So They Say: The Reason Why (1977)

The So They Say Column from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Reason Why

A bewildered assistant is no assistant at all; the Conservatives have got one of theirs, Margot Lawrence, “flummoxed”. Judging by her contribution to the columns of the Daily Telegraph on the 30th August, this is probably no difficult achievement in any event. She became concerned to clarify the “highly emotive phrase” “production for use, not profit”, which some dastardly Socialists argue from time to time. Writing under the title “Isn’t production for profit?” she is puzzled why the Conservatives are “failing to use the strongest argument in their own book”:

That production for use is production for profit, the two are intertwined and inseparable.

Notwithstanding Margot Lawrence’s view that “almost all people do have enough money for what they really need”, we suggest that one of the reasons the rest of the Conservative Party does not argue along the lines she proposes is that such a contention could not be sustained.

Production in capitalist society is carried on because the owners of the means of production realize a profit from selling their commodities. All of these commodities are considered useful by the purchaser, whether they be the lawn-mowers used as an illustration in the article or weapons of mass destruction used in war. When production in certain fields would be unprofitable however, no owner will advance capital for such production. Vast numbers of the world’s population do not starve because food would not be “useful”, they starve because it is unprofitable to feed them.

When the Socialist says “production for use”, he is saying: abandon the form of society in which society’s needs are assessed in terms of the minority’s requirement for profit.

Problems and . . . More Problems

We give below two excerpts from newspapers which illustrate this particular point. Capitalism has an apparently uncanny ability to produce social problems. A study of the foundations on which it is based show in fact that it cannot fail to do otherwise. Although it would be naive to suggest that Socialist society will not face problems, we will be able to devote our fullest efforts towards solving them and preventing new problems from arising.

In capitalism we have surely reached a pinnacle of absurdity when the means are available to solve, for instance, the problem of starvation, but the possible avenues for tackling the first problem, through only partial application, create a “problem” of precisely the opposite nature. We are sometimes asked what Socialism will be like: we can predict now that the newspapers of Socialism will not need to carry items like these.

The Community [EECJ is being chased by an ever-increasing milk surplus. It is about to operate what is described in the jargon of Brussels as a “corresponsibility levy”, in other words a penalty against farmers for producing too much milk . . . Milk is a tiresome commodity for the EEC to handle since it is expensive to store and difficult to sell to anybody else . . . the official intervention stores are often the only outlet for it.

The Times, 5th September 77

Asia’s major hope for future development, the “green revolution”, is now failing to keep pace with the rapid growth ir. population, and this will condemn a quarter of mankind to continued poverty,, hunger, malnutrition and unemployment.

The Times, 6th September 77

First Things First

The well known Conservative bull-frog, Reginald Maudling, has been croaking on the difficulties faced by industrialists because of the governing consideration of profitability. The aforementioned Margot Lawrence would do well to note his passionate comments. Mr. Maudling, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, had this to say in a published letter:

With the possible exception of the strike-ridden motor car industry, it seems to me clear that potential supply is far greater than existing demand. Maybe potential supply has been reduced by discouraging investment, but there is no doubt whatsoever from every bit of evidence that emerges from industry, that what is holding back supply at the moment is not capacity, but inadequate demand.

The Times, 2nd September 77

He was writing a week before Ford Motor Company’s decision to build an £180m engine plant in South Wales, but even so his comments do not seem so wide of the mark, as Ford is making it clear “that the new plant did not point to plans for a huge increase in total car production”.

The problem of “inadequate demand" seems an odd one at first glance. Can this be anything other than a campaign of stubbornness by members of the working class? Why, at the present moment the majority are forced to live in circumstances where the watchword is Cheapness; one-and-a-half million of the blighters are out of work entirely. You would think they were able to make plenty of “adequate” demands for the sake of the frustrated industrialists. “Ah, but wait a minute,” will say the latter. "They may have plenty of demands —but have they got the money to go with them?”

Miracle Man

It may not be the second coming, but it is a present-day equivalent. When the Associated Television Corporation began making their fiction-film Jesus of Nazareth, we recall Lew Grade, the group chairman and chief executive, muttering about it being made because it would be meaningful, important and so on. Some may have mistakenly imagined these comments related to the content of the film.

Zeffirelli’s majestic production of ‘Jesus of Nazareth" was first shown in this country on Palm Sunday, 3rd April 1977. It achieved immediate success both at home and abroad. In Britain, the audiences amounted to 21 million viewers; in the USA to over 91 million and in Italy 84 per cent saw the film. I have no hesitation in saying that this film, representing ATV's largest single film-production investment, will prove an asset of inestimable wealth to the company and provide a valuable annuity over the years to come.

The Times 8th September 1977

Lord Grade (as he is now called) had taken a full page advertisement to publicise ATV’s results. Although he refers to the “inestimable wealth” resulting from the film, share-holders like to have their information in more precise terms.

The results speak from themselves. The pre-tax profit figure is £11,161,000, the highest in the 22 years history of the company, and shows an increase of 81 per cent over 1976.

Thus we learn, in the words of the good book, exactly what it shall profit a man.

Tony D'Arcy

Struggle for power in the Tory Party (1963)

From the August 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the facts to come to the surface of the murky waters of the Profumo affair is that there is now a serious split in the Conservative party, at any rate in Parliament, over who should lead them at the next election..

