SPGB Meetings (1986)

Party News from the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

• First mention of the SPGB Canterbury Group on the blog. 
• As there's an advert for issue 6 of the World Socialist journal included, here's a link to its contents that are currently on the blog. At the time of writing, the issue is only partially uploaded on the blog. Another thing to add to my to-do list.
• Conservative Families Campaign speaker, Graham Webster-Gardiner, was linked to the notorious Monday Club. He was the Conservative Party's parliamentary candidate in Newport East at the 1987 General Election.

The Pleasure Tendency

Their name piqued my interest so I asked about the group, the Pleasure Tendency, over at Urban75. Someone was good enough to provide the following reply:

"I'd known one them slightly when they lived in London. I dimly recall encountering the group in the context of the ill-fated Intercom project.

Don't remember a journal (although it was a long time ago). Just some pamphlets/leaflets. Think I may still have some stuff by them but not confidant I could easily put my hands on it. One text was called "Theses Against Cynicism". There's a blog post here 'adapted from it' whatever that means. Their pamphlet 'The Subversive Past' is online here. There's a leaflet by them at archive.org.

I understand some of them became involved in producing the journal 'Here and Now' (first produced in Glasgow and also involved in Intercom). (Libcom archive). There are articles by them (issue 2 for example) and issues were produced in Leeds.

ETA: at the Sparrows Nest archive there are also online copies of three more pamphlets:

- 'Life and it's replacement with a dull reflection of itself'

- 'Desire-value and the Pleasure Tendency'

- 'Return of the moral subject'

So that's all of the pamphlets that I remember seeing."

SPGB Meetings (1984)

Party News from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a report of the SPGB's debate with Tom Sackville, the Conservative MP for Bolton West. The SPGB speaker in that debate, Howard Moss, revisited that debate in his Life and Times column in the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard.

SPGB Meetings (1988)

Party News from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Interesting to see that the debate with the left-wing Labour MP, Ron Brown, is listed as being on the 2nd of November, and that the SPGB speaker was to be the late Pieter Lawrence. According to this piece in the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard,  which gives the details of a Special Branch report on the meeting, the debate took place on the 7th December, and the SPGB speaker was Steve Coleman. Maybe Ron Brown debated the SPGB twice in the space of a month? I doubt it. Obviously the debate needed to be rearranged, and a new SPGB speaker sought.

SPGB Meetings (1986)

Party News from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

There were so many meetings advertised in the October 1986 Standard that I had to split the party news post into two. And I still didn't even get to include everyone listed in the label section. Apologies to Janie Percy-Smith, Cliff Begley, Steve Coleman, Pieter Lawrence, E. Hardy, Carl Pinel, Ralph Critchfield, Enfield & Haringey Branch, Islington Branch, Doncaster  . . . did I leave anyone out?

SPGB Meetings (1985)

Party News from the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: Money & Survival (1992)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In addition to pointing out some of its deficiencies, for which I am grateful, the criticism of my book Money & Survival in the Socialist Standard, June 1992, was valuable in highlighting for me those differences in approach which prevent my joining the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

It is true that I did not deal with issues such as the historical development of capitalism, class structure or the ownership of the means of production. but this is because they would have no significance in a moneyless society. In pointing out that financial systems inhibit scientific, social and economic progress, that they must be less, perhaps much less, than 50 percent efficient. I am attempting to show the enormous potential that would lie before a world that could free itself of such inhibitions.

The future can only be built upon experience of the past but social circumstances are always changing and our perspectives must change with them. I have no doubt that many of the criticisms of society and capitalism remain as valid today as they had done in the days of Karl Marx but both have changed. In the eighteenth century there were no transnational companies dominating the world, nor production workers with middle class values, nor was there a United Nations drawing the peoples of the world together.

Confrontation, whether in party politics or class wars, invites hostility, holds up the advancement of human society and is self-defeating. The eighteenth century concept that the poor can only be assisted by depriving the rich is derived from illusions of scarcity and exchange value, both of which, as I explained in my talk to my friends in your Bristol branch, are money-oriented concepts that have only had validity in narrow local contexts and are totally irrelevant today.

