Greasy Pole: High Noon In Southall (2001)

The Greasy Pole column from the July 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ealing was once known, by those who were adept at ignoring the large chunks of serious impoverishment there, as the Queen of the Suburbs. As might be expected of a place with so impressive a name, it regularly returned Conservative MPs to the Commons. It’s all changed now though; other bits of west London have been tacked on to the original area and all three of the recast constituencies elect Labour MPs. The safest of them is Ealing Southall, at the western end of the area, where the sitting MP is Piara Khabra.

Southall was a railway town and there is very little left from how it was before Brunel pushed through the line to the west. The railway brought immigrants from Wales and Ireland, to work in the factories which sprang up along the line. It was not the railways which brought the Asians, in the 1950s; the first of them were recruited by a rubber factory which had difficulty in persuading the locals to work in its sulphurous confines. Few of the Asians who came then thought they were making a lifetime commitment; they imagined making enough quick money to set themselves up to go back to the place they called home. It didn’t happen like that and the population of Southall is now about 50 per cent of Asian origin – the second largest in the country.

Piara Khabra has been the local MP since 1992. Before that it was Sydney Bidwell, who had emigrated from the Revolutionary Communist Party when they disbanded and advised their members to infiltrate the Labour Party. Towards the end of his time in the Commons Bidwell seemed to be not entirely in touch with reality, although that was not what caused him to be de-selected. Khabra had long been prominent and influential locally, through being chair of the Indian Workers’ Association (Southall is teeming with community support organisations), a local councillor and so on. There was a flood of new members into the local Labour Party, which simply washed Bidwell away. Miserably, hopelessly, he stood against Khabra as “True Labour” – there were rumours that he did this only to qualify for his ex-MP’s pension – but got only 4,665 votes against Khabra’s 23,476.

Swing

In 1997, in tune with the rest of the country, Khabra tightened his grip on the seat. By then there was no Bidwell, who had retired with his revolutionary delusions and his pension and Khabra benefitted from a 15.1 per cent swing against the Tories, racking up an astonishing 32,791votes and, at 21,423, the country’s second largest Labour majority. In some ways this was surprising because the constituency boundaries had been extended eastwards to include older, posher parts of Ealing more accustomed to voting Conservative. But of course that was an exceptional time, with widespread anger against the sleaze and complacency of the Tories, their in-fighting and arrogance. A lot of voters really thought that things could only get better. But in Southall that was not the whole story for there was disquiet, not about Khabra holding the seat but about him being the Labour candidate in the first place.

For some time Southall has claimed to be the largest constituency Labour Party in the country. Of course this could mean that it is populated by people who have carefully examined the party’s policies and decided that these are in tune with their own principles. If that were true the place would surely be unique. Before Khabra ousted Bidwell there was some restlessness in the party – and outside it – about all those new members and about how genuine many of them were – or even whether some of them actually existed. At one stage Khabra faced a legal challenge from Valerie Vaz, sister of the embattled ex-minister Keith Vaz (who was rumoured to have tried to help rig the selection procedure against Khabra) but this came to nothing. Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that Valerie Vaz – who, as a forceful, articulate lawyer and media presenter could be expected to be picked out for a plum Labour seat – has only ever been nominated for more hopeless prospects such as Twickenham. Recently, for example, she was considered to be the front runner for the by-election in Betty Boothroyd’s old constituency of West Bromwich West but Labour headquarters had other ideas.

Ineffective

So far Khabra has shrugged off all the opposition to him; “I have been misrepresented in the press,” he said just before the election “but that doesn’t bother me, nothing does”. But with the approach of this year’s election the opposition against him has gathered strength as an electable rival came on the scene with the resources to air popular criticisms about him. Khabra has an established reputation as one of the most inactive and ineffective MPs, who is reliably evident only when he sits behind Tony Blair at Prime Minister’s Questions, which gives him some valuable TV coverage. Occasionally he stirs into action, as he did in 1993 when he tabled a Ten Minute Bill to legalise voluntary euthenasia only to withdraw it at the last minute. In February this year he asked a question which conveniently enabled Paul Boateng, who was then a minister in the Home Office, to give some detail about the planned enquiry into the coroner system. In December 2000 he wrote to Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in support of the Hinduja brothers’ resistance to being extradited for investigation in India over an arms-sale scandal. In the light of recent events, this was not entirely wise of him. (Cook promised “full consular support” for the Hindujas).

Meanwhile there has been a burgeoning discontent in the constituency about local problems – traffic congestion, crime, decay and a massive heroin problem among young people. In face of this Khhabra has been hard put to detail any intervention on his part which has been to any degree effective. The local Socialist Labour Party (of course, hardly an objective observer) calls him “congenitally demented” and rages at his “self-seeking careerism…his inability to be even an effective bourgeoise politician…” One constituent old the AsianXpress newspaper : I’ve never seen Mr. Khabra but I know of him and all the scams he’s done over the years”. And on 15 February this year the Daily Telegraph put the boot in:

“Piara Khabra…confirmed himself as surely this Parliament’s weakest performer…His question was near inaudible and his delivery laughably weak. Perhaps because he is Indian, or perhaps because he is old, the House listened to him with a straight face. How patronising. Mr Khabra deserved a loud and long raspberry. If he cannot lift his game he should make way for someone better.”

Stranglehold

And when it came to the elecetion there was someone who claimed to be better. Avtar Lit is a Labour supporter, the multi-millionnaire owner of Sunrise Radio whose personal fortune is put at £60 million. “Money,” he said recently, “to me isn’t everything “. . . and then again “I am known as a man of the people”. Lit complained about Khabra’s “strangelehold” on the local selection process and the MP’s “dismal record . . . an insult to the people who elected him”. On the basis of a rather dubious opinion poll, which may not have been any more valid that all those Khabra recruits, Lit claimed that he was about to be elected, after which he would join the Labour Party.

