Life and Times: Decline (and fall?) (2026)

The Life and Times column from the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The other day I walked down what used to be the main shopping street of my city centre. When you drive down it, as I frequently do, you don’t take in too much of what’s around you. But on foot I had a close-up view of the stretch that, not so long ago, had some of the best known and most popular shops and businesses in town. What did I see? As I walked along from one end of the street to the other, these were the establishments on view:

1. T’s Nail and Spa (operating)
2. Flamingo’s Vintage (closed and to let)
3. Shaw’s Drapers (closed and to let)
4. The Hanbury Pub (open – having closed and reopened several times)
5. Winning Post Betting Office (operating)
6. Della Cura Authentic Italian Restaurant (closed and not operating)
7. Info Nation NHS Health Board Support (closed and not operating)
8. Chic and Elegant Bridal Wear (open)
9. Ali’s Barbers (open)
10. Greyhound Rescue Charity Shop (open)
11. Warhammer Shop (open)
12. RSPCA Charity Shop (open)
13. Kings Mart Convenience Store (open 6am till late)
14. Brides Bridal Wear (open)

What did this tell me? Firstly, it told me the obvious thing – that this city centre like so many others across the country has taken a hit as a place for people to come and do their shopping, to mingle and maybe to socialise over a drink. It also told me that shops that close are likely to stay closed or, at best, be turned into charity shops, barbers or open-all-hours convenience stores. All of which gives the place a bit of a run-down, derelict look. But, as well as this, walking along that stretch also made me think of the loss of livelihood and perhaps way of life for the people who’d previously worked there, whether as bosses or employees. Some of them at least (for example, the women who’d worked in Shaw’s Drapers for years and I’d got to know a bit from going in there) would have had their existences upended. True, some may have found opportunities or jobs elsewhere, but others may not and the very process of needing to look would have been likely to cause worry, anxiety and maybe even deprivation, all of course hidden from public view. Not that what I saw on that street is unique to this particular location. A similar situation is to be found across many towns and cities in this country and others with bleak effects both on the urban environment and on the people who worked in it.

How much does it matter? After all, people can still obtain most of the goods or services those shops once provided either online or from those large, if usually soulless, edge-of-town or out-of-town stores and supermarkets. And the chances are that most of the people working in the establishments that have gone will have found other work that enables them to make ends meet. As for the visual decline, if the loss of shopping outlets means that people have little or less need to frequent city centres, then they will rarely even come into contact with that.

But isn’t there another side to it? The degeneration of town and city centres has not just lessened their attraction as places to shop but has also meant the diminution of a communal environment for people to meet and fraternise with others and generally feel part of a wider community. Such closeness to fellow human beings has been a fundamental feature of human societies over the 300,000 years that the species has existed, even if it’s something that today’s capitalist’s society militates against. With profit as its mainspring, human togetherness and community hardly feature among its priorities.

And in fact, apart from the demise of community, what we are seeing on my High St with the disappearance or at best rapid turnover of small businesses, is the tireless, unrelenting mission capitalism imposes on all who live under it. It is a system that simply can’t keep still. It ducks, dives and twists at every moment as the market dictates and in pursuit of financial returns. The system’s very nature allows nothing else and at its sharp end are those who do all the work, be they self-employed business owners or, more overwhelmingly, wage and salary workers.

But isn’t there a bright side? On the one hand we have the competitive dog-eat-dog mentality that the system’s money-driven, growth-at-all-costs logic drives and that some say is just part of ‘human nature’. Yet, on the other, the fundamentally friendly, cooperative and empathetic nature of human beings never ceases to shine through in the countless exchanges that take place between people every day and everywhere. It may be in the concern for the welfare of others to be seen in charity and other voluntary activities or just the simple everyday exchanges between vehicle drivers as they slow down or stop to let others pass and are acknowledged with a wave. This gives us hope that, whatever the fate of the High Street shops and businesses in my own city or elsewhere, the basic ineradicable feeling of fellowship that characterises humans will eventually be fully activated and be part of what drives workers to unite to replace the current production for profit society with a quite different one of production for need.

Howard Moss

Running Commentary: Free speech (1985)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free speech

The ruling class in South Africa has imposed new censorship laws preventing foreign journalists reporting the current unrest and violence. The editor of the liberal (by South African standards) Cape Times, Anthony Heard, is to be prosecuted for publishing an interview with the banned leader of the African National Congress, Oliver Tambo, under a section of the Internal Security Act which prohibits the printing, publishing or dissemination without government permission of "any speech, utterance, writing or statement'' of a "banned'' person. Heard did not seek permission to publish the interview since he considered the public have a "right" to be informed about matters of importance. What he will discover is that in capitalism workers do not have "rights" except those legal rights granted by their political masters. Such legal rights are neither absolute nor inalienable. If the capitalist class feels that its interests are threatened by such "rights" as freedom of speech, a free press, freedom of movement or freedom to demonstrate then they will be suspended through Emergency Powers legislation, internal security measures or in the interests of "national security".

The white ruling class clearly feels itself under threat from the black nationalist movement, hence the tightening of the screw. But does it really believe it can conceal for long the contradictions inherent in the apartheid system, and the cruelty, poverty and inhumanity perpetrated in the name of white supremacy?

Race laws

Twenty years ago, in 1965, the first legislation was passed which attempted to outlaw racial discrimination in Britain, since when a number of other Acts have extended the scope of race relations law. So what is the position of blacks in Britain today?

As is well known, and as the Policy Studies Institute confirmed in its report Black and White in Britain, blacks are still relatively disadvantaged: they tend to live in worse housing than white workers, receive lower pay, get the worst jobs and are more likely to be unemployed. Increasingly they have been the victims of racial attacks and violence.

