Letters: Making Socialism happen (2000)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Making Socialism happen

Dear Editors,

JIMBOB hit it in one (letters January). If we really do want socialism to happen but are waiting for the rest of the world to understand it, then we’ll wait for ever! To combat capitalism we regrettably need to use the tools of capitalism, i.e. marketing—tell the people. Any business consultant will tell you that sales and marketing are the most important aspect of any business for profit (I do understand that the “profit” of Socialism is a better life for all).

In years gone by, at least we used to have “SPGB” painted on railway bridges, walls etc. That was before I had heard of the Socialist Party but at least, it made people curious as to its meaning and many must have followed it through and discovered the truth. I found socialism through a small advert in the Big Issue. After taking the Socialist Standard for 3 years now, together with other research, I realised that I have been a Socialist all my life!

There are billions of Socialists out there but we are not doing a very good job of educating them. Poorly-attended meetings in dingy pubs involving philosophical discussions are going nowhere—at least we had some News out of William Morris! Resources and Internet are possibly the most used words of these times. Resources are well understood—you can’t do ‘owt ‘bowt brass, but surely starting in a small way—car stickers, ties, T-shirts, sweatshirts, fly-postering etc—would be better than nothing. Internet—forget it—topics on the Internet need to be accessed—they don’t jump out and hit you in the face.

People are basically lazy and need to have information placed before them at all times—billboards, TV, newspapers, magazines—the Internet has a long way to go to using these marketing tools and I, for one, am not sure that it will ever do it. Encyclopaedias never became best sellers, did they?

Trevor Smith, 

Bury, Lancs

Disillusioned

Dear Editors,

Nature abhors a vacuum. So, Labour were lucky to have government handed to them on a plate by that blank space we remember as the Major years. But now we are grown up. A pity, then, that we should be considered witless enough to need governing by a political celeb called Tony Blair. Worse still, as a mirror image of the Tory industrial-strength hypocrisy of old, this major-Domo leads a band of recycled Trotskyists, turn-again Socialists and ambitious but ideological blank pages to do his bidding. Time and again, we see lesser ministers fall by the wayside, soon outliving their usefulness but forever hamstrung by the Downing Street Policy Unit, and certain sure that Mr Blair will come up smelling of New Labour roses. Inferior brands of minister are mortal, and if he could only find a better electorate, I fancy his problems would disappear entirely. We must strive to be as new as today’s version of events. But being too old—and sceptical—so putting me outside Tony Blair’s remit, I remain staggered by a mentality that says it’s OK to be seen as a famous face on the glossy pages of lifestyle magazines, while presiding over quite objectionable policies such as confiscation of disabled voters’ income, and glossing over a banana-republic pauperisation of public services. When I canvassed for Labour—but mainly to get rid of the Tories—I imagined, foolishly, we’d been promised something a touch closer to Marx, than Imelda Marcos.

Jeffrey Wheeler, 

Nuneaton, Warwicks

Reclaim the streets

Dear Editors,

I liked the tone of the Open Letter to Reclaim The Streets (January) but then when I saw the recent thing on it all on TV late last week I tend to think that we should be pushing the fact that theirs is a futile method of social and political change as it completely ignores the power of the state. This is one of the reasons that I’m a keen supporter of the party, due to the fact that it does not ignore vital questions that “radicals/anarchists” should be asking about methods. Wishy-washy do-goodism on their part only ends up being self-seeking and self-repressive.

There are many cross-sections of people at the RTS-type events and, yes, “J18 Carnival Against Capitalism” was a breakthrough. I still got the feeling that some of the people are there because it’s this year’s thing, some because it’s a lifestyle-type thing, some because they have reformist agendas to push and a section of people who are influenced by the ideals of Anarchism. It’s these last people who I think we are more likely to persuade to the Socialist case because they are actually looking for answers as to why the world is in a mess. In my opinion it’s only because the “Anarchists” are out there and visible that we had people pointing but vaguely and incoherently in that direction (which in a way is fine) but there is no coherent method that Socialism has to offer. That’s why I think we need to be there and at these events with truck loads of leaflets and having a dialogue with anyone prepared to listen. It’s also why I think it’s important for us to attend the Mayday 2000 thing this year also, on a similar level.

‘Stair, 

Norwich

The Stall (1998)

A Short Story from the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Saturday 1 November an Alternative Politics Fair was held in Norwich and three of us decided to go along for the day to run a couple of stalls. We set the stalls side-by-side with one section piled high with copies of the Socialist Standard, including some free back numbers, and the other with literature, books, pamphlets, and leaflets of a radical nature.

