Halo Halo (2025)

The Halo Halo! column from the December 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some names of Father Christmas/Santa Claus across the world: Finland: Joulupukki, ‘Yule Goat’; Russia: Ded Moroz, ‘Grandfather Frost’; Norway: Julenissen, ‘Christmas gnome’; Japan: Santa-san (Santa Kurōsu); China: Dun Che Lao Ren ‘Christmas old man’; Mongolia: (Övliin övgön), ‘Grandfather Winter’; Georgia: tovlis babua , ‘Grandfather Snow’; Armenia: Dzmer Papik ‘Winter Grandfather’.

A band produced a song in 1970 and sang, ‘teach your children well’. Should we presume that parents in the countries listed above taught their children that there was a Santa Claus, a Tooth Fairy and an Easter Bunny whilst knowing full well that these were all made up fictional beings?

What have the children living in these places got in common? Gift receiving obviously, but by the age of eight or so no longer believing that such persons, as they have been taught, actually exist. They may have been disabused of this belief by a peer who has sussed this out and wants to disillusion others for whatever motive. Once the deceit is discovered, and the knowledge that presents come from those who have to sell their labour power in order to afford them, then the hunt for gifts stored somewhere in the house before Christmas becomes likely. Admittedly, knowing about wage slavery and capitalist exploitation is likely to come a little later in life.

Knowing about Santa generally means that there is an unspoken agreement on the part of both children and parents to maintain the illusion. The fantasy that there is a being in the sky who monitors all behaviour at all times, known as god, usually takes youngsters longer to find out the truth.

Santa can be used to modify the behaviour of children: if you’re naughty Santa knows and he’ll cross you off his list to bring you nice presents. So behave! Compare that to the threat of gods who demand unconditional ‘love’ and ‘worship’ or else they will cast you into hell to suffer all its torments forever and ever.

Children may eventually come to the conclusion that this is just the reality of life and not blame parents for fibbing to them about Santa. But at what point do children come to realise that being taught that they are getting Yuletide presents because of a virgin birth that supposedly occurred two thousand years ago is also twaddle, baloney, humbug and tosh?

Do primary/junior schools still force the very young to wear tea towels on their head at Christmas and act out a meaningless scenario which they are too young to understand? Turning children against religion may be a positive factor from that event though when the resentment against getting a star part is compared to only being asked to be a sheep or a donkey.

Which is more harmful to teach susceptible young minds? A belief in a jolly bearded guy who can fly through the sky in a sled pulled by reindeers or the deception that there exists an insecure, controlling, vindictive being who demands constant idolisation and validation?

DC

Pathfinders: Earth Version Two (2007)

The Pathfinders Column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earth Version Two 

Possibly the deepest fault-line in the territory of that large and disparate body of people describing or thinking of themselves as ‘socialist’ concerns the question whether people are either smart enough to organise their own revolution or dumb enough to have to be led to it. On one side we have the ‘vanguardists’, a motley collection of would-be leaders convinced, mostly on the basis of historical arguments relating to under-educated rural peasants, that the vast majority of the world’s people have always needed and will always need to be told what to do. Thus, many left-wing organisations feature a top-down hierarchical structure, entirely the same as the capitalist structures they supposedly abhor. On the other side we have another motley collection of would-be revolutionaries, sometimes called ‘libertarians’, who consider this kind of hierarchical thinking to be precisely part of the problem, and do not foresee any realistic prospect of emancipation from capitalism while this sort of oppressive mentality remains a part of the picture.

There are interesting hints that the same ambivalent attitude towards the working class is to be found among scientists too. While pundits often debate the question of what workers think of science, rarely does anyone ask what scientists think of workers. Perhaps it is supposed that the boffins are above such value-judgments, solely concerned with their test-tubes and tunnelling microscopes. But of course, scientists are human too, and it would be nothing less than astonishing if they didn’t share some of society’s prejudices. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, plainly struggles to contain his contempt for weak-minded people who believe in elves, pixies and celestial beings, having convinced himself that religion is the root of all evil despite the abundant evidence that atheists can be evil too. In a recent discussion with the eminent physicist Lawrence M Krauss, the two debate the best way to go about weening the population away from fairy stories and into the sunlit uplands of rational science (Scientific American, July 07). The ‘softly softly’ Krauss seems to persuade the firebrand Dawkins to the conclusion that the working class must be ‘seduced’ out of ignorance rather than beaten over the head with it, a conclusion one can’t imagine Dawkins ever sticking to. But what is uncomfortably apparent in their language is a mental image of the worker as an Alabama redneck with a gun in one hand, a crucifix in the other, and who has only ever read two books, both of them about UFO’s.