Various reasons have been given for this failure to improve the state of race relations but none has even begun to address the real problem. That is that it is impossible to legislate to change people's attitudes. They are shaped by the conditions of society in which we live. In capitalism conflict and competition between workers is inherent: competition for jobs, houses and other "scarce" resources. It is not surprising therefore that those who lose out in that competition frequently give vent to their frustration in the form of hostility towards blacks as an identifiable group.

No amount of legislation can change such feelings. What is needed is the recognition amongst all workers, men and women, black and white, that we do have interests in common, that transcend racial, cultural or gender divisions, but those interests will never be fully realised so long as capitalism continues. What we don't need is another piece of legislation outlawing racial discrimination; what we do need is democratic, political organisation to abolish the root cause of racism—capitalism.

Queen’s speech

Although the next general election is probably another two years away, it looks as if the government's campaign has begun in earnest. Its programme for the new session of Parliament, outlined in the Queen's speech, includes a Bill to deal with Public Order (likely to be a big vote-catcher given the hysteria whipped up over events on miners' picket lines and in inner cities); more privatisation to raise money for tax cuts; further "de-regulation", including the removal of restrictions on Sunday shopping, a limitation on the activities of Wages Councils so that workers under 21 will no longer have their pay protected, more private management of council housing estates; and changes in social security benefits.

What will this programme of legislation mean to workers? Is there anything to persuade us that the government is indeed acting in our interests?

Sunday shopping

Although some people might think that unrestricted opening hours are in workers' interests. we should remember that the shop-workers' union. USDAW, at least, is opposed to such a change. They fear that it will lead to their already badly paid members working much longer hours without the benefit of overtime rates. It becomes clear whose interests the proposed change is designed to serve when "Open Shop", the pressure group in favour of Sunday trading, lists among its members such giant retailers as Asda. MFI. Habitat/Mothercare, W.H. Smith and Woolworth.

Social security

The review of the Social Security system was intended to look for ways in which benefits could be "targetted" on those most in need, or at least that's the story we were given. The changes are likely to affect pensions. supplementary benefit, support for the low paid and housing benefit. A report published recently by the Policy Studies Institute (The Examination of Social Security) states that if the government s plans go ahead, some of the neediest and most disabled claimants will actually lose money.

Privatisation

The government expects to realise £10 billion from its sale of British Gas. It also plans to sell off shares in airports owned by the British Airports Authority and introduce "commercial management" into the naval dockyards. All this, it is hoped, will not only provide some spare cash for tax cuts, but also give people the opportunity to buy shares in companies presently legally owned by the state. If the workers weren't conned by the Labour trick of nationalisation. then maybe they can be duped into believing that they can have a real stake in the capitalist system of society by buying a few shares. The truth is very different. It makes no difference to the working class whether the means of production are privately owned or state owned; whether or not we own a few shares, workers will never have access to the wealth that we, as a class, collectively produce. Plans to give tenants some say in the management of council estates are part of an attempt to create the same illusion. Who wants to be part of a "property owning democracy" when the only property we own is a tower block slum?

Public order

The proposed changes to the law relating to Public Order will give the police greater powers to restrict marches and demonstrations. and to decide how many people should stand where on a picket line. A new offence of "disorderly conduct" will be created and the old common law offences of riot and affray will be tightened up (no doubt because of recent failures to secure prosecutions of people charged with these offences). These changes will mean that the legal rights of workers to protest, demonstrate and picket will be curtailed.

So the Queen's speech seems to have left out one important statement. It should have read as follows: "My government will continue to support absolutely the capitalist system of society which concentrates ownership and wealth in the hands of the minority capitalist class, at the expense of the working class who produce all wealth through their labour. My government will continue to support the police force and the other coercive machinery of state, which acts to protect the interests of parasites like myself against any perceived threat by the workers".

Janie Percy-Smith

Finance and Industry: Co-operative Movement at a dead end (1962)

The Finance and Industry Column from the December 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few months ago Reynolds News, the Co-operative Sunday newspaper, came out in its new form as the Sunday Citizen. Whatever other reasons for the change there may have been, doubtless the fall in circulation of the old paper from 720,0000 in 1947 to 310,000 in 196I has something to do with the effort to appeal to a new circle of readers. We do not know whether the change has won new readers, but we can tell what readership one of their regular contributors has in mind. He is Scorpio, "Sunday Citizen Economic Expert," who has a column headed Your Money. In the issue for October 21st he urged his readers “ Buy Oil Shares":

My advice has always been that you can't get high income yield, security against loss, quick access to your money, and hope of capital growth all at once.

Today I suggest a chance to come much nearer having it all four ways than you will often get. Buy some British Petroleum or Burmah Oil shares or, better, some of both.

Scorpio, or his editor, obviously thinks that no newspaper can be complete and up-to-date without a city column in which readers are helped with their investment problems. The Sunday Citizen has to keep up with the Jones’s of Fleet Street — what they do it must do, too.

And if Scorpio were to ask what is wrong with a Co-operative newspaper trying to have as wide an appeal as any other Sunday paper, the answer is that there is everything wrong with this particular venture, that of advising workers to risk what little savings they have (or some of them have) in buying shares.

In the first place it is a very dangerous game for workers to play. The inducement is the belief that they can make money. So they may at backing horses, and just as easily lose it. Scorpio's particular advice may turn out to be based on a correct guess about the future of the oil industry and of these two companies but, like all the other City recommendations it can be little more than a guess.

Very much to the point, how does it come about that a newspaper which belongs to the Co-operative Movement is not telling its readers to put their spare money into the Co-operative movement which so badly needs it?

