Right honourable gentlemen (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone who spends an afternoon observing Members of Parliament, after prolonged and copious lunches, reeling about their business in the House of Commons, may be surprised to learn that those same Members are expected to conform to what are called Standards of Behaviour. It was a failure to keep to these standards which finished off John Profumo and John Stonehouse and which will, if he is convicted of conspiring to have Norman Scott murdered, also end the political career of Jeremy Thorpe.

It is necessary to exercise a great deal of caution in this matter because (although this will be no comfort to Thorpe) not all politicians who plan to kill people are automatically drummed out of that experience known as Public Life. In fact there are many — some of them hold down jobs in one or other branch of the Ministry of Defence — who are paid fairly high wages to do exactly that. But there are guidelines, outside of which it is not permissible for a politician to stray; within them he can lie and cheat and organise mass killings and, if he keeps it up long enough, expect to end his days in the House of Lords with a few directorships to buoy up his income. Outside them he may end up in the dock.

These are customary demands of a political career and some of the people subject to them adapt more easily than do others. Most governments include one or two ministers whose single-minded devotion to an odious duty, whose readiness to carry out any dirty work which their dogged loyalty to capitalism persuades them is necessary, marks them out as being of abnormal ambition. They usually accumulate a few honours at the end of their days and richly deserve every one of them.

One such was Selwyn Lloyd, who died recently. Lloyd, who looked everyone’s vision of a stiff-necked bank clerk, was so drab it was almost exciting — he had, in fact, been a barrister and we can only hope he was able to present a more optimistic image to his clients. Moshe Dayan, when he was the Israeli Commander-in-Chief, wrote of him that he

. . . may well have been a friendly man, pleasant, charming, amiable. If so, he showed near genius in concealing these virtues.

Beneath his pin stripes, Lloyd nurtured a steely fidelity to British capitalism, in whose cause he was always ready to conspire and to deceive and to organise enterprises likely to result in the death of a lot of other people. One of the historical episodes in his career, for which he will always be notorious, was the 1956 British and French invasion of the Suez Canal Zone. That invasion provoked a storm of opposition, some of which was fuelled by evidence that the British, French and Israeli governments had hatched a plot to provide justification for the attack. The plot, in the words of Anthony Nutting, who was Minister of State at the Foreign Office at the time,

. . . was that Israel should be invited to attack Egypt across the Sinai Peninsular and that France and Britain, having given the Israeli forces enough time to seize all or most of Sinai, should then order ‘both sides’ to withdraw their forces from the Suez Canal, in order to permit an Anglo-French force to intervene and occupy the Canal on the pretext of saving it from damage by fighting. Thus the two powers would be able to claim to be ‘separating the combatants 'and ‘extinguishing a danger- out fire’, while actually seizing control of the entire waterway and of its terminal ports, Port Said and Suez. (No End of a Lesson.)

At the time Selwyn Lloyd, and the British government, steadfastly denied the existence of any such arrangement. On October 30 1956, the day the Israeli forces started their attack, the then Prime Minister Anthony Eden told the House of Commons that it had come as a complete surprise to Whitehall. The next day Lloyd backed up this denial with the slippery answer to a question in the House of Commons about collusion:

It is quite wrong to state that Israel was incited to this action by Her Majesty’s Government. There was no prior agreement between us about it.

On November 2 1956 General Keightley, who was in command of the British forces in the Suez landings, told journalists that “There has never been any contact between Israel and the Allies". (Secrets of Suez — Merry and Serge Bromberger).

Well that was a long time ago and now that the dust of Suez has settled there is an abundance of admitted evidence that Eden, Lloyd, Keightley and the rest were simply lying when they denied any pre-knowledge of the Israeli attack. In fact Selwyn Lloyd himself later gave an account of the affair which, describing a secret meeting at Chequers when the French general Challe and the acting French Foreign Minister Gazier outlined a plan to invite Israel to invade the Sinai peninsular, exposed himself as a liar. According to Anthony Nutting, who was also at Chequers that day, Eden was at once in favour of the suggestion and Lloyd later backed him up in this. That meeting took place on October 14 1956 — over a fortnight before Eden, Lloyd and Keightley were denying, as honourable men should, any collusive encouragement of an Israeli military action against Egypt. A week after the Chequers meeting Selwyn Lloyd was sent incognito to France to discuss the plot with, among others, the Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion and General Dayan.

The subsequent invasion of the Suez Canal Zone broke no less than three agreements which the British government was signatory to. There was the United Nations Charter, of which so much nonsense was talked; there was the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 (in which Britain, France and the USA made themselves responsible for preventing either side starting another round in the Arab/Israeli conflict); and there was the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty which bound Britain to send troops to the Suez Canal only if asked to do so by the Egyptian government. When these kinds of agreements are signed they are presented to us as great peace-keeping measures; Suez showed again just how little such assurances are worth.

In spite of the evidence that the Suez invasion was a typically disreputable episode, Selwyn Lloyd stubbornly defended it all as necessary and honourable. He cheated, he lied and he conspired in something which he knew would end in the killing of a lot of members of the working class. That, of course, was his job as Foreign Secretary. His reward, after the collapse of the Eden government and the appointment of Harold MacMillan as Prime Minister, was first to keep his place as Foreign Secretary (when he might well have been expected to lose it, as one so closely associated with Suez) and later to get the equally important job of Chancellor of the Exchequer where, it may have been expected, his dreary cynicism was likely to have a depressing effect on workers’ wage demands. MacMillan seemed at first to admire him greatly:

Selwyn Lloyd . . . had both the experience and the intelligence, also, I believed, the political agility to undertake a new task. (Pointing the Way — Harold Macmillan.)

This admiration persisted through several crises (“. . . the Chancellor of the Exchequer in capital form . . “. . . Selwyn Lloyd has been splendid all through. He has been calm and confident.”).

But as the storm clouds over British capitalism refused to be dispersed by Lloyd’s stolidly uninspiring policies, MacMillan became abruptly disenchanted with his dog-like Chancellor. (“ He seemed in some distress about wage claims . . ‘‘Selwyn . . . seems to me to have lost his grip . . . Lately, he seems hardly to function in some vital matters — eg this Incomes Policy affair.”) (At the End of the Day — Harold Macmillan.).

The government’s difficulties with the economic crisis were aggravated by a series of bad by-election results and, in a panic to give the cabinet a facelift, Macmillan decided to sacrifice several ministers, including Selwyn Lloyd. Even at so crushing a moment, when he might have shown some anger, Lloyd remained as stiff-necked as ever; he refused a peerage because, he said, he wanted to stay in the Commons to defend his financial policies and he wrote to Macmillan:

Dear Prime Minister, You have told me that you would like me to resign and this I willingly do.

Lloyd’s dismissal caused some wrath in the Conservative Party, where it was obviously thought that anyone who could be so utterly relied upon to do any dirty work deserved better. His old boss, Anthony Eden (who was by then savouring his reward for the Suez bungle in the House of Lords) made a rare return to political matters to say that Selwyn Lloyd had been ‘harshly treated’.