Confrontation begets confrontation and because the rich live in constant fear of losing their wealth, their power and their privileges, they are only too willing to believe that eventually, however far into the future that might be. those benefits will trickle down to the poor, and that that justifies them in fighting anything or anybody that threatens to take those advantages away. They have the power and resources and even in the unlikely event that they were defeated, another group would arise to grab the spoils.

To assume that once socialism is achieved the money system would wither away is to fail to appreciate the financial and psychological power of the money system. The reverse is true. Only when money has been eliminated can we hope to build a just and forward-looking social system.

There is no short-term solution. The dissemination of such ideas is bound to be a slow process and may never materialise before the human race destroys itself, but that is no reason why we would stop thinking and trying.

Melvin Chapman,

Bath

Reply:

We still can't see how money could be eliminated before socialism is established; nor how socialism could be established without a political confrontation with the privileged class who currently own and control the means of production—Editors.

Letters: Your website article (2022)

Letters to the Editors from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Your website article

I am in what would be considered ‘the working class.’

Socialism obviously makes slaves of the working class with no hope of generational advancement or prosperity, the degree of socialism and communism practised yields a proportional level of poverty and oppression. Arrogant, self-righteous people want to act like the daddy of the working class, who they treat as children in these systems.

People who promote socialism and communism always seem to think somehow that they’re going to be part of the decision-making and power-wielding club in the socialist system, rather than oppressed by it. That’s because they are delusional in their self-righteousness and think of themselves as somehow special.

Neither of these world views is a friend to the working class.

Your website article claiming socialism is power to the working class is total horse-shit.

Socialism centralizes power and wealth in the hands of far fewer than free-market capitalism ever has.

You guys are either blind, woefully ignorant, or actually malevolent. Grow the hell up.

Ian Young

Reply:

Are you sure you have been looking at our website and not one with a similar name?

We ask because, unfortunately, there are quite a few who call themselves socialist who do see themselves as an elite aiming to seize power and rule supposedly on behalf of the working class. They really do see themselves, as you say, as a ‘decision-making and power-wielding club’ and that is how they have acted where they have seized power as in Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

That might be an excuse for your hostility to anyone calling themselves a ‘socialist’ but not for not having read our website carefully, if in fact you read it at all.

We have always made it clear that socialism, properly understood, means a society of freedom and co-operation where the state will cease to exist. It will be based on the common ownership and democratic control of society’s resources, with production directly for use not profit and access to wealth according to needs. It can only be established democratically once a majority have come to want it. No minority – no elite, whether elected or self-appointed – can establish socialism, still less impose it on a majority who don’t want it.

What you have taken to be socialism – what the elites claiming to be socialist have established – has not in fact been socialism at all, but a variety of class-divided capitalist society in which the working class have remained oppressed and exploited wage slaves. The correct name for what they established is ‘state capitalism’ with the minority elite, having previously proclaimed itself as the so-called ‘vanguard of the working class,’ as the new ruling, exploiting class.

This kind of state capitalism has been put into practice only in relatively economically backward countries to industrialise and to catch up with the developed capitalist countries of western Europe and North America. This has involved driving peasants off the land and into the factories, under conditions that rival those of the early days of ‘free market capitalism’ when it went through the same process of the primitive accumulation of capital.

You seem to be seeing so-called ‘free market’ capitalism through rose-tinted glasses, exaggerating the ‘hope of generational advancement and prosperity’ that exists under it and downplaying the extent to which it concentrates ‘power and wealth in the hands of a few’.

Statistics consistently show that social mobility is not as extensive as it is made out to be. The government has even had to set up a Commission to try to deal with the problem. In any event, what we are talking about here is an ‘advance’ from one section of the working class to another, from blue collar to white collar. When it comes to mobility from the working class to the capitalist class, there is scarcely any; the rich have remained rich and become richer.

Capitalism, whether private or state, is based on the ownership and control by a minority of the resources by which society lives. This puts this minority in a position of power and privilege and compels the rest to seek a living by going out onto the labour market to try to sell their working skills to some employer for a wage or salary. How workers live is rationed by the size of their pay slip which is never going to be much more than what’s needed to create and maintain their particular working skill and sometimes not even that.