There was a time when enthusiastic co-operators would have been shocked to find in their own Press someone who had so little belief in co-operation. Probably few readers are shocked today because, as a movement aiming at social change, co-operation has long been dead. More worrying still to many of its officials it hasn’t even been holding its own as a capitalist trading group in competition with commercial rivals. 

From the standpoint of the original solid aims of the movement probably few of its more than 12 million members even know what the original aims were. Some of them may have heard of Robert Owen and of the Rochdale Pioneers who formed a co-operative society in 1844, but few will know that for Owen and for the Rochdale Group the trading society was looked on not as an end in itself but as a means to revolutionise society:

. . . . Owen was not interested in "store keeping”. He wanted to set up self-supporting and self-governing villages of co-operation, organised committees providing work and happiness for their members. At first he advocated these as a means of over-coming unemployment, but later he broadened his plan to embrace all mankind.

(The Co-operative Movement. Published by the Labour Party.)

Such aims have been long forgotten as the co-operative movement enrolled its members by the million and gave them the satisfaction of their dividend on purchases. In the co-operative movement\ prosperous years it was possible to recruit new members by publicising the “divi" But the co-operatives have not kept up with the leaders in the race for trade. In 1960 their sales reached the record level of £1,066 million, but their proportion of total retail sales actually fell slightly and their average dividend payment was 11¾d. in the pound, compared with 1s. in the pound in 1953 and 1s. 9½d. in 1939.

In 1958, after two years’ investigation, a committee presided over by Mr. Hugh Gaitskell and with Mr. C. A. R. Crosland as secretary issued a long report on the methods and problems of the co-operative movement. They found that the expansion of membership and trade was slowing down.

In the period 1890 to 1920 the cooperative share in total national expenditure on goods and services more than doubled, but in the next thirty-six years it increased by only one-sixth.

Comparing the I950’s with the beginning of this century, the small private retailers lost ground heavily but the principal gainers were the multiple shops and to a smaller extent the department stores. The Committee found the relative lack of progress of the co-operatives since the war “the most disturbing feature.”

The Committee, some of whose recommendations came in for much criticism, urged big changes, including the amalgamation of retail societies to reduce the number from about 950 to 200 or 300, more efficient management, better service and better staff recruitment, and the improvement of labour relations.

But although some amalgamations are taking place and costly schemes of modernisation are being introduced, the troubles have continued for many of the retail societies:

In 1960 retail sales as a whole rose by four per cent., department store sales by as much as seven per cent.. Co-operative sales by only one per cent. Even the small shopkeeper did better. And now the cut-price super market is menacing the Co-ops’ traditional strongholds. Well may Co-operative officials shiver in their ” Sunday Footwear. 

If there is any mystery about the Co-ops' decline, a visit to the local branch may clear up part of it—though not for people who live in Leicester. Nottingham and certain other places where the Co-ops’ are notoriously efficient. ’’Dowdy, parochial and technically backward” were Mr. Crosland’s words for the Co-op. and the shelves sometimes tend to confirm them. (Daily Telegraph, 11.5.61.)

Trying to compete with private traders, some co-operatives are going in for cut prices but while this increases sales it means, as for the big Liverpool society, that there is no surplus available for the traditional dividend on purchases, for the first time in the Society's 47 years’ history.

Where they have been more successful is in the insurance field. The Co-operative Insurance Society, has just opened its new skyscraper headquarters in Manchester. The Co-operative News (27/10/62) found this noteworthy because it was opened by Prince Philip—

. . . the first occasion on which a member of the Royal Family has declared open a co-operative building.”

As employers the co-operatives have their problems too. Strikes are not unknown (including in the C.I.S.).

Before the war the pay and conditions of co-operative employees compared rather favourably with the majority of their private competitors. It is doubtful if they do so today. A few months ago the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied workers made an inquiry into staffing conditions in a number of Co-operative societies. They found that two-thirds of them were understaffed and two in every five of the Union's branches gave as the reason “that recruits could not be found because of the low wages paid by the Society when compared with pay in outside jobs.” The Socialist attitude towards the cooperative movement is that it solves no working class problem. Even if modernisation enables the co-operatives to recover lost ground in their fight against their retail rivals, they cannot achieve the social revolution which is the aim of the Socialist Movement. The dreams of Robert Owen and some of the Co-operative pioneers can be achieved only through Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Sting in the Tail: Who are the crazies? (1995)

The Sting in the Tail column from the April 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the crazies?

Capitalism is a crazy social system. It takes food out of production to keep up prices, while people go hungry. A recent example of this market madness appeared in the Observer (5 February):

"Every morning, farmer Brian Nicholas carefully collects 800 litres of milk—fresh, creamy and frothing—and then tips it all into his muck spreader. . . Mr Nicholas, a small dairy farmer is one of hundreds of producers forced by European Union milk quotas to throwaway his produce this year, following deregulation of the milk industry in November."

Defenders of capitalism are always telling socialists that production for profit is the only sane way to run society. Are we crazy because we think milk should be produced to satisfy human needs?

Sense about race

The racist ideas currently coming out of America are being countered by American scientists. An article in the Independent (21 February) reports that ‘‘the concept of race is out of date and has no biological basis, according to scientists”.

Professor of anthropology Loring Brace told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Atlanta that the division of people into separate races was “an historical hangover from the days of colonial conquest”. Indeed:

"There was no race concept prior to the Renaissance. There is no race concept in the Bible or other writings of antiquity. The best way to refer to people is to use geographical designations. Thus people can be identified as African, or Australian, or European. and the like."