Lloyd seemed to be the only one not to be complaining. He came back briefly, as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House, until the Tories were beaten in 1964. In 1970 he was elected Speaker, which to some extent took him out of the political battle and gave him a job in which he clearly upheld all the traditions of the House (which, when an MP says it, is taken as the highest compliment although it may not be clear which tradition he is referring to) until 1976 when he was made a Life Peer. At one time or another Selwyn Lloyd was a director of, among other companies, Sun Alliance and the Rank Organisation.

His was an iniquitous story, although unexceptional. The leaders of capitalism pose as people who are concerned about human interests and who, because they wield considerable power, are anxious to conform to the highest standards of honesty. On this image they ride in and out of power; each time a worker votes for them it is a demonstration of confidence in them to keep to their promises and to live up to their image.

Reality is a lot more sordid. Capitalism can only work against the interests of a majority of its people. At the same time it is a chaos of conflicting interests — of one firm against another, or one combine or international alliance against the rest. Harmony, cooperation, plenty — these are concepts utterly foreign to the priorities of this social system.

By the same token capitalism cannot work on freedom or honesty. Secrecy, deception, double-dealing are essential to its operation. Very few firms can be open about their production and marketing plans and it is common for them to keep secret important matters which it is in their customers’ interests to be aware of — for example the standard of testing of thalidomide. Then imagine a Prime Minister who openly admitted the truth — that his policies were designed to protect the interests of the ruling class minority against those of the majority, and that he intended to hood wink that majority into voting for their own robbery and humiliation.

The more customary, because less disruptive, way is that of Selwyn Lloyd, to maintain an image of bland respectability behind which to behave like a Sicilian bandit. At times the ruling class may lift the veil on the deception, to allow the workers to see a little of how they have been misled — but this only shows with what contempt the ruling class regard the people off whose backs they live.

It is not that capitalism would be better if its leaders were consistently honourable. The point is that we live under a social system in which cheating, lying and murder are a natural currency. Capitalism could not survive on any other terms. It is a measure of its boundless cynicism, that its Right Honourable Gentlemen are anything but that.

Ivan

Democracy and the Silicon Chip (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx once said that the hand mill gives you feudalism and the steam mill gives you capitalism.  Had he lived for another hundred years, he might have added with a wry smile that the computer gives you Socialism.  The ways in which human society can be organised, is organised and ought to be organised depend on the techniques and resources which can be used in its running.  The idea of a society where no one goes hungry and all co-operate to control the conditions of their existence is no more than a pipe dream unless there is the wherewithal to translate idea into reality.

It is the case of the SPGB that the wherewithal is there.  The potential for providing for everyone’s needs has been created by capitalism.  Thanks to the development of machinery and automation, wealth can be produced in quantities which would have been unthinkable in earlier phases of human society.  However, one of our greatest difficulties in getting anyone to accept our view is to convince them on just this point.  For its truth is masked in capitalism.  The potential for plenty is there, but it cannot be made actual.  A profit system can only work with a labour force compelled to sell its energies.  If an abundance of the necessaries of life were freely available, the system would grind to a halt.  (Who would work at the kinds of jobs on offer in our society if they did not have to?)

We do not ask anyone to take our word for it that the problem of producing enough wealth has been solved.  Rather, we refer them whenever possible to the facts unearthed by non-Socialists who are particularly concerned with such issues. (See, for example, in our pamphlet Questions of the Day, the chapter on the myth of overpopulation, and our Canadian companion party’s pamphlet A World of Abundance).  In this way we hope to show that hackneyed prejudices about human greed are irrelevant and that, far from being a pipe-dream, a society based on common ownership is a practical necessity.

But this is only one aspect of our case.  Our aim is not just common ownership; it is democracy.  For us, democracy is not an optional extra or simply a means to an end.  It is part of our end, as anyone can discover by reading our Object on the inside back cover of this journal.  We define Socialism as “. . . common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth . . .”

What do we mean by democracy? Amongst other things, a world in which people are not bossed around by a government or told what to do by their “superiors”.  More positively, a world where everyone takes an equal and responsible part in making decisions which affect society, without the strife which is inevitable in a class-divided society.  That is one reason why we say there will be no socialist society until a majority desire it.  As long as most people are content to be told what to do by elected representatives there will be no democracy in the sense defined.  (Not that an electoral system is completely worthless.  More of that later).

At first sight, this suggestion of literally everyone taking part in social decisions may seem as unrealistic as the earlier one of common ownership.  Surely, it might be said, these matters have to be left to the experts, and surely modern populations are far too large for active participation by everyone?

Objections like these are meat and drink to political theorists and political philosophers.  They think the point so obvious that they state them far more often than actually arguing for them.  Yet they are not obvious.  In view of the demonstrated failure of legions of experts and government advisers to solve any of the major problems of civilisation, the less said about expertise the better.  On the other hand, numbers may seem a genuine problem.  How can millions of people all have a say in running society?

The answer, once again is that this would be a mere “good idea” unless the means were available to make it a reality.  And the means are available.  Here, too, it is a matter of pointing to existing resources and developments within capitalism.  It would be futile for us to offer a blueprint, of course.  The exact form the future democratic society takes will depend on the historical circumstances prevailing when it is established.  But there are aspects of the technology already available which show how large numbers of people could be drawn into the decision process.

Communication is the lifeblood of capitalism.  This is reflected in the facts that by 1975 over 95 per cent of households in Britain had TV sets, 53 per cent had telephones, and world traffic in telecommunications has continued to grow at a rate of 12-15 per cent per year (much higher than the rest of world trade).  If no vested interests were involved, and if there were a desire for it, imagine how much useful information could be disseminated and how far the ordinary citizen could participate in decisions, just by replacing one old American film every week with an information-and-decision programme.  People listen to proposals for some project (say, the building of a new playground or power station), discuss the issues by phone-in, and then ring in to some central point with their vote for or against.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Developments are now taking place which will put phones and TVs in the museum along with the stone-age axe.  The device which will be responsible is the microelectronic silicon circuit.  It is about one centimetre square and is made, incredibly, of grains of sand.  In effect, this “silicon chip” is a tiny computer, enormously efficient and dirt-cheap to produce, which has been responsible for bringing together computer and telecommunications technology in one all-embracing “information technology”.

The first fruits of the marriage will be available next year when the Viewdata system goes into public service.  This will make available to its select customers 100,000 pages of information, any part of which can be called up on a screen literally at the touch of a button.  Not only that, but the system will be fully “interactive”—which  means that as well as it giving you information, you can give it information, which it will then store.  Even the feeblest imagination should be able to grasp the implication for democracy.  Such technology gives the opportunity for the population to keep themselves better informed and to take a more active role in decisions than at any time since the small city-states of ancient Greece.

But back to reality.  Viewdata is being developed in capitalism, which means it is first and foremost a commercial venture.  It will be used not for the sake of participatory democracy but to store information for its customers—advertising agencies, financial institutions, mail order firms and the like.  Moreover, systems of this kind have already begun to cause headaches in America, producing the telephone equivalent of junk mail and the hard sell.  The micro-computer works its way methodically through a list of victims, automatically ringing them up to relay its recorded message to buy someone’s goods.  You may not want to buy them, but it’s no use putting the receiver down because the computer will automatically continue to ring you back until you have heard it out.