Of course, it may be true, as Sam Goldwyn used to say, that nobody ever went broke underestimating the public intelligence, and the resurgence of Christian fundamentalism and anti-evolution in America will certainly lend weight to that particular prejudice. But the last time ‘Intelligent Design’ (creationism) was in the news, it was being publicly humiliated in Pennsylvania as working class parents, some of them Christians, took the battle for rationality to court and forced the entire Dover School board of governors, who advocated teaching creationism in class, to resign in ignominy.

In the past, the views of individual scientists about the mental or intellectual capabilities of workers was a matter merely of private discussion. Now, however, the question has begun to erupt into the foreground, and all because of ‘Web 2.0’.

The World Wide Web is changing fast, and whether we like it or not, it has become interactive. More and more, on every hard news or information site, we are seeing invitations to readers to send in their pictures, their articles, reportage or opinions. This is not simply a crafty way to pad out pages at no expense, it is what is called ‘user-generated content’, the new fully interactive Web – Version Two Point Nought – where every consumer is potentially a producer. And the implications are beginning to expose a fault-line in society which exactly mirrors that found among radical political groups. For some, the ‘democratisation’ of the means of communication marks a thrilling phase-change in the pace of human progress. For others, it is the start of a catastrophic dumbing-down which threatens to drown civilisation in a welter of mediocrity.

Leading the charge against what he sees as a colonisation of genuine expertise by an invasion of insipid, inaccurate and second-rate vanity publishing is the Californian entrepreneur Andrew Keen, who argues in his controversial book The Cult of the Amateur that “what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment” (quoted in New York Times, June 29). And why might this be? Because the crowd is now in charge, and “history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise, embracing unwise ideas like slavery, infanticide, George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, Britney Spears.” This is a curious argument, considering that the same crowd subsequently abolished slavery and infanticide, and will very likely do the same to the war in Iraq and even, with a bit of luck, Britney Spears. Keen is obviously not keen on the politics of Web 2.0, likening it to Marxism or a ‘communist utopia’: “It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone—even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us—can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves.” This last quotation comes from his entry in Wikipedia, a user-generated phenomenon which Keen has stated he despises, because anyone can write anything they like in it without being a tenured professor, on the basis that the crowd holds more collective wisdom than the individual. To Keen, this is tantamount to pulling down the Library of Congress and replacing it with the Tower of Babel.

Keen and others have made much of Wikipedia’s potential for inaccuracy, while absurdly ignoring the fact that Wikipedia is dynamically self-correcting. One may as justly accuse science of getting things wrong sometimes. Indeed, comparison of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica articles on science by the magazine Nature revealed a roughly equal number of errors in both (BBC Online, March 24, 06).

Ridiculed by the ‘digerati’ as a mastodon railing against the warming winds of change, Keen is certainly a minority voice, although probably the vocal end of a significantly large silent rearguard. Whereas elitist notions of worker stupidity tend to predominate in left-wing circles, they are definitely infra dig among the online community. And to give credit to Keen, he is honest enough to admit that he may have overstated his case: “I think I idealised mainstream media … I concentrated on the good things. I didn’t write about the Sun newspaper. I didn’t write about Fox” (Guardian, July 20). No, he didn’t. And he didn’t consider the fact either that his historical crowds, wherever they acted stupidly, undoubtedly did so because the ruling elites kept knowledge to themselves in order to maintain their power and prestige. If the advent of Web 2.0 forces this kind of prejudice into the foreground, so much the better. Keen, if he gets lonely, could always go and join the mastodons of the left-wing. Socialists however will feel more at home among the trail-blazing digerati of the interactive revolution. Roll on Earth 2.0.

Paddy Shannon

Why do people believe strange things? (2022)

Book Review from the October 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hope and Fear. Modern Myths, Conspiracy Theories and Pseudo-History. By Ronald H. Fritze. Reaktion Books. 2022. 271pp.

