Capitalist Ideology (1973)

Book Review from the November 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ideology in Social Science. Edited by Robin Blackburn (Fontana. 75p.)

Ideology for the Marxist, is not simply any system of ideas. It is a false (though not necessarily consciously false) system of ideas, a wrong way of looking at and explaining the world. In the study of society the dominant bourgeois ideology is the assumption that what is being studied are “objective facts” similar in status to natural facts. But, and this was Marx’s point, social phenomena differ from natural phenomena in being, in however disguised and roundabout a way, human creations. Indeed, the task of social theory is precisely to uncover this and so demonstrate that society, being man-made, can be changed by conscious human action. Bourgeois ideology, on the other hand, in treating social and economic phenomena as unchanging, natural facts denies this; it turns social relations into things. This is particularly obvious in economics where money, wages, prices, interest, profit, etc are defined in such a way that they must exist in any society, so making capitalism appear to be a natural and eternal social system.

Norman Geras’s contribution on “Marx and the Critique of Political Economy” in this collection of essays brings out this point very well. Indeed some of the other contributors would do well to read him.

These essays are divided into three groups: critiques, key problems and alternatives. The first group is by far the weakest. The second demonstrates that present-day society is still an unequal and profit-governed one. Amongst the essays in this section is one by Nicos Poulantzas criticising Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society (criticizing Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society on the same sort of grounds as we did in 1969). Miliband tended to argue that what made the “capitalist State” capitalist was that those occupying its top posts were drawn from ruling-class backgrounds. Poulantzas points out that, though this may well be true, it is irrelevant since under capitalism the State would still have to act in the overall interest of the capitalist class even if the top posts were filled entirely by people from working-class backgrounds. It is the State’s rôle, rather than its personnel, that determines how it acts.

The third part gets a bit involved, but the essays by Hobsbawn and Nicolaus (particularly good on Marx’s Grundrisse) as well as Geras’s are well worth reading. The final contribution which asks “Marxism: Science or Revolution ?” raises a very pertinent point in view of the fact that (probably) none of the contributors understands what Socialism is, thus showing that for them Marxism is not the theory of the Socialist revolution but merely another way of interpreting the world. Certainly, most of them stand for social change of some sort but, if the references to Russia, China and Cuba are anything to go by, merely from private capitalism to state capitalism.

Nevertheless, the book is worth reading for some of the ideas contained in it.

Adam Buick

Confusion concerning classes (1969)

Book Review from the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The State in Capitalist Society, by Ralph Miliband Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 45s.

This is a confusing book in which Miliband sets out to prove what he takes to be the Marxist theory of the state. Although he does define his terms he uses words like 'capitalism' and 'class' in a non-Marxist way. Capitalism, he holds, is based on private enterprise, private profit and private accumulation. This raises suspicions, which are confirmed, that he has an odd view of Socialism too. Russia, he says, is 'collectivist', 'non-capitalist' and, in an unguarded moment, even 'socialist'. The concept of state capitalism is dearly unintelligible to him and is nowhere discussed, not even in relation to nationalisation in the West.

Classes are distinguished by how they stand in relation to the control and use of the means for producing wealth. In modern society there are two main classes: the non-working owning class and the non-owning working class. Miliband, however, has all sorts of gradations including an upper middle class. For him the working class are just those who work in the factories, mills, mines, railways, docks, and shipyards. Although he recognises that white-collar workers suffer much the same conditions as blue-collar workers, he still refuses to include them in the working class.

Thus for Miliband, unlike Marx, class is defined in terms of style of life and ideas, a point which does not help when he tries to explain the Marxist theory of the state:

  In the Marxist scheme, the ‘ruling class' of capitalist society is that class which owns and controls the means of production and which is able, by virtue of the economic power thus conferred upon it, to use the state as its instrument for the domination of society.

Certainly, this has a long history as the alleged Marxist view. For instance, a Communist Party study course of the 1930s said "each country is ruled by a small group of very rich men whose wealth gives them the power to control the government of the country" and claimed that “Marx pointed out that the class which had economic power controlled political power". This view, however, goes further back than this, to the industrial unionists of before the first world war. It is not difficult to see its attractions to those who argued that the 'bourgeois state’ ought to be smashed (the Communists) or by-passed (the syndicalists).