And that is the least of it.  This potential boon to mankind is not just proving to be a nuisance:  it threatens to produce a crisis.  Microelectronic technology is so flexible it will be throwing people out of skilled jobs such as making precision watches and cash registers.  In the UK telephone equipment industry alone the number of jobs is expected to fall by 30 per cent between 1976 and 1979.  How far the capitalist system can cope with these far-reaching consequences is a problem for those who continue to support it.

Not to labour the point, here as elsewhere capitalism is double-edged.  The system has itself called forth instruments which could, in a different framework, be of untold benefit.  But under capitalism their use is perverted and only means further trouble.  Once again, therefore, the implication is clear that we must change the framework.

The development of information technology is double-edged in a further way.  At the turn of the century most political organisations depended largely on outdoor meetings for getting their message across.  With the widespread introduction of radio and TV this ceased to be true for the larger and richer parties.  But the gap which thus opened up has begun to close again.  The SPGB has managed to snatch the odd few minutes of broadcasting, and no doubt if capitalism lasts long enough we shall also, like our companion party in America, come to have our own programmes.  For the technology developed by capitalism for its own needs eventually becomes available for those who wish to replace capitalism.  The computer will make the dissemination of Socialist propaganda an easier and more efficient affair.

That it is something for the future.  For the present all we can do is make the best use of our limited resources in what is at least a relatively open political climate.  In Britain we can publish a journal and make tapes of our meetings without the threat of immediate persecution.  In a one‑party state like Russia we could not.  We do not exaggerate the extent of this freedom: it costs a lot of money to exercise it fully, and we know that such political freedoms as we have now can be withdrawn.  But equally we do not underestimate its importance. (Only a person who had never imagined living under a totalitarian regime would do that).  A climate of tolerance is useful to Socialists.  It is also fragile, and constantly endangered by our opponents of left and right.  Their policies of confrontation and smashing this, that and the other serve only to make it easier to place further curbs on political activity.  We received tangible proof of this recently, when one of our London branches lost the use of its meeting room in a pub as a result of threats between other organisations which use the room.  The SPGB will have no part in such tactics, and the only force we shall continue to use is the force of rational argument.

A number of points have been made in this article to show that out aim of a democratic society is a practical possibility.  There is also another kind of evidence—that of example.  The structure of the SPGB is democratic, foreshadowing the future society we advocate.  We have no leaders or ruling groups.  Though we cannot afford a computer or even to become a customer of Viewdata, our affairs are run according to the decisions of the entire membership through instructed delegates at Annual Conference, and all our officials are elected annually, again by the entire membership.  Any organisation can claim to be in favour of democracy.  We ask to be judged not on what we claim but on what we do.  Having nothing to fear from the presence of non‑members (welcoming them, in fact), we have never held a closed meeting in our entire history.  That is completely in keeping with our conviction that the revolution to establish the Socialist democracy will not be ours; it will be a revolution itself decided upon by a majority of humanity.

Bill Valinas

Sources

The General Household Survey 1975

The Times 1st March 1978

The Times (Supplement) 4th April 1978

Letter: The Function of Trade Unions (1978)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain cannot affiliate itself to the trade union movement as this would be following in the footsteps of the Labour Party, and this must be avoided at all costs for the most obvious historic reasons. It therefore denies that the union movement provides the ground for the worker to express his or her disgust in living under the capitalist mode of production by stopping that mode of production.

Yet this is the movement that perfectly expresses working class ideology simply because it is the union of men and women involved in the labour process — the actual men and women that make up the class and do the working.

It is pointless trying to reduce the whole movement to a negotiating body for the purpose of extracting better deals for its members — this is incorrect — the movement is alive, human. Or to quote yourselves — ‘. . . it is living, feeling and thinking workers who run society.’

So it must be the working class that's making the mistake, confusing a union with a community. It must accept socialism — embrace the doctrines of the SPGB which best expresses their needs and are best equipped to show that community the way out of capitalism. Isn't that the wrong way round?

M. Webb 

London NW5

Reply:

One important point of correction is that it is the trade union movement — or most of it — which affiliates itself to the Labour Party, not the other way round.

Trade unions can carry out that act [of] class struggle on the industrial field, to protect and improve the wages and working conditions of the working class. For this, their membership does not need to be socialist, although of course the more socialists there are in a trade union the more effective it is. The Socialist Party of Great Britain insists that “stopping that (capitalist) mode of production” — ending capitalism and establishing Socialism — must be a political act by a conscious working class. Trade unions cannot carry out that act — their usefulness is limited to struggling within capitalism. It is not clear what is meant by the assertion that this movement "perfectly expresses working class ideology” or is "alive, human”. Because trade unions are made up of a majority of non-socialists, they have often carried out policies very much against working class interests. They have co-operated in holding back wage rises, have supported their native capitalist class in wars, have provided financial and other support for Labour Party candidates in elections.

The working class are confused over many issues, including the functions, power and uses of the trade union movement. When that confusion clears up, they will have taken a big step towards the one action which is fundamentally in their interests — the replacement of capitalism by Socialism.

Editors.

Blogger's Note:

In the hard copy issue of this Standard, the reply to this letter is a bit garbled in the second paragraph, and I cannot find an editorial committee correction in a subsequent issue of the Socialist Standard. 

In the original Standard, the first sentence in the second paragraph read:

"Trade unions cannot carry out that act class struggle on the industrial field, to protect and improve the wages and working conditions of the working class."

 I'm right in thinking that's a misprint, right? Help a blogger out here.

But what is 5,000 in two million (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is a bloke called Albert Booth in the Labour Government with a very baffling job. He is the Minister for Employment and gets about £200 a week for trying to find people jobs. At least, that is what they said. Picture then the comical Mr. Booth, who actually appeared on TV to announce his great progress in his job. Somebody in his department suddenly thought up a scheme to have the unemployed sign the book once a fortnight — instead of once a week. “This will save about 5,000 jobs” said Mr. Booth!

The anarchist way (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anarchists derive their ideals of justice, liberty and equality from the eighteenth century, since when they and their followers have wandered up one blind alley after another in their search for the right road to their utopia.

In the early nineteenth century, there was “the immortal Proudhon” with his “mutualism”. He held that capitalism could be persuaded to wither away by the simple yet so practical expedient of reducing interest rates to zero, and allowing anyone to print money and operate as a banker. As he told Marx in a letter of 1846:

we should not put forward revolutionary action as a means of social reform . . . But I believe that I know the means of solving this problem with only a short delay.

Instead of Socialism, Proudhon’s goal was “social liquidation”. Indeed, liquidation and bankruptcy could be the only possible consequences of such a policy! But mutualism was an idea already in the air when Proudhon wrote What is Property? in 1840: an Equity Store, or Time Store, and similar ventures, were operating in the USA from about 1827. Capitalism, however, survived.

In the mid-nineteenth century, socialists and anarchists worked together in an uneasy alliance. The split came in 1872 when the anarchists, led by Bakunin, were finally expelled from the First International. Bakunin denied that there was any need for the workers to form a party in order to gain political power. In place of the Marxist policy of developing working-class political organisations to take over the powers of government, the anarchists argued for industrial organisation and the use of the general strike to destroy the state.