And another anthropologist, Professor Kay, summed it up:

"There is just no valid reason for using existing racial terms. This isn't politically correct, it's scientifically correct. "

The back scratchers

After Labour’s 1945 election victory, the Tories bitterly attacked its policy of wholesale nationalisation. They soon came to accept that, however distasteful, a greater degree of state ownership did have widespread public support and probably was necessary to set post-war British capitalism back on its feet.

Thus Labour did the Tories’ dirty work for them, but see what is happening now. Following the Tory victory in 1979, Labour threatened to return each privatised industry to state ownership, but because this was now a vote-loser and had (as we always said it would) proved to be a flop anyway, these threats have been dropped one-by-one. Now, even water and coal are to stay privatised.

So history is repeating itself: just as Labour after 1945 took the steps which the Tories shrank from taking themselves, the Tories are returning the favour for a future Labour government.

NatWest’s dodgy future

NatWest Bank's 61 percent increase in pretax profits in 1994—up from £989 million to £1.6 billion—was less than well received by the bank's workers. They were furious because the directors will cop huge bonuses, shareholders pocket bigger dividends, while staff get rises averaging 3 percent.

But the City of London wasn’t happy either as the big jump in profits wasn’t due to an improved performance by the bank. Income was down and costs were up while UK banking profits actually fell by £109 million despite savage staff cuts and branch closures.

In fact, the increased profits were almost entirely down to the big drop in bad debt from £1.25 billion to £616 million and is probably a one-off.

The City knows that ever-increasing competition, plus limits to what can be saved by cost-cutting, mean that NatWest’s future profits growth is under threat. Banking is not, as many people imagine, a licence to print money.

Nothing is forever

After World War Two that grand old British institution, the small shopkeeper who was “open all hours”, was decimated by the High Street chainstores which were cheaper and provided greater choice.

The High Street in turn became an institution but is now in trouble. Many of its shops lie empty and Rumbelows entire chain is to close shortly. The recession and high prime-site rents are among the reasons for this, but the main one is the growth of Shopping Malls and edge-of-town Superstores which offer even greater choice plus easy parking.

But nothing is forever. Already Malls and Superstores in America are being challenged by TV shopping which means shoppers don’t even have to leave their homes.

So everything that appears to be stable and permanent is merely in a state of temporary equilibrium and is in the process of becoming something else. This applies not just to capitalism’s hallowed institutions but to the very system itself.

Madras madness

In the Calcutta newspaper, The Telegraph (5th March) we read of the booming trade in kidney selling down in Madras. Like every other market in capitalism, when there is an increase in supply there is a fall in price, in this case from 80,000 rupees to 30,000 rupees. This is approximately from £1,600 to £600.

This macabre trade is defended by a local leading nephrologist. K.C. Reddy is quoted as saying:

"We have a group of people dying and desperate for a kidney. Then there is a group, much below the poverty line, willing to sell anything for some money. For them, selling a kidney is a more altruistic option — at least they are saving, not harming anyone. There is no question of exploitation here."

The newspaper reports that most of the kidneys are going to patients in Germany, Japan and the Gulf. One recipient from Yemen is reported to have paid $10,000 for his transplant.

The whole sordid business is typical of capitalism. Wherever there is human misery there is always “entrepreneurs” quick to cash in. Only in socialism will the best possible medical and health care be free to the whole of the world’s population. 

‘Ethical Shopping’: A Luxury (2022)

From the July 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Count your food miles, buy organic, live without plastics, buy local products, support small businesses – we’re told this is how individual consumers can choose to help the environment.

Really? Don’t get us wrong. We’re all in favour of people taking personal responsibility – the voluntary society we want will depend on that very thing.

But these incitements to personal sacrifice are a gigantic act of misdirection. The powers-that-be love talking about your personal responsibility for the state of the planet, because it’s better than owning up to their collective responsibility for ruining it.

They are responsible for a wasteful system that creates obscene wealth and luxury for the 1 percent while many of us end up struggling just to get by. And they have the cheek to tell us to cut back on our personal consumption!

So be responsible, by all means. But just remember, capitalism never will be.

Now ask yourself these questions:

1. Why is it that most of what we ever buy – food, clothes, electricals, etc., is mass produced?

It’s because of economies of scale, which reduce production costs, so mass-produced stuff comes to dominate the market because it’s always cheaper.

2. Does this stuff have to come from so far away?

The companies that make the stuff are always trying to undercut each other to grab more market share. This has tended to push production out to wherever in the world wages are cheapest, resulting in long, complex supply chains and wasteful global transportation. These two factors have wiped out most local production over the decades, so we have little choice when we shop.

But there’s another factor that restricts our ability to choose. Our wage levels generally are determined by how much we have to spend to keep us in a condition that allows us to keep working. And it’s the prices of the global, mass-produced stuff (battery eggs, not free-range; prosecco, not champagne) that enter into that calculation.

So while some may be able to shop ‘ethically’, it’s a luxury many of us simply can’t afford.

Proper Gander: Between The Lines (2021)

The Proper Gander column from the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Michaella McCollum, when aged 19, left her home in rural Northern Ireland for the flashy bars and clubs of Ibiza. She soon found that its clubbing culture was fuelled not only by booze, but also by drugs, especially cocaine, traded openly but illegally. Michaella met ‘a really easy going’ man and, while at a party on an LSD trip, agreed to pick up a package for him which she realised contained drugs. The following morning she was sent off to Barcelona on the Spanish mainland, where she was surprised to find that she and another woman, Melissa Reid, would be travelling on to Lima under the guise of being tourists. Text messages from one of the gang she was now involved with aimed to reassure her and distract her from how much she had lost control. The two women collected the package from their contact, which turned out to be 11 kilos of cocaine disguised as sachets of porridge. As Michaella said, ‘if you think taking coke is a rush, try walking a million quid’s worth of the stuff into an international airport’. Nervously lugging heavy suitcases across the concourse drew the attention of the security guards, and the two were caught.

