Yes in My Back Yard (2025)

Book Review from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Abundance: How We Build A Better World. By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. ISBN 9781805226055

This book has caused quite a stir. It has even made Chancellor Reeves’ summer reading list, and been cited – in passing – by Robert Peston. It is part of the YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) trend. Its central theme is that government regulation is choking the capacity for effective action to generate wealth, and that instead the liberal left has been concentrating on the parcelling out of scarcity, rather than trying to improve the overall material wealth of society.

The authors mention the expensive failure to build a high-speed railway in California, citing environmental laws and litigation as the reason: alongside the excessive bureaucracy to plan the route. They also note California has higher rates of homelessness than comparable cities in Texas, and attribute the blame to zoning and to authorities loading environmental, building and labour standards into permissions, making building uneconomic for developers.

In their narrative, they do discuss the nature of landholding and the fact that residents’ houses are also financial assets, only to skip blithely over them to discuss bureaucratic complexity again. In so doing, and returning to their theme that it was the failure of efforts to restrict the power of public authorities that is to blame, they ignore the role of private property.

The state is restricted in order to secure the power of private property. The litigation is there to protect property rights. It’s there to protect economic interests (and some firms do benefit from regulation). The complex funding arrangements and financial regulations are there precisely to keep the interests of wealth superior to state power. This is a political choice, and one that those who fund the political parties will continue to demand.

At points, the authors seem to indicate that it would be better to allow constructors to build slum housing than to continue allowing homelessness. They also suggest reducing quality controls and demands on construction: in essence, they are allowing that the working class cannot afford decent housing. Although their ‘lens’, as they say, is increasing supply, they ignore the lack of effective demand for the majority.

They find time in their conclusion to reference Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto talking about unfettering productive forces to produce abundance. But they ignore what those fetters of capitalist society are: the law of no profit – no production, and the law of no profit – no employment. The growth of income streams alongside the capacity to produce so much that profit margins would be reduced to zero.

Absent an understanding of the role of private property and the class struggle from their narrative, they are reduced to a simple call for de-regulation coupled with bold state action. They do not see that the litigiousness they decry is meant to exclude a thorough-going democratic control that includes all voices. The abundance they seek can only come from the common ownership and democratic control of productive wealth.

Pik Smeet

Rights – a movable feast (2025)

From the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, recently announced that her Party will take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights if they win the next election. A big ‘if’ obviously, but, in stating at the same time that such a move was ‘necessary to protect our borders, our veterans, and our citizens’, it’s clear that what she was trying to do was to steal the clothes of her dangerous competitor on the right wing of British capitalist politics, Reform UK. She was giving a nod towards the extreme nationalism that currently seems rampant and gets expressed most virulently in the call to ‘stop the boats’.

Whether any such move would actually curb immigration is of course open to question, but, if what would seem to be the most overarching of rights – human rights – can be removed at a stroke by a government with a parliamentary majority, is there anything permanent or consistent in the notion of rights at all?

How many rights?

We certainly hear much noise about rights, both from those who want to do away with or weaken them and from others who oppose their removal or weakening. What kind of rights are we talking about? Well, to give a few examples, there are workers’ rights, pension rights, women’s rights, property rights, gay rights, the right to free speech, the right to family life, the right to privacy, the right to strike, the right to peaceful protest, the right to education, the right to a fair trial, and so on. A short time ago I found myself attending a lecture given by the Older Persons’ Commissioner for Wales on the subject of ‘How we move from principles to practice to make rights real for older people’. There are also some ‘rights’ which, while often talked about in the past, little is heard of these days – for instance, ‘the right to work’ or ‘ the right to rest and holiday’. There are also some bizarre ‘twists’ on the rights agenda, such as ‘the right to bear arms’ (usually with reference to the US), and ‘the rights of the unborn child’ (insisted on by opponents of abortion).

Looking at the broad historical context, rights are a feature of the fact that the system we live under has found ways of becoming more benign and less repressive. The overriding reason for this has been the perception by governments and wealth owners that those in society who have to work for a wage or salary to survive are more likely to do that readily and acceptingly and at the same time be more productive and efficient in their work if their lives are made not altogether uncomfortable. And indeed one of the effects of having the various ‘rights’ conferred has been to make us feel more comfortable in our position as wage slaves. But it took a long time. Most of today’s ‘rights’ would have been considered unthinkable not just in pre-modern times, where the ‘divine right of kings’ prevailed, but even in the early years of industrialisation and capitalist development. In the nineteenth century, for example, talk of, say, ‘women’s rights’ or the ‘right to education’ or ‘pension rights’ would have been unlikely to say the least. And, until well into the 20th century, even the notion of ‘workers’ rights’ was much contested, and only in recent times has ‘gay rights’ become part of the vocabulary of English. This kind of thing is of course still very much the case in many ‘less developed’ parts of the world where dictatorial or repressive regimes hold sway. Examples such as North Korea, Myanmar, China, Belarus and some countries in Africa and the Middle East come to mind.

Different ‘rights’ in different places

But, despite the existence of many kinds of ‘rights’ in most of Europe and North America, it would be mistaken to regard these as necessarily permanent or consistent features. They can easily be watered down or removed by the governments that oversee the system of production for profit and buying and selling that we live in (ie, capitalism), if it seems to them to be in the interest of the continued smooth running of that system to do that. A British government deciding to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, as the Tory leader has promised to do if her Party comes to power, would be an example of that. A recent example of this actually happening has been the watering down of the right to peaceful protest by the ban on demonstrations by supporters of the Palestine Action group. As for ‘the right to strike’, it still exists of course, but it has been chipped away at by various different governments, with the overall effect of making striking today markedly more difficult for workers than at times in the past. I have testified to another instance of the watering down of ‘rights’ in my own place of work, where the contracts signed by employees have moved from specifying a ‘maximum’ of 35 hours as the standard working week in recognition of ‘The European Working Time Directive’, to now specifying a working week of ‘at least’ 35 hours.