It is an idea frequently expressed that people need myth to make sense of their own lives and the world around them. Otherwise why would we have worship of non-existent gods, devotion to human leaders sometimes considered divine themselves, or the idea that one’s accidental country of birth somehow makes that place superior to others? In Hope and Fear Ronald Fritze investigates such myths, such ‘invented knowledge’, as he calls it, and does so in a way that manages to be both massively scholarly in its detailed and comprehensive analysis of the phenomena in question, exhilarating, and indeed often entertaining in the reflections and observations it throws off.

On the one hand, with his tongue firmly in his cheek, the author asks questions like: ‘Is a secret and corrupt Illuminati conspiring to control world affairs and bring about a New World Order? Was Donald Trump a victim of massive voter fraud? Is Queen Elizabeth II a shape-shifting reptilian alien? Who is doing all this plotting?’ On the other hand, the depth of his knowledge and serious analysis of fringe ideas and conspiracies throughout history is little short of breathtaking in its detail and profundity. His study ranges from enduring earlier myths such as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Knights Templar and the ‘Red Jews’ to later myths of race and nation such as the rise of ‘national sovereignty’ as ‘a source of pride and comfort’ for citizens of newly established states and the continuing belief among some in the anti-Semitic and entirely discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In the 20th century, he examines, among much else, the Nazis’ pseudo-science of Aryanism, and persistent fascination with the so-called alien landings at Roswell in New Mexico. And over most recent times he considers theories of 9/11 as an ‘inside job’, Obama’s supposed ‘foreign’ birth, the contortions of QAnon, ‘Covid hoax’ notions and Alex Jones’s outrageous fictions. He concludes that when such ‘junk knowledge’ spreads, ‘facts, reality and truth fall by the wayside’ and what people come to believe ‘bears little or no resemblance to scientific or historical reality’. So, for example, belief in anti-Trump voter fraud, though conclusively and incontrovertibly debunked, continues to survive against all the evidence via a process the author calls ‘belief perseverance’ which persists even in the face of solid contradictory information and facts.

What to make of all this? Clearly belief in myth, conspiracies and pseudo-history has a long record in human affairs and seems to occur especially at times of tumult and social upheaval, perhaps an expression of despair by people who feel impotent to influence events or their own lives. People engage in ‘confirmation bias’. They cherry-pick the evidence to support their beliefs in wonder, domination conspiracies or the supernatural, or they simply engage in wishful thinking, and fevered imagination takes precedence over any rational thought leading in some cases to what the author, in his chapter on the rise and ideology of Nazism, calls ‘a road to perdition’.

It is true, as history has shown and this book ably illustrates, that this can lead to whole societies going down such roads. And this may seem depressing. But perhaps a gleam of light is to be found in the fact that, in the most socially and economically advanced parts of the world, the kind of myths, conspiracy theories and pseudo-history portrayed here are rarely shared by whole populations as often as they were in the past. What happens now rather is that they tend to exist among a certain segment of the population, usually a particularly downtrodden one, who find their own existences particularly confusing, stressful and alienating and so seek consolation in conspiracy theories often coupled with retrograde political beliefs, which, as the author points out, tend to have an affinity for each other. So maybe we should see just a little progress here in terms of social development providing at least the ground for progress of the wholly different, non-conflictual and cooperative way of organising human affairs that socialists advocate and look forward to.

Howard Moss

Superstitions (2021)

Book Review from the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Superstition. A Very Short Introduction. By Stuart Vyse. Oxford University Press. 140 pages.

Superstition is basically a belief in magic, that future events can be influenced by invoking or placating some mysterious force. On one level it is relatively harmless, as in the case of lucky charms, star signs, and not walking under a ladder.

Vyse shows that it has a more sinister history. In the West for over 1500 years superstition meant practices that tried to invoke mysterious forces other than those of the dominant religion, which led to those involved being persecuted and/or tortured. He cites the case of Ancient Rome where, when there was an emperor who believed in the traditional Roman gods, Christianity was denounced as a superstition. But, when an emperor embraced Christianity and proclaimed it as the state religion, the boot was on the other foot and the old religious practices became superstition. In fact, both were based on the supposed existence of mysterious forces (gods, angels, demons, spirits of the dead). Superstition is not just part of religion but other practices such as fortune telling, curses and consulting astrologers.

From the 16th century onwards Protestants denounced the practices of the Roman Catholic Church as superstitions, but they still retained some, such as the belief in God and the Devil and that praying to their god could work; and they engaged in more witch-hunting than the Catholics.