Marx, however, did not say that the state, should be smashed or by-passed, but that it should be captured by the working class. The state, as the public power of coercion, was an instrument of class rule which came into being with the division of society into conflicting classes and which has been controlled by various classes through its history: ancient slave-owners, feudal barons, and modern capitalists. To say that a class controls the state because it has economic power is to fall for a crude economic determinism. The state is controlled by the class that has waged and won a political struggle to capture it. It is true that the class which is economically progressive has generally been able in the end to win state power, but because of its political struggle rather than its economic position. This is why it is possible for an economically redundant class (like the modern capitalists) to retain power long after it has become redundant. The capitalist class rules today not because of its economic position (as a superfluous class, after all!) but because of its political and ideological leadership of the working class. In fact the Marxist view is the reverse of Miliband's: the capitalist class is wealthy today because it has political power. It retains its economic privileges only because it controls the state. And it controls the state only with the support of the workers. Miliband argues that the top posts in the organs of the state—the government, parliament, the law courts, the civil service, and the armed forces—are filled by people who come from the same social background and who are all firmly committed to capitalism, thus forming (in his non-Marxist use of the word) a class. As the same class dominates the state as that which dominates industry, he adds, we can say the capitalist class is the ruling class.

In the Marxist scheme, however, the ruling class is the class that controls the state in the sense of its being used to maintain its economic privileges. It is a political rather than a social concept. To find out which class rules you study how the state is used rather than who fills the top posts.

We do not doubt that top civil servants and judges and generals are themselves mainly from wealthy families or that they are firmly committed to capitalism. But then, on this last point, so are those who fill the bottom posts in the state machine and so are most other workers. If you have a correct theory of class, you realise that by and large both industry and the state are run from top to bottom by members of the working class (including Miliband's middle class), men and women who are dependent on their wage or salary to live. No doubt there are capitalists who do some of these jobs, but the socialist case has always been that, economically and politically, the capitalist class as a class is redundant as society is already run by the workers alone.

To repeat, the capitalists control the state not by filling the top posts with their relations but by winning working class support for the policy of using the state to maintain capitalism. Even if the top posts were all filled by the children of manual workers, with provincial accents, the capitalists would still rule if the state was used in their interests. It is not a question of the social background of the state officials, but of the purpose for which the state is used.

The theory that the capitalists control the state through a sort of nepotism and freemasonry leads to dangerous conclusions such as that parliament is only a facade and that fascism can be unleashed at will. "When things grow really serious", said the Communist Party study course, “the capitalist class arbitrarily does away with the more democratic organisations of the State, and relies increasingly on sheer armed force”. Oddly enough, in discussing this view, Miliband makes the point we have made for years:

   This is a possible scenario. But reflection suggests that whatever dominant classes, economic élites and conservative forces in general may wish, such a moment is one of the least likely to make this kind of response viable. For by the time a socialist movement has reached such a commanding position, which means, in the conditions of advanced capitalism, that it has become a vast popular movement, extending well beyond the working classes, it may be too late for the forces of conservatism to take up the authoritarian option with any real chance of success (His emphasis).

Socialism can only be set up when a majority of workers want and understand it and organise democratically to win political power and use it to abolish private property in the means of production. This done, there is no longer any need for a public power of coercion.

Adam Buick

The State and its abolition (Part 4) (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

3. Notes on the State

Central to socialist thinking on the nature of the capitalist state is the concept of class. Drawing on the writings of Marx, socialists argue that we live in a class-based society, in which a small minority own and control the means of producing wealth to the exclusion of the rest of the population.

Specifically, we live in a society which is divided on class lines: the owners of capital, the capitalist class, and the sellers of labour power, the working class. This relationship between buyer and seller of labour power is necessarily antagonistic and this antagonism expresses itself from time to time in struggle over the distribution of the social product. Because of this socialists argue that the state cannot remain neutral — a passive observer of the class struggle. Rather we say that the state must intervene on the side of the economically dominant or owning class, because the state is controlled directly or indirectly by this class. This puts us at odds with the views of the "pluralists" who argue that power is diffused throughout a plurality of institutions in society and that the state is neutral in relation to the class struggle. But although it is possible to demonstrate the unequal division of power and wealth in society, and hence show up the crucial weaknesses of this theory, we still do not arrive at an answer to the central question of what makes the modern state capitalist.