And there can also be striking differences between the most economically advanced countries in the rights they accord. The most ‘generous’ in this domain tend to be the Scandinavian countries, while in the United States, despite its being the hub of world capitalism, ‘workers’ rights’, for instance, are all but non-existent. To give an example, in Sweden parents are eligible for up to 480 days of paid parental leave from their employment, a policy driven by the idea that children well looked after by their parents are likely to be more productive and better socially integrated later in life when they enter ‘the world of work’. In the US, where a different ethic (more of a dog-eat-dog one) prevails, there is no statutory ‘right’ to paid leave, such being entirely at the employer’s discretion. This can create situations, as one commentator has put it, where ‘American parents scramble back to work days after giving birth’. To add to this, employment practice in the US regards work as a voluntary contract which can be dissolved at any time by either party without the mandatory right to redundancy pay for the employee.

A slippery concept

The reality is that ‘rights’ (like reforms) are very much a movable feast easily or not so easily granted but then rowed back on as convenient and also sometimes differing drastically even from one economically advanced country to another. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food, public services and social security. But everyone knows that, in a world where people may be poorly paid, unemployed or homeless, this is no more than an unattainable wish list. What price such people’s right to an ‘adequate standard of living’ or their ‘property rights’? Again, while very few would disagree that people should have the right to free speech and the right to be free from arbitrary arrest or imprisonment, how does that square with the reality of a system where the accumulation of wealth for the already wealthy few dominates and allows authoritarian regimes (Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, etc) to fly in the face of that?

In the kind of world socialists campaign to see established – marketless, moneyless, wageless, leaderless, and based on voluntary work, democratic organisation and free access to all goods and services – the slippery concept that is ‘rights’ will not enter into the equation. Instead, in a classless society of human freedom, needs, both practical and social, will be satisfied as a matter of course. Above all, the productive machinery of society and the goods and services it produces will belong not to one class, but to everyone as an automatic and inalienable ‘right’.

Howard Moss

Loving fathers of industry. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

An interesting advertisement booklet recently published by Messrs. Joseph Crosfield & Sons, the Warrington soapworkers’ exploiters, shows how “model employers” dominate even the “private life” of their wage slaves, dictating as to how they should spend their scanty leisure.

After giving the names of the directors and other parasites who “run” the business, the pamphlet shows us how increased efficiency in the worker only benefits the capitalist class. For it states: “It is compulsory upon all boys and girls (employees) between the age of 14 and 17 to attend an evening school at least three nights a week. The course of instruction for boys is naturally concerned with questions relating to their line of work.” (Italics mine.)

Not a bad wheeze, teaching the poor kiddies their trade at night schools in their all too meagre spare time, after they have put in 8½ hours hard graft at the works for their lords and masters ! It is obvious, of course, that no time will be lost at work in teaching these youngsters soap making ! For the workers’ time is money to the capitalist.

We are then told that in the day-work departments, the 9½ hour day has been reduced to an 8½ hour day, “and events have proved that as much work as previously is done in the shorter hours.” Will the “B.S.P.” please note, that if the 8 hour day for all workers came into vogue, the capitalists would see to it, as they have done in this case, that the workers’ output was not lessened, but that they would be “speeded up,” so that the same or even an in­creased output was maintained in the shorter working day, with less expense to the masters in running machinery, lighting and heating the factories, etc.

With an eye to business the firm tells us: “The physical aspect of education is not over­ looked, for all work-girls up to the age of 17 undergo a course of gymnastics during the winter months.” Because strong, healthy, well-developed workers can obviously turn out more and better work than weak, unhealthy, and ill-nourished workers. So that from a purely busi­ness point of view—the point of view the master class always take—this little incidental expense well repays the employers.

Under the ironical heading “Social Recreation during Leisure Hours,” we are informed that the firm provide a company of the 4th Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment (Territorials), also a company of boy-scouts.

Note the masters’ determination to inocculate their workers with that brain-disease, patriotism. One can imagine how useful would these same workers be in defending their masters’ property against foreign invaders, or more probably, strike rioters.

Verily, the capitalist moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform !

This, we are told, is how the firm take a keen interest in the social life of the work-people ! Not much time for these workers to study their slave position in society. The firm see to it that their workers’ minds are diverted into less revolutionary and dangerous channels.

“Garden Village” employers go one better even, by providing their workers with libraries filled with capitalist works, libraries from which working class books and papers are vi­gorously excluded. Gardening, too, is taught, and thus the workers keep the “garden village” well cultivated in their spare time, without expense to the employers. Free fire brigade staff, ambulance staff, and gardening staff ! And so on, ad nauseam.

After giving a description of the soapmaking the pamphlet concludes with photos, several showing the work-people cheering and flag-wagging, on the occasion of a recent visit to the works of our royal parasites.

The enormous profits made out of the unpaid labour of the workers by soap kings was demonstrated by the “Daily Chronicle,” (24.4.14). According to that rag, Messrs. Joseph Watson & Sons, the Leeds soapmakers, made a profit of £103,999 last year, as compared with £84,215 in the year previous.

How much more of this devilish game will you workers submit to ? Aren’t you tired of being referred to in contemptuous terms as the working asses? or are you going to quietly wait for that last phase of this rapidly decaying system, State Capitalism, with its universal “model employers,” “garden villages,” “ideal conditions of labour,” “co-partnership,” “profit-sharing,” etc.; which is really more intensified slavery still—to a hide-bound State, instead of private employers—than that which exists at present ?

Capitalism has long since outstayed its wel­come ; why not organise with us and overthrow it at once ? “Now is the accepted time ”

A. C. Kelly

Chapter Two: Reform or Revolution (1984)

From Samuel Leight's book, The Futility of Reformism

An acceptance of capitalism is indicative of a political approach that must inevitably enmesh itself with the reformation of the system and not with its abolition. Conversely, a genuine opposition to capitalism implies an understanding and knowledge that should preclude any desire to embark on a reformist program, recognizing the futility of such action, irrespective of the merits of the reforms contemplated. 

Wherever and whenever there is a program of reforms you will always find the "Leaders" ready and willing to perform, but always unable in the end to properly fulfill the promises which originally were so artfully dangled. Reforms never live up to their expectations because the very nature of capitalism invariably sabotages the performance of the reformers. Even when certain problems get resolved they are replaced with new ones, generally of an equal or greater magnitude. Apart from the wasted energy and time that reformism engenders, the danger of such activity lies in the inevitable apathy and disillusionment that arises in the aftermath. These are the breeding grounds for dictatorial regimes. 