The Syndicalist Fallacy

In ABC of Anarchism (1929), Alexander Berkman devoted a whole chapter to the organisation of labour, and the use of the general strike, the work-in and workers’ control as the means of social revolution. Nowhere in the book, however, does he give any hint of what the police and armed forces would be doing while the workers were busily occupying factories, mines and railways. Perhaps they were to be away on holiday during the social revolution.

Yet Berkman was perfectly aware that, when necessary, governments are ruthless in their use of force and coercion against the working class:

There is no record of any government or authority, of any group or class in power having given up its mastery voluntarily. In every instance it required the use of force, or at least the threat of it.

It follows that a government faced with an attempt to expropriate the means of production would use all powers at its disposal to protect the "rights of property”, not stopping short of massacre (remember the Commune).

While Berkman followed Bakunin in arguing against political action and for the syndicalist folly of using the unions and the general strike against the state, the Italian Malatesta argued in Amsterdam in 1907 that working class unity is a myth, that the rôle of union officials is as “corrupting” as parliamentarism, and that a general strike without armed insurrection must fail, as workers would starve faster than the rich and could easily be crushed by the state’s armed forces. He concluded that workers should seize political power by armed insurrection, a policy as suicidal as syndicalism, and for the same reasons.

The Propaganda of Deed

The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a period when some anarchists, in America as well as Europe, pursued yet another policy. It was named the “propaganda of deed”. Various spectacular assassinations and bomb outrages took place, much publicised by the bourgeois press.

It was the failure of the tactics of riot, especially in Italy after the attempted insurrection of 1877, which led Bakunin’s followers to support terrorism. As Louise Michel said:

We have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain urgent reforms. What was the result? The people were shot down. Well, we think the people has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people should sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of violence whose object is to terrorise the government and the bourgeois.

To this day, we hear of individuals and groups who practise this policy. The Angry Brigade in this country, and in Italy the Red Brigade, who describe their actions as “striking at one man to educate a hundred”: propaganda by deed is exactly what they mean.

The consequences of such acts are entirely negative. They give the state popular support for reactionary and draconian measures. To reject the need to gain political power, to gain control of the state machine, to organise the working class politically, is all too often to accept defiant but pointless gestures— demonstrations, squatting, assassination, armed insurrection, kidnapping.

For those anarchists who follow Bakunin, it is the State that has to be abolished. For George Woodcock, as for Berkman, it is the “principle of government”. Kropotkin dreamt of making bonfires of laws, edicts and all sorts of rules and regulations, while Faure's basic definition of the anarchist viewpoint was:

the negation of the principle of authority in social organizations and the hatred of all constraints that originate in institutions founded on this principle. Thus, whoever denies Authority and fights against it is an Anarchist.

But if laws are destroyed, there is still a government to fight. If the entire government is murdered (something of this sort did happen in Russia, remember) there will still be no change in the economic basis of society. It will not have tackled the root cause of most of society’s problems—the class ownership of the means of production and distribution. The working class would still be wage-slaves since they do not own the means of life.

The anarchist demand to “smash the state” is based on a lack of understanding of the role of the state and of the whole reason for its existence. This is that in a property-based society the owners of capital need to defend their class interests as against those of the workers. But merely to “smash the state”, without first abolishing capital, is a wasted effort. It would be like trying to get rid of nettles in one’s garden without digging up the roots.

“Pure and Simple Destruction”

Nechayev — a friend of Bakunin, and a man whose Revolutionary Catechism influenced Lenin — wrote naively:

The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire state to the roots . . . Our task is terrible, total, universal and merciless destruction.

Berkman was consistent to the destructive streak in anarchism when he wrote:

when government is abolished, wage slavery and capitalism must also go with it, because they cannot exist without the support and protection of government.

(ABC of Anarchism)

Yet, neither explains just how the state and the government can be abolished while the workers remain mere wage-slaves, dependent for next week’s meals on this week’s pay-packets. Go on strike? The workers and their families would starve a lot sooner than the rich. Try to occupy the factories, shops, mines, farms and so forth? Not a chance if they are defended by government-paid mercenaries, imported if necessary, armed to the teeth.

Unless and until the working class organizes itself politically so that the state’s coercive forces may be used for rather than against the revolution, we cannot expect to change society. As Engels wrote (letter to Cuno, 1872):

Do away with capital, the concentration of all means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall of itself . . . Without a previous social revolution, the abolition of the state is nonsense; the abolition of capital is precisely the social revolution, and involves a change in the whole mode of production.

As long as capitalism lasts, workers will be plagued with well-meaning idealists who rebel against the double standards, and violence of the system. But the social revolution must be built on more solid foundations. The best basis for the creation of a new world is a community of class-conscious working people who realize that it is in their interests as a class to end capitalism and who understand that they can never end commodity-bondage unless they organize, democratically and politically.

Charmian Skelton

Blogger's Note:

The following correction appeared in the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Correction. 

In “The Anarchist Way”, an article which appeared in our September issue, it was stated that Malatesta held the view “that workers should seize political power by armed insurrection”. This is incorrect. What Malatesta advocated was that workers should destroy political power by armed insurrection. We apologise for this mistake.

Editorial Committee

Tanks for the memory (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

"In the World Cup, Hungary were grouped with their bogey-team, the Soviet Union." 

From the programme for the recent England v. Hungary soccer international at Wembley.

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bookshops which stock the Socialist Standard (1978)

Party News from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cheap lives again (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In May this year, the Socialist Standard commented on the case which revealed that the Ford Motor Company of America deliberately allowed cars on the road which they knew had a lethal design fault, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries. This happened because Ford, knowing of the danger, decided that it was actually cheaper to continue the slaughter and pay damages than to redesign the cars. This time though, their calculations went wrong; one victim of their diabolical attitude was able to claim such a high award of damages as to upset their entire calculations.

What is good for Ford, is good enough for British Leyland. The Guardian (13/7/78) reports that BL have been building Allegro cars with a fault which is actually liable to cause wheels to drop off! What is so astonishing (or is it?) is that BL, a nationalised industry be it noted (so much for the claim that nationalisation would somehow mean a different form of capitalism), like Ford, knowing of the danger, decided to sit tight and do nothing about it.

Indeed BL tried to shift the blame onto one of its distributors. They did not get away with it; two hapless victims of this cold-blooded decision sued the company after they had suffered horrible injuries when their car lost a rear wheel. In giving judgment against BL for the damages suffered as a result of the accident the judge said:

  They (i.e. BL) were faced with mounting and horrifying evidence of wheels coming adrift. Any of the cases could have had fatal results. In my view, the duty of care owed by Leyland to the public was to make a clean breast of the problem and recall all cars for safety washers to be fitted. They knew the full facts. They saw to it that no one else did.

One more example of the inhumanity of capitalism; the society that makes profitable production the chief aim, and treats human beings as expendable. Who’s ready for a change?

Ronnie Warrington

One step forward, two steps back (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent years the Trades Unions have voluntarily subjected themselves to a policy of wage restraint at the request of the Labour Government. This year, however, the TUC has firmly rejected the government’s proposal of a 5 per cent “guideline” for 1979 which must have been welcomed by many trade unionists. 

It is worth considering exactly what the Labour Government has been trying to achieve with its income policies over the last few years. Is it really all a part of the so-called “battle” against inflation? We think not. Denis Healey has hinted at the real answer: 

  “What we are aiming for is something like the West German system, where Unions, Government and Employers agree each year on the increase in earnings compatible with the needs of the national economy” (Guardian July 22 1978).