For some time Tory M.P.s have been harbouring considerable dissatisfaction with Mr. Macmillan's leadership. Men like Nigel Birch, Lord Lambton and Sir Harry Legge-Bourke have made no secret of the fact that in their opinion they stand a better chance of coining back to Westminster next time under a new, younger leader. It seems safe to assume that this feeling is more widely held than the number of abstentions in the Profumo debate would indicate. There is some fairly sound evidence that many Conservative M.P.s agreed to go into the government lobby thad night only after their doubts had been stilled by a promise that Mr. Macmillan would resign as soon as it was possible for him to do so without losing too much political dignity. If this is true, then Mr. Macmillan's television announcement that he still hopes to be the Tory leader in the next election was a very fast one to be pulled. It was a typically shrewd move by a master at the game of staying in power. But more of that later.

For the moment, let us observe that another of the blows which Mr. Profumo dealt his party was that he deprived them of their cherished image of unity. It has long been a useful electoral move for the Tories to publicise the searing splits in the Labour Party and indeed Labour has had their share of them. These splits have also provided the Tories with some useful bogy men—particularly, of course, the late Aneurin Bevan. In contrast, the Conservative Party has usually seemed like a haven of peace. Nobody asking awkward questions. Nobody getting at the leader. No splits, at any rate on the surface. But now all that is gone. And to heighten the Tories' discomfort, the Labour Party now seems to be calmly united. Mr. Wilson has trod craftily since he became leader of the Opposition; his admonition to the 1922 Committee to call off their attacks on Mr. Macmillan, was typical, of his aptitude for political warfare. At this distance, Mr. Wilson seems to be one of the cleverest of Labour's post-war leaders. He seems to have pacified his Party, although he has undoubtedly been helped in this by the fact that Labour's electoral hopes are so high. Nothing concentrates the mind of a capitalist political party so much as the realisation that power is almost within their grasp. It is anybody’s guess how long this will last. If, after all their lip-smacking over the gallup polls and the by-elections, Labour lose the next election, Wilson may well get the blame and find his grip on his office considerably weaker. For the moment, it seems to he getting stronger as the days go by.

Despite the Tory split, it was always on the cards that Macmillan would not in fact go over Profumo. Clever indeed was the question, put in another context by The Economist, ". . . may the Government, or rather the Prime Minister, of Britain be about to be overthrown by a 21-year- old trollop? " How many M.P.s would answer yes to that question?

Perhaps not many Tory M.P,s would realise that in any case it was beside the point. Apart from the distressing—for the Tories—thought of Miss Keeler giving Mr. Macmillan the sack, there was the urgent question of who to replace Mr. Macmillan with. The Prime Minister has cleverly pushed all of his likely rivals out of the running. Men like Butler, Hailsham and Macleod, all of whom were once well fancied for the succession, have been sidetracked and in some ways discredited. If Britain had succeeded in the application to join the Common Market, Edward Heath may have been in line for the job. As it is, however . . . Selwyn Lloyd has been banished and into the bargain he has been held in check, his energy diverted into work like his recent instigation into Conservative Party organisation. The strongest challenger now seems to be Mr. Maudling but apart from anything else, he would operate under the handicap of leading a government full of aspirants for his job.

The fact is that Mr. Macmillan has never allowed a Crown Prince to rise from the Tory ranks. When Churchill was Prime Minister there was no serious doubt that when he went he would be succeeded by Anthony Eden. Churchill was firmly enough in the saddle to be able to tolerate this situation. In contrast, Macmillan's rule has seen a number of potential challengers rise only to fall again into comparative obscurity. This may yet be the fate of the genial Mr. Maudling. Macmillan has played this card—a strong one—for all he is worth, together with the other trumps he holds— his unprecedented election successes and the threat to dissolve Parliament, with the implied follow-up that this would mean throwing a lot of potentially rebellious Tory M.P.s to the electoral wolves. We may be sure that nothing is more calculated to dampen the fires of revolt in the well-cared-for bellies of Conservative members.

If Macmillan pulled out all his aces in the Profumo battle, it can only be because he was literally fighting for his political life. The last few years have seen his government facing a series of crises, many of which he has been able to dismiss with an audaciously airy phrase. Thorneycroft's resignation was “ alittle local difficulty." Selwyn Lloyd went because, perhaps, he was "tired." He has even tried the same trick in his latest crisis. “ I see," he said, a couple of weeks after the Profumo debate, "the Gallup Poll is going up again. These things come and go." Yet this was surely his gravest hour, with a lot of the Tory press after him and no end of whispers of even worse to come, when we knew the identity of the naked butler and of one or two other curious figures.

Perhaps the crucial point in the Profumo crisis was when the news got out that Mr. Enoch Powell and Sir Edward Boyle were considering resigning over the way the affair had been handled. This was dangerous news, because these two men could have been the gathering points for other rebellious Tories. In The Spectator of June 21st Henry Fairlie, who wrote up the story of the threatened resignations for the Daily Express, contributed a dramatic article which claimed that the story was given to him by a Conservative Member of Parliament, " . . . a source which not only was reliable but made the story credible. . .” Fairlie also gave his opinion that the impending resignations were leaked as part of a deliberate political move by his informant, a move to get Mr. Macmillan out.

This story, if true, is an indication of how deep is the split in the Tory party and how tricky was the situation which Macmillan faced. This is in no way diminished by the fact that Mr. Fairlie's informant, plotting against Macmillan on one hand, supported him in the voting on that fateful night. Mr. Fairlie, indeed, is as impressed by this as we would expect an experienced political journalist to be. “(It) only shows,” he commented, " that politicians are politicians.”