But on the day he managed only a little less than 6,000 votes, to Khabra’s 22,239 which gave a comfortable majority of 13,683. As the evening wore on the bundles of votes for each candidate were in lines on the central table, with Khabra’s stretching far beyond all the others. There was little perceptible difference between Lit’s votes and those for the Tory, whose startlingly young face settled into a bewildered despondency as he contemplated the humiliation facing him. Towards the end a group of Khabra supporters filtered into the room. They were large, groomed men wearing immaculate turbans, exuding influence and privilege and the expectation of always getting their own way. They cheered dutifully – but restrainedly – when Khabra was announced as the winner but it was a fair bet that at the same time they were calculating how best they could do to him what he did to Bidwell – and what advantage they would get from it. These are probably the men Lit will have to best if he is to get the seat.

So Piara Khabra, who says he is 76 years old but who may be 80 or more, is back in the Commons for another spell – four years or maybe five – to hang on to his position and to “represent” the people of Ealing Southall. This is the very essence of capitalism’s politics—the politicians denying the truth of their impotence while they cynically manoeuvre to keep themselves in power and so the system in being.

Ivan

Poor but respectable (1947)

From the May 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

For too long the working class have had their strength drained by poverty and economic insecurity. Although harassed and undernourished, they have accepted their condition as being inevitable : content with the reform crumbs that have been grudgingly given after bitter struggles. As yet they know of no alternative.

Their arguments in defence of their position are proverbial, and like schoolchildren chanting the multiplication table, they have repeated the ‘‘catch-phrases” of their masters. “There have always been rich and poor.” “You must have Capital and Labour.” ‘‘Hard work never hurt anyone.” ‘‘The bosses have got the brains.” These phrases have dulled workers' political alertness, because, always hoping to rise in the social sphere by hard work, they eventually discover there is nothing on that road but work and poverty. They do not know the alternative.

Poverty is a social disease which has undermined the health of the working class. The slum dwellers of to-morrow—the suburbanites, think the term poverty refers to the slum dwellers of to-day. They in turn think it refers to beggars and tramps. It is never on their own doorstep. It is always the other person who is poor.

The poverty of sweet suburbia is more respectable than that of the slum areas. They have no bugs. They eat from tablecloths, not newspapers. They have baths, not bowls in which to perform their ablutions. They have a lounge, not a parlour. Their children wear “college” caps and do not “run the streets.” Unmarried expectant mothers have been kicked out of their homes to maintain their family’s respectability. ‘‘ What will the neighbours think?” outweighs consideration for their daughter’s welfare. Respectability knows no bounds.

In sweet suburbia they have a different outlook from the slum dweller. They desire to ‘‘get on” in the world. Being snobs, they try to find out what the other fellow does ‘‘in the city.” It is never called work. They receive a ‘‘salary,” not a wage. They visit the "local” not the "pub.” They wear out their lives trying to keep up appearances, and have been known to go without food in order to do so. Property-conscious, with shoddy clothes and affected speech, they ape their masters in an endeavour to hide their poverty. Their condition is wretched, for they are acting a lie throughout their lives. All have one fear — the fear of losing a job.

Foolish workers! Not only do you produce the wealth which the Capitalist class enjoy, but they control your thinking, and you are content despite your wretchedness, that this should be so. It is true you grumble—that is a safety valve, but animals do not whine and skulk in corners.

One can understand the Capitalist class defending their power, prestige and property. They have got a lot to lose, but you have only your poverty—and how you like it!

You are the toiling millions who produce the wealth of the world, for others to enjoy. As yet, the Capitalist class is not afraid of you, for they have got you where they want you, but when you begin to think in your own interests, they will not be so flagrant. The newspapers will not show a photo of a super ship with its millionaires on board, and on the same page, an offer to the miners of an extra ounce of rationed meat.

Workers, rouse yourselves from your lethargy. Try to understand the world in which you exist. Join with us in working for a society where poverty and degradation will be replaced by comfort and a full life for all.

S. W. C.

Correspondence: Do Working-Class Conditions Tend To Grow Worse? (1919)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

To The Editor.

Dear Sir,—The readers of your paper frequently let upon the statement that the "condition of the working class tends to grow worse," but one looks in vain for verification of the statement.

Do better houses and rapid transit not brighten and better the lot of those sections of the working class who take advantage of them, say, by residing in the outlying districts of the larger cities, where modern houses and domestic conveniences are so much more congenial than in the slums of the city proper? Do not all the efforts made by local and national authorities to effect improvements in health, houses, travel, industrial relationships, unemployed donations, for the working class count for nothing? Have the housing conditions of the whole working class of England improved none since the commencement of the industrial era, even in the present century? I declare they have. There may be very bad spots upon which you could possibly lay your finger, but is it a reasonable claim to make now-a-days that conditions are worse than they were twenty years ago.

It does not refute my point to say that it but amounts to gilded chains, or that it makes more efficient slaves, which answer seems to me but admissions that the conditions under which the working class live and labour are better to-day than formerly. Yet we repeatedly read in the "S.S." that the conditions of the working class tend to grow worse, also that we as a working class are worse off. We are not, and I speak as one of the workers.

Is it not also a fact the natural concomitant of economic progress is to make more efficient the workers which compel improvements in their conditions of life? Is not that a bettering of conditions rather than its reverse ? And it is not always that these reforms are effected by agitation. Were the unemployment donations wrung from the capitalist class? I think they were not. Is the new Ministry of Health wrung from them ? Rather is it a concession made by the capitalist class to effect a more virile and healthy race of workers—perhaps advantageous to the former in the end; still, the advantage gained by the workers disproves the repeated statement in the "S.S." that the conditions of the working class tend to grow worse.

—Yours, etc., A. Webster.

Reply:
Our correspondent in the last part of his letter shows the absurdity of his statements in the first part. We will, however, proceed in the usual manner, taking his points one by one before dealing with his general statement as to the conditions of the whole working class.

His most preposterous claim is ''improvement in Industrial Relationships." The growing antagonism and the increasing bitterness between masters and workers in every occupation and industry, because it is universal and affects the bulk of the workers, gives the lie to it. But apart from that fact there has been an accumulating mass of evidence, coming from the capitalist side, that exploitation becomes more thorough and business-like, leaving no room for sentiment. The brutal relationship between employers and workers has for several years been a constant theme with every capitalist rag from the "Times" to "John Bull," to the tune of "never again" ; and the outcome has been "Whitley Councils "and "Welfare Committees" that have aroused the suspicion of the workers, and are in bad odour with them everywhere.