The next step was the rise of Science which led to some regarding all religion as superstition. Vyse is reluctant to go along with this, letting religion off lightly despite the fact that the two religions most followed in the world – Catholicism and Islam – encourage and justify superstitious practices, the former in particular. He sees the main problem today as superstition as ‘bad science’ based on unproven mysterious physical forces as in homeopathy, acupuncture and other quack remedies.

Vyse is a psychologist and discusses why some individuals are superstitious. One theory is that it has to do with a feeling of not being in control while personal superstitious practices (gestures, lucky numbers, etc) give an illusion of control. He cites experiments which have indicated this, with superstitions being more prevalent amongst women and the worst off. If so, this would mean there would be a lot less superstition in a socialist society.

Adam Buick

Letter: Materialism v. Spiritism: A Criticism and Our Reply. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

9, Maybury Mansions, 

Weymouth Street, W.1.

 

Dear Comrade,

Someone kindly sent me a copy of the Socialist Standard yesterday containing your review of my pamphlet. As you have honoured me with a front page notice, I think you might have got the title of the pamphlet correct. It is, “Is Materialism Basis of Communism?” Not ” communion,” as you print it. And, by the way, if, as you say, the pamphlet contains its refutation, why didn’t the Standard accept an advertisement of it?

Before criticising my facts you ought to have studied the subject with which I deal. But Socialists are too busy fighting one another to find time to inform themselves on new discoveries. They are still under the delusion the limits of the Knowable were fixed by Victorian science.

I believe a great revival of religion on a scientific basis to be imminent, and it is possible that spiritualism and theosophy, perhaps in alliance with a reformed Roman Catholicism, will sweep Socialism aside. As I think this would be a disaster, I am trying to get Socialists to recognise the importance of the great spiritualist movement, which is wholly proletarian in its origin. 

Yours fraternally,

Isabel Kingsley.

Reply to Isabel Kingsley.

The misprint of the title of Isabel Kingsley’s pamphlet was so clearly a printer’s error that it was not thought that anyone would be misled by it. The proof-reader has been suitably admonished. The Socialist Standard did not accept an advertisement of the pamphlet because the only advertisements we insert in the Socialist Standard are those of our own publications and announcements. As the review was placed on the front page it is rather difficult to see any reason for the authoress’s complaint on this point.

It is interesting to note that Isabel Kingsley makes no attempt to meet the criticism of her pamphlet beyond the statement that I ought to have studied the subject with which she deals. This statement is entirely gratuitous. As a total stranger to myself Isabel Kingsley has no knowledge whatever of my studies in any direction. But this “retort” is the usual one of the Spiritist, who finds his or her case demolished by a critical examination. Those who were present at the debate between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph McCabe will remember that when Conan Doyle’s bubble of bluster had been coolly pricked, when his statements of supposed facts were shown to be wrong in every essential particular, his only reply was, “My opponent has not read the books, or if he has he doesn’t understand them.”

This was too much for even the respectable audience of the Queen’s Hall, and the protests from them led to one of Conan Doyle’s usual shuffles. He gave another illustration of this habit when faced with the confession of the gentleman who arranged the “Masked Medium” illusion, that Conan Doyle claimed as an instance of an actual materialisation.

Equally gratuitous is the statement that Socialists “are still under the delusion the limits of the Knowable were fixed by Victorian Science.” Not a tittle of evidence is offered in support of this assertion, though it may be said in passing, that Victorian Science, with its names like Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Hemholtz, Spencer, etc., is certainly in advance of the archaic ideas of the ethnological period of savagery held by Isabel Kingsley.

The last paragraph of her letter supplies a key to Isabel Kingsley’s attitude. A person who talks of religion having a “scientific basis” is evidently mentally incapable of understanding either science or religion.

The basis of all religion is the fear of the unknown; and all religions attempt to explain what the unknown is, and what occurs there. Here is the happy hunting ground of the wildest and most degrading superstitions, often accompanied by filthy rites and barbarous mutilations. A large section of the Spiritist movement openly claims that their views are those of a new religion.

Science is based upon knowledge and knowledge only. Observation, experiment, classification, generalisation, are its methods.

Such errors as occur are the usual human ones of faulty observation, incomplete experiments, or too hasty generalisations. But these errors are corrected as further knowledge is acquired and applied to the various departments of science. No scientist places any definite limit upon the Knowable. All the scientist asks is that any claim to the extension of the Knowable must be based upon knowledge, not superstition.