It is a political delusion to think that one can shelve the case for socialism and still serve the interests of the working class by helping to reform capitalism in its quest for greater efficiency. The interests of the majority can only be served by the elimination of a system that can never be made to operate on their behalf irrespective of how it is manipulated or reformed. Socialist, political energies are channeled solely for the achievement of socialism — we do not concern ourselves directly with the administration of a system whose major social evils are irremovable notwithstanding the nature of the reforms that may be introduced. Reforms leave the fundamental basis of the system unaltered. It is this social and economic core, resting up on the class ownership of the means of production and distribution, that gives rise to the insoluble problems. 

In conjunction with this approach, we nevertheless urge our fellow workers to maintain and improve their standards of living through active participation in the Trade Union movement. However, such activity should always be kept in proper perspective with the realization that Trade Unions are limited in their scope. They demonstrate the class struggle in ever-constant action, as distinct from the separate policy of reformism to which we are opposed. 

With logic and socialist insight, we advocate peaceful, democratic revolution as the only political course to follow. At the same time, we recognize the necessity for the working class to continuously strive at safeguarding and improving their economic conditions, through appropriate, well-conceived Trade Union activity, in the interim. 

Can the working class "relate" to such a policy? We emphatically claim that they can, and should —without delay! 

Socialism, of course, can never be established or operated without a socialist majority. Once this fundamental position is fully appreciated it becomes obvious that any so-called Socialist Party that advocates a policy of reforms would automatically attract to its ranks reformists but not revolutionists. In no time at all any Party which naively attempted to take a dual position of reformation combined with "revolution" would be swamped and outnumbered by the reformists and would be politically castrated as far as socialism is concerned. The Fabian Society, established in January 1884, as a Society and not as a Political Party, and the Social Democratic Federation, which changed its name to the Social Democratic Party in 1908, both originating in England, are examples of reformist organizations that, in addition, purported to advocate socialism. The Fabian Society's doctrine was "the inevitability of gradualness," while the SDF referred to their reforms as "stepping stones to Socialism." A small group of secessionists from the SDF, opposing the reformist approach, formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904 with an object and set of principles that uniquely distinguished them as a Socialist Party in every sense of the term. 

Rosa Luxemburg in her work entitled "Reform or Revolution" written in April 1899, stated in her Introduction: 

"The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratie institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal — the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage-labor. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim." 

This statement is fallacious in content and deviates from the significance of her title which poses a choice between reform or revolution. 

Another unacceptable aspect supported by Rosa Luxemburg, is the theory that at some stage of development, due to the contradictions of the system, capitalism will "collapse" and that, quoting, "Without the collapse of capitalism the expropriation of the capitalist class is impossible." We would deny this statement and substitute a vital alternative position: without a socialist working class socialism is impossible! Capitalism has demonstrated its remarkable staying-power and adaptability from crises to crises, through recessions and depressions. And even if a "collapse" occurred, socialism could never be introduced unless the vast majority were already converted to the socialist case and properly organized to attain political power. When this situation happens it would of course be completely unnecessary to wait for a "collapse," because socialism becomes immediately practical. However, in fairness to Rosa Luxemburg, affectionately called Red Rosa by the SPGB for her heroic class-conscious defense in her trial at Weimar in 1907, she also supported a positive role to be played by the working class, and indicated that the workers might achieve power before the breakdown of the system took place. The socialist position looks for no anticipated crash that would mark the death-throes of capitalism—on the contrary, we emphasize that the socialist revolution depends upon a sufficiency of socialists and we work towards this end. 

As and when socialist delegates become elected to the Congresses and Parliaments throughout the world, with a mandate for socialism, they will of course be confronted from time to time with reformist measures, and called up on to either vote or abstain, approve or otherwise. They will be instructed in these matters by their respective Socialist Parties. The guiding principle will revolve around the interests of the working class together with the achievement of socialism. The socialist delegates will therefore act within this framework. They will also never lose any practical opportunity for propagating, at the applicable time, the case for socialism. When the World Socialist Parties finally get representation in the seats of power, we can rest assured that the ruling class and their aides will be churning out a plethora of reforms in order to appease the growing, awakening socialist working class in an effort to delay the inevitable. The foregoing scenario is in no way analogous to the advocacy of reforms as an initial attempt to gain political support' and vote-catching representation. 

With the magnificent, international declaration and enactment that every human being is the common owner, with democratic control, of the means of production and distribution, with free access to all goods and services, a new era commences. Poverty, unemployment, insecurity and war become immediately and irrevocably eliminated. Their cause, the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by a minority, in a "commodity society," would have been eradicated. The structure of a socialist society makes their existence an economic and social impossibility. What reform, or series of reforms, could match, or in any way be comparable with, this position and attainment? 

There can be no poverty in a classless society, technologically capable of satisfying the needs of the population, with free access to all goods and services. 

There can be no unemployment, or employment, when all men and women are co-owners of the means of production and distribution, giving of their abilities in useful work for society as well as for themselves. 

There can be no insecurity when all "needs" can be satisfied as the result of "common ownership" and "free access." 

There can be no war when humanity is united as a whole without states, national boundaries, or armed forces; with production and distribution solely for use, and not for profit, eliminating money, wages, exchange, and the "market place." 

Audit each of these categories today, after the deluge of all the reforms that have been passed since the advent of capitalism, for complete justification of the case for socialism.

On August 20, 1980 a report from Washington (UPI) stated: “The World Bank estimated this year 780 million people throughout the world are living in ‘absolute poverty.’ It described this as ‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy and disease as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency’.”

On September 29, 1981 according to the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity, “Twenty-five million Americans are poor” and “Another 30 million—if they lose a job, get sick or burn out—could be poor.” On August 2, 1983 the U.S. Census Bureau stated that the number of Americans classified as poor increased by 2.6 million, from 31.8 million in 1981 to 34.4 million in 1982. The official poverty rate, reflecting the portion of the population living in poverty, was 14 per cent in 1981. The 1982 rate was the highest since the start of the “War on Poverty” in 1965, when the rate was 17.3 percent. Of course, by socialist standards, poverty is the economic lot of the whole of the working class, at all times under capitalism—but, be that as it may.

Unemployment in Great Britain reached 14 per cent of the work force in September, 1982; and in the U.S.A. 10.8 per cent in November, 1982—both record figures since the Great Depression and World War II. Canada had a post-Depression high of 12.6 per cent in March, 1983. According to researchers at Williams College and the University of Minnesota, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on October 21, 1982, each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate correlates with 318 additional suicides. They estimate that the current recession is prompting 1,200 to 1,300 suicides a year.