The nature of modern industry makes unemployed donations a necessity to the exploiting class. In the first place capitalist production requires an army of unemployed to keep down wages, and that unemployed army must be maintained. In the second place trade is subject to fluctuations in volume, and the workers must be available when it is necessary to increase production. The problem for the exploiting class is, therefore, to maintain the unemployed at a standard that will not seriously impair their efficiency, while, at the same time, it places them under the necessity of seeking work. This is effected by the present system of granting donations for a limited number of weeks in each year. The donation not being sufficient in itself to satisfy the barest requirements, and being immediately stopped if the recipient refuses work, it is easily seen that the whole scheme is a cheap method of maintaining the unemployed army for the contingencies of trade and as a weapon to keep down wages.

In his remarks on housing our correspondent is most unfortunate. Overcrowding is worse now than it has been throughout all the twenty years he mentions. So much is this admitted that the subject takes first place among all the scandals on everybody's tongue to-day.

Addressing a conference at Nottingham on the 16th June, Dr. Addison, President of the Local Government Board, said: "In vast numbers of our industrial centres people were now being compelled, through shortage of houses, to herd together in a manner it was disgusting to think of."

One of the most significant facts in connection with the proposals to build more houses for the workers is the recognition by the Government that wages are so low that it will be impossible to charge what is called an economic rent—surely in itself a powerful commentary on working-class conditions generally.

With reference to "travel," it is perfectly true that several millions of workers during the last five years have had exceptional opportunities of seeing the world, while endeavouring to annex more of it for their masters. But the majority are glad to be back in the slums and factories, with the slender facilities they had previously, paying sixpence a week toward the annual beanfeast, or denying themselves many comforts in order to spend an uncomfortable week or so at the nearest overcrowded seaside resort.

The "rapid transit for those living in outlying districts" is also more or less of a fraud while those depending upon it have to wait their turn in long lines, watching the vehicles come and go. Even when there are no breakdowns the time taken up in waiting and travelling is considerable, and must be regarded as an addition to the working day and consequently shortening the time for rest and recreation. Hence it is an extremely doubtful "advantage" to live in the slums on the outskirts of large industrial towns.

There is only one other point: "the new Ministry of Health," but this, like all the others, has been replied to in the general sense by Mr. Webster himself. Economic progress, he says demands higher efficiency, which is impossible without improved conditions. He argues; that the growing efficiency of the workers is evidence of their improved conditions of life, in spite of the fact that higher efficiency is everywhere insisted upon, at the present moment, as a preliminary to improved conditions. The truth is, of course, that the workers are driven through increasing unemployment and competition, to submit to a more intensive exploitation.

But even if we admit that the unprovements he mentions have materialised, he still is against the fact that they are introduced by the exploiting class in order to extract more surplus valae from the workers—and surplus value representing more wealth than the workers consume through their improvements. While the workers submit to this process their exploitation intensifies, their slavery becomes more degrading, and their dependence on the exploiting class is increased. Exploitation is the cause of poverty and the extent of exploitation is the measure of poverty.

Fed on potatoes, the life object of the workers is to produce wealth for the master class ; fed on bully beef and custard all their energies are confiscated for the same purpose. If the quality or quantity of food the worker obtains determines the amount of surplus value, its provision can safely be left to the capitalists; there is no necessity to "wring", concessions of such a character from them. The advantage to themselves is clear. It is a parallel case with the fertilizing of land to produce a better crop.

While the workers submit to exploitation they are subject to numerous experiments carried out over their heads The continual changes in the means and methods of production call for modification in the structure of society. Confronted with new problems at each economic turn new institutions must be devised to preserve the equilibrium of capitalist society. Our correspondent says it does not refute his points to say that "it makes them more efficient slaves." Yet all the points raised by him are effectively replied to in that sentence. He admits as much when he says that the object of the capitalist class is "to effect a more virile and healthy race of workers," i.e., wage slaves. And
 their real purpose he admits when he says—"perhaps advantageous to the capitalists in the end." If the object of such "concessions" is more complete and extensive exploitation, their true nature is at once revealed as a campaign against the workers, increasing their poverty, insecurity, and wretchedness.

F. Foan

Organisation Man (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are you fond of literature and music? Would you put your wife and children before your work? Do you feel unhappy about the way society is organised?

Yes? Then it’s unlikely you’ve the makings of a good Organisation Man—one of the fast-expanding army of junior and middle managements men in American Big Business.

William H. Whyte, an American journalist with an interest in sociology, puts him under the microscope in The Organization Man, published by Penguin Books in a 3s. 6d. edition. He reveals a picture of co-operation with conformity.

The typical O.M., a college graduate with a strong technical bias, sinks his individual identity into the group. He thinks, talks and acts like the collective. “Don't question or query things, accept them; be technically efficient, co-operate with the Company, and you’ll be looked after” is the philosophy peddled by his “benevolent” boss.

At work, he trains as a “dedicated” specialist in a team of “ dedicated ” specialists, toes the Company line, and wins promotion through personality tests—"Do yon agree foreigners are dirtier than Americans”?—designed to determine his ability to integrate himself in the Organisation.

At home, a mortgaged-to-the-hilt house in a “model” suburb, he and his wife participate actively in local affairs and just about make ends meet on a perpetual overdraft.

Whyte is worried about the O.M.’s loss of individuality; he calls it “a surrender to dehumanised values.” He’s worried, too, about the growing emphasis on specialisation at the expense of a broad, liberal education.

But both factors are not peculiar to American capitalism, or, for that matter, to Big Business.

First, unorthodox thought which questions the social system has never been popular with capitalists anywhere, be they large or small. And today the bigger capitalists in Western Europe, as well as America, strive to sidetrack criticism of the system among their executives with the carrot of Company cars, expense accounts, special allowances and top-hat pension schemes.