By its very nature, capitalism can never provide the majority wage-working class with the full life that the level reached by modern technology makes possible. This can only happen when the ownership and control of society’s productive resources have been taken out of the hands of the privileged minority – whether private capitalists or political elite – and transferred to society as a whole, to be run democratically in the interest of all. Socialism in the proper sense of the term.

Editors

Spycatching

Dear Comrades

The excellent article Spycatchers in the November Socialist Standard called to mind an episode at the Party’s Bristol branch years ago in the 1980s. We were delighted to have a new visitor to branch meetings, even though he never said anything and just seemed to spend his time observing members very carefully. Eventually, I suggested to another branch member that perhaps we might drop some subtle hints about wondering if the visitor was there on Special Branch duty.

At the next meeting, ignoring any hints or subtlety, the other branch member said ‘Hey Larry, are you a copper?’ What is interesting is that the visitor didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no. In fact, he didn’t say anything. He just pulled out his wallet and showed us a photograph of his younger self in police uniform. After that, he didn’t come to any more branch meetings. Draw your own conclusions.

Keith Graham

SPGB Meetings (1987)

Party News from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The Turf Hotel in Wrexham is the pub featured in the Hulu documentary Welcome to Wrexham. So, 34 years before McElhenney and Reynolds were pulling pints, you had the SPGB in the same pub putting the world to rights. The circle of life.

SPGB Meetings (1986)

Party News from the August 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1991)

Party News from the June 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

• The ILP that the Party debated in Cambridge was in fact the old ILP of Maxton, Brockway and Hardie fame. In the mid-1970s the ILP had re-affiliated to the Labour Party and renamed themselves Independent Labour Publications. By 1991, they were publishing a well produced magazine, imaginatively called 'The ILP Magazine'. I used to subscribe to it.
• The two meetings in the North West with Gary Slapper under the title of 'Is Your Job Killing You?' possibly tied in  with his research into workplace deaths which eventually became the book, Blood in the Bank: Social and Legal Aspects of Death at Work.
• The meeting in West London with the guest speaker, Khachik Pilikian, would have been good.

Voluntary service oversold (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every year VSO recruits and sends several thousand volunteers to work in countries economically less developed than Western nations. This has arisen for a variety of historical reasons, largely to do with the exploitation of people and resources during the colonial era.

I am nearly half-way through my VSO posting with the Malaysian education department, and something I have suspected for some time has become very clear: "volunteering" is in fact another name for cheap wage slavery. In a social system where men and women are forced to sell their labour power in order to gain access to goods and services, VSO is able to provide the less successful capitalist nations with highly skilled workers from the West at a low price — they call it “low cost technological assistance". The word "volunteer" misleadingly suggests that we work for nothing. In fact, we are paid a wage which is supposed to be roughly equivalent to what a local worker with similar qualifications, doing a similar job. would receive. How this works in practice varies from country to country. The wage is paid by the employer in the country to which we are posted, although VSO does negotiate our salary, terms and conditions.

Most volunteers here earn a good deal less than Malaysian colleagues with similar qualifications. Furthermore, those of us working in East Malaysia, a very expensive part of South East Asia, with a shortage of qualified workers, find ourselves alongside teachers, doctors and engineers from other parts of the country who receive large allowances to encourage them to come and work here. Many of us have also found that our terms and conditions of work are far from clear. Only some volunteers know exactly what their working hours are, what sickness benefits they are entitled to and how much leave they can take. The only written agreement VSO have with the Malaysian Economic Planning Unit, which approves and administers postings. concerns pay. Yet like our unfortunate local colleagues we are expected, for instance, to apply for leave in triplicate months in advance and clock in and out punctually. Because we are foreign workers our behaviour is carefully noted and any signs of "irresponsibility" or disrespect can be held against us.