Should we, then, leave the matter there, so casually and with such a worldly cynicism? The row which is going on now in the Conservative Party, and which has been going on for so long in the Labour Party, is about one thing: power. They are all of them fighting over which policies and which leaders may give them the best chance of persuading enough people to vote for them to return them to power at a future election. It does not matter if they have no Intention of carrying out their policies. It does not matter if the leader they choose is dishonest or callous as many, in the past, we know have been. Provided they deliver the goods the policies and the leader get the support they need.

And the goods—the votes—come from the very people who have nothing to gain either way in the struggle for power. The majority of voters in this and every other capitalist country are members of the working class. They are the people who have to spend their entire lives working to build the wealth of capitalism and who make possible the very luxuries and privileges which power struggles are about. They organise and administer capitalism in all its aspects and at every level. Without their work, capitalism could not carry on. Yet although they hold this powerful position, the working class never exert it to the full. They could get rid of capitalism; yet they accept it as part of the natural order of things. Although they may not like some of the effects of capitalism, the working class generally think that there is little or nothing that can be done about them. If they lose confidence in one capitalist party they are content to put another to govern in its place. They accept the notion that capitalism’s leaders are as effective as the leaders themselves like to think. They pine for strong leaders, or clever leaders, or peaceful and humane leaders. They never reflect upon the fact that, no matter who is at the head of capitalism, it ticks over as unpleasantly as ever.

This is the human material with which Macmillan and the other politicians work. These are the people who fall for the smooth slogans and the big ads., the people who are convinced that they have never had it so good. These are the people who are fed with the newspaper revelations of the latest sordid sexual adventures of public figures. Is it any wonder that capitalism's leaders are hard and ruthless men?

One day the full story of the Profumo affair will be written and it will not make pleasant reading. It will be a story, familiar enough to us now, of lies (not just Profumo's) and double dealing. And by the time it is on the bookstalls there will have been many more scandals, many more political deals, much more ruthless struggling for power. It will probably be a best seller.

Ivan.

News in Review: The Budget (1964)

The News in Review column from the May 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

The Budget

Many of the professional economic forecasters came out rather better than usual from Mr. Maudling’s second Budget. The heavier taxes on alcohol and tobacco had been widely tipped and so had some extension of the betting tax. But the Chancellor upset many predictions by not altering the standard rate of income tax, the tax on petrol and National Insurance contributions and benefits.

There is always plenty of advice and prognostication from the financial experts before a Budget. Experience does not encourage us to regard this as very valuable. Said The Economist of April 11th:—

. . . the surge in demand and productivity during this last financial year . . . . has looked astonishingly similar to that in the financial year 1959-60 . . . (when) most economic commentators urged Mr. Amory to raise taxes by between £100 million and £200 million in his Budget . . . but . . . from that first quarter of 1960 demand and productivity suddenly ceased to grow and, apart from minor fluctuations, remained at about the same level for two years. Modern economic computers can sometimes badly overestimate the exact amounts of tax increases that are really desirable in times of boom, because nobody has yet devised a science for gauging the way in which a boom mentality among consumers can quite suddenly be deflated.

This last admission did not, of course, prevent The Economist from offering its own advice to Mr. Maudling.

It is a widely held assumption that tax alterations are bound to affect prices. But the facts show that this is not the case. There have been plenty of recent examples—cinema seats, lawn mowers, some types of confectionery—in which a change in tax has not been responsible for a change in price.

Prices must move as the market allows them to. At one time the market may allow a manufacturer to recoup a tax increase by putting up his price—or perhaps even to over-compensate by putting the price up by more than the rise in tax. At another time selling conditions may not allow such an increase and the manufacturer will have to yield up some more of his profit to the government.

Whatever happens, the government are only interested in raking in the taxes to help pay for the upkeep of the State machine and all its ramifications.

This year’s Budget will probably be unpopular among the working class, who seem to get a real kick out of the couple of shillings a week extra which some Budgets may bring them—and who can be cast into deep depression by a Budget which goes the other way. In this confusion and ignorance, Mr. Maudling may have done enough to set the seal on his party's fate in the Autumn.

A Labour London

The Labour victory in the elections to the new Greater London Council was widely forecast, although even so in some of the contests they were surprisingly successful.

The government at the moment is in very heavy weather and the dissatisfaction with the Conservatives at national level was bound to influence local affairs as well.

It was not so long ago that the Tories were saying that politics were better kept out of local government. The Town Hall was, apparently, the place where local men good and true did their level best for the locality. To introduce party labels into this was ungentlemanly.

The father of the present Duchess of Kent, in an interview with The Observer, once gave a typical expression to this attitude. He was at the time a prominent member of an urban council in Yorkshire. Sometimes, he said, some Labour fellows tried to get on the council, but in most cases they soon learned to drop that stuff and to work for local interests.

Officially, this is no longer the Tory line. None of their candidates for the G.L.C. stood under the old labels of Ratepayers, or Municipal Reform, or anything like them. They were all Conservatives. “I hope," said the leader of their candidates, Sir Percy Rugg, “ there is no Conservative who thinks his vote does not matter."