BBC Three’s documentary series High: Confessions Of An Ibiza Drug Mule told Michaella’s story, with a caption at the start of each episode describing it as ‘based on the testimony of a convicted drug smuggler’. Alongside Michaella detailing what happened, the series included dramatisations and interviews with lawyers, journalists and people involved in drug trafficking, although Melissa presumably chose not to take part.

The police didn’t believe the women’s story that they had been coerced into smuggling the drugs, and they were locked in a grim cell to await their trial. The media latched on to the story, dubbing the women the ‘Peru Two’, and reporters flew out to South America, one even posing as Michaella’s boyfriend to get to see her in jail. At their trial they admitted they were complicit in order to get a lighter sentence, which was set at six years and eight months imprisonment after a plea bargain. A reporter from the Belfast Telegraph, Patricia Devlin, said that the ‘public mood’ changed after the women confessed they knew what they were doing. The ‘Peru Two’ then became a silly season story, jokey memes, and a target for criticism.

They were sent to Ancón 2, a crowded, oppressive maximum-security prison north of Lima; ‘everything about it was toxic’ said Michaella. To try and make her time there more bearable, she learnt some Spanish, worked in the jail’s salon and was voted in as her block’s representative. She made enough money from prison work to afford the bribes to bring her parole court date forward and get the necessary proofs towards it. Her release was granted after almost three years behind bars, and Melissa was able to leave soon afterwards. Michaella says that her story is a lesson for others, and the documentary ends on an uplifting note about learning and growing, with appropriately rousing music.

In framing what happened as a personal journey, the documentary tries to turn the wider issues into incidental details along the way. Money is really a main player of the story. Michaella herself said she was motivated by financial gain, although what she was promised was much, much less than what the higher-up dealers make. According to lawyer Alexandro Tirelli, the cocaine business in Ibiza alone involves up to half a million Euros each day. This is why the cartel wouldn’t have been too concerned at losing even the 11kg the ‘Peru Two’ were found with, as to them, this was only a small amount. That the women were easily captured suggests that it was expected, acting as a useful distraction while larger amounts of drugs were smuggled through. The women were manipulated by the cartel throughout, after being identified as impressionable and groomed in a calculated, well-rehearsed way, still under implied threats when in prison. They were used as a means to make money, which happens in mainstream employment, of course, the difference being that here, the methods used are more extreme due to the high financial stakes and the drugs industry’s illegality. So the other main player in this story is the legal system which the industry has to work around, embodied by the judges, lawyers and police, and with Ancón 2 as its squalid end-point for those convicted.

The law is also shaped by money, especially in how a case’s outcome can depend on how much the defendant can pay out. The legal framework is there to protect the state’s interests, and limit the wealth and power of cartels competing with the elite. Drug laws aren’t officially presented to us like that, though, being instead supposedly there to protect the public against the risks of drugs, dangers which are amplified by their being manufactured in secret, and likely diluted with other substances to reduce costs. Even if drugs were made legal, as they have been to varying extents elsewhere, their production would still be driven by maximising profits for whoever owns the means to make them in bulk, and capitalism’s pressures would still push some people into problematic use. Both the money system and the legal system, as integral parts of capitalism, have shaped the drug industry and drug culture into the dark, seedy scene which Michaella and Melissa fell victim to.

Mike Foster

Proper Gander: ‘I’ve Got Nothing. I Ain’t Got No-one. But I’ve Got The Shops’ (2020)

The Proper Gander column from the September 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The High Street was already on the financial skids before the pandemic, which has sped up the shift to online shopping. And these days, going to the shops has the added considerations of facemasks, social distancing, arrows on the floor and sanitisers by the doors, making it more of an ordeal than before. Despite all this, slick, brightly-lit shopping malls are still there to tempt those looking for either retail therapy or a five-finger discount. The latter were the focus of Channel 5’s recent Shoplifters: At War With The Law. This fly-on-the-wall documentary series follows the security guards and their quarries at two interchangeable shopping centres: West Orchards in Coventry and Weston Favell in Northampton. It was filmed pre-Covid 19, so since the cameras left, the guards are presumably on the hunt for people not wearing masks as well as people not paying.

According to the programme’s voiceover, last year, there were 400,000 shoplifting incidents reported nationwide, with the number of those that go undetected estimated to be 20 times higher. Of course, we don’t see any of these, and the shopping centres understandably want the programme to emphasise the chances of getting nabbed. Regardless of this, the show has plenty of tips for would-be pilferers, such as going with a group of friends to distract the guards while items are slipped into pockets elsewhere. And higher-end goods with electronic tags attached can be dealt with by snipping them off with pliers or hiding them in a bag lined with foil so they don’t set off the door alarms.

Watching out for all this are hundreds of HD CCTV cameras, whose footage is relayed back to each shopping centre’s control room. When the guard on duty there sees someone acting shiftily or gets a tip-off from one of the shops, they can radio down to their colleagues to find their target. It’s all quite sad to watch this game of cat-and-mouse, although a couple of the guards get a kick out of their work. ‘I always catch my prey,’ boasts one, ‘that’s why I do my job. I love it’. The guards can only apprehend someone once they’ve left a store, although they cynically assume ‘anybody that’s in the shop is a shoplifter until they go to the till’. Those who are caught are led to a bleak holding room to be questioned and have their bags searched. The police will be called if the person has ‘gone equipped’ with a foil-lined bag or pliers, or if what they have stolen is valued at over £200. If the goods are worth less than this the police won’t usually be involved and instead, a year-long ban from the shopping centre is issued. If the accused says they have no ID, they’re asked to bring up their social media profile instead. Their name, address and date of birth are taken, as is a mug shot for the database. If they are seen to return to the centre, they will be trespassing and the police will be called. The guards have had plenty of practice with the procedure: the West Orchards team ‘take down’ up to ten shoplifters a day, as they put it.