And so we are encouraged to believe that "development" is about redressing social, economic and technological inequalities in the world and, where VSO is concerned, particularly at the grass roots level. In other words, it is about using our skills and expertise to help some of the world’s poorest workers achieve greater self-reliance. The VSO logo states that “VSO sends men and women overseas to share their skills with the people of the third world" and one of the VSO objectives is that ‘‘Emphasis should be given to work which benefits poor and disadvantaged people and to enhancing the status of women" (VSO Volunteers Handbook). It is claimed that by volunteering we are doing more than just sharing our skills; we are also helping to undo some of the racist myths and stereotypes about people from Africa and Asia, to repair some of the economic damage inflicted on them during the colonial period. We are, according to VSO, helping to promote greater understanding between workers in different parts of the world and educating the people in Britain about the causes of third world poverty and inequality

In fact, this is all a VSO confidence trick. These vague, idealistic visions of development obscure the fact that organisations like VSO, along with the governments of countries who request volunteers, are firmly committed to capitalism — the kind of economic Development which will not bring about a world in which everyone has equal access to resources and technology and where there is mutual co-operation between people. The governments of third world countries are committed to perpetuating and developing a system where most of the world's wealth is owned and controlled by a minority. Its driving force is profit and even basic human needs will not be met unless it pays.

Organisations like VSO are committed to try and reform the system in order to bring about a more equal distribution of the world s wealth, but their effect is to improve the prospects of a rising capitalist class in the world scramble for profits. They also promote cultural and technological institutions which accompany the development of capitalism. In Malaysia, for example, VSO has provided a large number of volunteers to work in government social service departments, in the belief that this will help to bring about some improvement in the lives of Malaysia’s poorest — the mentally ill, handicapped, schoolchildren. What is overlooked is that workers only have access to social, welfare and health provisions for as long as it is profitable or in the interests of the owning class. For instance, although many diseases could be prevented by providing communities with safe drinking water, children still die because it is not profitable to do so. In Singapore, a rapidly developing capitalist state, workers are noticeably healthier than those in the neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore water can be drunk straight from the tap and need not be boiled before drinking; there is no malaria and the medical facilities are probably better than in many Western countries. But then, as Singapore is extremely short of labour, it cannot afford to have a sickly workforce.

Capitalism, then, only provides workers with what is profitable: children who do not have a nourishing diet are still able to buy Coca Cola! They may lack adequate hospital facilities but are taught how to operate a submachine gun. Low paid volunteers are recruited from the West to develop a country’s health services, while millions are spent on arms and foreign experts to train the military in their use.

Another aspect of development is the emergence of an increasingly sophisticated education system. A developing nation needs workers whose minds are trained in new ways, and VSO provides many teachers for schools and training programmes. We do not usually teach young workers skills to enable them to articulate grievances and improve conditions, although this may sometimes be a side effect.

The process of urbanisation, the breakdown of communities into family units and the increasingly alienated lives of working men and women are all part of the development of an industrial capitalist nation. Mental illness, drug abuse, crime and child-battering become increasingly regular features of daily life and expertise is needed to deal with these problems. A VSO staff member suggested that the level of development attained by a country could be measured by the kind of volunteer workers it requests. A less developed country would ask for agricultural experts and primary health care workers; a more developed country like Malaysia will request social workers, mental health workers, probation officers and teachers. This is an interesting indication of what VSO understands by development. It certainly does not seem to be something in the interests of the people at grass root level.

But at least we do not suffer high-flown statements about promoting international understanding and racial harmony! It is made quite clear that we are here to assist Malaysia's social and economic development by filling gaps in expertise, until such time as qualified Malaysian workers take over. There are constant reminders from the VSO and the Economic Planning Unit that we must be sensitive to, and accept, the Malaysian way of doing things. This means that we should not question the racially divisive policies pursued by the Malaysian government, to keep workers separate and subjugated. If we are seen to be taking too close an interest in politics we will be deported very quickly. VSO, despite all that is said in their literature, is working closely with a government which locks up workers who attempt to take industrial action to better their lot.

At best, VSO volunteers are foreign workers filling expertise gaps at the same rate of pay as local workers. This can be a rewarding and educational experience for both the volunteers and the local people with whom they work. At worst, volunteers are directly supporting the anti-working class policies of oppressive governments Occasionally, volunteers are recruited for posts when qualified and experienced Malaysian workers are available but rejected because of their ethnic origins. This, of course, is in direct contradiction to the VSO's declared anti-racist position. . .