Norwich (for those of you who have never visited it) is a colourful and cosmopolitan little city and political people know one another, either by sight, shared experience or reputation, so as we gathered in the auditorium of the Norwich Arts Centre there was no lack of co-operation between stall-holders as stalls were set up and boxes were carried into the hall. A general atmosphere of camaraderie reigned and some curiosity shown for other stalls. The Anarcho Syndicalists were there, a Disabled Rights Group, Friends of the Earth, Black Womens Rights, Ethical Investments—don’t ask me, I was told it was to do with investing ethically which is much as I thought. At ten thirty we opened to the public and waited for the surge.

The surge did not come and there were no hordes but there was a steady trickle and people did look round and some left laden with books and leaflets. Interest was shown in the Socialist Party stall and explanations required as to our political colour. We had to refute that we were anything to do with Militant Tendency, Socialist Workers, the Independent Labour Party or Arthur Scargill. Helpful discussion ensued from this but the idea of a system without the use of money was usually greeted with smiles of disbelief and some people said it would be very nice but . . .

The main problem for people seemed to be “human nature”. Fortunately the Socialist Party’s leaflet on the human nature question was included in packs of leaflets and Socialist Standards and handed to everyone who came to the stalls.There were the usual arguments. People would not work if food and shelter did not have to be struggled for. There would always be people who would grab more than others. We have to have leaders to represent us. Some people are bone idle and would live off the backs of those who worked harder. We endeavoured to deal with these arguments as they cropped up, but I have always found when talking to people about the abolition of money that they are, on the whole, not comfortable with the idea, seeing themselves as perhaps bereft without cheque books, wallets and purses to carry about with them. There is a general ignorance about the part money plays and a belief that it is money that is valuable and not the goods which are produced by people's labour. In fact I suspected that in the minds of some people money had been raised to that of almost supernatural status.

October's Socialist Standard was snapped up, the illustration on the front cover about Class War spotted immediately. We were asked what had happened to them. People agreed that in theory Class War s aggression had been unacceptable, but glints in the eyes of people told me that they found it exciting and satisfying, in some way responding to anger and frustration about the capitalist system. I found no-one to support anything the Labour government is doing and no-one who expected it to do anything other than it has done since it came to power.

It was a good day and Alistair sold many books on his stall, but disappointing to find that reformism is still depended on and money is still seen as the best means of exchange apart from perhaps the LETS system and bartering. A little sadly, I think, we packed our literature away and dismantled the stalls until the next time.

Heather Ball

Obituary: John Ball (2005)

Obituary from the April 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

John was someone I first came across in the early 90s in Norwich along with Heather prior to us all being properly acquainted with the Socialist Party. Our enthusiasm for responsible anti-authoritarian values and the politics of a world so different from this one, along with the reasonably close proximity of our houses helped to create a lasting bond and friendship.

John was born in Plumstead, in London, is 1932 and worked for most of his working life as an electrician. He was a warm and generous person, very down to earth who would call a spade a spade; at the same time he could be very understanding with people he got close to whose conclusions may have been  different from his own, seeing the basis of those conclusions as a possible connection to build on. He was well-read and enjoyed connecting with people of all ages and backgrounds and had a penchant for helping the underdog sometimes to the detriment of his health. He was a vegan, painted in oils, and loved upbeat music and dancing.

Towards the end of his life John would say that he felt ever more convinced that the Party’s sole pursuit of socialism and not reformism was the correct and only practical solution to the ongoing problems that a capitalist world is always throwing up. He recognised the importance of humour, connected to a  constructive politics and philosophy in contrast to the sober authoritarian politics of the Left he was always falling foul of in the earlier period of his life (he had been in the Communist Party, which he left in 1957, and then in the Trotskyist SLL, from which he was expelled in 1960).

John died in February. I’m sure his way of being would and did affect positively many people he had come across throughout his life.

Stair

What is Wrong With Using Parliament? (2011)

From the November 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

 The anarchist paper Black Flag recently reviewed our pamphlet on this under the title “We use it as a Dung Market”. We reply.

It seems ironic that the review should start with a romantic nod in the direction of William Morris when one of the things that Morris is well known for was his passion for “making Socialists”, something that the Socialist Party is rightly or wrongly often simplistically ridiculed for.

In essence, Morris’s socialist “propagandising” was about making sure that there was a strong body of socialists who had a good understanding of the workings of capitalism and a clear understanding of the components of a society in contrast to it. He happened to call this socialism, as we do, and it rested on the view that there needed to be a mass of opinion in favour of it as a classless, stateless, moneyless society.