This taking off the gloves has helped in the notion that the local elections are a sort of primary for the general election which is to come in the Autumn. Certainly, the Labour Party are hailing their victory as a precursor of what is to happen when Sir Alec finally names the day. The Tories, as we may expect, are analysing the voting figures again and again, looking for evidence that they prove exactly nothing at all.

Nobody was anxious to draw attention to another way in which the G.L.C. election resembled a general election—in the glowing promises which were made to the voters. Sir Percy Rugg offered “. . . humane and personal administration as well as efficiency . . . a realistic housing target ”

His Labour counterpart, Mr. W. Fiske, was promising cheaper land for housing and a lower interest rate for house building loans. Council mortgage rates were, indeed, the big electioneering point of the campaign.

Labour are cock-a-hoop at their win and are waiting impatiently for the day when they take over the government. But their chickens are by no means yet hatched.

One of the depressing features of the G.L.C. election was not simply the fact that once again the working class made it known that they are satisfied to choose between alternative ways of running capitalism. It was the simple, almost incredible, ignorance and naivety of the reasons which the voters who were interviewed on radio and television gave for voting as they did.

At the moment these people are largely being fooled into voting Labour. Come the Autumn they could just as easily be fooled into voting Conservative. And while everyone in going up and down on the see-saw capitalism goes grimly on.

Politics

Powell speaks out

Mr. Enoch Powell, who is supposed to be a very clever man, and the conscience of the Conservative Party, has been a source of embarrassment to his leaders for a long time. They must shiver, now, whenever he opens his mouth for fear of what uncomfortable revelation he will make.

But Mr. Powell is the sort of politician whose ideas have little relevance to the hard realities of administering capitalism. In this he is rather like the pacifist in the Labour Party. His speech at the beginning of last month to the East Renfrewshire Unionist Association, in which he attacked the government's attempts to direct industry to the development areas, showed what a dreamland this one time professor of Greek lives in.

If labour were perfectly mobile, said Mr. Powell, if the market were theoretically perfect, the level of unemployment would be precisely the same everywhere.

These are the sort of “ifs” which capitalism has long ago ruled out of the reckoning. Mr. Powell has said more than once that profitability should be the only motive for productive activity. The rulers of capitalism have come to realise that the profit motive is best served by a certain amount of interference with Mr. Powell’s “theoretically perfect” market.

Mr. Powell himself, indeed, appears to have seen the need for this. For some time he was Minister of Health, running the National Health Service, which is anything but a “theoretically perfect” market for, say, the labour power of the doctors and for the hospital services which patients require.

Mr. Powell has yet to say that he favours a health system in which hospitals charge patients as much as they can and in which the patient is free to take his custom to the quack up the road.

Nor has he said whether he is in favour of free enterprise armed forces and local authorities.

All political parties, of course, have their wild men whose ideas, especially when they are out of office, seem extreme enough to rule them out of all chance of ever getting to the top. Aneurin Bevan is one who was once in this category. Yet if he were still alive, he would probably now be the leader of the Labour Party—and perhaps the next Prime Minister. It is certain that, if he had ever made Number Ten, he would have been a different Bevan to the man who once made the Tories' blood go cold.

By the same token we may yet see Enoch Powell at the top, complacently administering the very things which he now denounces.

Abroad

Cyprus

Anybody who is surprised at the continuing struggle in Cyprus ignores the fact that the Treaty which closed the last bout of trouble there was almost bound to break down.

The Treaty took little account of the political complications involved and, like so many of its kind, ignored the nationalistic prejudices of the island's people. Years of guerilla warfare against the British rulers, accompanied by all the usual hate propaganda and brutality from both sides, succeeded in fanning these prejudices to a dangerous temperature.

It would have taken more than a few signatures on a piece of paper to remedy this situation. So the Treaty, as is usual, simply pretended that it was not there.

But certain things are there. The age old clash of interests between Greece and Turkey, over who shall dominate the eastern Mediterranean, is there. So is the British interest in the oil and the Suez Canal and the other strategic potential of the area. And so, in the background, is the American resolve that nothing shall threaten their standing in the Middle East.

The United Nations has shown once again how ineffectual it is when it is up against the confusion of capitalist interests. As in the Congo, it has taken a long time and a lot of argument to get the pale blue flag into Cyprus. Contrast this with what happened in Korea, and later in the Lebanon, when the United States moved in against what it saw as a powerful threat and was determined to have no nonsense about keeping the peace.

The climate of Cyprus, and the eradication of the mosquito there, have made it one of the healthiest spots in the world. It is the inevitable conflict of capitalist interests, and the hate and strife which this arouses, which makes the island a place of such unpleasant memories—and promises to do so for some time in the future.

Business

City & Labour Party

It is a popular misconception that a Labour victory in the Autumn will be bad for the capitalist class; that production, investment, and so on, will be less profitable and that business will, therefore, be in the doldrums.

It is true that the City generally prefers a Conservative government, but this is not to say that their professed fear of a Labour government is sensible. Business men, after all, are as capable of misjudgement as anyone else. And, anyway, there are plenty of industrial and commercial tycoons who support the Labour Party.

Robert Heller, the Business Editor of The Observer, has polled what he calls “influential City men” on their reactions to a possible Labour government. He reported the comments of seven of them on April 12th last.

Two of them thought that a Labour victory would be bad for business; two thought that it would have little or no effect. The other three thought that the policies of a future Labour administration would depend upon the conditions under which it took power—in particular, on the size of its majority.