As volunteers we are learning another lesson in exploitation — our own and that of follow workers in other parts of the world. We are not putting an end to exploitation by promoting the development of a global community based on co-operation. That will only come about when a majority of politically conscious workers across the world challenge minority ownership and control resources. Socialists work to that end; we cannot leave it to organisations like VSO, who are in the "development business" merely to promote and perpetuate the profit system.

K.

Blogger's Note:

Understandably, because of the critical nature of the article, this article was signed off as the anonymous 'K'. I understand that 'K'. was the SPGB Bristol Branch member, George Marcelo. He wrote further articles in the Socialist Standard whilst based in South-East Asia which have yet to appear on the blog. They will do eventually.

Also worthy of note, another member of the Bristol Branch of the SPGB during the same period, Naomi Roberts, also undertook VSO work and wrote about her experiences in Ghana in the pages of the Socialist Standard:

• Letter from Ghana (1988)

Swansea election campaign (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the year Swansea Branch has felt strong enough to contest its first election. Since a number of the branch members are concentrated in one particular ward of the city — Uplands — we decided, at the end of 1986, to field a candidate in the May 1987 local elections. The branch elected Gareth Thomas as candidate and I was elected to act as his agent.

In early February, with the aid of the new Print facility at Head Office, we produced 5.000 copies of a preliminary leaflet and put this through every letter-box in the ward. The leaflet, which is reproduced below, outlined the Party's ideas in a way that we hoped would be clear to people hearing them for the first time. We wanted to give it some local interest as well so we mentioned the Singleton Hospital issue — the transfer of the local hospital's casualty service to a hospital many miles away and the protest and outrage this has provoked throughout the community. The leaflet related this to the lack of real everyday democracy in present-day society.

Leafleting was harder work and took longer than we thought. But in the end we covered the lot down to the last multiple occupation and all 10½ thousand voters in Uplands Ward would have had the chance to read what we're about.

We'd already approached the local paper and they'd shown an interest. Brian Walters, one of their reporters, interviewed Gareth and was very cooperative. He did a pretty fair write-up a couple of days later together with a photo of Gareth he'd insisted on taking. Gareth had made the point to him that we didn't go in for personalities; it was the ideas that counted and we only wanted people to vote for us if they understood and agreed with the socialist case. He seemed to get the message and did mention it in his report but he still included a fair amount about Gareth himself. Like any journalist, he was anxious for a bit of what's supposed to make newspapers sell — "human interest". He told Gareth to keep in touch with him and suggested to him that the Labour Party wouldn't be too pleased to have its "socialist" thunder stolen in the ward.

He turned out to be right. After we'd written round for debates to the other parties in the ward (Labour. Tory. Liberal. SDP, Plaid Cymru), we heard through a reliable inside source that our letter had been discussed at a meeting of the Uplands ward Labour Party and that an angry Militant member had suggested that they take up our challenge to debate and "expose" us. Our source, who knows our case well, replied that they couldn't expose the Socialist Party as we had nothing to hide. Apparently his counsel prevailed since we've heard nothing. But there were, so it seems, further mutterings about trying to get us for breaking election law by spending too much money on our campaign (that's a joke) or starting it too early. If they've taken the trouble to look into it. they'll have found out by now that we did our homework before we started.

So far. the only written reply we've had from our opponents has been a letter from the Conservatives (they usually win the seat) who were lukewarm about a debate but said we should ask them again nearer the time. But even if none of them take up the challenge. we're still going to hold our own election meetings in a local school and a community centre in the days leading up to the election.

We've had a certain amount of feedback from our first drop of leaflets, part good and part bad. A few phone and letter requests asking for information and literature, a woman enquiring what our attitude is to homosexual men living together as married couples and one of our leaflets sent back with unpleasant things written on it.