If people start to believe in the possibility of a future society beyond the market and the state then it seems sensible that they should cover all bases and rob any ounce of legitimacy that the capitalist class (including leftist would-be managers with their own statist dreams) will try to bestow upon themselves. The icing on the cake is that we don’t allow them that privilege and that we should go into in parliament as rebels. Of course this implies a mass of anti-capitalist opinion outside parliament of which those elected would be the mandated delegates.

The anarcho-communist Alexander Berkman once pointed out that:

  ‘Our social institutions are founded on certain ideas and as long as these are generally believed, the institutions built on them are safe. Government remains strong because people think political authority and legal compulsion necessary. Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just. The weakening of the ideas which support the evil and oppressive present-day conditions means the ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism.’

In other words, the big holding power that capitalism in more “developed” countries has over many is in people’s heads in that the majority believe that there is no alternative or/and that they are “free” and living in a “democratic” society. It is precisely in the countries that have a semblance of democracy that seem to be the most stable in capitalist terms, for the reasons stated by Berkman above. So if that’s the case, what’s wrong with using the platform offered by parliament to call their bluff about being democratic?

The common objection to this raised by anarchists is the “corrupting effects of politics”. If that’s a problem then anarchists wouldn’t be able to trust their own mandated recallable delegates either, since such delegates is what we propose when we seek the platform of parliament to further articulate that desire for a society free from capital and the state and ultimately capture those powers that could be used against us. And if who controls the state is not important then why are so many anarchists concerned about the BNP getting hold of it?

The Socialist Party doesn’t have a blueprint for how a future society may come about but isn’t it wise to minimise as much as possible the risk of violence that states which, if left at the disposal of those who currently control them via their own “delegates”, could more easily deploy against the development of a new society?

Any process that has as its aim the revolutionary transformation of society has to have a future vision as a realisable possibility. This has to increasingly gain ground by being articulated in workplaces, the community, shops, pubs, in the arts and culture in general. As that future society gains ground as a tangible possibility then the conversation, discussion and plans will be increasingly enthused about how best to organise and adapt in all areas to meet society’s needs.

What’s the best way to help this process? Should we go down the route of fetishising every struggle going as, according to many on the left, struggle in itself is going to magically transform the consciousness of those involved into hardened revolutionaries? But if struggle alone is supposed to incrementally revolutionise us all then what’s the reason why so many workers who’ve gone through a lot of struggle, the miners, construction workers and others, have not reached radical conclusions but sometimes very reactionary ones such as “British jobs for British workers”?

To focus on explaining the root cause of society’s problems rather than tinker around with the edges (symptoms) is one of the most important reasons for an organisation like the Socialist Party to exist. That’s why we think it important not to spend endless amounts of time campaigning as a party to try to deal with the inevitable aspects of what capitalism throws at us as workers.

Anyone would think from reading the review that all our members do is campaign to persuade people to resort to the ballot box .The conception that the review has of the Socialist Party supposedly thinking that strikes are a “diversion” is a complete red herring. What fairy tale was that whisked up from? Strikes are an inevitable part of the class war that workers can sometimes utilise to defend or improve their working conditions or rates of pay. Our members are involved in these as workers. What’s wrong thinking that all these things don’t necessarily lead to revolution? Surely if they did then, with all the struggles on the economic front that the working class is forced to engage in every day since it came into existence, we should already be there in the review’s (for want of a better term) “councillist utopia”?

This rosy view of the working class doesn’t accord with reality. Most workplaces in the developed world are not one big “comradely experience” although most people are pretty decent despite the competitive environments they find themselves in. In the UK for example it’s the “Service Sector” that accounts for 73 per cent of GDP. I have worked in it and wonder why the reviewer has not been able to see what I see. Low pay, poorly unionised, competitive and non-stop, target-driven bullshit for many. Hierarchies built-in all over the place, where managers believe they’ve got a better deal than other workers who they generally view as their subordinates, and where often in return the other workers have respect or/and fear of the “higher ups”. In many cases the view is that the way to improve one’s position is done not as a class but as a rat in the rat race up the ladder. The effect is that the higher up the worker goes, the more they are forced to compromise and conform and get those beneath them to do the same.

Try openly putting across revolutionary or even militant ideas in workplaces like this (and many typically are) and you will be seen as “different” by your fellow workers who generally have very reactionary ideas in their heads. There’s also the problem of all the informal hierarchies that are there as well as the real ones. Ever seen The Office? It’s a brilliant example of this kind of behaviour. Once the bosses get an idea that there may be a “real revolutionary” in their midst, one that can’t easily be compromised that is, then they’ll soon “come up” with a “plausible” reason to get rid of them.