What, you may ask, is in the interests of the “national economy”, or to be more accurate a capitalist economy? The answer to that is to have the lowest wage-bill possible.

Socialists have always stressed the need for workers to organize in Trades Unions in order to defend the levels of their wages and conditions (and wherever possible, to improve them). Therefore the decision not to go along with further government wage restraint which by definition can only prevent them from doing this work, can be seen as a step forward.

But it was patently obvious to all concerned that the announcement of this decision would cause acute embarrassment to the Labour Party, and so it was that the TUC also took its two steps backwards.

First of all they declared that the TUC would offer its election fighting services to the Labour Party in whatever way the executive wants to use them”. In the words of Moss Evans, General Secretary of the TGWU, “We will be working exceptionally hard to get the Labour Party re-elected” (Guardian July 31 1978).

Secondly, on the very same day of the TUC Press Conference which announced the decision to reject the pay policy, Callaghan and Murray appeared on a common platform to register their “highest common factor of agreement on social and economic policy” and begrudgingly admit that on a couple of points their views “may diverge rather than converge” (Guardian July 27 1978).

They had, in fact, summoned the press to launch a new document prepared by the TUC—Labour Party Liaison Committee entitled “Into the Eighties”, which was designed to bolster the image of cooperation between the Labour Party and the Unions. From the Socialist point of view it confirms that the Trade Union Movement is (sadly) still committed to support of the stale and useless reformist Labour Party policies.

The TUC argues that it must take an interest in the standard of living of its members which includes “. . . the food on the trade unionist’s table, the clothes on his back, the roof over his head . . .” (ABC of the TUC April 1977). This in itself is an essential attitude, but we must disagree that the Labour Party is the party best able to pursue the interests of the working class. An examination of “Into the Eighties” will demonstrate why.

The statement frequently speaks of “a speedy return to full employment”. We weren’t aware that it ever existed. It promises that the Labour Party will give “high priority” to housing, the health service, education, social services etc. etc. It promises a fairer distribution of wealth, lower prices, care for old age pensioners, the one-parent family, the disabled. In short just about every promise the Labour Party has made over its seventy odd years of existence. During that time it has formed a number of governments and yet we challenge you to name one social problem which has disappeared. There isn’t one. Why is this?

It is because the Labour Party is committed to the idea of running capitalism and believes that this can be done in the interests of the working class:

  We set out below ten points on which we are determined to make progress and we will have to agree on the rolling programme of priorities, having regard to the economic circumstances of the time (“Into the Eighties”, item 37, our emphasis).
  There is no reason why such a policy need be incompatible with proper levels of profitability in British industry. ("Into the Eighties”, item 38).

This is a thoroughly utopian and unrealistic policy. The first and only priority of a capitalist economy is to make a profit. Everything else, including the standard of living of the workers, is subjugated to this aim. We maintain the support of the Labour Party can never satisfy the interests of the working class.

We reiterate the need for workers to organise in trades unions in order to defend their wages and conditions, but at the same time point out that this activity in general can only be useful as a defensive mechanism against the harsh realities of living under capitalism. If living standards can be forced up when market conditions allow, they will just as surely be forced down in times of crises. The last few years has proved this. Trade Union activity can only fight the effects of capitalism, not the causes of those effects, it can retard a downward movement of the spiral, not change its direction.

So if the Labour Party is no answer, and Trades Unions only a defensive mechanism, what is the way forward for the working class? We can only repeat the advice of Karl Marx, who advised workers:

 They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto “A fair days wage for a fair days work!” they ought to inscribe on their banners the revolutionary watchword “Abolition of the wages system!” (Value, Price and Profit).

A resolution will appear on the agenda of the TUC Conference this month endorsing the statement “Into the Eighties". We hope that trade unionists will oppose it and consider instead the alternative of revolutionary socialism.

Ian Westgate

The Questions They Ask . . . (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Mr. Speaker: What is the difference between capitalist economics and socialist economics?”

Speaker: (Thinks! What a smashing question!)

Answer: - The difference is the Labour Theory of Value. This law of capitalism, discovered by Marx, explains the operation of capitalist production and the exploitation of the worker.

The Labour Theory of Value states that the value of commodities is fixed by the amount of labour they contain. But not any old labour. “Socially necessary” labour, the labour required by society to produce an article. The determination of Value by the labour in an article was well known to the famous classical economists before Marx: William Petty, David Ricardo, Adam Smith and Ben Franklin the American; whom Marx quotes approvingly in Volume I of Capital (page 59, Kerr edition). "The value of all things . . . is most justly measured by labour"

The difficulty they found themselves in was this

1. Value is determined by labour.
2. What then determines the value of the labour?

They then went round in circles until Karl Marx cut the Gordian Knot by proving that Labour Power, as a commodity, is also subject to the Labour Theory of Value—that is, the amount of labour to produce and maintain a Labourer. Since those days capitalist "economics” have become a joke; starting with Marshall’s absurd "Marginal Utility” and finishing with J. M. Keynes’ disastrous inflation theories. Meantime the colleges teem with pompous wise-acres solemnly expatiating on "status” and "honours”, "power and conflict”, “blue-collar and white-collar workers” “the reward hierarchy” and associated trivialities.

Once you reject the Labour Theory of Value, you become an apologist—for capitalism.

The Labour Theory of Value also explains why, after 50 years of reformist legislation, Labour Parties have had no effect whatever. While they are trying to tart up capitalism with a few spraying jobs, an endless stream of profits pours into the laps of the capitalists, behind their backs.

A clear grasp of the Labour Theory of Value is a MUST for a scientific Socialist.

It is Socialist Economics!

Next question.

Horatio.

Ear'ole sociology (1978)

Book Review from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs, by Paul E. Willis, Saxon House, 1977, price £3.95, pp 199.

The title of this book is misleading. Its aim is not so much to examine why working class kids get working class jobs, but why certain working class kids go in for jobs involving manual labour. The paradox as seen by the author is that some working class kids (in this study male, white kids), actually choose manual labour as an occupation.

There is no obvious physical coercion and a degree of self direction. This is despite the inferior rewards for, undesirable social definition, and increasing intrinsic meaninglessness, of manual work: in a word its location at the bottom of a class society.

This “paradox” is explained by Willis in terms of a cultural rejection of the conventional views of the worth of education by a group of school-boys, the 'lads’, who together participate in and create a counter-school culture which decisively affects their attitude to school and to work.