DISSATISFACTION WITH CLASSICAL TEXTS

Ralph Miliband's study, The State in Capitalist Society, that came out in 1969 signalled a general dissatisfaction in academic circles with the original Marxist writings on the state and this was reinforced in subsequent studies. It was concluded that Marx had not developed a coherent account of the nature of the capitalist state, particularly in regard to its role in the process of capital accumulation and the reproduction of capitalist social relations; indeed, that many of the references Marx makes to the capitalist state were contradictory and theoretically confused: at times he referred to the state as an instrument of class rule; and then, more subtly, as a social regulator moderating and channelling social conflict; again, he talked of the state as parasitic, that is, the private property of individuals; and, finally, as epiphenomenon (simple surface reflection) of a system of property relations and resulting economic class struggle.

The claim that the state is simply an instrument of class power used by the economically dominant class to dominate subordinate classes is highly problematical and (possibly) ahistorical. Although the ruling class owns and controls the material and mental means of production, one cannot automatically assume that it thereby controls, runs, dictates to, or is predominant in the state as well. The ruling class is not a monolithic power bloc; it is fragmented, with differing and, at times, conflicting interests. Moreover, in certain historical circumstances, the economically dominant class has not held state power, for example, in nineteenth century Prussia where the aristocracy (the junkers) controlled the state although it was a declining economic force.

Numerous problems also arise with the view of the state as a factor of cohesion in society, regulating the struggle between the classes, either by repression or concession. The main difficulty with this approach is that it suggests that the conflict over the social product is resolvable, and if taken to its logical conclusion it precludes the possibility of revolution as the state, in its role as class mediator, can act to defuse crises arising out of the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. It is also very much akin to the liberal view of the state as "nightwatchman". Likewise, the parasitic approach can only lead to demands for a democratisation rather than the abolition of government and, perhaps, this is why Marx dropped references to it in his later writings.

The ephiphenomenon aspect of Marx's views on the state is rooted in the metaphor of base and superstructure, that is, that the state in its legal and political forms is simply a reflection of the economic base of society. This implies that the state is a passive instrument in the class struggle or, at best, is a tool of the ruling class. To adopt such a position leads one either to the reductionism of the equation that class power equals state power, or, to ignore the role the state has played, and is playing, in organising the labour process and in creating the conditions for further capital accumulation. The epiphenomenon view thus places a straightjacket on the activities of the state, divesting it of any autonomy or freedom of action, something which is at odds with the historical development of capitalism.

Dissatisfaction with the classical Marxist texts on the nature of the state led to a reformulation of theoretical perspectives by a new generation of Marx students. The outcome has been by no means theoretically homogenous, in fact, a variety of perspectives have emerged which we will now attempt to synthesise.

RELATIONSHIP OF THE RULING CLASS TO THE STATE

In Marxism and Politics, Miliband offers three possible, but not necessarily interrelated, explanations concerning the relationship of the ruling class to the state. The first of these concentrates on the personnel of the state. Miliband argues that those who control the state share a similar or common social background and are linked together by economic and cultural ties. These links result in a cluster of common ideological and political attitudes, as well as common perspectives and values. Thus those who run the state apparatus are by virtue of their circumstances favourably disposed to those who own and control the economic means of life. Empirical evidence would tend to bear out some of Miliband's assumptions. In The State in Capitalist Society, he provides an impressive array of detailed information which chronicles the interconnections between the elite groupings in society. The state is largely run by people from similar social backgrounds and educational establishments, in spite of numerous Labour governments and so-called working class occupational mobility. But this approach inevitably leads to the reductionism mentioned earlier as it does not explain how the state is capitalist. Crucially it does not amount to a Marxist theory of the state as it discusses the state in isolation from socio-economic forces. Miliband's work serves only as a rebuttal to pluralist assumptions about political democracy.

To buttress the obvious shortcomings of this approach Miliband introduces an economic dimension to his analysis. This centres on the role of capital as a pressure group. Here capital, particularly "monopoly capital", uses its position as the major controller of wealth and, hence, of investment to demand the ear of government. The fear in governing circles of multinationals redirecting investment and causing large numbers of job losses ensures that they listen sympathetically to them. In some accounts of this process, particularly that of Baran and Sweezey and the "Communist" Party, the state and monopoly capital become fused; the former acting as a pliant tool of the latter. These views ignore the fact that the state often acts against the interests of certain sections of the capitalist class. The state passes reforms in the social and economic fields which capital dislikes, for example, high levels of unemployment benefit and spending on welfare services in general. Moreover this approach reduces the state to an epiphenomenal position, that is, the nature of the state is drawn from the immanent tendencies of capital accumulation. It also disregards the role of class struggle in shaping the way the state responds to certain issues and problems.