Our next task is to deliver to houses 5,000 free back copies of the Socialist Standard with a handbill stapled to the front of each. The handbill reminds people of the previous leaflet and invites them to read the magazine. In bold black letters it's headed TO READ OR NOT TO READ? THAT IS THE QUESTION and it ends with the slogan we've adopted for the whole of our election campaign "Vote For Yourself For a Change - For a Real Change". A group of members from Bristol Branch are coming over to help us give out the Standards since their bulk and weight will make it a bigger job than the leaflets. We're also hoping for help from other branches for the doorstep canvassing we'll be doing and for the final drop of literature — our election manifestos. We'll be putting out the manifestos in the last week to remind people — if they didn't know already — that a Socialist Party candidate is standing, that he's arguing for something quite different from the other candidates and that they should vote for themselves for a change — for a real change.

Howard Moss

Party News: South Wales and West of England Tour (1985)

Party News from the April 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

With a few exceptions, I don't usually post details of old SPGB meetings on the blog, but I thought this set of meetings was interesting because the SPGB had obviously made the effort to organize meetings in parts of world where they didn't usually hold meetings. Llantrisant, Glynneath and Llanelli were untested territory for the SPGB.

A mini write up of this propaganda tour appeared in the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Letters: Lifestyle socialism? (2012)

Letters to the Editors from the September 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lifestyle socialism?

Dear Editors

I have just been re-reading the article entitled “Why Jesus was not a socialist” in the June issue of the Socialist Standard. I still don’t really understand it, and I’m left wondering how you define “a socialist”; which presumably is the description which SPGB members apply to themselves, today, as individuals living in capitalist societies. When members declare themselves as “socialist”, is this purely because of their intellectual conviction and knowledge; or is it because they have adopted distinctive attitudes and behaviour within our present societies – in relationships with other people and the environment? Do members confine their socialism to seeking to persuade others verbally to become socialists? To make an extreme case, could someone continue in everyday life to be a capitalist while having convinced the SPGB intellectually that he/she understands and accepts the case for socialism – and thereby be called a socialist?

I have supposed that socialism is basically “From each according to their ability; to each according to their need.” Should we each be trying now to live that way – however impracticable and futile that might seem to be; or may we feel free to join as much as we can in the ways of capitalism, hoping to get our own “snouts in the trough”, until world-wide socialism comes?

Andrew Durrant, 

Garvestone, Norwich

Reply:

We call ourselves “socialists”because we want to see socialism established, i.e., a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production by the whole community. So, yes, if you put it that way, it is basically because of our “intellectual conviction and knowledge”rather than because we “have adopted distinctive attitudes and behaviour within our present system.”

Obviously, the fact that our members want socialism will to a certain extent reflect itself in how they behave under capitalism, but this doesn‘t include not working for money. Given that we are living under capitalism where what you need has to be bought, it is not possible to live without trying to get money –and getting it. There’s no choice.

All those excluded from owning means of production, including socialists, are forced to work for money, even if we don’t have to accept that the pursuit of money is the most important thing in life. Most people, even if they are not socialists, don’t think this but unless you are prepared to lead a precarious existence on the margins of society you have to obtain money. And it is only above a certain level of income that people can choose to renounce getting as much as they could.

Can someone who is a capitalist be a socialist? Yes. Two examples would be Frederick Engels and William Morris. For them to have given up their wealth to live as workers would not have helped the cause of socialism. As it happened, both of them gave generously to the socialist movement. 

Editors.

Olympics?

Dear Editors

Isn’t the Olympic “Games” a bit of a misnomer?

In the midst of the festival of chauvinism dedicated to UK Capitalism plc, at least the BBC is honest enough to admit what it’s really all about in the article “Olympic success: How much does an Olympic gold medal cost?” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19144983).

So much for Pierre de Coubertin’s Olympic Creed “Le plus important aux Jeux olympiques n’est pas de gagner mais de participer, car l’important dans la vie ce n’est point le triomphe mais le combat; l’essentiel, ce n’est pas d’avoir vaincu mais de s’être bien battu.” [“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part, because the important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”]

It seems to have been replaced by the tenet “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”

Still, capitalism poisons everything, so why should sport be immune.