And even if “the great spiritualist movement … is wholly proletarian in its origin “—a debatable point—it has not only wandered far from its “origin,” but such “origin” does not excuse its superstitions any more than those of the other mental deficients around us.

Nor does Isabel Kingsley give us any information to show how a movement, based upon the ideas of primitive man plus the puerile conjuring tricks of “mediums,” can be of any “importance” to Socialism—except as a stumbling block to be cleared out of the way.

The various attempts to foist crude superstitions, by those of limited or perverted mentalities, upon the Socialist movement, are evidences of the progress of Socialism, but such attempts must be fought and exposed.    

Jack Fitzgerald

A quotation from Buckle (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

” . . . the two principles underlying religion are ignorance and danger, ignorance keeping man unacquainted with natural causes, and danger making them recur to supernatural ones. Or, to express the same proposition in other words, the feeling of veneration, which under one of its aspects takes the form of superstition, is a product of wonder and fear, and it is obvious that wonder is connected with ignorance, and that fear is connected with danger. Hence it is, that whatever in any country increases the total amount of amazement, or whatever in any country increases the total amount of peril, has a direct tendency to increase the total amount of superstition, and therefore to strengthen the hands of the priesthood.” (“History of Civilisation in England,” Vol. 3, p. 32. World’s Classics Edition.)

God or the engineers. (1923)

From the August 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sad, in its immediate results, as is the recent eruption of Mount Etna, it is still more distressing to learn how great is the hold of religious superstition, and the ignorance of the most elementary facts of natural science it signifies, upon the minds of the people. For although the volcanic overflow only actually affects some few thousand wretched Sicilian peasants, the newspapers convey the tidings to their readers in the outside world in a manner most acceptable and understandable by them, and we have, therefore, in our daily newspapers practically no reference in a scientific manner to what, of course, is a natural phenomenon, but are entertained by stories of protecting’ patron saints, praying peasants, and priests appealing to God to stop the flow. Thus the Westminster Gazette (21/6/23) reports:—

  “The eruption of the Mount Etna volcano continues, but by a miracle the town of Linguaglossa, with its 15,000 inhabitants, appears to have been saved from destruction.

  ” ‘A mountain spur just outside the town has diverted the flow of boiling lava away from the town, where ever since the eruption started the people have been in a state bordering upon madness owing to the fear of destruction and the terrible heat.

  “The stream of lava runs to a depth of 20 feet and to a breadth of 500 feet, and in its course has demolished the village of Casozza and fifty houses.

 

  “The statue of the patron saint of Linguaglossa, St. Egidio, stands close to the mountain spur which has diverted the flow from the town, and yesterday priests and people knelt before this statue praying for their town’s salvation.— ‘ Central News.’

“PROTECTING SACRED STAFF.

   “They had carried the saint’s staff, which is kept in a richly decorated coffer, through the streets in procession to the spot reached by the lava. Afterwards, fearing that the staff might be stolen by the inhabitants of the neighbouring district of Castiglione, they handed it over to the Bishop, and it is now being zealously watched over by several citizens. It was formerly stolen by the people of Catania, for its supposed miraculous powers.—’ Reuter.’

   “A Naples message says that Professor Ottorino Fiore, teacher of volcanology and a lifelong student of Mount Etna, states that the eruption will last probably a fortnight.—’Exchange.’ ”

Although the mountain spur was there before the statue of the saint, the latter gentleman has collared all the credit, and although Professor Ottorino Fiore may prove to be correct, the priests will doubtless see to it that God and the Roman Catholic Church share the honours between them when it is a fait accompli.

We learn, however, from an evening paper of the same day that the volcano, after slowing clown a bit, had resumed its former fury, and that in spite of St. Egidio the mountain spur was no longer proving a barrier to the ever-increasing stream of burning lava. Engineers were then set to work to dig trenches to divert its course, with the result that the town of Linguaglossa was saved for the time being. Did the saint then fall from popular favour? Not a bit of it ! He became more of a hero than ever, as witness the Daily Sketch (22/6/23) :—

  “A rumour spread yesterday that the neighbouring town of Castiglione intended to steal the St. Egidius statue and crozier from the people of Linguaglossa, its legitimate possessors.

  “Men, women and children seized whatever weapons came to hand, and rushed to the spot where the protecting statue faced the now almost quiescent lava,

  “Finding there some innocent inhabitants of Castiglione who had never dreamed of stealing the sacred image, they attacked them with wild fury, and but for the timely intervention of a body of Fascisti the visitors would have been killed.”