Second, scientific and technological skills are of vital importance to the advanced industrial nations in their cut-throat competitive struggles. A knowledge of higher mathematics produces more profits than a knowledge of Greek mythology.

Whyte urges the O.M. to fight back, but “not selfishly or stupidly,” and certainly not with the aim of changing society. Like every reformer, he has no real quarrel with capitalism which breeds conformity and an education system shackled to the profit motive.

He has yet to understand that only in a society liberated from the profit motive can man develop his individuality and knowledge to serve the common good.

Peter Jenner

Letter: “Tin-Lizzies” (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the May 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

I read with interest Stefan’s commentary on the prevalent automobile culture under capitalism (March Socialist Standard). An additional point should be made, if it is not evident to the reader, to the effect that the private automobile is the quintessential commodity of the capitalist system. Its development has enabled the disaster of suburban development that has despoiled hundreds of millions of acres of good land, with its endless roads and freeways, given rise to another mainstay of capitalism the single family dwelling with it’s myriad repetitive appliances. The private automobile with its required service networks, parts replacements etc., has been a major market prop offering a seemingly endless source of marketable commodities. The glut of “tin-lizzies” grows like the stuff of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Can the Wizard of Socialism put a stop to the madness? Absolutely.

Bernard Bortnick, 

Texas, USA (by email)

Reply: 

We can’t predict how people in socialism will use transport systems, or even what they’ll use them for, but if the safety and clean renewable energy questions were properly addressed, there seems no good reason why cars should not continue to be of use – Editors.

"Equal Sacrifice" (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some time ago an article appeared in these columns; it was called “In the Front Line.” It was a description of working-class life in one of the great industrial belts of Britain. The story was one of poverty and drabness, but the writer does not think he exaggerated the grimness of the scene, nor the sordid existence of the people. 

Here is the other side of the picture.

It is a pretty picture—at least, nature has done its best to please the human eye. It is a place not very far from the Metropolis, and in the days of peace the Mecca of many a trip by working folk in search of a day’s fresh air.

To-day the small town has swollen to almost twice its former size. Crowded trains draw out of its station early every morning, taking with them hundreds of men and women, many still “nodding” through lack of sleep. Their jobs are in London, but they have come here in search of safety in the night. To them, “Pretty-town,” as you may call it, means just a bed away from the bombs. When they come home in the evening they are usually far too tired to do much else than have their supper and go to bed. The week-end is the long-awaited chance for a "lay-in,” and so the charm and soothing quiet of the country-side is lost to them.

Then there are the official evacuees. Women with their offspring, thousands of them, were literally dumped upon the place with little thought of caring for them once they had got here; for the problems in accommodation, food and other items of welfare.

Of course, these evacuees belong to the working class; the wealthy do not have to rely on the tender mercies of officialdom to provide refuge for their wives and children.

It is easy enough to distinguish this human flotsam; all are shabbily dressed, and can often be seen wandering about the main streets aimlessly. In this town, where ”cleanliness and godliness” are the twin virtues, a slovenly appearance causes much comment, but these intolerant disciples of Jesus should bear in mind that the slums of London’s dockland are not good training ground for clean habits. And the local authorities do nothing to encourage self-care; they have shown their regard by putting large numbers into houses long since condemned, where they are herded five and six persons to a room.

Others are billeted on the local working class, who live mostly in small council houses dotted around the outskirts. There is no use in glossing over the hostility which exists between “guests” and “hosts”—it is deep-rooted, and, even if the differences in outlook and up-bringing could be overcome, there still remains the problem of squeezing two families into the narrow walls within which it is difficult enough for one average-sized household to move.

But all these are the small fry among God’s children. Let us leave them and follow the stream of motor-cars continually passing to and fro the centre of this little city. Their destination is a different quarter in the neighbourhood, the wooded hills which overlook the valley like sentinels of nature. Climb up the leafy avenues, and, when you can turn your gaze from the colourful view of the many-coloured carpet of fields below, peer through the long line of trees and the high hedge rows beyond.

Here, discreetly hidden from all but very prying eyes, is the heritage of England.

Often you will not even then be able to see the abode of the fortunate owner, so spacious are the grounds, the vast stretches of carefully tended lawn, of elaborately planned gardens, the miniature forests.

No fancy names on wooden boards will give you any due as to whom you are seeking; the “Mon Abri’s,” and such-like products of fanciful minds, are left to the envious but impotent hangers-on, the self-styled middle-class.

Coming from the poorer quarters of the town, with its crowded streets and shops, the contrast is startling. Such is the spacious comfort in which this elite has its being, that the passer-by, used to the noise and jostling of working-class existence, may be left with a curious impression of desolation. Never do you hear the noise of children playing, certainly not evacuees; the notion that you are in a country at war, ”fighting for its life,” seems fantastic.

Occasionally a car speeds up the drive and into the buildings beyond. You get a brief glimpse of the occupants, quite ordinary looking persons they appear, and then they are gone, as aloof as their impressive habitation.

It is quite impossible to associate what you see here with the urgent problems which you are told are facing the country to-day.

Lack of food, shortage of man-power, people without homes—all these and a multitude of other difficulties may be agitating your mind, making you a chronic victim of anxiety and fear (the deadliest foes of happiness), but here everything speaks of comfort, of leisure, a sense of economic security that has no inkling of the ceaseless struggle for existence that goes on below.

Vats of boiling steel, over which men, sweating though stripped to the waist, are standing, shaping the metal; miners hacking their way along the labyrinth, hundreds of feet below ground; women stumbling home through the black-out after a long day of machine tending; screaming sirens and a mass of human bodies huddled together in filthy basements—merely the sinister shadows of another world.

For you, food is a “munition of war," to be obtained by scrambling, queueing, begging the shop-keeper of regretfully paying double the price you can afford. It is a fuel for vitals which have been emptied by the day’s strenuous labour. But to this other class such concern for food is unknown. Never are they seen at the shops lining up for goods in short supply, war-time restrictions appear to hold no terrors for them. And is it possible to imagine their dining-tables served with a small piece of cheese and a pat of margarine by the butler (“three servants kept in pantry ”— recent advert.)?