In addition, the figures for part-time work, temporary contracts and self-employment pose severe problems with the various “down tools” scenarios. And what about the unemployed, those on benefits, the retired or those dependent on partners or parents who may well go along with the way things are?

Those pushing papers around in the world of academia or those working out how to push some product onto the “consumer”? What clout do they or will they have if just tied down to a concept of revolution as a purely economic struggle?

What was probably most offensive about the review is the final paragraph where the reviewer sites the Socialist Party “slap bang in the middle of the Marxist vanguard groups whose characteristics it shares – authoritarian structure, party chauvinism and so on”. One of the reasons I joined the Socialist Party was because I didn’t like the de facto personality-dominated politics that often crept into groups that deemed themselves to be “anarchist”, with little or no structure to get the “personalities” to come down from their privileged positions. In this respect at least, I felt that the Socialist Party was actually more “anarchist” than the anarchists! An important part of my “anarchism” meant allowing for the widest conception of democracy possible to suit the needs of society.

The Socialist Party is merely a tool to be used by those who want socialism and who think that organising democratically is more important than seeing yourself as bigger than the society that you want to inhabit and think it important to have a voice for the possibility of a future that is so often buried.

Ultimately, what socialist conscious workers decide to do will be for them to decide. If they decide that parliament is an irrelevance then they will ignore it. On the other hand, if they see that to ignore it could be dangerous and also that it has potential, then they will make use of that potential.

Stair

The Socialist Party Summer School: Protest (2012)

Party News from the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

6 - 8 July 2012, Harborne Hall, Birmingham

Worldwide, people have reacted to the political and economic crisis with new forms of protest. From the Arab Spring uprisings to the Occupy Movement, activists are rejecting traditional forms of political assembly, and are looking for new ways of organisation. But what will be the consequences of these new battles in the class war? Will these protests result in any lasting, positive change for the working class? Could they point towards a revolution? Or will they go the way of all reformism and just prolong the capitalist system which traps us all? The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion will examine protests in all its forms - its aims, methods and effects. 

Talks include: 

• The Occupy Movement: Ian Barker (Occupy Norwich) & Stair (SPGB) 
• The Arab Spring: capitalism, imperialism and religion or democracy?: Janet Surman 
• What did the Romans do for us? Bill Martin 
• Protest and the Environment: Glenn Morris 
• Policing the Protests: Mike Foster 

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £140. Concessions are available. 

To book a place, send a cheque (payable to The Socialist Party of Great Britain) to Flat 2, 24 Tedstone Road, Quinton, Birmingham B32 2PD. E-mail spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk with any enquiries

Party News (2012)

Party News from the August 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Summer School

Thirty-five attended the annual Socialist Party Summer School in Birmingham over the weekend of 6-8 July. The theme of the school was Protest. Janet Surman opened with a talk on the Arab Spring as seen from her ring-side seat in nearby Turkey. She observed that, despite employing some violence, the dictatorships in

Egypt and Tunisia had not been able to maintain themselves in the face of mass and essentially peaceful popular opposition.

Mike Foster described the increased, and increasing, powers that the police in this country have been given in recent years to deal with demonstrations including infiltrating protest groups. A discussion arose out of his description of last year’s riots as “mindless”. Some challenged this on the grounds that, whereas the riots certainly had no theoretical content or political programme, they were nevertheless a practical criticism of present-day society.

A similar theme came up in the discussion after Ian Barker, of Occupy Norwich, had described what happened there. Occupy, he said, had deliberately avoided making specific policy proposals; in Norwich they had merely drawn up a list of agreed general principles which an alternative society should embody. In his talk, Stair, from our East Anglia branch, said that the list though largely unobjectionable was far too vague, but at least a space for discussions had been provided; these were continuing at regular meetings at an indoor venue to which branch members were contributing.

Bill Martin spoke on the crowd scenes in Shakespeare’s Corialanus. Although Shakespeare’s depiction of the crowd as a fickle mob reflected the views of the propertied classes of the time, he had been obliged to put the opposing view if only to knock it down. Shakespeare owned land in Warwickshire and so must have been aware of the protests there in his day against enclosure of common land with crowds levelling the fences and digging the land.

In his talk Glenn Morris argued that, while protests against the pollution of the land, sea and air were justified, they would not get very far if they assumed that a solution could be found within the profit-driven capitalist system.


Meeting with Zeitgeist

On 22 July 40 people attended a meeting in Hammersmith, London, between the Socialist Party, as part of the World Socialist Movement, and the Zeitgeist Movement.