HOW CONSTRAINING ARE THE CONSTRAINTS?

The problematic nature of the above approach and its corollary that small and medium size capitals should unite with the working class in a struggle to overthrow monopoly capitalism has been severely criticised by "structural Marxists" such as Althusser and Poulantzas, and this leads us to the third explanation offered by Miliband. Structuralists argue that "the state is an instrument of the ruling class because given its insertion in the capitalist mode of production (CMP) it cannot be anything else". Thus it matters little who constitutes the personnel of the state, or what pressure is exerted by capitalists, as the actions of the state are determined by the "nature and requirements of the CMP". In other words, a capitalist economy has its own logic or rationality to which any government or state must sooner or later submit, regardless of its ideological or political preferences; the existence of the capitalist mode of production constrains the state to act in ways favourable to the expansion and preservation of the economic system and against the interests of the working class.

The structuralist view has been further refined by the work of the "capital logic" school of Berlin. This approach derives the character of the capitalist state from the categories of the capitalist economy, the process of production and accumulation. The state is seen as a political force which is required to secure the reproduction of wage labour—to the extent that this cannot be done through market forces—and to ensure the subordination of labour to capital. This requires the state to intervene in areas such as factory legislation, supervision of trade union activities and social welfare. In this role the state is prepared to act not only against the working class, but also against individual capitals or fractions of capital which threaten the interests of capital in general.

Although it has a persuasive logic to it the structuralist view has a number of crucial weaknesses. Firstly, how constraining are the constraints? If total, then the outcome of that totality is economic determinism, as it would lead to a situation where human beings are deprived of any freedom of action or choice. Man however is not simply the product of economic forces, but a complex organism, whose actions are determined by many competing factors such as tradition, religion (where appropriate), altruism, nationalism, and so on. Secondly, and this follows from the first point, if we accept the structuralist position on the state, then we preclude consideration of how workers in struggle have affected the nature of the state and how it reacts to working class demands. In short, we could dismiss the last 150 years or so of the class struggle.

Similarly, the capital logic approach not only fails to account for the origins of the capitalist state, but fails to show convincingly how it can operate as the ideal collective capitalist. In short, how does it determine, and by what means, what are the "best" interests of capital? Moreover, in this scheme everything that occurs in a capitalist society apparently corresponds to the needs of capital accumulation, and even where modified by class struggle the interests of capital are always realised. The whole theory is deterministic, and can only provide a partial analysis to the central issue of what makes the state capitalist.

WHAT MAKES THE STATE A CLASS STATE

These explanations, although more systematic and coherent than some earlier Marxists' writings on the state, fail to explain the central issue of what makes the modern state a class state: the state of the capitalist class. The main reason behind this is the reductionism of the approaches. This means that a more adequate theoretical approach is necessary; one which takes account of the actual historical development of the state and how this development has been influenced by the balance of class forces at specific historical moments, and appreciates that the state can and does enjoy a fairly high degree of autonomy and independence in the manner of its operation as a class state. After all if the state is to act in the interests of the capitalist class it must be free to come to a decision as to what actually constitutes those interests. In doing so it may have to favour one fraction of capital against another in order to preserve or promote the long or short term interests of the sum total of the system's parts. This explains why particular social and economic policies are possible even though powerful economic groups are opposed to them.

This approach also allows for an account to be taken of the way the working class, through trade unions and other defence mechanisms, have affected the development of the state. For, given the nature of competitive capitalism, workers are forced to resist the encroachments of capital. The state must react in some positive way to workers' (reformist) demands. Failure to do so would lead to civil strife and political instability. Thus state forms and institutions, without this in any way threatening underlying capitalist social relations, are partly the outcome of working class struggle and cannot simply be attributed to the interests of the ruling class or a mere reflection of the changing needs of the capitalist mode of production.

Socialists, then, do not accept the pluralist view that the state is the property of no single class and that because of this it responds to the demands of all sections of society. We recognise that the modern state is comprised of a flexible set of institutions which operate subtly and is, ultimately, the executive committee for the capitalist class.