In part one of the book Willis looks at the behaviour and views of the ‘lads’ both inside and outside their secondary modern school in the adult working class world the 'lads’ can hardly wait to enter. Interspread in this section of the book are fairly lengthy transcripts from group discussions and individual interviews with the author. We learn that the ‘lads’ deny the value of mental work, regarding it as ‘cissy’ and fit only for the ‘ear’oles’ (the conformists) and for girls; they reject the ideology of individualism, of working hard now to get certificates to make their way in the labour market, and they refuse to co-operate in the formal teaching of the school and flagrantly break its rules on every conceivable occasion. Resentful of the authority of the teachers, school has become for them a battle of wits against authority, where they do as little work as possible and entertain themselves at the expense of the teachers, the ‘ear’oles’ and sometimes, also at the expense of members of their own group. The ‘lads’ regard themselves as superior to the ‘ear’oles’ — sharper, more mature, more sexually experienced and generally more aware of the adult world outside where, they argue, wits count for more than certificates. The counter-school culture also includes a strong cult of machismo reflecting itself in a pride in physical toughness and ‘masculinity’, and a virulent sexism (women are inferior, women are to be sexually exploited although their ‘own’ women should be domesticated and motherly). Along with ‘ear’oles’ and women, immigrants are also regarded as inferior in some way. Their machismo includes racism as well as sexism.

Whereas the transcripts of the ‘lads” views make part one interesting to read, part two tries to present a theoretical analysis of the ‘lads’’ counterculture and here there is nothing to lighten the turgidity of the academic sociologist’s prose. Basically Willis argues in this section that the counterculture resolves his ‘paradox’ by providing a cultural explanation of why the ‘lads’ choose manual work. The counter-culture focuses on toughness and ‘masculinity’ and on immediate gratification. Manual work appears to possess these attributes and so the ‘lads’ choose manual work as an act of self-affirmation and in no way see it as socially or economically inferior.

Willis argues further that much of the counter-culture is more insightful than the official school culture into real working conditions under capitalism (for example that work is not intrinsically interesting — the point is to be tough and cheat the boss as much as possible, and that it provides a better preparation for working life than the school culture. Willis also tries to argue that its insightfulness (called penetrations) is potentially radical in some respects (he argues that their insistence that all work is the same and that the worker should yield as little to the boss as possible, is suggestive of an intuitive understanding of abstract labour under capitalism). Against this Willis also recognises the reactionary elements of their culture — its sexist and racist prejudices, and its acceptance of the authoritarian structure of society (their response to authority at work is to cheat the boss or beat up the boss’s son at a dance, rather than challenge authority itself). Thus Willis presents the counter-school culture as a mixture of “progressive” and “reactionary” elements, largely mirroring, in a creative process of self-affirmation, the wider culture of the manual section of the working class.

The main thesis that the acceptance of the counter-school culture constitutes the explanation for boys going into manual occupations is, however, not borne out by the material presented in the book. In addition, the work as a whole is shot through with the muddled thinking and prejudices of a ‘middle class’ sociology .What is the paradox anyway? Why does our sociologist consider manual work to be more ‘intrinsically meaningless’ than the so-called middle class work of pen-pushing or salesmanship? Certainly some non-manual occupations offer greater economic rewards and security, and these differences within the working class should not be overlooked, but the assumption that all forms of manual work are not intrinsically interesting reveals a degree of cultural snobbery on Willis’ part.

As a work of analysis on the cultural reaction of the working class to employment under capitalism, it is a pity that the work is marred by a misunderstanding of class relations. We are told on page 123 that the middle class is dominant. This is not correct. The capitalist class is dominant — the ‘middle class’ represents a group within the working class. The more interesting question than why some working class boys choose manual work, is why does the working class choose its domination by capitalist society?

Viv Brown

Violence and the state (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The French social democratic writer of the turn of the century, Gabriel Deville, defined the State as “the public power of coercion”. Lenin wrote of it as consisting of “special bodies of armed men which have prisons, etc., at their command”. Others have called it “institutionalised violence”. All these definitions are more or less adequate as they bring out the fact that the State is a social institution whose basic function is coercive: to force members of society to behave in ways they might not otherwise want to, if necessary by the actual exercise of physical force.

Normally it is not the leaders of the “special bodies of armed men” themselves who decide what patterns of behaviour are to be enforced (though in a number of backward capitalist countries military dictatorships are fairly common, exposing the State for what it is). This is decided by others, by the government.

In countries like Russia the government is made up of the leading members of the single political parties that exist in them. Such countries are political dictatorships. In other countries the government is made up either of the leading members of the party, or parties, which have the support of a majority of the members of an assembly elected by universal suffrage (as in Britain) or of men and women appointed, with the approval of an elected assembly, by a President who has himself been elected by universal suffrage (as in America) or by combinations of these two systems (as in France). The important point in all these cases is that those who form the government and thus control the State are elected, either directly or indirectly, by popular vote. In this sense such States can be described as "democratic” (but not in the sense of acting in the interest of a majority of people) or as being political democracies.

There is one feature which all modern States have in common, irrespective of how their governments are chosen: they are instruments of class rule. For society is today divided into two main classes, into those who own and control the means of production (the capitalist class) and those who, excluded from such ownership and control, have to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary in order to live (the working class). The basic function of the State is to maintain this situation of ownership and control of the means of production by a minority class. This is true even of States which, because of the way their governments are chosen, can be called democratic. Such States too are instruments of capitalist class rule and domination, reflecting the fact that the vast majority of the working class accept and support capitalism.

The vast majority of the working class in political dictatorships too accept and support capitalism and in fact in order to survive and function properly States depend on a certain degree of public consent, on people accepting the legitimacy of their coercive role. No government can survive for long in the absence of a minimum degree of such public consent. States, however, have at their disposal powerful means of ensuring acceptance of their legitimacy: the education system and the means of mass communication. Right from the moment a child enters school (quite apart from what he might have learned beforehand from his parents who will have been similarly conditioned) he is taught to be loyal to the State in which he lives. When he grows up and buys newspapers, even those not controlled by the government (as generally they are not in democratic countries), he will read articles — on the sports pages also — which assupie that all citizens of the State form a national community with a common interest. Similarly with the radio and television. Democratic States have an even stronger argument: they can claim that the exercise of State power represents the will of the majority — as in a sense it does, even if it is not exercised in the majority’s interest.

Fortunately such conditioning can never be perfect. For the material conditions of the working class, such as having to work for a wage or salary, having to struggle to defend their standard of living, perpetually having to face problems in the fields of housing, health, education, and so on continually generate discontent and questioning. It was in this way that the idea of an alternative, socialist society arose and how, with the educational and agitational activity of those workers who have already become socialists, it will spread.

Where the State is democratic (in the limited sense we have described) this propagation of Socialist ideas is tolerated and can proceed without too much difficulty. And, when, as a result of their experiences of capitalism combined with having heard the Socialist case, a majority of wage and salary earners have come to want and understand Socialism, then they can use the institutions of the democratic State to win control of political power with a view to abolishing capitalism. In other words, they can win control of the State peacefully without having to have recourse to violence.

That the socialist revolution can be accomplished peacefully is a position the Socialist Party of Great Britain has held since its foundation in 1904. It was a possibility admitted by Marx, though he was not as optimistic as we are about the chances of the peaceful winning of political power not being followed by a “slaveholders’ revolt” on the part of the capitalist class. But then he was writing in the 19th century when political democracy was neither so widespread nor so stable as it has since become in the leading industrial countries of the world. The 1848 Communist Manifesto ended with a declaration that the socialist revolution would be violent. But later, as he had already noted in relation to the Chartists’ demand for universal suffrage, Marx came to realise that political democracy could allow the working class to come to power peacefully and publicly said so in a speech on 8 September 1872 in Amsterdam after the Congress of the First International: "We do not deny that there exist countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I would add Holland, where the workers can achieve their aims by peaceful means” translated from Pages de Karl Marx pour une ethique socialiste, Vol. 2, edited by Maximilien Rubel, p.87).

