the Mongolian hordes? There are many more such questions which, although they do not deny that differences exist between people, expose the absurdity of laying down rigid lines upon which mankind can be divided.

It is not surprising, then, that the very scientists who have tried to classify man should produce such widely differing estimates of the number of races into which he can be divided. Linnaeus said that there were three; Morton thirty-two; Crawford sixty-two; Gliddon one hundred and fifty. It is also not surprising that the same difficulty has afflicted those whose interest in the matter is anything but scientific.

In the United States there has always been confusion over the legal definition of a Negro. In Maine in 1852 a person having one-sixteenth “African blood” was held not to be a Negro for the purposes of intermarriage. In 1910 in Louisiana a coloured person was defined as anyone who had “an appreciable amount of Negro blood.” (What is an “ appreciable amount”?) The Official Census in 1890 applied the term “Black” only to those who had three-quarters or more “black blood”. The 1920 Census tried to distinguish between “full blooded” Negroes (who were classed as “Black”) and those having a proportion of “white blood” (who were returned as “Mulattoes”). The 1930 Census instructed its enumerators to return as Negro those having one half or more “Negro blood”; by the Census of 1940 anyone of mixed white and Negro parentage was classed as Negro.

The definition of Negro varies from state to state. Some (Alabama and Arkansas) say that anyone having Negro ancestors, however remote, is coloured. Others define their non-white population according to the amount of “black blood” in them; of these states, Florida and Louisiana require one-sixteenth, Mississippi and Maryland one-eighth. Thus a person in Louisiana whose Negro ancestors ended with his great-great grandfather is classed as coloured. But he can legally change into a white man simply by moving across the border into Mississippi, which sets the limit at his great-grandfather.

Before the war the Nazis conveniently modified their ideas of racial purity so that their Italian and Japanese allies could be included in the Master Race. The South African government (whose official, legal definition says that a white person is anyone who is “generally accepted” as such) has for commercial reasons admitted the Japanese into the “White" ranks, although at present the Chinese are excluded. .

Whatever the race maniacs say, a “pure” race is almost an impossibility; it could only exist among a few small isolated groups who by virtue of their remoteness have been able to inbreed for generations. Man has spread all over the Earth during his life, and wherever he has gone he has interbred, swamping any “pure” races that may have existed. There is hardly a country—certainly there is no modern country— which is not now a racial melting pot. To talk, therefore, of Race as something which is rigidly definable is nonsense. To support such theories with a political policy of discrimination, suppression and extermination is pernicious.

But in face of all the facts the racists carry on; one of their most popular arguments today is that Negroes are mentally inferior to white people, and that the white race has been responsible for all the cultural achievements of the modern world. One of the happy hunting grounds of such theorists are the intelligence tests which have been carried out in the United States, and which usually show the Negro scoring lower than the white person.

Even if we accept the validity of I.Q. tests as a measure of mental capacity, it does not' follow from their results that the Negroes are inferior. To begin with, we must take account of the fact that nowhere in the United States are educational facilities and opportunities for Negroes equal to those for white children. In the South, where the mass of Negroes still live, the discrepancy is especially wide. Yet even without taking this into account, the fact is the tests have not demonstrated that skin colour has anything to do with intelligence.

One of the most important—and widely quoted—of these tests was one which was given to nearly two million United States Army recruits in 1917/18. Although the results put the Negro at the bottom of the IQ scale, they also showed Negroes from urban areas in the North on average scoring higher than white recruits from some states in the South. Of the other tests, those carried out by S. D. Porteus draw results from many areas of the world, including Hawaii, Australia and parts of Africa. Again, although the coloured people were generally lower, the results were uneven; some of the most primitive groups, for various reasons, actually surpassed other, more culturally advanced groups. In the Fifties, tests on Negro children who had moved from the South to New York City and to Philadelphia showed that their I.Q. went up with the length of time they had been away from the South.

In any case, all of these tests can only have a limited usefulness. Scientists have not been able to devise a means of testing innate mental capacities, and what tests they have devised have not even been able to separate innate from acquired capacities. Some tests, for example, have discovered that Africans who could not readily recognise diagrams and pictures when they were drawn on paper had no difficulty when the same shapes were cut out in the more familiar ivory or leather. Swazi natives were found to be unable to arrange coloured pegs into a simple pattern, although they frequently planted trees in that very same pattern.

The other popular argument — that coloured people are inferior because their cultural achievements do not match those of the white race — has gathered a certain amount of support from people who claim that North West Europe has alone been responsible for modern civilisation. But the history of the human race started a long time before Europe became civilised; while the people there were still primitive savages, coloured races in parts of what are now India and China had developed civilisations with a high standard of cultural achievement.

These civilisations rose and declined for the very same reasons as those which later allowed and encouraged developments in Europe. Civilisations depend for their life upon many influences — primarily economic, but also geographical, climatic, historical. Where such influences are favourable, settled life can take root and flourish. Where they are not favourable, it is a different story; there are many areas in the world which even the so-called Superior Races cannot tame and which remain deadly wildernesses.

Culture is not something innate, something which human beings are born with. It is something which they acquire, in reaction to their external conditions. These conditions affect people of all colours; some Negroes are undoubtedly culturally backward but then so are the Poor Whites in the American South, and so are the Hillbillies of Kentucky and Tennessee. Not all white countries are in the forefront of modern culture: some are distinctly backward and may soon be overtaken by some of the new African states. Culture is only one of the characteristics man has acquired during his lifetime; it can be acquired by all people, whatever their race or colour. It has nothing to do with man's innate capacities, which are probably not much different now from what they were eighty thousand years ago.

The racist argues against this. At its highest, his case confuses the innate characteristics of man with the acquired. At its lowest, his case is a mass of evasions and distortions, which in the end can only be asserted by oppression. The only way to avoid this morass of confusion is to subject the racist’s arguments to a searching examination. This is bound to show them up for the pernicious sham that they are, and to illuminate the fact that there is no reason, in biology or elsewhere, why men of all colours, shapes and sizes should not live in harmony and co-operation.