Three said that investment was being held back by the prospect of a Labour government. The other four said that this prospect was having no real effect on investment.

One thought that the Stock Exchange had not adequately discounted the risks of a Labour victory — had not, in other words, sufficiently rearranged its interests so that they will remain just as profitable when Labour policies are in action. One gave no opinion on this question, but the other five were of the opinion that whatever risk there may be had been adequately discounted.

What this means is that the attitude which the capitalists arc adopting to the prospect of a future Labour government is much as we might expect. Some Labour policies, they think, may be bad for some types of business. In the same way, some of them probably think that some policies of the Conservative government have been bad—the R.P.M. Bill, the attempt to join the Common Market, and so on.

But, as Robert Heller comments: -

With certain extremely forthright exceptions, they don’t regard the prospect as very dreadful. . . . Some top boardroom names not only hope but expect to carry on business as usual. (Under a Labour government).

A Wilson administration may bring some superficial differences in the overall pattern of commercial, industrial and investment affairs.

But the City still expects to be able to carry on and to show some nice profits for the shareholders.

And the City is right.

Because under a Labour government capitalism will still be there.

Two giants

Two of the world’s industrial giants reported last month.

General Motors claimed that world sales of their vehicles were 14 per cent. above the 1962 record. Their total sales were worth nearly $16,495 million; they paid out almost $2,245 million in taxes and $4,313 million in wages.

There are many GM subsidiaries in this country, among them Vauxhall Motors, which, it is claimed, plays a “ significant part . . . in the British economy.” Another way, this, of putting the old crack about what is good for GM being good for the U.S.A.

Imperial Chemical Industries are now in process of writing off a lot of their old plant at the pace demanded by the developing technology of the chemical industry. Their total sales last year were £508.5 million (£10 million of them to the U.S.S.R.). They plan to spend £100 million this year on capital projects.

These figures may not mean much to the people who daily commute to a £15 a week job. But they reflect something which should be obvious to everyone.

It does not take much knowledge of industry to realise that the productive processes of plants like those owned by G.M. and I.C.I. are extremely complicated and require an enormous co-operative effort to keep them flowing.

In their way, they are a testimony to man’s ability to provide for himself. At the moment that ability is restricted by the anarchy of capitalism's commodity production. In a free world, in which all men’s interests were the same, the ingenuity which is evident in modern industry would make its contribution to the common good.

The tragedy today is that it goes to preserve a shareholding minority in their privilege.

When capitalism’s industrial giants trumpet their achievements abroad, what they are really saying is that the skill and the co-operation of their workers has once more done its best and been exploited to the full.

Postscript

B.B.C. European News

“Mr. Krushchev has said that as well as the moral stimulus of Communism, workers in the Soviet Union also need the material stimulus of being able to earn more when they work harder. He told a special agricultural committee of the Communist Party Praesidium that the more workers on state farms turn out, the more they must receive. ’We must struggle resolutely against wage-levelling,' Mr. Krushchev declared, 'and advance boldly along the path of material encouragement for quality and quantity produced ’.”

Finance and Industry: Trouble among the experts (1963)

The Finance and Industry column from the February 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trouble among the experts

Regular readers of these columns will know that we do not have a very high opinion of economic experts. We have so often seen them proved wrong, so often seen them at a loss when really called upon to make a decision or commit themselves, so often seen them at sixes and sevens among themselves, so often seen them compelled to eat their pretentious and self-satisfied words, that we are no longer surprised whatever they do or say. Not the most appealing of their habits either is the way they shoot off on completely new tacks, contradicting all they have said before without the slightest hint of an apology or blush of shamefacedness. Yes, we must admit to a very jaundiced view of our economic pundits.

The latest example of what we mean is a report in the Observer recently about the investigations of a certain Mr. Little of Nuffield College, Oxford. Mr. Little is described in the same article as being one of the two or three most brilliant economists of his generation, so presumably his views are destined to carry some weight.

The most important of his observations is that it is "useless to try to predict the future earnings of a company from any single past earnings growth ratio, or from dividends, or from asset size." Which, if true, means that the whole paraphernalia of investment analysis, hitherto regarded as the last word in predicting the future fortunes of capitalist firms, falls to the ground. According to the Observer there are hundreds of economists, accountants, and actuaries all busily engaged on such analysis in London City offices, and there must be many more in the United Stales where the whole idea started. Apparently, if Mr. Little is to be believed, they have all been wasting their time.

His conclusions were so demoralising that a prominent stockbroking firm made its own investigation. Its report confirmed that made by Mr. Little. We are left wondering why it did not get around to making the discovery for itself without waiting for an outsider to do it.

Another fallacy knocked on the head is that much of the talk we have had to listen to about the virtues of good management is so much guff. According to Mr. Little, if by good management is meant “the ability to produce and maintain a higher return than the average,” then it hardly exists, and really bad management is equally rare. Our managers, it would seem, are in fact much of a muchness. Marks and Spencer for example is often quoted with admiration as a firm with top class management, but in reality it is hardly out of the ordinary. “Statistically speaking,” says Mr. Little, “ Marks and Spencer does not exist.”

We hope to report further in due course on the repercussions, if any, of Mr. Little’s revelations. No doubt our investment analysts will think of something to preserve and justify their existence.

Pump-priming

We reported last month on the Government’s efforts to stimulate Britain’s flagging economy and on the capitalists' un-enthusiastic response.