If an unparalleled Arms Race between the major powers is touted as the supposed road to peace, then this futile pursuit alone is sufficient unto itself to condemn the anarchy, wastefulness and social stupidity of modern-day capitalist society. Of course, peace is non-existent under capitalism—in fact, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in May 1977, stated that since September 1945 there has not been a single day in which the world was free of war.

Here, we have only briefly touched upon the major social evils, ones that reforms are completely unable to penetrate with any kind of practical solutions. The reformists, therefore, also direct their ingenuity and efforts towards the “minor sores” of society. These have included so-called high taxes, “the economy,” balancing the budget (but not yours), inflation, violence, crime, pollution, premature death and ill-health caused directly by the system, racism, “freedoms” and “human rights.” And, lest we forget, the “privilege” of working class women having “equal rights” with the men of being exploited on equal terms. Presumably, also, the right to be massacred in the wars, alongside the men, for their masters’ interests—all this in the name of “equality”!

Every major political party in the U.S.A., Europe and elsewhere that has taken on the job of running capitalism has done so on a reformist ticket, failing dismally as far as the interests of the working class are concerned. And it can never be otherwise. Capitalism will always remain a system of perpetual crises, with unending competition and confrontation, both on the social and individual levels, all this impervious to reforms and reformism.

Socialism Now! (2003)

From the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty two billion pounds is a lot of pelf in anybody’s currency. Tabloid newspapers occasionally run articles fantasising about the things their readers could spend their money on if they were rich enough. Maybe a premier division footballer or two; a re-election victory; two tickets for the sixth farewell tour of a sixties rock/pop group; a four bedroom detached house in the south-east of England; a signed Damien Hirst pickled onion; a day trip on the USS Enterprise; a decent little Middle Eastern war. Money, if you have enough of it will buy you almost anything. Many people think that if you throw enough money at a difficulty it will go away.

A Guardian journalist, Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Daily Mirror recently (9 April), identified many problems affecting a large part of the world. His intent was to contrast the high financial cost of the American and Iraq conflict with what he saw as other socially beneficial schemes deserving of similar spending. The spending of comparable amounts to £52 billion that had already been allocated toward the conflict could, he felt, be far better spent in assuaging the problems to which he alludes.

Some of his propositions are eminently sensible. For example, who does not want to make “the world a fairer, cleaner, healthier place”? Or, provide an education for the “estimated 120 million kids world-wide (who) never see a classroom”? Who would not want to solve the health problems caused by the “lack of clean water (which) causes 80 per cent of health problems in most developing countries? One in four people still can’t get a clean glass of water”. It is easy to comprehend that “a billion people go to bed hungry every night”, which is “a fact so awful you have to imagine you’re one of them to really take it in.” A straw poll on these ideas conducted almost anywhere would produce the sort of unanimity usually only found amongst ballots conducted by dictators and despots. Surely a conclusion drawn from these facts alone is that here are issues which require immediate action to resolve them? Does not this resolution require co-ordinated collective global action?

All capitalist states spend vast sums of money on ‘defence’ forces

Freedland writes of the United Nations’ targets to eliminate “extreme poverty and hunger”. As he notes, at present poorer countries are indebted to richer ones to the amount of £32 billion pounds. The United Nations Development Goals (all quotes taken from its website) notes that “the Millennium Development Goals are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives”. The targets include:

“Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger. More than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day . . . Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five. Every year nearly 11 million young children die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable illnesses. By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. By 2020 achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.”

While those who need ‘defending’ starve

The problems themselves are highly visible. Many individuals and agencies are dedicated to eradicating them. Many resources are expended in pursuit of a final solution to poverty, hunger and disease. But under the present social system, capitalism, this is a labour of Sisyphus.

With which remedies proposed by Freedland, by the dis-United Nations, by various charities, by non-governmental organisations, by pontificating politicians, by genuinely concerned citizens, and by those existing on a dollar a day, does the Socialist Party disagree? Answer: The supposed solution of throwing money, or rather, trickling money at the problem.

Why? Because even if the global ruling class wanted to palliate the condition of those surviving in nineteenth century conditions it has so many other things to divert and engage its attention. Things such as safeguarding energy supplies, protecting profits, and brainwashing workers into continued acceptance of a social system which perpetuates the environment which condemn so many in the world to an unfair, dirty, unhealthy place. This is not to say that some, probably many, of the capitalist class are not as appalled and angered by the plight of other human beings as anyone else. But they are, like us all, immersed in a system predicated on profit for profit, not need. There’s not much profit to be made from those unable to spend more than a dollar a day. Freedland is right, however, to call for co-ordinated global action with the immediate priority of resolving the myriad problems which capitalism creates but cannot rectify. Only world socialism can provide the framework to do that.

So the question is, when do we adopt the only rational alternative to the existing social system? Do you really want to wait until 2015 to partly ameliorate, if at all, problems caused by, and perpetuated by, capitalism?

Dave Coggan

Cooking the Books: A false dilemma exposed (2025)

The Cooking the Books Column from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some people say that, to save the planet, humanity is faced with a terrible dilemma: as the world cannot support 8 billion humans and more all with the same living standard as in the West, either a quarter of the world’s population is going to have to remain living in dire poverty or those in the West are going to have to have their living standard cut drastically.

This is to assume that the standard of living that a lot of people in the West have can only be met in a capitalist way, that is, as a byproduct of the accumulation of more and more capital out of profits, or ‘growth’ as it is often called. But this is not the only way in which such a standard of living could be sustained, as Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan explain in an article ‘How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis’ published last September.

They start from what a ‘decent living standard’ might be:

‘Recent empirical studies have established the minimum set of specific goods and services that are necessary for people to achieve decent-living standards (DLS), including nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc’.

Then they work out how much resources would be required if production were to be geared to meeting these needs of everyone on the planet, and conclude:

‘Provisioning decent-living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments’.

What they are calling for is the redirection of the aim of production from seeking profits to be accumulated as more capital towards meeting people’s needs. They are aware that this goes against the logic of capitalism:

‘This is challenging within a capitalist market economy, however, because capital generally requires increasing aggregate output (GDP) to stabilize accumulation and because in capitalist economies any reduction of aggregate output triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment. Furthermore, under capitalism, decisions about production are made by wealthy investors with the primary goal of maximizing private profits, rather than meeting social and ecological goals. Necessary goods and services that are not profitable are often underproduced’.