Marx’s general position has been well summed up as using "the force of the law or the law of force, according to circumstances” to abolish capitalism (Rubel, vol. 2, p.11). Our view is that in modern political conditions (political democracy, the increased proportion of wage-workers in the electorate, the more powerful means of coercion at the disposal of the State) using “the force of the law” is the only practical way. It should be understood that although Socialism can be established without having recourse to violence, “force” will still be used to get the capitalist class to give up its privileges, but it will be the force of the “public power of coercion” democratically exercised by the socialist majority rather than the violence of a popular insurrection.

The idea that violence will have to be used to end capitalism is widely held amongst those who consider themselves “revolutionary socialists”. In their ignorance these people frequently imagine that Marx completely ruled out the peaceful establishment of Socialism and that the distinction between reform and revolution is between those who think capitalism can be abolished peacefully and those who say it must be overthrown by violence. In fact this goes back to Lenin not Marx.

In his State and Revolution written just before the Bolshevik coup d’Etat in 1917, Lenin countered Marx’s argument about the possibility of establishing Socialism peacefully by saying that this may have been so in the liberal era in 1870 but that since that time all States, even Britain, America and Holland, had become militarist and “imperialist”; which according to Lenin meant that the working class could come to control them only by violence.

This argument is not valid. As we have indicated the political changes since 1870 have been in the opposite direction: in favour of using “the force of the law” rather than the “law of force” but this has not stopped many people discontented with aspects of capitalism from imbibing Lenin’s views as “Marxism”.

Most of those who argue from their armchairs in favour of the violent overthrow of capitalism wouldn’t know one end of a rifle from the other let alone how to make a bomb or drive a tank, but what their arguments do is to create an intellectual climate in which the use of violence against the capitalist class and the State is seen as legitimate. So it is not surprising that from time to time a tiny handful of people from Leninist and anarchist circles actually try to use violence against individual capitalists and statesmen. Examples are the Angry Brigade in Britain a few years ago and today the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy.

Individual acts of violence are quite futile as far as advancing the socialist cause is concerned (even if this was the aim of those who practise it, which of course it isn’t). Such “propaganda by the deed”, as the anarchists of the turn of the century used to call it, does not make recruits for Socialism. All it does is to make life more difficult for ordinary workers. In this sense such acts are anti-working class. There are enough problems for wage and salary earners under capitalism without having to impose on them police searches and the fear of being blown up every time they take a train or go for a drink.

We are fully aware that the State is a machine for exercising violence and on a far greater scale than that of any terrorist gang. This is why, when there is a conflict between the State and some terrorist gang, we do not take the side of the State. We are opposed both to the institutionalised violence which is the State as well as to the freelance violence of terrorists. The way to abolish the State is not to take pot shots as it but to organise consciously to win control of it by using the means to hand, — the ballot box. This done, the State along with all the other institutions of class society can be abolished and violence banished for ever from social relations.

Adam Buick

The parliamentary road to socialism (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1871 at a conference of the First International in London, resolution IX which had the support of Marx and Engels read: “Against the power of the propertied classes the proletariat can only act as a class by turning itself into a political party”. That is the reason for the existence of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and why we advocate the parliamentary road to socialism.

The “power of the propertied classes” exist by virtue of their control of the state machine. It is putting the cart before the horse to claim as some do that the political power of the capitalist class (and its representatives) derives from its economic ownership of the means of living. On the contrary, capitalism and the rule of the Capitalist class exist because the overwhelming majority of the population support this state of affairs.

One can see how this fallacious belief that class rule is based on economic power may lead to, or is consistent with, an idealist, as opposed to materialist, conception of history or elitist modes of action such as anarcho-syndicalism. It tends to play down or ignore the fact that the immense majority support capitalism by voting for capitalist parties, whatever the fraudulent labels these may flaunt, or by acquiescing in dictatorships. But as Herman Gersom, translator of Martov’s The State and the Socialist Revolution points out:

“Even the masterminds superintending the Fascist, Nazi and Soviet Communist political superstructures of modern capitalism realise they do not and cannot rule for any length of time against the will of the overwhelming majority of the population”

What lies behind the objection to the parliamentary road to socialism is that should the socialist movement grow to the point when the chance of its delegates forming a parliamentary majority was imminent, then the capitalists would suspend parliament and install a dictatorship. “Democracy”, rather than something which has been struggled for, can, according to this view, be switched on or off as a few leaders see fit, like some electric current. However, the growth of socialist consciousness could not occur in a vacuum and its repercussions will be far-reaching, profoundly influencing social outlook which in turn would determine the nature of existing government.

The tradition of parliamentary democracy is sustained by a general consensus of support for such a tradition which can only be strengthened to the extent that a growing socialist movement will have need of it. Moreover, just as it is impossible to isolate personnel manning the coercive agencies of “bourgeois democracies” so existing dictatorships cannot be isolated from the influence of socialist ideas. The rise of totalitarian regimes such as in Germany before the war was the result of the abysmal, though unavoidable, failure of the social democratic and reformist government of the Weimar republic to deal with the socio-economic problems capitalism presented.

So why do socialists insist on the need to capture parliament? Parliament is the seat of political power through which control of the state apparatus is exercised. Although external influences are exerted upon parliament from big business, unions’ pressure groups and the like, in order to be effective such influence has to be channelled via parliament and realised in the form of legislation.

The basic function of the state, controlled by parliament, is to protect the interests of the capitalist class. The state arose out of the early divisions of society into classes and developed with the development of class conflicts. In this way, class rule through state power originated from class ownership. But private property is a social concept or relationship, the general acceptance of which cannot be separated from the general support given to those who exercise power in the interest of the owning class. The state, through which class rule is exercised will not 'wither away’ as long as the class basis of society exists and conversely the class basis of society will not disappear as long as the state exists to prop it up.

Some would disagree with this. James Guillaume, a nineteenth-century anarchist, declared: “Instead of having recourse to the state which only possesses such strength as the workers give it, the workers will settle their business direct with the bourgeoisie, will pose their own conditions and force them to accept them.” Perhaps it had not occurred to Guillaume that one reason the bourgeoisie has the upper hand in their business with the workers is precisely because they “have recourse to the state”. Behind this recurrent anti-political sentiment is the belief that the political field is tainted with treachery. So it is — but that is the consequence of reformist, not revolutionary, political action and of placing trust in leaders. Furthermore the industrial field — the hunting ground of the militant — is no less “tainted". The same workers that elect Jones or Murray also vote for Thatcher or Callaghan.

Those who reject political action must explain how a revolutionary transformation can be brought about which would result in a classless moneyless system of free access and common ownership.

Two possible methods have been suggested: 1. The creation of a "completely self sufficient cooperative parallel society” (Peace News 16-30 Dec 1977). 2. The anarcho-syndicalist proposal adopted by the founding conference of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 that workers should “take and hold that which they produce by their labour through an economic organization of the working class”.