Mr. Maudling has now cut Bank Rate to 4 per cent. and brought down purchase tax on radios, television sets, and cosmetics to 25 per cent. in a further effort to prime the pump. Our capitalists still remain unimpressed.

What they are really waiting for is a clear indication that when they start investing in further plant there will be a nice big market ready to absorb their products. In the present economic mood, it will take more than Government pump-priming measures to get them round to that.

Top firms

The Observer recently published figures showing the hundred top British firms graded according to the amount of their net assets.

The table is too big to reproduce in full, but we show on this page the names of the top twenty as a useful record. They all have net assets of more than a £100 million. In case anyone wonders why Royal Dutch Shell does not appear it is because it is an international company.

Stan Hampson

Political Notebook: Honour Among Thieves (1979)

The Political Notebook Column from the April 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Honour Among Thieves

One of the main themes of Shakespeare’s telly spectacular Julius Caesar is that of “honourable men". Every schoolboy knows how Mark Antony (himself not averse to a little honest cheating) used that phrase over and over again to describe the conspirators who had recently murdered their former friend, Caesar. So successful was Antony in the use of these words that the mob eventually set off howling for the murderers’ blood. The parallels between this and some modern politicians and members of the capitalist class (all honourable men) are interesting.

Take for example, the Peachey Property Corporation. The former chairman of this group, Sir Eric Miller, shot himself. (It would have been more romantic had he run on his own sword as Brutus and Cassius did, but never mind). He did so when it was perfectly obvious that the huge financial fiddles that he had undertaken were coming to light. The Department of Trade report investigating Peachey Properties said, according to the Guardian (31.1.79) "Sir Eric covered his misdeeds by telling lies freely, fabricating false documents and causing others to fabricate and utter false documents.’’ (Which didn’t prevent him getting his knighthood).

Dead men are supposed to tell no tales, that Sir Eric’s ghost, like Caesar’s before him is causing other former friends some little problems. It appears that Sir Eric, according to the Department of Trade used the company’s money as his own instead of treating it as the money of others, which it was. As is well known, Sir Eric dispensed little favours to his friends. For example filing cabinets and £3304 worth of champagne to a party for Harold Wilson. (Perhaps Harold needed the filing cabinets to store the champagne.) Wilson of course was good to Erie; after all, Wilson knighted Eric before knighting himself. True brotherhood.

More Tales of the Dead

Then there was Reggie Maudling. Of course he is now dead. 1 say "of course” since there were those who maintained you could not tell the difference. He was another honourable man. No other politician was more often almost Prime Minister this century, and you cannot get more honourable than that. He too had his little friends—such as Sir Eric. Reggie did not get any champagne; but as is fairly well known he received more substantial benefits in the property market. The Observer (4.2.79) notes that the Department of Trade report explained the complicated deal whereby Reggie sold the freehold of his house to Peachey but received it back again on a long lease. Peachey then did £22,500 worth of improvements to Reggie’s house in return for £100 a year rent. Sounds like a bargain.

When Reggie became Home Secretary in 1970 and therefore honourably brought to an end his association with the honourable Erie, Eric sent Reggie’s wife a little present. It was only a chess set— pretty innocent. Usually only costs a couple of pounds in Woolworths. But this one was made of silver and was worth (1970 prices) a mere £2,750. Of course Reggie had plenty of other friends: such as Poulson (jailed for a long term for corruption).

We, unlike Shakespeare, are not sexist, so women get in on the act. Instead of "honourable men." Shakespeare could have had "honourable persons.” There is another member of the British peerage the Peachey Report did not even mention—former Secretary to Champagne Harold, Lady Falkender herself. This honourable lady also had little advantages from Peachey; like the loan of a Volvo car. Falkender explained it did not come from Peachey at all, but from Sir Eric personally. Well quite. That explains it.

Absent Friends

Then there is Lord Kagan of Gannex, recently on an extended holiday in Israel. He is finding it a little inconvenient to return home since there is a warrant for his arrest on currency offences involving £150,000. Still, small fry to this honourable man. His raincoat business must have been worth millions. According to the Guardian, when asked if he would come back to claim his ancestral heritage sometime, Lord K replied; “Oh yes . . . when the mood takes me". (31.1.79).

Just like any other worker really. When you go on holiday, I suppose you come back when the mood takes you too. The latest position is that Lord K is on his way to Spain (Guardian 2.3.79). Meantime his wife and son are on bail on corruption charges.

One interesting link in this is Champagne Harold himself. All these honourable persons (except Reggie—how was he forgotten?) have become knights, lords or ladies, thanks to Harold's little benefactions. He explained that “moving businessmen into the Lords puts an entirely different dimension on the honours system”. (Daily Mirror 2.3.79). You can say that again. Harold certainly had a revealing collection of friends.

Honourable Witness

Another honourable man on extended leave is George de Chabris. He is currently in Florida, also with no intention of returning in a rush. Among other little gems for which the police would like to "see" (presumably behind bars) this gentleman, are the following: a £10,000 transaction with a prominent liberal (unnamed as yet), donations to the Liberal Party, and Mr Chabris’s role as a "witness" to events at the National Liberal Club which interest the police. This one seems to have little to do with Champagne Harold. As the Guardian (23.2.79) put it; "Sir Harold Wilson said at Westminster last night that he did not know who George de Chabris was, ‘I have no recollection of this gentleman at all’”.