However, although they talk in terms of ‘post-capitalist’ approaches, they still envisage production aimed at giving people a decent living standard being introduced while retaining finance (even though ‘public’) and money income (even if at or above a guaranteed minimum). To be fair, they do envisage many of the services and amenities being provided free of charge.

This is to be achieved through the state intervening in the capitalist economy and overcoming its economic laws. This in effect is global economy reformism. But, experience of the many reformist governments at national level in many different countries has shown that governments cannot overcome the economic laws of capitalism and that, if they go too far in trying to do this, this ‘triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment’. Which leads either to the government doing a U-turn or to it being voted out of office.

The plain fact is that production under capitalism cannot be redirected from profit-seeking to meeting people’s needs. That can only be done after capitalism has been abolished and society reorganised on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources.

Despite not realising this, Hickel and Sullivan are to be commended for having shown that the world can support all its current population (and more) without exacerbating ecological breakdown.

Cooking the Books: Another reformist dreamer (2024)

The Cooking the Books column from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a speech last year, Rachel Reeves name-checked Mariana Mazzucato who, she said, had long argued that ‘the state’s role is not simply to correct the failures and redress the negative externalities of free markets… Success has always rested upon a partnership between the market and the state’ (tinyurl.com/3m78s2mx).

Although Mazzucato is seen as a radical thinker she has nothing against capitalism as such. Nothing against the private ownership of productive resources. Nothing against production for sale on a market with a view to profit. What she is against is the present ‘dysfunctional form of capitalism’ characterised by ‘the excessive financialization of companies and remorseless pursuit of shareholder value’. As she quotes on her website she is on ‘a mission to save capitalism from itself’. She wants to ‘change’ capitalism, as she put it in her 2020 book Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, by ‘restructuring business so that private profits are reinvested back into the economy rather than being used for short-term financialized purposes’. In other words, she is a theorist of reformism. Hence her attraction for the Labour Party. Even under Corbyn, John McDonnell went around echoing her call for an ‘entrepreneurial state’.

Mazzucato’s reform to capitalism is for the state to play a pro-active role in the economy by setting an aim to be achieved — a social or economic problem to be solved — and then mobilising the help of private capitalist corporations to achieve it by ‘shaping’ markets for them. Hence the title of her book which argues that the US government’s 1962 mission to get a man on the Moon within ten years is the example to follow.

There are indeed occasions when capitalism’s spontaneous aim of profit maximisation is set aside. When a country is at war, the ‘mission’ becomes to win ‘whatever it costs’ and the state mobilises resources to achieve this. It is instructive that the only successful example of her ‘change’ to capitalism that she can bring forward had a military dimension. The United States government did not want to get a man on the Moon for scientific reasons but to gain superiority over Russia in rocketry.

Mazzucato herself notes this and asks why a state could not similarly mobilise resources to achieve some peaceful aim such as solving the housing problem or creating a good health and care service. The same question was put by reformists to those who in the 1950s and 60s argued that capitalism had been saved from supposed collapse by providing markets through becoming a ‘permanent arms economy’. Why, the reformists asked, couldn’t capitalism become a ‘permanent welfare state economy’; why couldn’t the state provide extra markets by spending instead on social reforms?

The permanent arms economy theorists struggled to find a coherent answer. In the end, life itself settled the matter — excessive spending on arms turned out to undermine a capitalist state’s international competitiveness by increasing the tax burden on its capitalist enterprises and diverting profits that might otherwise have been invested in cost-cutting innovations. Which explained why in the 1960s Germany and Japan, which weren’t allowed to spend so much on arms, did better on world markets. Excessive arms spending wasn’t saving capitalism but was a burden on the states that practised this. The answer to the reformists was that excessive spending on the welfare state and other social reforms was not practicable because it, too, would be a burden on any capitalist state that tried, undermining its competitiveness.

The same applies to Mazzucato’s reformist project. If, outside of war, the state were to set a purpose for the capitalist economy other than profit maximisation and taxed capitalist corporations to pay for it, this would inhibit, not encourage, growth. In seeking to maximise profits capitalism is not being dysfunctional. It is being itself and can’t be changed to function in any other way.

Limited Choices (2024)

Book Review from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like? By Daniel Chandler. Penguin £10.99.

In 1971 the political philosopher John Rawls published A Theory of Justice. This has had a massive impact in the academic world, giving rise to a great many articles and books discussing its argument, but it has so far had few consequences in practical politics, and that is what Daniel Chandler sets out to alter here. He presents arguments for a ‘fair society’, which Rawls referred to as ‘realistically utopian’. This review will focus on Chandler’s proposals, sometimes looking at the theoretical background to these.

Essentially, a programme of reforms is set out, including universal basic income and a higher minimum wage. There would be increased taxes on capital income, more progressive inheritance tax and an annual wealth tax on the largest fortunes. Employees should have more say in how their workplaces are run, and co-management (which is found in Germany) would mean workers and owners sharing control rights within a company. Worker co-operatives might be an improvement on this, though. Fee-paying schools would be abolished, and more would be spent on children from less-advantaged backgrounds. University education would be financed by combining free tuition and income-contingent loans. Politics could be made more democratic if corporate donations to political parties were banned and there was a cap on individual donations. Each citizen could be given a ‘democracy voucher’, so they could make an annual donation to a party or candidate of their choice. A combination of electoral and direct democracy would make political equality more likely. Communities could be in charge of local budgets, perhaps by means of citizens’ assemblies.

Rawls’ work is based on a thought experiment. In Chandler’s words, ‘we should ask ourselves what kind of world we would choose to live in if we didn’t know who we would be within it’. Presumably people would opt for a world with little inequality or discrimination, with nobody’s life experience dependent on their gender, ethnicity or sexuality, with equality of opportunity as far as possible. But the trouble is that both authors’ views are stuck within capitalism. Chandler writes: ‘We should rely on markets to distribute most consumer goods and services because the alternative would be some form of state-controlled rationing.’ But this is not the only alternative: a society of free access and production for use based on the common ownership of the means of living could provide a decent life for everyone.