The programme-makers blur out the faces of the people caught, which also has the effect of emphasising how dehumanising the need to shoplift is, and the rituals around it. Some of the people featured have been recruited by gangs, and probably have very little choice in the matter. They tend to be from Eastern Europe, not able to claim benefits and without much chance of securing better paid work, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation from organised gangs. Most of the value of any successfully shoplifted goods is likely to go to the gangmasters, with those who take the risks receiving little back; a more extreme version of mainstream employment. These gangs tend to move between areas once they become too well-known in one place. Nearly three quarters of shoplifting in West Orchards is carried out by a small group of local repeat visitors. Many of these are homeless, with or without a benefit claim, either stealing to get enough food or to fund a drug habit. One man speaks to the camera crew after he’s thrown out for the umpteenth time: ‘I’ve got nothing. I ain’t got no-one. But … I’ve got the shops.’ The guards tend to treat those who are pushed into shoplifting by poverty with some sensitivity, as long as they don’t get lairy.

But Shoplifters: At War With The Law doesn’t want us to feel too sympathetic towards people who steal. Its voiceover makes the point that shoplifting ‘takes more than £2 million out of tills every day’, and that to make up for these losses shops have been ‘ramping up prices for millions of honest shoppers’. It’s easy to claim that theft raises prices, but this falsely implies that retailers would lower prices below the market rate if people stopped stealing, which of course no retailer would ever do, so it just scapegoats people who shoplift and provides an alibi for inflated prices. The costs of security measures and stolen items do impact on the profitability of goods to some extent, so the chain store owners will be keen to clamp down on shoplifting. But a few pinched bottles of perfume or boxes of chocolates are nothing compared to the billions of pounds creamed off by owners and shareholders.

Mike Foster

Trouble in store (1985)

From the February 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

They might have said: "The people who own this supermarket hope you will come in and buy food here. But no matter how much you need it. you must not take anything from the shop unless you pay for it because that's the way we get profits on our investments. If you don't obey these rules you will probably be punished under the law."

What they actually said, in two posters side by side on the door, was: "Welcome to Safeways'. "Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted".

Like many other offences, shoplifting has apparently been on the increase, from 126,844 incidents recorded by the police in 1972 to 242,304 in 1982. The total value of goods lost to the shops in this way is set at about £8 million a year but it is likely that it really amounts to a lot more than that; in particular shop assistants are suspected of a vast amount of undetected theft. Anyone starting a career in crime by testing out their welcome at Safeways may be reassured by the fact that about 50 per cent of contested cases result in an acquittal in court.

There are various methods for the apprentice shoplifter to consider, from the simple one of putting items straight into a shopping bag instead of into the basket so thoughtfully provided by the supermarket and leaving without paying for them; to the more difficult, like grabbing a discarded receipt. finding foods for the same price and getting a refund on them. In between lie methods requiring some manual dexterity, like swapping those sticky price tags or "gleaning"—opening packs of food and eating it while in the store, which can give a supermarket shelf the appearance of a field ravaged by locusts. Some known shoplifters. presumably on their day off, relax by playing games, attracting attention by concealing some item on their person and walking around the shop for a while before replacing it. to the chagrin of the watching store detective.

Who are the shoplifters? An article in Justice of the Peace (28 January 1984) said there has been ". . . an increase in the incidence of organised or group shoplifting (the Australian gang) and the use of violence arid intimidation. . ." but this aggravation of magistrates' paranoia represents too alarmist a picture. A very high "clear-up" rate is claimed by the police for shoplifting — 88 per cent compared to 37 per cent for all offences — which is a measure of the shoplifters' ineptitude. Then there is the fact that nearly half of the incidents recorded in 1982 concerned goods worth £5 or less, which is hardly the type of loot looked for by determined. sophisticated gangs. In fact, juveniles make up the largest group of shoplifters and. according to the Home Office (Designing Out Crime, HMSO). it is the offence most often committed by youngsters truanting from school.

The rising tide of shoplifting has been resisted by the shops in a strengthening of their defences. The Association of Prevention of Theft From Shops, whose Director is a Baroness, acts as an intelligence agency. Many goods are so packaged that it is very difficult to conceal others in with them (it is. of course, also very difficult to unpack the things when you get them home). In clothing shops, tags which can only be removed by a cashier set off a clamorous alarm if anyone tries to take them through the doorway. Shops are surveyed by closed circuit TV and patrolled by store detectives, whose vigilance may be sharpened by the commission they get for every successful arrest.

It is ironic that all this effort is expended to deal with a problem which the shops originally made for themselves. The age of the shoplifter is also the age of the self-service store: “Shoplifting", the Home Office unsurprisingly concluded, "is discouraged by the presence of assistants who are there to serve the customer." But the old style shops, where assistants, who had knowledge and skill as well as patience, served customers across counters, were relatively costly in floor space and wages. (Imagine the acreage of counters, and the swarms of staff, the average Safeways would need if they used that method today.)