Bill Knox (Britain)

Cooking the Books: Ed, Ralph and Karl (2013)

The Cooking the Books column from the November 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

One result of the nasty attack by the Daily Mail (1 October) on Ed Miliband’s father, Ralph, has been a revival of discussion about Marx and Marxism. They described him a ‘lifelong, unreconstructed Marxist who craved a workers’ revolution’ Absurdly, they also claimed that

‘his son’s own Marxist values can be seen all too clearly in his plans for state seizures of private land held by builders and for fixing energy prices by government diktat.’

But there is nothing Marxist or socialist about taxing land values or price controls. The first was a 19th century radical Liberal demand aimed at weakening the landed aristocracy which then still stood in the way of complete capitalist class control of the state, and all sorts of governments have resorted to price controls.

But to what extent could Ralph Miliband be described as a ‘Marxist’? He certainly considered himself to be one and was well versed in Marx’s writings. He was the author of two books which influenced leftwing thinking in Britain, Parliamentary Socialism (1961) and The State in Capitalist Society (1969). In the first he dealt with what he regarded as the Labour Party’s obsession with trying to move beyond capitalism step by step by constitutional, parliamentary means and explained how and why this failed. The second described how the top positions in the state in Britain were occupied by people from the same social background – families rich enough to send their children to the top ‘public’ schools – who controlled it via an Old Boy network whichever party had a majority in parliament.

Both books were used by the Trotskyist groups which mushroomed in the 1970s to argue that there was ‘no parliamentary road’ and that violent revolution was therefore the only way. Actually, this was not Ralph Miliband’s own position as he held the more reasonable view that the road to socialism could and should involve both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action.

But what did he mean by socialism? The Daily Mail wrote:

‘Ralph’s Marxism was uncompromising. ‘We want this party to state that it stands unequivocally behind the social ownership and control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.’ He declared to the 1955 Labour Party conference as the delegate from Hampstead.’

Here he was defending the Labour Party’s ultimate aim (on paper) as set out in its then Clause Four. But there was nothing Marxist about Clause Four. It had been drafted by the Fabian Sidney Webb and committed the Labour Party to achieving, by gradual and constitutional means, the sort of state capitalism that the Fabians favoured.

We have always pointed out that the common ownership of ‘the means of exchange’ does not make sense. If there is common ownership of the means of production and distribution then there is no ‘exchange’ and so no ‘means of exchange’ (banks, etc.). The concept of ‘common ownership’ of banks only makes sense if common ownership is equated with state ownership. Which is what Ralph Miliband did.

This was confirmed by his attitude to Russia. He didn’t regard it as socialist, but he did regard it as non-capitalist on the grounds that it was based on state ownership rather than private ownership. For him, all that was required for it to become socialist was for its political structure to be made democratic. So, his ‘socialism’ was full-scale state capitalism plus political democracy, a combination that has proved to be illusory.

But state ownership is just another form of class ownership. That was Marx’s view too. Which makes Ralph Miliband an odd sort of Marxist, but at least he understood more about Marx than his son.

An Open Letter to Professor Miliband (1977)

From the March 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Your article in the Socialist Register 1976 entitled "Moving On" asks the question, why none of the organizations which since 1956 have occupied the area you describe as the "left wing stage" "constitute an effective socialist formation"? You claim that "such an organization remains to be created". You go on to give an "explanation" of why "existing organizations cannot fill the gap". But the "gap" your article reveals is in your own knowledge — yawning chasm would be a better description. Your contribution is merely ignorance confounded by confusion; first your analysis of the present "left wing" misunderstanding of the nature of revolutionary activity and second, your exclusion of the SPGB reveals either ignorance or political dishonesty.

Let me begin with your discussion of the current "left wing". (I won't use the inverted commas any more for that term, but when you reply, please explain what that term means.) "Inevitably one must start with the Labour Party" you say. You claim that the Labour Party is the "party of the working class and there is no alternative to it." The only reason for "starting" with the Labour Party is to finish with it. There was never any doubt from its formation that the Labour Party was simply a reformist party. The activities of the Labour Party have confirmed this ever since. However, you still appear to think that the Labour Party has something to do with Socialism. You write: "There cannot now be many socialists in the Labour Party (and even fewer outside) who believe that most of its leaders are concerned with the task of effecting the fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people . . . But there are many socialists in the Labour Party who do believe very firmly that they can eventually . . . compel their leaders to adopt left-wing policies."

