Semi-enlightened Bishop (1963)

From the February 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not often that Socialists can quote, even with a degree of approval, the comments of prelates. Usually their function is to tell us that this is the best of all possible worlds and, in between, to bless various weapons as being on the side of God and Good (as against the weapons of the Godless, Evil, and the Other Side). However, the Bishop of Pontefract, reported in The Guardian of 9th January, has recently made some thoughtful and thought-provoking remarks on our present social system.

He thinks that wild-cat strikes, gambling, drinking and various other symptoms of a lower moral condition are the result of feelings of helplessness and boredom, the reaction to the increasingly impersonal administration of affairs of State and industry. He accuses leaders of Church and State of failing to give a satisfying purpose for living. Citing centre-less new housing estates, the rat-race of examinations and status symbol degrees, the Bomb, and the increasing number of suicides, he comes to the conclusion, not very epoch-making we must admit, that there is something wrong with society if it imposes this kind of strain on people. The remarks were mainly concerned with the unhappy lot of industrial workers, but we know that their once more fortunate fellow workers in offices are subject to the same strain and problems and are no less bored as office routine becomes more and more broken down into one-function fragments.

After his comments on the ills of present society, the Bishop lapses into the woolly conclusions that worship of the Golden Calf is responsible for all this misery and that while poverty is heH, the hunt for money diminishes compassion and mercy.

It would, of course, be too much to expect a Bishop to draw a really solid conclusion from his views, but perhaps we can do this for him. Substituting for “the Golden Calf,” the “Profit Motive” or production for profit, not for use, and using this as our yardstick when looking at all that is anti-social going on around us today, we see that preaching and hand-wringing will get us nowhere, just as it has got all would-be reformers nowhere. 

Only a complete change in the basis of society can abolish the very material Hell that capitalism has brought us to. It may be too much to expect of the Bishop, but when his flock begin to work for a new social system on earth rather than pie in the sky, and all the flocks throughout the world do the same, Man will at last achieve a world worthy of his skill and intelligence.

S. Goodman

Letter to a Sympathiser (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Friend,

This is by way of being a recruiting letter. Recruiting is in the fashion these days, despite the fact that the war to defeat the aggressive nations and make the world “Safe for Democracy,” etc., etc., ended only six years ago. Everywhere one goes there are highly coloured posters illustrating the luxurious life one can lead in the Armed Forces (incidentally one proof that the Labour Government has to administer Capitalism pretty much the same way as any other political party whose policy is based on reform and maintenance of this “Production for Profit” system under which all— repeat, all—“civilised” countries operate).

However, we feel no shame or guilt in inviting you to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It is no boast when we say that it is the only political party in this country worthy of working-class support; the only party whose sole object is the overthrow of this fantastic system whereby the majority of human beings —the working class—produce the wealth of the world for the small minority—the capitalists—who own it. You are a worker, so we need hardly tell you that the share you are allowed to have in this wealth just about keeps you living from week to week and capable of producing the goods you cannot possess.

You have listened to our speakers many times and have read the literature we print, so you know that the system we wish to see established, Socialism, under which all human beings will own in common, and have free access to, the world’s wealth, cannot be brought about by tinkering with or patching up by means of reform, the system existing now. For this reason, you do not give your support to the Labour, Tory, Liberal or Communist parties, or any other political organisation—you have seen through their promises of better conditions if only you put them in power. Yet you are not with us in the S.P.G.B. . . . It may be because you feel despondent and think the task of establishing Socialism an almost impossible one in the face of the powerful propaganda pumped into the working class by all the means capitalists have at their disposal—radio, newspapers, politicians and so on. But look at the problem in this way—modern Capitalism requires a trained working class to run it, it is no longer a matter of using brute force against Nature in order to produce wealth. Trained people cannot be kept wholly in the dark about world events, therefore the owning class have to “spill the beans” to you and your fellow workers, in half-truths at least. Join with us in laying bare to members of our class the facts behind the news, so that they too can analyse it and draw their own conclusions and not those ready-made for them. All the propaganda will then be useless and the world will move forward to Socialism at a greatly increased rate. You see, it all depends on you! Our organisation is small, but it is based on principles sound and irrefutable, which in the forty-seven years of the Party’s existence, have never had to give way to expediency.

If we have your help and that of our many other sympathisers, we will grow, and your despondency will vanish. Just now you may have an indefinable and deep sense of dissatisfaction; life is just drudgery and purposeless, merely a matter of existing from day to day, even if you are one of those “lucky” workers producing beautiful and useful things—unlike the millions who are engaged in many utterly worthless tasks peculiar to Capitalism and its monetary and profit system. There are many outlets in the S.P.G.B. which will help to counteract this. There is the satisfaction to be gained by helping with our many outdoor meetings, pushing up the sales of our pamphlets and the Socialist Standard, or writing articles for the latter. There are worthwhile discussions and lectures at branch meetings. By no means least, there is the comradeship one feels in being engaged with others in working for a sane system of society.

When can we expect your membership application form?

S. G.

A New Campaign: Join the CCD (1962)

From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

No, this is not a misprint. It stands for The Campaign for Chemical Disarmament which, doubtless, will soon start up when frustrated members of CND and others looking for good causes to follow have digested the facts recently given in an article in The Guardian under the title "U.S. Arsenal revised. Chemicals for defence”.

From the article is appears that the U.S. Army's projected expenditure for 1963 on research and development shows a drop of 20 per cent, on nuclear weapons and an increase of 67 per cent, on chemical and biological warfare. This, by the way, is a “faint ray of hope” for humanity, according to the former Chief Officer of the U.S. Army, General Creasy, who is reported to have said in 1959 that these weapons could lead to a “less total form of war". Apart from other possible results of chemical warfare, such as the interruption of nerve signals in the body causing convulsions and death, there are such effects as temporary paralysis, deafness, blindness and mental aberration. So much for less total forms of war!

Elsewhere in the article is mentioned the Hague Protocol signed by certain nations after the First World War and ratified by Great Britain (although not the United States) by which it was agreed not to use poisonous gases and chemicals in warfare. Yet a few weeks ago consternation was caused by the finding of hundreds of cylinders of mustard gas on a beach in Wales, manufactured by Britain during the Second World War and subsequently dumped. So much for the agreements between nations which the CND and similar organisations would have us believe will preserve us against the use of terrible weapons. The fact that gas was not used during the 1939/45 war only means that it was recognised as a rather inefficient method of murdering opponents, depending as it does on weather conditions. The same attitude, it may be added, did not apply to the napalm bomb or the flame thrower.

And so far we have only been discussing chemical weapons. So-called biological warfare is still very secret, although a year or two ago it leaked out that scientists were working on germs which could wipe out cities with far less trouble than hydrogen bombs and, what is more, leave property unharmed!

History has shown that summit meetings, treaties and promises come to nothing when the operations of capitalism force governments to protect their spheres of interest, if necessary, by war. Weapons will be manufactured secretly and held in reserve for the right moment. Equally we know that governments have not shrunk from using such weapons however terrible, when the interests of capitalism demand it.

Nobody can say that they will not do so again.

S. Goodman