All of that was swept away soon after the war in what was called the Great Marketing Revolution, in which a lot of money was invested with the object of cutting staff and making more profitable use of shop floor areas. The revolution left the customers to do the serving themselves, from displays replenished by squads of nocturnal "shelf-fillers" and then to volunteer to pay at check out tills operated at the kind of pressure to ensure the minimum of customer contact and the maximum of alienation. Now nobody stands chatting in a supermarket; the shelves can't talk back and the check out operators haven't got the time.

The big snag with the revolution was that it also allowed the customers to help themselves from the displays and so opened a field of crime to thousands of people who would not otherwise have had such a tempting opportunity. Vagrant alcoholics could help themselves to their booze, penurious mothers could help feed their children, aimless truants could arrange an afternoon s supply of free sweets and fags. About 4,000 of the yearly convictions for shoplifting are of people of 60 and over, many of them never having been in court before and who, but for the existence of the self-service shop, would almost certainly never have fallen foul of the law.

This has given rise to the stereotype of the menopausal shoplifter, a concept whose significance is obscured by the implication that age has to be a disability when in fact the problem lies in the disabling effects of capitalist society. The magistrates' courts see a continuous procession of these wretched, frightened people, often middle-aged women in despair. These women are often described in court, by helpful policemen. as "respectable", which means that they have been nurtured since birth on an insidious diet of capitalist morality. For them, the apex of attractiveness coincides with that of their profitability as an employee — with their youth. The fulfilment of their life began with employment, followed by marriage and a coping with children, housework. the mortgage and the bills while still disseminating a stereotypical sexual allure. At an age when cosmetic artifices can no longer smooth wrinkles, when no profit-conscious employer would give them a seat in the typing pool or at an assembly line, when their children have left home to grapple with the stresses of their own marriage, many women may feel their usefulness died with their fertility and that now they are unwanted, unattended.

An obvious way to draw attention to themselves is to offend against all they have been conditioned to regard as moral and correct. Such people could hardly burgle a house or hold up a bank but shoplifting is an easily available crime, fitting neatly into their daily routine of housework and shopping. Too often, however, their arrest is only another stage in a chronic depression. Hundreds of people every year are driven into a mental breakdown by their arrest and during a recent 18 month period the Portia Trust recorded 32 suicides by people accused of shoplifting. The other side of this bitter story is to be found in the people who own the supermarkets and the companies which supply them, among whom there are some massive fortunes: the Vestey family (£1.5 billion); the Sainsbury family (£900 million); James Goldsmith (£500 million); Garfield Weston (£300 million) (Sunday Times. 7 October 1984). These are some of the class whose interests are protected by the store detectives, the police and the courts, who welcome us to their shops as long as we pay for what we take away, whose interests are in the end responsible for the alienation, misery, depression and suicides.

In its early days shoplifting was perhaps not regarded quite so seriously. In fact one study found that some shops took the level of their loss as an index of their attractiveness. According to the Home Office. "Retailers . . . may be disinclined to change marketing techniques so long as these gain more in sales than they lose in theft". The balancing point, of course, is concerned with profits, which is as it should be in a society whose wealth is produced to be sold rather than to satisfy human needs. The shops warn us that in the end we all pay because they simply raise their prices to cover their losses to the shoplifters. But if it were possible for a company always to recoup losses in that way they would not need to defend themselves so tenaciously against theft, or wage demands, or a slump in their sales.

The shoplifters go to their work untroubled by the spurious, justifying economics of capitalism's defenders. Except that they might ponder on the greater act of legalised theft which establishes the property rights of the owners and whether a more comprehensive appropriation than their furtive acts might do better for the human race.

Ivan

Action Replay: Ring-Fenced (2011)

The Action Replay column from the July 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

No doubt we shall be returning to the Olympics in this column before the whole jamboree kicks off next July. For now we can just comment on a couple of aspects of the build-up.

Back in March there was an undignified spat between the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG). BOA gets 20 percent of the profit from the Games, and argued that this should be calculated on the basis of the Olympics only, and so exclude any losses from staging the Paralympics. But the International Olympic Committee ruled against this idea, thus reducing the cut received by the BOA and increasing the amount kept by LOCOG.

And LOCOG and others won’t be making money just from this decision. For next door to the tube and train stations at Stratford is Westfield Stratford City, a huge shopping mall, in fact the largest urban shopping centre in Europe, due to open this September. The expectation (or hope) is that 70 percent of Olympic visitors will arrive at Stratford station, where they will walk to the Olympic park via Westfield. This will mean hundreds of thousands of visitors (and potential shoppers) each day the Olympics run.

After the Olympics, this mega-mall will still offer 300 shops, 50 food outlets, three hotels, a multi-screen cinema and a casino. It will also contain a ‘24-hour lifestyle street’, whatever that is. If all goes well for the company that owns it, it will become one of the country’s top ten shopping destinations. So there will be gold in them there tills, not just at medal ceremonies.

Paul Bennett

Proper Gander: Counter Culture (2018)

The Proper Gander column from the August 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

 A shop marks the end of the long journey which a pair of socks or a tin of beans has taken to reach us. And the last of the innumerable workers who contributed to getting it to us is often the ‘shopgirl’. Shops and their staff, therefore, have a crucial place in the economy, on the front line of consumerism, as highlighted by the BBC’s Shopgirls: The True Story of Life Behind The Counter.

 This documentary series focuses on how the role of the shopgirl has changed over the decades, and the wider trends behind this. Presenter Pamela Cox, professor of sociology at the University of Essex, tells the story in an engaging, cheery way, linking up personal accounts with the bigger picture.