The first of these has had a long history of application: from the attempts of utopian socialists like Fourier and Robert Owen and their followers to set up utopian communities, to the hippy and rural communes of today. Besides the impracticability of droves of workers opting for the "good life” the advanced division of labour and the integrated social nature of production on a world scale has made interdependence, as opposed to self sufficiency, the hallmark of modern production. As for “workers co-operatives”, these are essentially no different from any other capitalist enterprise competing for the market and therefore subject to its laws; to compete effectively, workers in co-operatives may have to cut their own living standards or sack their fellow workers. Some large-scale co-operatives have developed out of workers’ struggles against redundancies and as such have not been very successful — a prime example being the short-lived co-op producing the Scottish Daily News — either in attracting loans to finance production or in staving off redundancies.

The second option of direct action is equally futile. To begin with the proposal that workers should “seize and hold” the factories and “lock out” the owners implies the fatuous belief that capitalists participate in production, or need to. It is the workers, including the “salaried” managers, who run the entire economy from top to bottom.

But supposing workers “successfully” took over a factory — what then? If they recommenced production, they would have to submit to the rules of the game, to seek to gain legal status to operate on a proper financial basis, to buy and sell. Workers in a match factory cannot live on a diet of matches.

Martov remarked on ihe Proudhonists and anarchists of the 1871 Paris Commune:

They did not realise that capitalism has created for the concentration of the means of production and distribution, so huge an apparatus, that in order to lay hold of these means the working class would require effective administrative machinery extending over the entire economic domain that was previously ruled by capital. They had no idea of the immenseness and complexity of the revolution. And only because they did not understand all these things was it possible for them to think of the autonomous “commune” — itself based on “autonomous” productive units — as the lever of such a transformation. (The State and the Socialist Revolution.) 

Only by capturing the concentrated political power of the state can the necessary coordinated transformation “over the entire economic domain” take place.

As a result of increased state ownership, notably in key industries like transport and energy, the state is increasingly involved in the economy — the most that can be achieved by these means is a change of rulers. Neither can the state be overthrown by insurrection or undermined by social chaos.

There are those, impatient for change, who repudiate the need for “long and persistent work” as Engels put it, to convince workers by persuasion. Rejecting the parliamentary road on the grounds that it stifles the “self-activity” of the masses they turn to the industrial field in the hope of engineering a “social crisis” whereby the consciousness of the masses may be raised. If industrial militancy did turn workers into socialists we might expect to find these militants clamouring for socialism but this is not so. Underlying the mechanistic views of the theorists is an elitist contempt for the intellectual capacity of the working class to grasp the socialist case yet without this working- class understanding, socialism is unattainable.

The parliamentary road does not imply that people hand over their power to others every few years. Parliament is the institution to which the working class shall send their delegates with the purpose of declaring capitalism abolished and to validate this revolutionary act. There has to be some means to effect the neccessary transfer of power from the capitalist to the working class, a means which clearly and democratically indicates the will of the socialist majority. The parliamentary road is the answer. It will be within our party, not parliament that the “self-activity” and “self organisation” of the working class will be realised. The alternative to this was bluntly described by Plekhanov: "Every class struggle is a political struggle. Whosoever repudiates the political struggle, by this very act gives up all part and lot in the class struggle" (Anarchism and Socialism).

Robin Cox

The political road to socialism (1978)

Editorial from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The next general election, like those before, will be regarded by most people as a contest between the Labour and Conservative parties, even at times as a clash between the personalities of Callaghan and Thatcher. The working class are likely to make their choice of government on that basis — which will mean that once again they will not be facing the real issues involved.

Much of the campaign will turn on the record of this Labour government, which has been running British capitalism for so long without a parliamentary majority. In what is a familiar process, the workers gradually lose confidence in a government they have elected and this one has suffered some typically severe setbacks at by-elections. Whatever those results did to the Labour Party, there was no comfort in them for socialists; the workers were voting against Labour candidates for the same basically unenlightened reasons that they originally voted for them.

Although on most occasions those voters who reject the Labour Party are content to switch their support at least for a time, to the Conservatives there is another group which, seeing the impotence of both the big capitalist parties, becomes disillusioned with politics as a whole. The reasoning behind this disillusionment is that since both Labour and Tory are useless and the other parties offer nothing fundamentally different, there is no point in working for political solutions to society’s problems.

Other aspects of this theory are — that all politicians are corrupt and self-seeking (which may or may not be true but which is beside the point) and that Parliament is powerless (which is most definitely to the point but absolutely untrue). This cynical, if understandable, abandonment of politics does not help the situation, since it is based on a misinterpretation; the failure of Labour and Tory parties, and the fact that others like the Liberals can offer no hope of doing any better, says something about them and about their policies; but it does not say anything about political action as such.

If we were consistently governed by incorruptible, vastly knowledgeable, inhumanly efficient, politicians the result would be very little, if any, different from what we know and endure today. Politicians may set out to control and modify capitalism — at election time they promise to do just that — but in the event it is capitalism which controls them and modifies their policies. This is the reason for the disreputable history of broken pledges which every party tries to live down and it is something which afflicts them all, whether their leaders they are corrupt, honest, clever or foolish.

Where does the Socialist Party of Great Britain stand on this? Do we claim to be able to do a better job than our opponents? To be more competent or more honest? We are, first of all, a political party because the road to socialism must be a political one; it must be through the winning of political power. We do not say we are more trustworthy than the others, only that we have a theory of politics which is valid because it fits in with the facts of society as we experience them. We urge workers to examine this theory and put their trust in themselves and not in leaders’ promises.

Socialists struggle for a social revolution — a majority, democratic, peaceful act by a working class who do not need leaders because they understand socialism and will consciously vote for it. Which leaves us with the question — why, when there is a majority of conscious socialists among the world working class, should they need to vote for socialist delegates to attend Parliament before the revolution can happen?

One short answer is that there is no other way. Under capitalism, Parliament — or Congress, or the Bundestag, or the Diet — is the seat of power. It is Parliament which controls, and wields, the state machine, which is used against those who seek to disrupt or to overthrow capitalism by other than parliamentary means.

For any policy to succeed, then — even a policy which aims at reforming capitalism — the first step must be to capture control of the state machine through Parliament. Socialists aim to do this not in order to push through measures of capitalist reform but to use the state machine in the revolution — in the words of our declaration of Principles as an ‘‘agent of emancipation”.

One essential for this — in fact the only essential which is now lacking — is a majority of conscious socialists. Among the tasks of the Socialist Party, then, is to propagate the ideas of socialism as widely and as deeply as possible among the working class. We must not be diverted into campaigns for anything less than socialism and we must remain exclusively a political organisation, the tool which a socialist working class will use to take the political act of the revolution to establish the new society.

For these reasons, the Socialist Party of Great Britain contests elections. It is unusual for us to put up more than one or two candidates but we do not restrict ourselves in this way through crankishness or because we regard elections as some sort of game. As present we are a tiny organisation, with resources to match our size.

The number of votes cast for socialist candidates usually reflects the level of socialist consciousness but it says nothing about the validity of our case. We shall continue to put the case for socialism before the working class and whenever and wherever we can, we shall point out the real issue at an election — capitalism or socialism — and the real alternative to the corrupt impotence of capitalism’s politics.

Each set we contest, every vote for socialism, is part of the historical process towards a new social order when human beings will stand in equality because they will possess the world in unity.