You say: "There are socialists who work in the Labour Party." The Labour Party represents a certain section of the capitalist class and runs capitalism in the interests of capital. Like all other parties of capitalism, the Labour Party will dress up what they are doing in borrowed phrases in an attempt (successful to date) at misleading the working. But there never have been Socialists in the Labour Party.

Socialism is a world society which will take the place of capitalism; it will abolish all property and existing production relationships and establish in its place a free society where each person voluntarily contributes to the wealth of society and takes from it what the individual requires. There are no governments (with their attendant armies and coercive powers), no wages system, and no production for profit. (For a fuller account, see our Object and Declaration of Principles, and also our pamphlet Object and Declaration of Principles — Socialist Principles Explained.) Could you explain what someone who wants that society would be doing in the Labour Party? You say that "a socialist party is needed in Britain and the Labour Party is not it." In that case, how can there be Socialists in it? There may be some within the Labour Party who call themselves Socialists, but are they who you mean?

Turning your professorial attention to the Communist Party, you claim that "It is a Marxist Party" and add "of a sort"! But a party is either a Marxist party, standing for the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with Socialism, or it isn't. The Communist Party has always and inevitably stood for capitalism. Its history has been taken up with defending the contradictory activities and statements of the Russian ruling class which it supports. You rightly point out that since 1956 and more particularly since the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. the fawning adoration of the Russian monstrosity has lessened, and you say that the Communist Party has "a blandly complacent view of the Soviet system." In other words, the Communist Party is not Marxist but anti-democratic and reformist. As you put it, it has been in "pursuit of the politics of illusion . . . for more than forty years." The main illusion (other than the Soviet delusion) is its adherence to the coat-tails of the Labour quackery. Charitably you say that the Communist Party is not "to be reproached for seeking to put pressure on the Labour Party or on a Labour Government or for trying to influence the Labour Left or any other part of the labour movement." The politics of illusion indeed.

The Labour Party has not failed as such — it set out to run capitalism. The more important part of your article is the criticisms of the left-wing parties other than the Labour Party and the Communist: Party. You think that these other parties are not suitable for "Moving on". It is necessary, you argue, to create a new party because those that exist are inadequate. You ask "why these groupings of the 'ultra left' have not fared better" than they have done and give one answer which you say these groups themselves frequently give — the ruling class's control of ideas. This you say is inadequate since it: fails to explain why "left" groups have made progress (though this is merely asserted, it is not explained). You then examine a collection of other reasons such as "narrow doctrinaire sectarianism ... a marked tendency to believe that the final crisis of capitalism is imminent, to which is naturally added . . . adventurist sloganeering; and an internal rigidity of organization." What you fail to point out is that none of these reasons can apply to the SPGB. The SPGB is dedicated to the establishment of Socialism. In no sense is our case "narrow doctrinaire sectarianism." If you were to attend any of our propaganda meetings or any one of our branches you would find a range of views being expressed on a variety of topics, "the SPGB university" as it has been called. We have never said that capitalism's final crisis is at hand. We have always agreed with Marx, that crisis is a part of the normal workings of capitalism. Capitalism will not have a "final" crisis in the sense that this will cause its downfall. We have consistently pointed out that capitalism will continue until it is brought to an end by the working class. (See in particular our pamphlet Why capitalism will not collapse published in 1932.) So far as internal rigidity of organization is concerned, examine the workings of the SPGB; its flexible democratic method is a model for organization in a Socialist society. As for "sloganeering" — read some of our literature and attend our meetings; you would find nothing that resembles sloganeering.

Your conclusion is that the main cause for the failure of left-wing organizations is "their basic perceptions as to the ways of socialist advance in Britain." The explanation you give for this is twofold; the first is that "All these organizations have a common perception of socialist change in terms of a revolutionary seizure of power on the Bolshevik model of October 1917". In other words, you point out that all these parties have no intention of being "mass" parties at all — they are all in favour of minority coups. But, Professor, where or when did the SPGB put forward such a view? Right from the start of the Bolsheviks' takeover of power, we pointed out that it was not possible for Russia to establish Socialism. The material conditions in Russia — highly developed productive forces and working-class understanding — were not present. The second condition is not there today.