The Lesson

Meantime, while this honourable lot cheat and thieve and live it up at the worker’s expense, may I remind you that local authority workers, ambulance men and many others have been on strike— for a basic wage of £60 a week. And another honourable man, James Callaghan, said that figure is too much. At the time of writing £4.50 a week (about 11 per cent of these workers' current wage) is the absolute maximum offered. If Mark Antony had offered that to the mob they might at least have had the sense to lynch him.

Some useful advice for the Archbishop of Canterbury and his colleagues

"So I say unto you, go ahead and preach and earn your pay, but for goodness’ sake leave the working class alone. You belong in the enemy’s camp. You have nothing in common with the working class. Your hands are soft with the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round with the plentitude of eating . . . and your minds are filled with doctrines which are buttresses of the established order. You are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard. Be true to your salt and your hire; guard, with your preaching, the interests of your employers: but do not come down to the working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot honestly be in the two camps at once. The working class has done without you. Believe me, the working class will continue to do without you. And, furthermore, the working class can do better without you than with you.

(From The Iron Heel, by Jack London).

Review: July 1972 (1972)

The Review of the Month column from the August 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

Connoisseurs of political scandal, with all its romantic implications, had their appetite whetted by the blowing open of the Poulson affair, which was in fact first ventilated in the scandal-hunting Private Eye. This was no Profumo affair, there was apparently nothing in it to suggest that the press was about to have such a merry time as in those high summer days of 1963. But Maudling, conforming to the proprieties of capitalist government (which exist, even if in a strange, half-lit world of their own) knew he had to resign from the post of Home Secretary. There will now be an enquiry, which presumably will be intended to prove something or other. One conclusion it will not reach is that the whole thing is really irrelevant. Capitalism is a system which might be called basically corrupt, since it works on the basis of a mass robbery which is perfectly legal because the ruling class make it so. But within those bounds it is of no account, whether politicians or businessmen spend all their time handing out and taking bribes, fiddling the books or any of the other activities which sometimes come to the surface of the system’s very murky waters. If capitalism were administered in such a way that there was never the faintest breath of a scandal, it would still be one vast swindle on the mass of its people. It would still deprive the majority of us of the fruits of our labours. It would still produce poverty, still condemn its people to lives of suppression, still produce conflicts right up to the scale of a nuclear war. Whether it is run corruptly or not, capitalism will never be able to operate in the interests of most of its people.

As Maudling left the Home Office, is was remembered by his enemies that one of his failures was in Northern Ireland. So much has happened there, since Maudling was the minister responsible, that it comes as something of a surprise to remember his part in the dispute. Yet it is in fact not so long ago, that he was dabbling in some of the “solutions” put forward. This is a measure perhaps of the speed with which events have moved in Northern Ireland. It is certainly an indication of the futility of all the efforts to end the fighting there. This is a conflict between sections of the ruling class over the right, and the method, to exploit the workers of the country. It has been worsened by the bigotries which both sides have stirred up in an effort to get their way. In the present social set up there is virtually no hope of solving the problem; the best that is possible is a suppression of its symptoms for a time, until they break out again.


Abroad

In the end the McGovern bandwagon rolled home, its wheels running over a few famous Democratic toes in the process. Now McGovern says he is planning to win the presidency in the same way as he won the nomination. He has made a start, by coining a new slogan “Come Home America”. Of course all politicians have to have some catch phrase to identify them to the voters, no matter how dishonest or inane it may be. Kennedy promised the New Frontiers, Johnson the Great Society. McGovern’s slogan is equally loaded, since he also made a clear promise that he would immediately stop bombing North Vietnam and, within a specified time, withdraw all American troops from Vietnam. Some of his critics claimed that in this, and in his slogan, he was pushing for a return to the isolationist politics of old but as isolationism is now a dirty word McGovern could be relied on to deny that charge. The important issue now is what the American working class will make of the election, and of this man who is said to be a dangerous radical (whatever that might mean) but who would probably fit comfortably into the Liberal Party were he a British politician. If the workers in America take a mature and conscious attitude to the election they will not be deceived by any promises or programmes for their “prosperity”, or by any slogans. They will realise that leaders are not to be trusted to solve working class problems, simply because they cannot. The issue in the election will be capitalism or Socialism, and in that the workers themselves must act for themselves.


Politics

Parliament goes off for its long summer holiday, leaving Westminster silent except for the tourists who come in ever increasing numbers to gaze at the seat of parliamentary power of British capitalism. The politicians go to their various holiday haunts—Wilson to his cottage in the Scillies, Heath to win a few yacht races around the coast. At the same time, they assure us that we are not unguarded; they keep in touch with events and the red despatch boxes are still delivered, in a crisis the ministers would come flocking back to take over again. Meanwhile, the working class are also taking their holidays — usually a couple of weeks which they might spend abroad if they can afford a package tour. It is a good time for them to reflect, as they take it easy on the beach, on the function of politics in capitalism; on the way they are deceived into trusting their leaders to run society when they are in fact doing it themselves. On the fact that they do all the useful work but allow a minority to appropriate the results of their work. Then they might think about what they can do about it and come back, bronzed and refreshed, determined to start doing it.