To what magic does this class owe its favoured living—what remarkable gifts of mind and body assure them a social and economic standing quite inconceivable by the average working-class brain?

The clue can often be found in the City of London, the “richest square mile in the world.” Stacked in the vaults of banking firms or in the offices of the big joint-stock companies are the documents that “prove,” according to law, the right of this privileged minority to possess and use the best in life which the productive resources and human labour can offer. Mere pieces of paper, but backed by the entire force of the State—what gangster ever had better protection? Not that these people are gangsters—they are the most law-abiding citizens to be found anywhere.

Those documents relate to copper mines in Rhodesia, to tea plantations in India, the cotton mills of Lancashire, to the stock yards in the Argentine; in every corner of the British Empire and beyond are to be found the well-shaped predatory fingers of the richest ruling-class of to-day.

Property that is never seen—labour-power by the million, black, brown and white, pay the tribute which enables these persons in the Home Counties of England to live in splendour and seclusion.

You may well ask: What active share do this class take in this process of wealth-production? The answer is, None. Their sons go to the public school and universities, and from there, if minded, for “public duties,” fill the benches of the Conservative parties in Parliament or other public bodies. Here their intellectual and socially useful qualities can and have been judged. Others have gone into the diplomatic service; their record is now being expunged by bombs and guns. Many others, more discreet, keep an eye on the source of their incomes by “sitting” on the boards of numerous undertakings as “directors.” If you go to the local railway station here at an early hour in the afternoon, you will see some of these “captains of industry” alighting from a London train and hurrying to their waiting automobile—surely an early hour for leaving the factory in these days of twenty-four hour shifts? You are mistaken, reader; these gentlemen are “somebodies” in the "City.”

Many have, of course, joined the armed forces; they have the consolation of knowing that they are defending a real “stake in the country,” not an imaginary one. In this connection it is worth noting that the local working-class have a very strongly developed sense of property: It is their house and their garden, whereas a few weeks without payment of rent would quickly put an end to this hallucination. Admittedly, rents are low compared with towns, but so are wages—the capitalist class know how to even things up.

It is the rule for workers to model their outlook on that of their masters; ”Pretty-town” is no exception. The capitalist caricature of the old manorial system poisons the whole locality with its prejudices and reactionary foibles. Jews (of the poorer type) and revolutionaries are their pet aversions; a former town clerk is now imprisoned as a fascist.

Fortunately for the prospects of Socialism, these “pocket boroughs” can have little influence on the march of ideas, otherwise the future of mankind would indeed look gloomy.

Sid Rubin

It's The Same In The Sprawl (1963)

From the May 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

To many a Cockney, London is known, in mixed derision and affection, as the Smoke. It might also be called, less affectionately, the Sprawl. From Hounslow in the West to Enfield in the North, Erith in the East and Epsom in the South, London spreads itself on the map of Southern England. It leap-frogs even beyond these points, into places which were not so long ago the countryside and a hiker's day out. In the Chiltern Hills, for example, the landscape is altering beyond recognition as the trees come down and the houses of the post-war Metro-landers go up in their place.

In this Sprawl live all manner of workers, from the lowest of down-and-outs to white collar men who manage ulcers along with their expense accounts. Here, therefore, are all manner of working class problems, including that of housing.

London has its families whose housing difficulties could not be starker. They are the homeless ones. Usually unskilled, low-paid workers, they often have to start their married lives in the most dubious of lodgings, from which they are easily evicted. Then the problem snowballs, until their family may be forced to split up, with the children going into a Home or being taken by the mother to a local authority hostel while the father rubs along outside. The London County Council runs some of these hostels and they are not inviting places. During the past year the number of families in them reached a record peak; in November, 1962, it stood at 1,008. Since then it has fallen; last month it was just over 800, representing about 3,800 persons. But these figures in fact disguise the real size of the problem, which would be more accurately reflected in the turnover of families in the hostels as opposed to the number in them at any one time. A recent Family Service Unit survey into the housing prospects of low-paid workers was summed up in this way by The Guardian on February 14th last: “In all London there is virtually no accommodation for a family of limited means."

One step—but often only a short one—up from the homeless, are those who live in London's rented homes. Some of these homes are the famous London slums, which characterise areas like Stepney and Brixton and North Kensington. Some others are in more pretentious areas—South Kensington for example—which do not like to think of themselves as part of slumdom. But no other word so aptly fits the piled up, dingy acres of bed-sitters and what are euphemistically termed flatlets. London is full of this sort of place. The 1961 Census showed that a quarter of all households in the County of London occupied one or two rooms and that a half of them occupied three or four rooms.

The Census also revealed something about the condition of the County of London's homes. Over 400,000 are without exclusive access to a hot water tap and over 300,000 are without a bath. It does not take a very powerful imagination to picture what these hundreds of thousands of homes in the centre of the “affluent" South are like.

But the Sprawl is also, of course, the great exponent of the cult of suburbia, where they usually have a bathroom (even if it is a small one) and a hot water tap (even if they have to watch the cost of running it too often). Suburbia, where many workers are proudly buying their houses, is not usually associated with the housing problem. Who can think of slums, standing in Acacia Crescent, with the blossom out on the trees and neat hedges and roses as far as the eye can see?

Yet behind the clematis covered walls the housing problem sits as immovably as it does in Poplar or Deptford. Many workers now buy their houses because that is literally the only way they can get one. And when they have signed the contract for the sale they have committed themselves to a lifetime of paying off a massive loan, sometimes at a crippling rate of interest. This commitment forces them to depend even more than usual upon keeping their job. The suburban mortgagee knows what worry is; the suburbs, in fact, are centres of stress and strain which can almost be sensed behind the pretty curtains. Mortgagees usually have to sign a deed which is full of all sorts of restrictions, designed to keep up the value of the house so that, if they cannot keep up the payments and the property has to be sold the mortgagor stands to lose as little as possible. Living in this sort of home means that the worker has a bathroom and a garden and perhaps one or two other amenities which are pleasant enough in their way. But he has not lost his housing problem.