Apparently, then, although appeals to God were useless, and it was left to the spades of the engineers to save the situation, in the minds of the poor peasants no doubt exists that the former method did the trick. And for this no one who has read Zola’s “Verité” will deny the priests the credit. We can imagine them playing upon the, fears of a terror-stricken mob, distraught by apprehension and suffering, and taking every advantage of the circumstances to regain the hold that the gradual unfolding of the book of science is wresting from them day by day. These rural priests and parsons are the outposts of capitalism no less in Sicilian villages than in the villages of England. It may seem supererogatory to declaim against the foolishness of a priest-ridden Italian mob, but to the Socialist it is just as important a manifestation of the slave position of the international working class, as the shooting down of strikers in Featherstone or Chicago. The destiny of the Catanian peasant is that of the mill-worker of Wigan. Slavery is their common lot. Their emancipation must be the same way.

And we in England, who were rather pre-occupied at the time in praying that the sun would shine down upon Ascot, will doubtless be asked to attend thanksgiving services, to offer up thanks to God for stopping the eruption (and presumably for starting it), just as we were asked to return thanks for the cessation of the late war—although we could blame the starting of that on to the Kaiser. The pity of it is that lots of us will do it without question. Not because we have never been able to question. Never before in the whole history of the human race was knowledge so accessible to the multitude. What is it binds us in our present position? Fear? We have nothing to fear, nothing to lose but our chains. We have the weapon wherewith to free ourselves from economic serfdom and intellectual repression in the Socialist Party of Great Britain. WE ARE THE SOCIAL ENGINEERS !

Stanley H. Steele

The circus comes to town (2011)

The Halo Halo! column from the June 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are still in remote communities today medicine men who after daubing strange symbols on their bodies in blood, donning feather headdresses and taking up their magic bones, will go into a trance and chant unintelligible messages to invisible gods. These performances can be carried out to heal the sick, to drive away demons, or to bring a dead body back to life as a zombie. They have been practiced with simple, unquestioning faith for hundreds, probably thousands, of years.

Also today, in modern ‘civilised’ cities, there are men (and women) who dress up in elaborately decorated robes and headwear to perform different, but similar mysterious rituals. They solemnly trace crosses in the air with their fingers, symbolically eat the flesh and drink the blood of a long dead man, and carry little wooden crosses with the image of this same dead man impaled on them. In addition to praying for the welfare of souls in the afterlife they will swing their incense pots and chant messages (in Latin if required) to a different, but equally magical god with every expectation of being taken seriously.

Should you ask one of the witch doctors from a shantytown shack in Haiti, from Lambeth Palace, or the Vatican, what arrangement he had with the god to persuade him to perform a miracle, or to take, or avoid a certain course of action, he would tell you not to question such things but to have faith. He would assure you that the invisible ones move in mysterious ways which only the initiated can understand.

One such event that must have been the biggest religious magic show for years took place on 1 May in Rome. Starting at the Circus Maximus, and being broadcast live on giant video screens across the city, the faithful from all over the world gathered to see a dead pope being ‘beatified’. And what a circus it must have been. According to Italian police, more than a million people turned up.

Hopefully they were easily pleased and didn’t expect a scientific explanation of what exactly was going on. Apparently a bottle of the dead pope’s blood was involved, but what Pope Benedict XVI had to do to his predecessor to ‘beatify’ him, and how the dead pope benefited is unclear.

Being beatified (as opposed to being beautified – he died in 2005 after all) is apparently a kind of promotion after death for anyone who has shown a heroic degree of holiness. According to Pope Benedict he “reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress”.

The Catholic Free Press reported how impressed one onlooker was. “Pope John Paul was a wonderful pope”, said Isabel Marin from Spain. “He was like us. My mom showed me a video where he was watching a clown and really laughing. And I saw another video where he moved his feet when the people were singing, following the beat.”

A pope who could laugh, keep time to the music and fend off those nasty Marxists all at once. Just what is needed in the modern world.