There was agreement that the only framework within which the main problems facing humanity could be solved was one where the resources of the Earth had become the common heritage of all and so wealth could be produced and distributed without the need for money.

We call it “world socialism”. ZM call it a “resource-based economy”. In the first session, on what was wrong with the present economic system, both speakers agreed that it had a built-in tendency to uncontrolled “growth” which was having a detrimental effect on the environment. Dick Field, for the Party, explained this tendency as being due to the competitive struggle for profits between capitalist firms leading to the accumulation of more and more capital out of the profits they extracted from the workforce. Franceso, for ZM, argued that it was due to the need to pay interest to banks on money they had created, the money to pay which could only be found by borrowing more from the banks; so we were debt-slaves. Although ZM did not advocate monetary reform to mitigate this, he personally was in favour of it as a transitional measure towards a money-free society.

In the discussion Party members challenged the view that banks had the power to create money out of thin air. In the second session, on how to get from here to there, Adam Buick, for the Party, said that a gradual evolution was not possible; there had to be a decisive and more or less rapid break with capitalism, to be brought about by the political action of the majority in society acting in their own  interest. Steve Duffield, for ZM, said that ZM saw its role as to inform people of the situation, confident that they would see what the solution was. ZM was not a political party and did not  advocate reformism or electoral action. People could begin to change things now by changing their lifestyle to rely less on money and consumerism.

In the discussion, ZM members challenged the view that the new society could be voted in. Party members replied that what was important was to have a majority in favour and that it would be foolish to try to change society while leaving political power in the hands of the minority who benefited from capitalism. The vote was merely a tool to use to win political control.

Direct Action (1999)

From the April 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fly posters pasted up in Norwich invited members of the public to a Direct Action Forum. Stair, a comrade, asked me if I was interested in going along. I wasn't. But something told me I should get out there and become au fait with what people are thinking, though what people are thinking I often find perturbing. I had done it all over the years and now found it heart-sinking to know that there are still people who believe that cutting wires on perimeter fences and swinging about in the branches of trees is going to change anything. From experience I knew that one-day participants in these activities would grow weary of what they were doing and look for a job, return to their studies or take up a career. I recalled the nights spent in my house in London many years ago talking animatedly with friends about the class struggle. I was not to know then that some of those very same people would, in later years, go on to become MPs, trade union officials or have other establishment careers. For them the class struggle became a distant memory.

By the time we arrived at the pub where the meeting was to be held about forty people had already gathered. By 8.30 the small meeting room was filled to over-capacity with sixty, maybe seventy, eager, bright-eyed young people raring to go. I admit to a stab of regret that the word "socialism" would not have had half the appeal for those present as the words "direct action" obviously had.

The suggestion was made that we should break up into smaller groups to discuss what kind of action we would be interested in taking. I must confess that at this point I was feeling a distinct disinclination to join in this discussion. In fact the only direct action I could imagine myself taking was that of getting the hell out of it and going home. But Stair was enjoying himself. He kicked off by giving the group a short account of his own political history which was half as long as mine but which contained some of the same ingredients. He requested other members of the group to do the same. Like Stair they were young but they did not easily use the word "capitalism". They wanted to get involved, they said. They had social consciences and knew there was much wrong with society. The car culture, chemical factories, nuclear weapons, genetically modified foods and cycle lanes were among the subjects the direct actionists got excited about. One man announced that he intended to set up a peace camp in Norwich. They said "Nice one" and "Yeah!" to show him he had support in this. No-one thought to ask where in Norwich or even why. Giving some very good examples of why he thought the way he did Stair explained to the group that direct action was a misdirection of energy.

His analyses of the contradictions intrinsic in direct action did not go down very well. Mouths sagged open in disbelief, protests rose from fevered lips and (hopeless, this) psychological deafness set in. "But we've got to do something," they cried. We told them they could become socialists. Their psychological deafness increased.

When we regrouped the spokesperson for our group reported back to the main body of the meeting that there were people in his group who saw no point in direct action. Here Stair interjected with "You're just pissing about with capitalism." There was a puzzled silence but no-one took him up on this. And then it was business as usual.

After the meeting Stair was optimistic. He said he felt we may have sown a few seeds. The thought uppermost in my mind was that I would be loath to attend any other direct action forums in the future. The spectacle of all those youthful faces aglow with enthusiasm for something so tenuous caused me to experience an emotion akin to sorrow. All that wonderful energy going into little more than thumbing noses at capitalism. What a shame.

Heather Ball