Martyn Dunmore, 

Brussels

Ken Smith

Dear Editors

Thank you for the obituary of Ken Smith in the August Standard. Ken was a very lively presence at Bristol Branch meetings in the 1980s. He was a wonderful example of someone who knew that it wasn’t enough to be against capitalism but also necessary to be in favour of socialism. He and his wife Mavis held a number of memorable socialist discussion weekends at their self-built home in May Hill in Gloucestershire. Ken was fond of saying that their annual income had never been lower and their quality of life had never been higher – brought about by non-market exchanges with likeminded people in the surrounding area. There was always lively discussion, plenty to think about and plenty to eat and drink. Ken was one of the most life-affirming characters I’ve ever met and he was a force for socialism and for good. Those of us whose lives were touched by him were very lucky to have known him.

Keith Graham. 

Bristol

Debt

David Graeber has emailed comments on our review of his book Debt in the August Socialist Standard. We will publish it, together with our reply, in the October issue.

Obituary: Bert Fletcher (1986)

Obituary from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bristol Branch reports with great regret the death of Bert Fletcher. For personal reasons Bert had never joined the Socialist Party, but he was entirely in agreement with our principles, had been a regular attender of branch meetings for several years and took part in branch activities. He had recently been invited to address the branch, as a guest speaker, on Rosa Luxemburg. His careful, well-researched and witty talk produced a lively discussion. Bert was a cheerful, likeable comrade and his presence will be sadly missed. We extend our deepest sympathy to his wife and family.

Keith Graham

Obituary: Ken Smith (2012)

Obituary from the August 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death in June of comrade Ken Smith in Cheltenham at the age of 89. Ken first joined the Socialist Party in London in 1944 after moving in anarchist anti-war circles. He had been conscripted but, in his own words, “was invited to leave the Army after twelve-month’s service and a jail sentence for mutiny.” He worked at various jobs and ran a number of businesses. (He was a pioneer of Sunday trading when it was not yet legal).

Over the years Ken was in and out of the Party for various reasons, including a period when he lived in France. In the 1940s and 1950s he was active in the old Fulham branch. Thirty years later he was in Bristol branch and hosted a number of Party Summer Schools in his place at Stow Hill in Gloucestershire, the part of the country he hailed from.

In retirement, he published two books Free is Cheaper (1988) and The Survival of the Weakest (1994). He also wrote for the Socialist Standard. Free is Cheaper is an attack on the waste of the market system, making the case that a socialist society, in which there would be no need for money, would use up much fewer resources. Its claim in passing that capitalism was not a necessary historical development raised some eyebrows but, then, Ken was anything but conventional. His other, less successful book argued that the agent for the change to socialism would not be, as traditionally assumed, the working-class movement but rather the Green and environmentalist movement.

Letter from Ghana (1988)

From the April 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having now lived in Ghana for more than two months it is time to try and fit this totally new experience together with the socialist ideas I used to discuss (what seems like such a long time ago) at weekly meetings of The Socialist Party in Bristol. I came to Ghana with VSO, not so much to make a great contribution to the world's problems but for personal reasons. I wanted to travel to a third world country not as a tourist but to work. I wanted to change from the nine to five job that I had had in England for the last twelve years. So I ended up becoming a trainer with Ghana's National Service (not a military service but a compulsory community social service). training school leavers and graduates to do Primary Health Care, which largely means health education, in rural districts.

I now live in a very rural district myself in a pretty basic way. 1 live in a small village in the chiefs compound - no electricity and having to boil river water to drink, defecating in a pit (quite a luxury here) down a path which has to be carefully inspected for snakes.

I am sure that all of us advocating world socialism would find it useful to travel and live in the third world for a while to begin to understand some of the enormous problems facing the case for world socialism. We have to understand that the vast majority of the world's people come from very different starting points, not just geographically but differing social, economic and political structures and. most importantly, different ways of seeing the world.

The difference I think is most important here in Ghana has to do with people's sense of their own powerlessness. A terrible brand of fundamentalist Christianity has been laid on top of already existing traditional beliefs in the powers of ancestors and gods over the details of people's lives. Here is just one example: last week I was waiting for my Twi lesson and my teacher did not turn up (Twi is the local language). He is a trained teacher teaching at the local village school and I had just seen him the day before. He had not come, I was told, because his sister-in-law was very ill - someone had put a curse on her and he had to take her to the other side of Ghana to see a famous fetish priest.