NW

Natural and Supernatural (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

While many industries are suffering from the present slump, and their workers live in fear of the sack or short time, one business has never known better days: that is, the large contemporary industry dealing with ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. It includes religion, and also much else besides. It has often proved its usefulness to the state, which means to the rulers of the state. For the more the ruling class can persuade the workers that they have a great time coming, if they can only wait till they’re dead, the less time they will spend thinking about the system which keeps their exploiters rich, or planning to end it. The more their attention is taken up with mysticism and occult tales and supernatural forces, the less energy they will have to learn about the natural forces here and now, which the members of the ruling class will continue to own and control for their own benefit at the workers’ expense. A valuable weapon in this ruling-class campaign is a book just published, Natural and Supernatural, by Brian Inglis (Hodder and Stoughton, £9.95). This first volume speaks up manfully on behalf of spooks of various kinds, plus crafty dodges like alchemy and religious miracles, in the centuries up to 1914. (And very effective alchemy was, too—not in transmuting base metals into gold, of course, but in transmuting the true believers’ money into the pockets of the alchemists.) Volume two will bring us up to date (if that’s the right phrase).

Gnomes Rule — OK?

Bernard Levin, The Times columnist, and a friend of Mr. Inglis, sees how vital it is to inculcate a spirit of credulity among the workers, and he went so far as to produce a column vindicating the book two weeks before it was published (The Times, 6.1.78). To defend a book as yet unpublished, from attacks as yet unmade, in reviews as yet unwritten, requires unusual skills, but Mr. Levin was equal to the occasion. Exercising simultaneously the gifts of clairvoyance and prophecy, he claimed to know what would be said by reviewers as yet unchosen, and he produced at least one argument to confute it (plus some abuse of the phantom army of projected assailants—no one who refused to accept supernatural happenings after reading Mr. Inglis’s book could be “fully sane”, he said in his temperate and judicious way.) This was the argument: the fact that some people reject telepathy and the rest of it “seems to me to go far towards demonstrating the validity of the very argument it rejects”. So there you are. If you reject the belief that cows catch an illness because elves have fired prehistoric flint arrow-heads at them (the disease was called “elf-shot” 150 years ago—it still is, according to current dictionaries—and the poor cow was “cured” by bleeding it), if you are unable to accept that leprechauns cause this disease, you are merely confirming that it does happen.

Mr. Levin gave his testimony for the magical powers of, for example, Uri Geller, and illustrated his article by a picture of the wizard in person, holding some shop-soiled cutlery, and looking inscrutable. Geller is an unfortunate choice as an example of uncanny doings and psychic powers. His pretensions to be anything other than a clever conjurer have long been exploded, both by impartial investigators from outside show-business, and, even more effectively, by equally clever fellow-conjurers who are indignant at the way Geller has hogged the publicity by magical claims for tricks no better than their own (see past issues of the New Scientist and of the American periodical The Zetetic, and also The Magic of Uri, by “Randi”, Ballantine Books, 65p).

All aboard for Paradise

Fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Levin, Geller, and Inglis, in this spiritual onslaught with so much material significance, are the progenitors of the heterogeneous religious sects which have sprung up in the last decade or two and have proved so successful in promoting the prosperity of their originators and the other-worldly passivity of the workers they have converted. Not only have the leaders of the old-established religions deserved well of the capitalist class; so have such men as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon (his name alone must be worth a mint in the religious game) with his various productive schemes staffed by low-paid devotees; the well-built little guru who runs the Divine Light mission, in the intervals of seeing the world in great comfort with highly congenial companions; and Lafayette Ron Hubbard, last heard of cruising in his yacht while his Scientology Church spreads the gospel and organizes the contributions. All of them take full advantage of the mind-shattering boredom in which most workers (inevitably under capitalism) are forced to spend their working lives, a boredom which provides fertile soil for the growth of miracle men.

Another in the same line of business is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (or Veririchi, as unkind critics have called him). His international H.Q. is in Switzerland, and he runs Transcendental Meditation. He has discovered (The Times, 4.1.78) that when one per cent of the people of a town or city meditate transcendentally (and if you don’t know what that is, only £60—for six lessons— stands between you and your finding out), the cumulative effects “will wipe away its urban deprivation, and give it invincibility, peace of mind, prosperity”, and so on; “illness, crime, and accidents, decrease sharply”. This has already been proved (no doubt it depends on your standards of proof) in towns as far apart as Cleveland, Ohio, and Glossop, Derbyshire, to name but two. The same experiment is at this moment being made in Hackney. So now it’s up to 1,925 inhabitants of that hitherto lack-lustre locality, that’s one per cent of the population, if they’ve counted right, to do their stuff. If you’ve been to Hackney recently, to see a place in the process of being transformed by the power of thought, you may well have come to the conclusion that the Maharishi’s thinkers have a lot of hard meditating still to do. Poverty, and crime, and urban deprivation, are not easy to shift; but if the transcendental meditators think they have shifted them (as in Cleveland, Ohio, and Glossop, Derbyshire) it will do the ruling class no harm, will it?