The few remarks made here about socialism are not at all enlightening. Chandler says it is not clear what sort of society socialists today stand for. In a note he states that socialists now advocate reforms, rather than the use of public ownership and central planning, as supposedly used to be the case. But acquaintance with the case of the Socialist Party would show that we oppose reformism and have a definite proposal for future society, and this does not involve central planning. A better response to Rawls’ thought experiment would be a world without money or classes or states or borders, and this is entirely realistic.

Paul Bennett

Brave new world (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eva Goodman

Cranks. (1906)

From the May 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are people about who actually take pride in being called cranks. Crankiness (or is it crankery?) bids fair to become an established cult: it already has one periodical, The Crank, as an official organ, and there are hundreds of newspapers and magazines, daily, weekly, and monthly, that preach it under one or other of its hundred forms.

On the cover of “An Unconventional Magazine” a crank is defined as “a little thing which makes revolutions,” but the dictionary gives us a much less flattering account :—”a crook or bend ; a conceit in speech ; a whim.” Into the composition of the modern crank all these constituents would seem to enter.

The crank is a man (or woman) who sees a part as the whole, a triviality as all important; his mind is so filled with his particular whim or fad that, nothing else has place there. He looks at it so closely that he cannot see beyond it, like a man who holds a small object so near his eye that it obscures his view of everything else.

To set forth all the classes and subdivisions of cranks is impossible in a short paper, for they are “as the sands of the sea shore are multitude,” but we all know and have suffered from, among others, the health crank, the food crank, the religious crank, the land reform crank, the municipal crank, the education crank, the social reform crank, the temperance crank, the political crank.

All these people have recognised that there is something wrong with existing conditions, but instead of analysing these conditions as a whole in order to seek a remedy, they have all and each seized on some particular detail and made reform thereof a hobby horse to be ridden to death. And so there are hundreds of little sects of cranks, each trying to remedy some little social evil. Enormous quantities of ink and paper are wasted every year in voicing their views; each little group completely ignores all the others, and each has its own little patent panacea for the evils of Society.

“Reform” is the watchword of them all, and they have it in common that they all devote their attention to eliminating some effect of economic conditions while leaving those conditions themselves unchanged.

The Socialist, on the other hand, has regard to the whole rather than to any particular detail. He analyses all social conditions and traces them back to their economic root; he recognises that to alter effects is impossible without eliminating causes. In a word his method is the direct opposite to thatof the crank !

The Socialist proves that all the evils from which Society suffers have their origin in the class ownership of the means (land, machinery, mines, etc.) by which the necessaries of life are produced, and the consequent wage-slavery of the great mass of the people; he shows that from this one great economic wrong at the basis of Society arise all the other wrongs, social, political, and moral, and that therefore to right these, it is necessary first of all to change the economic basis of Society by bringing the means of production and distribution under the ownership and control of the whole community. To the Socialist it is just as sensible to try to rid a garden of nettles by picking off their leaves as to attempt to reform the social edifice while the rotten foundations remain untouched.

The Socialist therefore is not a crank.

But there are many cranks who call themselves Socialists. Sometimes these add a distinguishing epithet as “Christian” Socialists. When they do not do so, however, they can only be judged by their words and works. The crank Socialist is always going to do great things for Socialism after his own pet fad is achieved as a first step. To give a full list of these “first steps” would be impossible in the space at my disposal, but among the most familiar are :—Female Suffrage, Adult Suffrage, Payment of Members, Reversal of the Taff Vale Decision, Solution of the Unemployed Problem, Free Maintenance of School Children, Old Age Pensions, etc, etc. “Reform” is the magic word of the crank Socialist by which all these things are to be conjured up out of nowhere, while wage-slavery is still to remain, though shorn of all its ill effects by successive acts of Parliament, and capitalism, though still existing, is to become a kind of metaphysical entity, an evil thing with no evil properties ! This is the dream of the crank Socialist, but it is not Socialism.

Unfortunately, crankery is not only humorous, but, harmful. Thousands of the working class who should be organising for Socialism have been drawn off to follow the will-o’-the-wisp of reform in search of the paradise of cranks.

If this were not so, and if crankery were confined to the bourgeoisie, we could afford to laugh at it; but as things are we must fight it and destroy it as perhaps the most dangerous obstacle in the path of Socialism.

R.A.V.M.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard see the snippet entitled, “The Earth for all?"

I initially thought 'The Crank' was a made up title/journal for the purposes of the article. A catch all title for all the reformist journals from that time, with their 'do something now and we will think about socialism later' proposals but it turns out it was very much a real magazine, published by C. W. Daniel, and rooted in Tolstoyan and Pacifist principles. 

Sadly, there is not a lot of information about it on the net but reading through Daniel's wiki page it does conjure up images of that famous sneering quote from George Orwell about the "fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England . . . ” from The Road to Wigan Pier.

“The Earth for all”? (1906)

From the May 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the heading “The Earth for all” The Crank proposes to publish a series of papers on political economy. The introductory article says “under conditions where there was no private property in land extremes of poverty and wealth could not exist.” Couldn’t they ? If the writer proposes to show that extremes of poverty could not exist under a system of nationalized land only, we shall await further contributions with interest.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard see the article, 'Cranks'.

World Government is not Socialism (1954)

From the October 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Lately we have been hearing rather more often than usual that the way to solve the world’s problems—and particularly that of war—is to have World Government. Probably this is largely due to reaction to the news of the latest atomic weapons, and discussion of their earth-shattering potentialities. The proposal that one World Government should replace the many existing national sovereignties is, of course, by no means a recent one. At first sight it may seem to bear a certain similarity to the proposal to establish Socialism. The movement for World Government is concerned with achieving both universality and peace. So is the Socialist movement. But there the similarity just about ends, as an enquiry into the nature of the various ideas and policies that are advocated in the name of World Government will show.

History of World Government Movements

When and where the ideas of World Government first arose is largely a matter for speculation. Despite the comprehensive power achieved centuries ago by empires such as the Roman and Mongolian, and notwithstanding the work of nineteenth-century “peace societies,” organised efforts directed towards World Government are largely a product of the last two decades. Today there are dozens of organisations here and abroad championing federalism as a basis for world order, and disagreeing among themselves over details and methods. Among the pioneers was Federal Union Ltd., founded in London in 1937, and followed a year later by Federal Union, Inc. in Chicago. Both are concerned with the establishment of a “nuclear union” or federation of democracies which, they claim, must lead towards a world federal government.