One of the things I first noticed in Ghana was the absence of the political posters or graffiti that you see in so many foreign countries. Instead, everywhere are slogans about the power of God. the need to accept God's will and not to put your trust in humanity. In a country where the vast majority of people only live just above subsistence level there are perhaps many reasons why people do not concern themselves with national politics. When people here think of improving their material conditions it is in terms of managing to make a little more money by selling in the local market or by doing a deal with a friend rather than joining up with a group of people who advocate more radical change.

The Ghanaian government, the PNDC or Provisional National Defence council, under J.J. Rawlings is claimed by many to be a great improvement over previous governments and over many others in Africa. However, no elections have been held since he came to power in 1981. although this is supposed to be a transitional stage and local elections are to be held in October 1988. But candidates are to stand in their own right only and no parties are allowed. Candidates will be elected on the basis of local projects they propose - a new school or a new health centre perhaps. None will be seeking a more radical change. Since I have been here I have heard no one question this absence of political parties and in fact voter registration, which is to end at the end of this month. November 1987, is still at very low levels.

As far as I can discover new reformist policies in health, education and social services are in theory in the direction of greater fairness but there is no money to finance them. The poorest families still have to pay for schooling and medicines for their children. Of course this will change under socialism. Health care and education, as with everything else, will be freely available according to need, not ability to pay. However strongly I have argued in the past that a socialist system is both desirable and possible, I have had trouble enough to persuade my English friends. Here, I feel, it is even harder. 'Socialism', as it exists in this part of Africa, is the top-down imposed variety and often associated with the Eastern bloc or Libya.

Socialists maintain that the experience of capitalism as a member of the working class leads people to question the system. But here the subsistence farmer will not experience capitalism in the same sort of way. Although big business affects them - world cocoa prices, the cutting down of their forests for timber export - the connections are not clearly seen and most people's economic worlds revolve around their own small-holdings and market trading.

The women that I live with make peanut toffee and buy long bars of soap which they cut into pieces to sell. They sell to friends and relatives and one thing that 1 have come to understand is that buying and selling is about the best fun they have in their lives. There is none of the English embarrassment about money — several times people have quite unashamedly looked in my purse and cheerfully commented "You've got a lot of money in there”.

At the village level people do have experience of rich people. The chiefs of villages, especially if they have large farms, may be rich but their households, such as the one where I am living, may be filled with relatives who have almost nothing. In Ghana the chief's money is passed around when he dies - in ways that are studied by anthropologists - to his sister s sons.

Also I notice great divisions between the sexes and their roles. But even so this is not clear-cut for, although women do not own the land, they are involved in trading and as traders can become rich and powerful. In the household however, women work, cooking, caring for children, while the men sit chatting and drinking together, waiting for their food to be brought to them. I have talked to women about these hard-and-fast sex roles which seem, from my position, to mean a lot of hard work and drudgery for women and they smile at me good naturedly for having such strange ideas.

So the question I keep asking over and over again is. what needs to happen before people react to inequalities and oppression and begin to realise the possibility of a better world which they can bring into existence themselves? I wish I knew for Ghana and I wish I knew for Bristol - and whether the answers are different.

Naomi Roberts

Party News: Marx supports the Socialist Party - it's official (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx was responsible for a recent donation of £500 to the Socialist Party. The explanation for this posthumous and politically sound generosity is as follows.

The great-grandfather of one of our Branch members was a personal friend of Marx, and the family has had in its possession for some time a letter which Marx wrote to him. It was recently auctioned, and fetched a staggering £13,000 (yes, thirteen thousand pounds), which was shared amongst the family. This enabled our member to make the donation.

Keen students of the law of value will wish to know that the family did not have to pay capital gains tax on this sale. This is because the letter had always been in their possession, and in any case the "value" of the letter had reduced since its contents had already been published. Had they not been, the original letter would have fetched much more.

So if you hear noises coming from the direction of Highgate Cemetery, it won't be another group of émigrés trying to blow up Marx's gravestone. It will be the author of the labour theory of value guffawing at the thought of the delayed productivity of his own labour and the good use to which it is now being put.

K. Graham