Your second criticism of left-wing groups is that they have succumbed to what you call "anti-parliamentary cretinism." In other words the left-wing parties have nearly always been anti-parliament and very often, anti-democratic. But the SPGB has insistently pointed out that the working class can and must use Parliament as part of the process of establishing Socialism. Historically, every ruling class has had to capture political power. The capitalist class, for example, had to obtain control of parliament and did so after a long struggle. The working class, when it takes over society in its own interests must also take political power in order to abolish both power and classes. That is why we have always said that Parliament and the electoral system must be used by the working class in the establishment of Socialism.

Your critique of left-wing organizations does not apply to the SPGB. In one sense it is a tribute to us that we are not included in your tattered list. We are not a part of the left wing at all. We are opposed to those parties that you refer to as the left wing (including IS, WRP etc.) All these parties stand for capitalism — the SPGB does not. Yet you do not mention in your article that the SPGB exists or that there is a party which does not suffer from the defects you highlight. How can a Professor of Politics ("a leading intellectual of the New Left" as one of your books describes you) have failed to notice a party formed two years prior to the Labour Party as an uncompromisingly Socialist party, which has worked for Socialist understanding since its formation, which has continually published literature, held meetings, contested elections and so on? On reflection the omission cannot be due to sheer ignorance — it must be deliberate. No doubt like the other political ostriches you folded your left and right wing and just hoped that by putting your head in the academic sandpit we could just be ignored.

Your reply is awaited.

Ronnie Warrington

Cooking the Books: Ed’s Dad (2011)

The Cooking the Books column from the February 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

“My Dad,” Labour Leader Ed Miliband told BBC Radio 5, “would have considered himself a socialist too, but he would have said we need to have public ownership of everything.” ((London) Times, 27 November).

It’s true, his dad, Ralph Miliband, was a left-winger who identified “socialism” with full-scale nationalisation, or state capitalism – as we pointed out in a review of his book The State in Capitalist Society in the August 1969 Socialist Standard:

“This is a confusing book in which Miliband sets out to prove what he takes to be the Marxist theory of the state. Although he does define his terms he uses words like ‘capitalism’ and ‘class’ in a non-Marxist way. Capitalism, he holds, is based on private enterprise, private profit and private accumulation. This raises suspicions, which are confirmed, that he has an odd view of Socialism too. Russia, he says, is ‘collectivist’, ‘non-capitalist’ and, in an unguarded moment, even ‘socialist’. The concept of state capitalism is clearly unintelligible to him and is nowhere discussed, not even in relation to nationalisation in the West.”

Nationalisation is not socialism as it is only a change of owner and employer, leaving workers still having to sell their labour power for a wage or salary and still exploited for surplus value. In the West the former owners were paid compensation and so continued to receive a property income but as interest on government bonds rather than as dividends. In Russia the beneficiaries were those who dictatorially controlled the state and awarded themselves a privileged income as bloated salaries, prizes, country houses and other benefits in kind.

Ralph Miliband’s best known book is probably his 1961 critical history of the Labour Party from a leftwing Labour point of view, Parliamentary Socialism. In the concluding chapter, entitled “The Sickness of Labourism” he observed:

“By the late fifties, the Labour leaders, obsessed as they were with the thought of electoral success, had come to be more convinced even than were their predecessors that the essential condition for that success was to present the Labour Party as a moderate and respectable party, free from class bias, ‘national’ in outlook, and whose zeal for reform would always be tempered by its eager endorsement of the maxim that Rome was not built in a day – or even in a century. Never indeed had Labour leaders been so haunted by a composite image of the potential Labour voter as quintessentially petit-bourgeois, and therefore liable to be frightened off by a radical alternative to Conservatism.”

Plus ça change. There was nothing new about New Labour, except that Blair succeeded where Gaitskell failed in getting rid of Clause 4, which committed Labour on paper to full-scale state capitalism.

He went on to quote from the study of the 1959 General Election by David Butler and R. Rose their view that the Labour Party “as in all recent elections …played down any claim to stand, as a socialist party, for a radically different form of society …it asked the voters to say that it could administer the mixed economy welfare state better than the Conservatives”.

Which is precisely what Ed Miliband is on record as promising to try to do. As he told the Observer (29 August): “I’ll make capitalism work for the people”. Oh no, he won’t – because that’s not possible, not even if he followed his dad’s line and nationalised everything. State capitalism can’t be made to work for the people either.