In 1938 a World Citizenship Movement was launched in Britain and later in America, its supporters seeking to transcend national sovereignties by proclaiming themselves “world citizens.” One of the best-known personalities in this essentially individual movement was Garry Davis, who six years ago in France renounced his American citizenship in favour of “world citizenship.” In 1949 he launched his “World Citizens’ Pact,” which obtained almost half a million signatures. He returned to America a year later and applied for restoration of his American citizenship.

Meanwhile, other organisations had been springing up like mushrooms. In 1947 a number of American ones coalesced into United World Federalists, which included many secessionists from Federal Union. UWF reached a peak of 50,000 members in 1949. It advocates the transformation of the United Nations into a global federal government with powers to “keep the peace” In the event of Russian refusal to participate, it is prepared to support partial federation.

Finally in this brief survey we must mention the World Movement for World Federal Government, which is described as “the body co-ordinating the efforts of federalist and World Citizen organisations in many lands ”UWF and Federal Union are member organisations of WMWFG, as also is the Crusade for World Government (formed in 1947 under the leadership of a number of British M.P.'s). The fourth World Parliamentary Conference on World Government took place in London in September, and enabled delegates from different nations to reaffirm that all the nations should work together.

The list of names or organisations could be extended considerably. Frederick L. Schuman, in The Commonwealth of Man, goes into considerable detail about them, but claims to present no more than “a few leitmotifs in the symphony or cacophony of movements striving for world federation." From this symphony or cacophony we must try to distinguish the main theme of World Government. 

Their Policies

The WMWFG champions a federal world constitution, with a bill of rights, providing for a global legislature, executive and judiciary, and world law enforceable on individuals. To achieve this end it favours regional federations, United Nations reform, and national political action. Assuming that these measures could be achieved, they would do nothing to alter the property basis of present society. In the absence of majority agreement for revolutionary change, the world constitution, bill of rights, etc., would be modelled upon existing constitutions or upon a combination of them. The continuation of enforceable law, necessitating machinery of coercion, could only be justified on the grounds of the continuation of conflicting interests in a World State.

Recognition that the conflicting interests within property society are not all national ones shows that the advocates of World Government have a fundamentally wrong conception of the nature of the State. The capitalist State exists to prevent the class division in society from disrupting the social organisation, and to protect the interests of capitalist groups from actions instituted by rival capitalist groups abroad. The function of the State is to govern the institutions of property, to defend privileges against outer and inner threats, and to expand the areas within which capitalist exploitation may be profitably carried on.

The advocates of World Government, however, do not accept this, and work on the “social contract" theory of government They believe that men create government to serve the general welfare, and that it stands impartially above the conflict of class interests The actual conduct of governments belies this theory, and reinforces the Socialist contention that the capitalist system cannot be transformed by an expansion of the scope or functions of the State. The problems of mankind are not to be solved by the extension of government.

The Crusade for World Govemment

Some of the propaganda for World Government is not easily recognisable as reformism, and bears a superficial resemblance to Socialist propaganda. Consider the following passage from the Policy and Programme Statement of the Crusade for World Government 1953-4:

“A new order in world affairs is overdue. That new order must be a World Government obtaining its authority from the peoples of the world, representing all peoples, and having power to act in their common interests; a World Government which takes over and disbands national armed forces; which establishes and enforces the rule of world law, and which ensures social and economic justice for all peoples. World Government must come by the demand of the citizens of the world . . . "

The language is deceptively revolutionary. For “a World Government" one could read “Socialism" and, if not too critical, one could imagine that the two movements shared the same object. It is worthwhile, therefore, to examine the passage quoted very carefully.

A World Government representing all peoples, and having power to act in their common interests gives the impression that each man, woman and child, would be so represented on a basis of social equality. If the “common interests" are also those of each and every person then the form of society cannot continue to be a property one with antagonistic classes—it must be Socialism. It will be noted that the Policy Statement does not list the abolition of property relationships among its aims, and this omission makes an important difference to the significance of the other proposals. These proposals—the world government, rule of world law, etc.—in effect boil down to the ideal of federating the separate nations into one super-nation, without changing the class nature of society.

It is not surprising that the Crusade for World Government should advocate no revolutionary change. In its own words, it “is not influenced or controlled by any political party or group but is supported by people in all walks of life, of different national origins, creeds and opinions." It is possible that there are some members of CWG or other World Government organisations who claim that Socialism is their ultimate object, but that World Government is the immediate necessity. To these we would say: the quest for peace is admirable, and a world community of interests eminently desirable. But the movement for World Government like all other reformist movements, is trying to alter the results of the present system instead of working to abolish the system itself.

Seekers after peace and an equalitarian society are faced with the existence of property (private or state), the division of mankind into those with property rights and those without them, and all the ideas that enable this social system to continue. All these are inseparable aspects of capitalist society, and if any one is to be changed then all must be changed. A movement that does not require its members to be united in opposition to Capitalism is not capable of advancing Socialism. Those who desire a peaceful world run in the interests of all mankind will not achieve what they desire by supporting the policies of world government organisations. The comment of Gerard J. Mangone adds a final word of caution to any who doubt this: “World Government is but a technique of doing something on a large scale, not a guarantee of a better life for all."

Stan Parker

50 Years Ago: Telegram to British Association (2010)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Telegram sent to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at their September 1960 Conference in Cardiff.

TODAY YOU WILL DISCUSS WORLD POPULAT1ON PROBLEMS. MAY WE EXPRESS TO YOU OUR CONVICTION THAT THE PROBLEMS OF MASS STARVATION AND MALNUTRITION AMIDST POTENTIAL PLENTY CANNOT BE SOLVED UNLESS PRODUCTION IS CARRIED ON SOLELY IN ORDER TO SATISFY HUMAN NEEDS, UNFETTERED BY ANY CONSIDERATIONS OF FINANCIAL OR NATIONAL GAIN.