 Shop work was for men only until the mid nineteenth century, and at least one woman (dubbed a ‘romantic freak’ in the press) twice disguised herself as a bloke to get a job in a shop. The ever-increasing number of mines and factories which were springing up led to an ever-increasing number of stores to sell their products in. This meant more people were needed for the labour market, so the proportion of women employees grew. The widespread assumption that women were more suited to domestic duties put them at a disadvantage when competing for jobs, meaning they ended up in low-status roles, especially in shops. Many shop staff ‘lived in’, meaning their job came with accommodation: usually bleak, strictly-run dormitories. By providing accommodation, employers could both keep and control their staff. Working hours were long, pay was low, and there was constant pressure to perform. ‘The more obsequious and helpful the assistants were, the better you did [as a business]’. Many of their tasks were monotonous and useless, such as winding and unwinding ribbons to give the impression of busyness. Lengthy days without being able to sit down were called ‘the standing evil’, one of many damaging effects on shopgirls’ health detailed in the 1884 report Death And Disease Behind The Counter. Despite the government knowing about the harm which shop work caused, little changed for decades.

 One group aiming to improve conditions was the Co-Operative Women’s Guild, which was founded in 1883 and only closed in 2016. It was set up to provide mutual support, not only for work-related issues, but also with education and welfare. However, many workers were reluctant to organise together, not least because joining a union could lead to getting the sack. Margaret Bondfield was a prominent member of the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks who campaigned for union membership and also wrote a series of articles exposing the shop worker’s lot. In her later career, she sided fully with the establishment, becoming the first female cabinet minister when she was appointed Minister of Labour in 1929. 

 By the end of the nineteenth century, the rising number of women employed in shops had reached nearly a quarter of a million. In 1909, a branch of Selfridges opened in London, its stylish brand imported from America, along with working practices uncommon in Britain. Selfridges’ shopgirls didn’t live in and were trained to be more confident and less deferential. Grand shops with showy window displays were a visible sign of the growth of commercialism during the twentieth century. Perhaps it was because of this that Suffragettes targeted shops by lobbing bricks through their windows.

During both world wars, men were conscripted and more women joined the labour market to replace them, often taking roles still not considered ‘women’s work’, which in the retail sector meant managerial positions. And when each war ended, men returned to their old jobs and many women returned to the home. 

 By the early ‘50s, three quarters of a million women worked in retail. The way shops were run continued to follow trends which began in America, such as personality-sapping training in ‘customer service’ and the self-service store. The idea that customers would have to go to all the trouble of choosing things from a shelf, dropping them into a basket and actually carrying them to the counter took a while to catch on in Britain. Before self-service, the customer would go to the counter and the shopgirl would encourage them to buy whatever, measure out how much they wanted, and then wrap it up. The packaging on the goods lining the shelves did the same job, starting the shift towards the shopgirl role meaning shelf-stacking and sitting bored behind a till.

 Not so for a shopgirl in a with-it fashion boutique in the ‘60s, though. They were hired to look fab and hang out with the customers, with any hard selling being seriously uncool. But the groovy image of the boutique didn’t convince everyone. In the early ‘70s, feminist magazine Spare Rib published a report on how shopgirls in boutiques were exploited, and the Angry Brigade bombed a branch of Biba, accompanied by a statement that criticised its staff for their uniformity. But it was changing shopping habits which had a greater impact on the boutique’s decline, as they were squeezed out by the growth of department stores and clothing chains. And into the ‘80s, Thatcherite policies like deregulation of planning and employment laws encouraged the shift towards supermarkets and out-of-town malls. 

 The programme crowbars in a mention of Margaret Thatcher’s early years living above a shop in Grantham, which Cox ridiculously claims taught her ‘that the power lay with the customer. She believed in the “right to buy” in the broadest sense, that the customer should have what they wanted when they wanted it’. It’s doubtful that Thatcher had such a naïve view of capitalism, although she probably wanted us plebs to believe it.

 Today, retail workers are the largest group of private sector employees, almost two thirds are women and almost half work part time. Staff today cite pressure to perform, low pay and the stigma of being a shopgirl as problems, as others have in previous times. The efforts of unions, campaigners and reformists haven’t been able to create ideal conditions for shop staff. As the programme shows, wider forces such as the profitability of emerging ways of shopping, and wars, have done more to shape how shop work is carried out. And it’s still changing: now, the role of the shopgirl is being pushed out by the popularity of online shopping and the spread of those annoying self-checkouts.

Mike Foster

Self-Service (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The self-service store, with which most of us are now familiar, has developed of recent years in response to the needs of Capitalism to reduce costs and increase sales. More people can gel into the shop and out again, and at the same time buy more goods with less staff assistance than before. At the same time the high-powered retailing methods of modern Capitalism are used to the full. Everything is laid out to extract the maximum purchases from each buyer who enters the shop, right down to the little “likely to be forgotten extras" that are hung round the all-essential cash register as you pay your way out.

The purgative effect of sweet canned music on the pocket is used to release that loose change. If your memory is not so good, the psychologically timed repetition of a tape-recorded voice will remind you that whatever it is you are in dire need of, may be had at the toss of a coin. And so off.

What has this to do with Socialism? Let us get back to that cash register. Next time you walk into your local self-service store, imagine that Socialism is here. You walk in, take up one of the little wire baskets provided and put into it the things you want. Nothing could be easier or more logical. Now try to walk out. Not so easy. The check-out counter is guarded by the owners’ protection machine—the cash register.

This is where our little game ceases: no us: imagining it is Socialism now. The act of paying for the things you have collected round the store, is the all-important factor that brings us back to reality, and makes the difference between Socialism and Capitalism.

The means for organising “free access” are here. All you've to do is remove that formality at the check-out.

Ian Jones