The thing which is common to all those who struggle in the housing difficulties of London, and elsewhere, is that they get their living by going out to work. This means that everything they need to live— their clothes, their food, their recreation, their homes—is tailored to take account of the limitations of their wage packets. This is what we call poverty and it is what all workers in London, and the rest of the world, have in common. It afflicts the homeless worker and it sits on the shoulder of him who smugly clips his privet in the suburbs.

Ivan

David Bowie: Ground-breaking Artist (2016)

From the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

January saw the death from cancer, aged 69, of David Bowie. No popular music artist of the past fifty years has had as wide and profound an influence. There was a spontaneous outpouring of grief across the world amongst the millions of fans he had accumulated in six successive decades. The same comments were repeated on social media and in the press over and over again: that he had provided not just the soundtrack to their lives, but had inspired and stimulated them artistically and culturally. I became an avid listener of his as a child in the early 1970s and this was a key influence in my becoming a musician myself.

As a teenager growing up in the London suburbs, Bowie was both extremely imaginative and intensely hard working at honing his craft, and he remained so, releasing his latest album, Blackstar, on his 69th birthday just two days before he died. He is known for the recurring theme of space travel gone wrong, and the loneliness and alienation so powerfully symbolised by that. He once said of his childhood that he ‘felt often, ever since I was a teenager, so adrift and so not part of everyone else . . .  so many secrets about my family in the cupboard . . .  they made me feel on the outside of everything' (interview in 2002 TV documentary, David Bowie: Sound And Vision). It was entirely appropriate that he composed the music for the television adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha Of Suburbia in 1993. He understood more than most the psychology of the city and its outer reaches, and always reached out to fellow ‘outsiders’ of every kind.

His fierce determination in financial matters derived in part from having had all the receipts from his early years of success siphoned off surreptitiously by then manager Tony Defries, resulting in near bankruptcy despite having sold millions of albums and show tickets. As a former victim of such sharks he took the unique step of never again having a manager, instead himself employing a tiny number of people to deal with his personal, business and publicity needs. They were simply paid fees by him rather than his being paid out by them; he retained all of his own rights. He once sold a future rights issue to his songs, via ‘Bowie Bonds’, for a fixed period with the rights reverting to him after that, which proved an extremely astute financial move. A couple of years ago his home town of Brixton had honoured him by using his face on the ten pound note of their local currency, the Brixton Pound (a voucher system circulating between local traders).

'Crazed'

In a mid-1970s magazine interview he once advocated ‘fascism’ for England, and in 1976 was set up by the press and accused of making a ‘Nazi salute’ at Victoria station when greeted by fans on his return from living in Germany. The video of that moment shows him waving and this was freeze-framed to look like a salute. The following year, in 1977, he told Melody Maker that his flirtation with fascism had been a result of his being ‘out of my mind, totally, completely crazed’ at the time. In later years he campaigned vigorously for humanitarian causes and remained a committed Buddhist with a life-long opposition to the subjugation of Tibet by China. He also opposed the British occupation of Northern Ireland. Regarding racism, he was interviewed by MTV in 1983 and took the opportunity to take them to task repeatedly for limiting the number of black artists they featured.

'Subversive'

In a preposterous little piece in the Times (13 January) two days after Bowie died, Daniel Finkelstein tried to recast Bowie’s prolific promotion of artistic individuality as something for which we should thank capitalism – a view which Bowie would have found ridiculous. Finkelstein claimed that Bowie ‘was subversive because capitalism is subversive’, whereas in fact the opposite is the case. Capitalism homogenises and destroys individuality, as the human army of labour is moulded into conformity to match the needs of this system and increase profit.

He broke down barriers of every kind, and advanced the possibilities for choosing what to be. This evolution of personal freedoms is not something we can attribute to one influential person. It was clearly part of a much bigger and longer-term global trend. However, he had the brilliant social sensitivity and insight to tap into these moments and accelerate them.

Bowie rose to fame in the early 1970s at a time when ‘free love’ had been proclaimed as desirable between men and women, whilst gay relationships were still frowned on, even having been illegal in the UK until the late 1960s. He wore feminine clothes and make-up and challenged conventional sexual roles and behaviour. Large numbers of gay people even now still say that his announcement in 1972 that he was gay (and, later, that he was bisexual) helped them to feel less isolated and more confident in their identity.

Foresight

He had an intense intelligence and was extremely well-read with a broad encyclopaedic knowledge, which was yet another point distinguishing him from other pop or rock stars. In a 1999 interview with Jeremy Paxman he once again showed great foresight in predicting, with what turned out to be uncanny accuracy, how the internet would rapidly come to dominate human communication (and what the effect would be on the music industry):

‘I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society both good and bad is unimaginable. I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.’

He also said that he had chosen to work in music in his youth as in those days it still had ‘a kind of call to arms feeling to it, that this is the thing that will change things’ whereas pop music later became a mere career opportunity and that ‘the internet now carries the flag for the subversive and possibly rebelliousness, the chaotic and nihilistic . . .  forget about the Microsoft element, they do not have a monopoly.’ The audience becomes at least as important as those playing to them, with

‘the demystification of the relationship between performer and audience . . .  the point of having somebody who led the forces has disappeared, because the vocabulary of rock is too well known, it’s not devoid of meaning but it’s certainly only a conveyor of information not a conveyor of rebellion. The internet has taken on that.’

This was in 1999, when the evolution of the internet was very much less developed than it is now. Bowie was the first artist to have a dedicated website, or to make his material available online, or to offer his own web server facility (‘bowienet’). In that same interview, Paxman suggested that ‘some of the claims being made for the internet are hugely exaggerated’ but Bowie stuck to his guns and joked about the ‘far-fetched predictions’ made at the time of the arrival of the telephone, that it would ‘one day be found in every home’.