Political notebook: Cynically Confounded Confusion (1979)

The Political Notebook column from the January 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cynically Confounded Confusion

Politics is a baffling business these days. It certainly baffles the politicians. Reggie-the-sleeping-Maudling (a politician not known for his perspicacity) when asked to clarify the position says: “I am sorry but I am afraid I cannot; nor I think can anyone else . . .  At the moment, I fear, politics in this country are (sic) trying to advance by progressively obfuscating the questions”. (The Times 29.11.78)

The plot for confusion goes something like this: The Labour Party (in government) stands for a maximum 5 per cent wage rise. The TUC supports the Labour Party. Most of the TUC is opposed to the 5 per cent. The TUC does not support the Conservative Party which however, is also opposed to the 5 per cent. But some sections of the Labour government and much of the party are also opposed to the 5 per cent. Furthermore, (if you are still with me) sections of the Conservative Party are in favour of the 5 per cent. So, for the mathematicians the equation might look like this:
PRO—5 per cent =
Most of the government, some of the Labour Party some of the Conservative Party and some of the TUC.
ANTI—5 per cent =
The rest of the government, most of the Labour Party, most of the Conservative Party and most of the TUC.

No wonder the Daily Mirror commented. “If you dig beneath the rhetoric and dissect the cliches there appears little to choose between the policy of Mrs Thatcher and the TUC”. (17.11.78) If you add to that the Labour Party for good measure you are just about home. I suppose it would be cynical to suggest that this shows that there is no real difference between the lot of them . . .


How Jim Fixes Things

Any doubts on that score would have been ended by a couple of articles in recent editions of the Observer (26 November and 3 December), in which Kenneth Harris fed Jim Callaghan with a succession of sycophantic questions and received some answers blindingly illuminating of how close the Labour Party is to the Tories. For example on the unions:

Question: I have heard it said by many who should know that no PM in living memory has got on so well with the unions . . .

Answer: Well, I'm not sure that it would be true . . . Harold Macmillan got on very well with them, although he wasn’t a trade unionist.

For example on racist immigration controls:

Question: If the Conservatives came to power, say next week, would there be much difference in their immigration policy and yours?

Answer: Not in the numbers allowed to enter . . .  I guess that they would make very little change in the numbers arriving in this country . . .

For example on the supposed ideological divide, on Labour’s commitment to a fundamentally different society:

Question: Some Labour Party members . . . say ‘The Labour Party is no longer Socialist.’ What do you think they mean by that?

Answer: . . . ‘Socialism’ has always been a matter of controversy in the Labour Party, and there are millions of Labour Party supporters who aren’t Socialists and never have been . . .  The Labour Party has become—I think Harold Wilson used the word—a Broad Church.

Callaghan has in his time had many an adjective tacked on before his first name—Sunny Jim, Humble Jim, even Honest Jim—but so far nobody has called him Silly Jim. We must assume he knows what he is doing, when he insists that there is so little to choose between his party and its principal opponents. He intends himself no harm; he is, after all very fond of being Prime Minister.


Waiting at the Church

Meanwhile, back at Number Eleven, the Chancellor, Denis Healey was left waiting at the Church . . . There was he, trumpeting his agreement on wages with the TUC. On Monday The Times writes that: "Agreement has been reached between the Cabinet and the TUC Leaders on a new form of words after a month of talks . . . The six—man TUC team . . . has finally given its blessing to a document that will go first to the TUC Economic Committee tomorrow morning before being endorsed by the General Council later in the day.” (13.11.78) On Tuesday morning Denis says he will announce the agreement at 5 pm. However, the TUC did not endorse the agreement after all. Come 5.10 pm on the Tuesday and a rather sheepish Denis is heard saying “I was rather surprised at the turn of events . . .  I only hope it is fairly calm weather while the dust is falling.” (The Times 15.11.78)

Hope for calm weather is about as useful, as hoping for calm seas in the Bay of Biscay in March. Still Denis’s efforts are not totally wasted. He still hopes for some agreement to sell the workers lower wages.


What a waste

While on waste, here is a little puzzle. What have the following in common: 30,000 tons of cauliflowers, 23,000 tons of tomatoes, 60,000 tons of peaches, 41,000 tons of apples, 16,000 tons of oranges and 28,000 tons of mandarins?

Give up? Answer: They were all surplus produce of the EEC last year (See The Times 14.11.78) Some of it was sold off, but the majority was simply destroyed.

Funny system really; plenty of people are hungry, there is a huge world food shortage we are told, and one corner of the world spends some £1860 million in disposing (euphemism for destroying) of surplus food. Still it gave the Prime Minister an added opportunity to sound off about how unfair the EEC was operating for Britain (euphemism for the British capitalists). Speaking at the Lord Mayor of London’s banquet in November last year (a place not noted for its food shortage) Jim thundered about Britain paying too much to the EEC and getting too little in return. Good for votes, that one Jim! Jim did not explain that one of the reasons for Britain entering (and staying) in the EEC was the hope that it would in the long term keep prices down; that would mean lower wages can be paid; which is part of the object of the whole thing; which is where we left our Denis . . .


Watergate — South African Style 

From the other side of the world, a South African Commission of Enquiry has reported that Ministers in the South African Government have been responsible for a huge amount of bribery and corruption. The scandal has already been christened “Muldergate” after the name of the leading politician involved. The report actually suggested that Dr. Mulder, the former Minister of Information (George Orwell should be living at this hour) had been guilty of concealing the truth. If all politicians who were guilty of that one were prevented from continuing to act as politicians there would be none of the breed left.

Ronnie Warrington