IN OUR VIEW IT IS UTOPIAN AND IRRATIONAL TO ATTEMPT TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS EXCEPT ON A WORLD-WIDE BASIS OF COMMON OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION. MEN MUST ORGANISE TO ABOLISH ALL CLASS AND STATE OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS OF LIVING  – MONEY. THEREBY. BEING RENDERED REDUNDANT. AT LAST MAN COULD GRAPPLE WITH HIS PROBLEMS IN A TRULY HUMAN AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT. THE VISIONS OF BACON AND MARX WOULD BECOME THE REALITY.

 

SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

(Socialist Standard, October 1960).

A Third-Class Report (1973)

From the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Have you noticed how often reformers are behind the times ? They want to make public transport free when the majority of people no longer use it; or to protect ancient buildings after most of them have been pulled down; or ban some deleterious sport such as hunting or prizefighting at the stage when it is nearly extinct anyway, the realistic time for the campaigns ought to be in the heyday of whatever-it-is. And that is precisely the time in most cases when the reformers are saying nothing about it.

The Observer and other papers have made headlines recently of the discovery that some public swimming baths are dirty, and the demand for a clean-up. The reporters must have been diligent — and young. If they were not young, and could recall Third-Class Night at the municipal baths before 1939, they would not have been so horrified. They would know also that a few coppers in the income structure saved from or condemned to it. Gentle reader, if you are squeamish don’t read on. I was there.

The Baths were in the High Street. They were also the municipal wash-house, and the back windows billowed steam over a railed-in and litter-strewn dirt patch which was called (what joys!) the Recreation Ground. The swimming bath could be floored-over with rough wood blocks and was used in winter for free concerts, cheap dances, and political meetings.

The principle of Third-Class Night was that the water was changed once a week. On Mondays and Tuesdays the swimming was First Class: that is, the water was clean. Ladies’ session and gentlemen’s session at sevenpence a time, and the local Grammar School had time reserved. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were Second Class, for fourpence — ladies’, gents’, and mixed, and the broth thickening inexorably.

And Saturday . . . Saturday was Third-Class Night, mixed: twopence. They used to say “Tread water”. No problem; you could have done handstands on it. The story of Christ walking on the water probably originated on Third-Class Night in the baths at Jerusalem. You could stay in as long as you liked, so everyone peed while swimming about as the need arose. There was a joke about a conscientious girl who always gave the attendant a penny before she left. Every male over thirty spat frequently as well, because every male over thirty did that everywhere.

Shampooing and shirt-changing did not happen frequently, either, if you were in the Saturday class. Most men slept in their shirts, and a good many in their socks too. For a lot of the Third-Class-Nighters the twopenny swim was a combination of business and pleasure; you got a wash, of sorts, all over. Of course a lot of the basic muck came from the Second and First Class, but it was probably thought an honour for us to swim in their secretions. Like Madame Tussaud’s: Mingle With the Mighty.

There we floundered in our scores, doing breast strokes and side strokes and colliding with one another in yellow-grey water you couldn’t see the bottom through and with cigarette ends and spit and bits of paper floating all round. We wiped and dried ourselves with the scraggy municipal towels. And when we had gone they emptied the soup away and filled the bath with nice clean water for the First Class again on Monday.

So the Observer won’t scare me with its pale account of a grubby swimming bath somewhere: what it describes is mere Second-Class stuff. But I cannot remember any reporter coming to our Baths on Saturday night and going away to Shock the Nation with his findings. Surely that would have been a much better time? However, it would have been a complicated investigation. It would have led to discovering that our problem was not dirt but poverty and inequality; and to get to the bottom of it they would have to go into the economics of capitalism. You can’t expect newspapers and reformers to start that kind of thing.

Robert Barltrop

Capitalist Republic (2023)

Book Review from the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Abolish the Monarchy. By Graham Smith. Penguin, 2023. £16.99

This book by the campaign group Republic’s CEO makes clear that its formal aspirations are for a liberal republic. They see the monarchy as something of left-over business (indeed, at one point in the book he actually argues that the rump of royal powers cannot be exercised because of the lack of legitimacy of the Crown, but that a president could deploy those powers: a cry for more executive power seems an odd stance for democrats).

In fact, the liberal fantasy gripping his work is on full display while he segues into discussing an elected House of Lords. Despite bemoaning the lack of imagination of those who can’t think past having a monarchy, he likewise cannot imagine a state without a bicameral legislature (albeit wanting all parts to be elected). Smith’s republicanism is simply wanting to continue the liberal project and sweep away the last vestiges of feudal power.

His book is worth reading for two features, though. The first is for his accounts of being a campaigning activist outside the political machines, and secondly for his attempts to describe a process of big reform to society, such as a wave of activism that sweeps away the monarchy. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a motor, beyond hope, for how this could come about, but nonetheless there is a certain, well, nobility in his continuing to plug away.

Smith, noting the predilection for the BBC to propagandise on behalf of the monarchy, says he is not suggesting a conspiracy, yet for the first half of the book he describes the very real secretive way the monarchy act and the determined way it protects itself. It is an organised conspiracy against the public, and by misunderstanding the nature of power beyond the formal and public roles, he is missing the real class nature of monarchy. Despite this, he is interesting on the actual real wealth the monarchy wields, and the way in which that buys considerable sway alone (especially as it has special access to the laws around which it can operate its businesses).

Pik Smeet

‘Philanthropy’ An Asset to the Capitalist (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following report, taken from a trade paper, needs very little comment: —

“The effect of a judgment which Mr. Justice Macnaughten delivered on June 16th in a revenue case was that contentment and loyalty of employees have a monetary value which their employers may include in the computation of their capital for assessment of excess profits tax.

“The case before the court concerned payments of over £1,000,000 by Lever Bros, and Unilever, Ltd., into their employees’ pension fund in order to provide pensions for employees and their widows. The company contended that by the payment of these sums they had brought into existence an asset in a feeling of greater security and contentment among their employees, leading to increased efficiency, and that the value of the asset should therefore be included in the computation of the capital employed in the business.

“The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, holding that no asset had thereby been created, assessed the company accordingly. The Special Commissioner upheld the finding; from that decision the company appealed.

“Mr. Justice Macnaughten allowed the appeal, saying that it could not be suggested that the word ‘asset’ in the schedule to the Finance Act, 1929, was restricted to material things; the company had acquired an asset within the meaning of the Act, and its value was the amount paid for it.” (The Insurance Mail, 21/6/44.)

There it is—pensions for worn-out workers, an asset to be paid for at its market price.

R. Ambridge