Survival instinct

He also quoted Duchamp on how the piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it, and add their own interpretation; that what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle. ‘That grey space in the middle is what the twenty-first century will be about.’ Asked about why he felt the need to continue earning money, he replied ‘Being working class I feel that there’s never enough to leave my family. There’s a kind of survival instinct.’ He was not one to write overtly political songs, but his awareness of the corrupting power of money is evident, for example in his song Red Money:

‘Oh, can you feel it in the way
That a man is not a man?
Can you see it in the sky
That the landscape is too high?
Like a nervous disease
And it's been there all along.
Project cancelled,
Tumbling central,
Red money.’

Superpower imperialism also came into his sights tangentially in songs like This Is Not America. In Sons Of The Silent Age he captured the stupefying idiocy of popular culture:

‘Sons of the silent age
Pace their rooms like a cell’s dimensions
Rise for a year or two
Then make war
Search through their one inch thoughts
Then decide it couldn’t be done’

But above all he had a genius for conveying, through his work, the experience of alienation. It is significant that he spoke in interviews about his reasons for having ‘chosen’ music as his medium, for he was primarily a universal artist who was also happy to work in visual art (he was a good painter and sculptor), who acted in many films and plays, who produced, directed and designed.

He never allowed himself to become part of that cosy establishment generally joined by the luminaries of the arts, including pop stars of a certain age. He refused honours from the queen of both a knighthood and a CBE. His legacy will be one of challenging, imaginative, boundary-smashing creativity throughout artistic endeavour.

Clifford Slapper

Last year's US movies (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Humanity has created a mostly "inhuman" society, and it is this condition itself that has become the subject of its art - we look at last year's US movies

Traditionally American narrative cinema has concerned itself with a central character or group and telling a story from their lives. More interestingly, these characters and the landscapes within which they move are symbols of the cultural concerns of the people who make movies: screenwriters, directors, actors, cinematographers and their employers, the producers and financiers. The purpose of this review of the last year's films is to discover these concerns and define any shared cultural/political trends in the American movie industry. It is symptomatic of the internal contradictions within capitalism that good films are made in spite of the system of production and not because of it; humanity has created a mostly "inhuman" society, and it is this condition itself that has become the subject of its art. Capitalists are ambivalent about this because although a powerful and entertaining observation of the social condition can provide them with a profitable movie it can also serve to undermine their ideology.

Such would seem to be the case in American Beauty which enjoys itself with an amusing destruction of suburban "middle-class" values and beliefs. As a result of his alienated life the hero develops an obsession with his daughter's best friend. This new focus in his life motivates him to turn away from his career and family but inevitably leads to greater social disaster. As he expires in the wreckage of his life the film provides us with a sentimental vision of the innocence of first love as salvation from the horrors of suburban American life. A film about alienation with no political content seems unlikely but that's what it takes to win a sackful of Oscars from the Hollywood establishment these days.

Although indulging a similar pleasure in portraying the despair and corruption of American society The Insider at least attempts a political perspective. Here we are back in one of Hollywood's favourite scenarios of David-versus-Goliath, where an individual takes on the might of big government or a corporation; in this case the tobacco industry. The triumph of the moral victory is monumentally pyrrhic in the context of the habitual crushing of workers' ethical sensibilities by the wheels of the American profit juggernaut. This is recognised by Al Pacino's last line: "when some things are broken they can't be fixed"; which for a socialist sounds like a rejection of reformism and a call for revolution, but is probably heard as a voice of despair and political impotence by the audience as they bask in the fleeting superficial glow of moral redemption provided by the movie's end.

Russell Crowe (the co-star of The Insider) went on to star in last year's mega-blockbuster Gladiator; an attempt to revive the historical epic genre. It has long been a cliché to regard this "sword-and-sandal" genre as a metaphor for American imperialism despite their anti-imperialist narratives because of the obvious delight in the reconstruction of the military spectacle of ancient Rome (Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, The Robe, Spartacus, etc). Unusually, in contrast to this convention, there is in Gladiator an explicit identification with Roman militarism right from the start. Maximus, the hero, is betrayed because of the power his military successes bring him. Although technically brilliant the movie resolves itself into yet another dreary revenge narrative. At least there is no Christian dimension and it does have entertaining references to its generic predecessors.

This self-referential theme is also responsible for Shaft 2000 which also attempts to revive a genre, this time one of the seventies known as "blaxploitation". The original star, Richard Roundtree, makes an appearance as Samuel L. Jackson's "Uncle Shaft" and their enjoyment of the usual urban carnage is all very amusing, but the cynicism exhibited by the characters is depressing when compared with the original's odyssey through black radical politics. In the political vacuum of postmodern America the Black Panthers are regarded as a mere retro-fashion statement.

An altogether more thoughtful investigation of another of postmodernism's themes can be found in Nurse Betty which examines the part that the relationship between media and audience plays in American cultural identity. Betty, as the result of a trauma, comes to believe that she is one of the characters in her favourite soap opera. After avoiding the pursuit of a contract killer and his apprentice she actually finds herself playing the part she has identified with in the soap opera itself. Only her potential killer understands her delusion because his own homicidal career has become an act for him. If, as the movie suggests, the American audience understands who they are by reference to media stereotypes then what we have here is a frightening vision of the power of the medium's social manipulation.

Yet another, but much darker, variation of the same obsession with identify can be found in Memento. Here our "hero" suffers from short-term memory loss and has to literally inscribe on his own body who he is and what has happened to him using tattoos. The narrative is retrospective and follows his story through the perspectives of the other characters. It is hard to evade the feeling that this is a commentary on the notoriously short attention span of the American audience. The episodic nature of the story reminds one of the seemingly inexhaustible appetite for the next novelty of entertainment, having forgotten what they've just seen.

If it is true that we can trace a shared theme in the preceding films in terms of alienated characters seeking an identity within a media-dominated society, then two last examples take this idea to its extreme. The first explores a trans-cultural identity where the protagonist assumes the persona of a samurai and calls himself "Ghost Dog". To further thicken the cultural stew the samurai is black, his master is a Mafiosi, his best friend is a French-speaking Haitian ice-cream seller and the landscape is New York. The superficial identities of the Dog and his friend unravel when the ice-cream is discovered not to be the "best in America" and that bushido philosophy cannot cope with love and betrayal. The trans-cultural conceit collapses with the realisation of their exploitation by the capitalist system.

To counter all of this cultural despair and remind us of its absurd comic potential we have Being John Malkovich. The spooky reality of the puppets contrasts with the surrealistic company that exists on half a floor of a corporate building which hides a secret portal into the head of the celebrated actor John Malkovich. Our puppeteer hero discovers the portal and from inside the head we experience the vacuity of a celebrity existence. He subsequently sells tickets for others to visit, and when one of the punters believes herself to be John Malkovich and attempts to influence his life, this betrays the existence of the portal to its owner. In a magnificently funny symbol of the symbiotic relationship between media star and his audience Malkovich enters his own head and experiences the full horror of the political and aesthetic sterility of the narcissistic showbiz culture.

American mass-media from the pulp fiction and nickelodeon of the 19th century to the sports arena and multiplexes of the early 21st has always relied on the opiate of novelty and entertainment; but the tensions and contradictions within the content of some of the best of American cinema might lead some to turn away from the coliseum of Hollywood and reflect like Derek Jacobi does in Gladiator, saying: "I'm not of the people, but I'm for the people." In such a rejection of the identities offered by the capitalist media we might all finally focus on the reality of the need to resolve the class struggle.

Andrew Westley

Getting the blues in suburbia (1981)

From the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

There aren't many factory workers like me in the area where I live – a pleasant suburb called Giffnock which lies just over the south side of the Glasgow boundary. I moved there about five years ago and when my workmates heard where I was moving to they were amazed. Almost all of them live in council flats or houses (Scotland has a much higher percentage of council and other rented housing than England) and they seemed to place Giffnock in the same wealth bracket as Beverley Hills or Mayfair. "They've all got money up there" I was told.

Of course, when I moved into the place I found the reality to be just as I expected. Nearly every household is dependent on at least one wage or salary earner and so far I haven't met or even heard of a single millionaire. On the other hand, I have met people who have equally strange notions about factory workers. They presumably get their ideas (prejudices would be a better word) from the media and are quick to condemn strikes and wage demands which they imagine industrial workers indulge in every five minutes, just for the fun of it. Obviously, different sections of the working class have false ideas about the others, but it only needs a look beneath the surface to see the essential sameness of all their lives.

Every morning from Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, I leave home at three minutes to seven. I buy my newspaper in the newsagent round the corner and stand in a shop doorway waiting for my lift to work. I get picked up about five minutes past seven and we are on our way. The streets are deserted and as we approach Eastwood Toll we pass the big houses and the tall blocks of luxury flats which sell for around £80,000. All of them are in, darkness so the occupants must still be in bed, and' it's the same with the bungalows just along the road.

In the next ten minutes we pass through the massive Pollok council estate. There's plenty of lights burning in the houses here and lots of activity, with people walking along the streets, standing at bus stops or waiting at corners for their lifts. Most of them probably feel, like me, that it's tough having to start so early, but in an hour's time the Fenwick and Kilmarnock roads will be jammed with the cars of the salary-slaves from Newton Mearns, Whitecraigs, Williamwood and Giffnock all heading into. the city. For despite what my workmates may think, most of those who live in the big houses, luxury flats and bungalows are employees too, and the fact that they start around nine changes nothing-except that they get home in the evening an hour or two later than we do.

So there are superficial differences between these owner-occupiers and council tenants but the things they have in common are much more important. Like problems, for instance. When we read about all those redundancies in factories, shipyards and steelworks, does anyone imagine that only the shop-floor workers are involved? "White-collar" workers, right up to the highest levels of management, get the push, too. They are not immune to this (nobody is these days) and many of them live in places like Giffnock.

Just recently we noticed that Ian, one of near neighbours, was home a lot during the day and, his car was usually parked outside his house. Eventually we learned what had happened. He worked as some kind of executive (he sometimes talked about his "staff" ) in a big whiskey com­pany, and as the trade is in the middle of its biggest slump in over fifty years his employers had "let him go".

Ian's problem now is to find a new employer. Naturally, a man in his position will look up the situations vacant columns in so-called "quality" newspapers like the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald rather than the more "popular" Daily Record. There was a time when he could have made an appointment at the impressively titled Executive Register, but not now. The Register was closed as part of the government's economy drive so instead of a private interview in a posh office with a fitted carpet, Ian may have to go to the local Job Centre the same as anyone else.

It cannot be denied that the inhabitants of Giffnock are generally a bit better off than those in, say, Pollok. Here and there you can see an extension being built onto the back of a house or maybe double glazing being installed, but they feel the pinch just the same as workers in industry. Another neighbour, Colin, hasn't taken his family on holiday for two years. "Can't afford it", he tells me; the high interest rates which mortgage payers currently face could be the reason. There must be lots like him in Giffnock.

So some of them try to earn a bit extra just as electricians, plumbers, painters, joiners, and other workers do by taking on "homers" in their spare time. The local newsagents have some cards in their windows which demonstrate this. For example, a local man who is probably an architect will draw up plans for your new extension or garage; an accountant offers his services and someone who is "fully qualified" will provide English tuition in the evenings. In the next street there is a woman who does part-time market research. They need more cash, too.

The classified ads in the newspapers also tell a story. Some years ago the dis­covery of oil in the North Sea encouraged speculation that the fuel would cost next to nothing, so people in places like Giff­nock rushed to have oil-fired central heating systems installed. Nowadays the rush is to convert to cheaper gas and the ads are filled with unwanted oil burners and tanks but you can't give them away. I know, I had to pay the local dustmen to get rid of mine.

The fact that many people in places like Giffnock live in better houses, do different work or earn more money than some others does not elevate them out of the working class. They still have to work for a living, worry about making ends meet, face the indignity of the sack and in one degree or another, suffer the problems created by capitalist society. This is what places them firmly in the ranks of the workers whether or not they like it or my workmates know it, and the passing of time makes it more and more evident.

Vic Vanni