Flights of fancy

Even more to the point, on the subject of Mr. Inglis's second volume; only last year the Maharishi discovered that transcendental meditation enables its practitioners to fly. It’s a real bonus: one crossing to New York under your own steam, and you’ve already paid for your introductory lessons. The faithful practise flying every morning in the front room of the terraced house which spearheads the campaign to transform Hackney; but they modestly declined to demonstrate their powers when a journalist called. “We are not very good at it yet; still a bit unstable in the air.” So New York is out, for the moment. Still, even a few quick flights to the factory or office would avoid those rush-hour journeys, not to mention saving the fare. These revelations are not to be laughed at: the more people laugh and refuse to believe these stories, the more (by Mr. Levin’s argument) it proves that the meditators do fly.

Anyway, Brian Inglis could spread himself on that in his second volume. He might like to hear of another uncanny case of paranormal powers, if he has not already written it up. A couple of years ago Patrick Moore was appearing on Pete Murray’s Radio 2 morning show. He told his listeners that while he was speaking the planet Pluto would pass directly behind Jupiter, thus increasing their gravitational pull, so that here on earth people could jump in the air and experience a floating sensation. Minutes later, “the BBC switchboard was jammed with calls from people claiming the ‘experiment’ had worked. A woman holding a coffee morning said she and her eleven guests left the ground and floated round the room” (Sun, 2.4.76). Another man “said he hit his head on the ceiling”. Patrick Moore thought he was hoaxing people on April Fools’ Day (Jupiter and Pluto could play hide-and-seek all day, and it wouldn’t affect the earth’s gravitation), but there is obviously more to it than that. These witnesses who thought they could fly because P. Moore told them they could on the radio must surely reinforce those other witnesses who thought their spoons were bent because U. Geller told them so on the radio. Or are we to accept the apparent deductions that sometimes people want to believe something so much that they succeed in convincing themselves it really is true? To help divert the workers from the economic and political realities the magical powers of Moore and Geller and the rest have an important part to play, however much scoffers and cynics may sneer. After all, the more people laugh and refuse to believe it, the more . . . Where have we heard that argument before?

Without question, Mr. Inglis is doing a great job for the ruling class. We can only hope he never bumps his head on the ceiling.

Alwyn Edgar

The Social Quacks On Revolution. (1920)

From the February 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Economic Determinant.

In his masterly essay, "Causes of Belief in God," Paul Lafargue shows how the capitalist method of production divides society into superstitious capitalists and materialist workers. The buying and selling of stocks and shares are to the average capitalist a gamble. He knows little or nothing of the actual concerns. He often has friends who have lost heavily in dealings on the Stock Exchange. He receives rude shocks occasionally through rumours affecting his own investments, and not being able to control the conditions that bring success or failure, regards the whole question as one of chance.

The Worker's Earthly Wisdom.

The worker, on the other hand, is concerned with the material processes of production and distribution. He sees in these processes nothing marvellous because they are the result of the combined efforts of his fellow workers, and he himself takes a hand. Powerful engines, and the terrific force generated by them, have no terrors for the worker, because he controls them. His share of the industrial process, wages, is not subject to chance. They do not fluctuate from a standard of exquisite luxury to one of poverty; he remains always poor, not expecting, or even dreaming of, obtaining a fancy price for his labour-power. When the prices of necessaries are raised to him, he blames those who raise them. When his wages are reduced, his hours of labour prolonged, or the speed of the machine increased against him, he does not whine that it is the will of God. Neither does he try to explain such misfortunes by economic law. To him it is a personal matter and the capitalist is the person responsible; he therefore takes organised action against him.

The Chance for Dinkey-Doo.

The worker does not look for abstruse explanations of the economic disturbances that hurt him : he blames the capitalist. But the latter, sometimes hit by the same disturbances, blames his luck and tries to ward off disaster with mascots. He believes in lucky days, fortune tellers, and spiritualist revelations. When some mad professor of physical science predicts the end of the world because one side of the solar system seems overweighted with planets, the big luminaries of the scientific world rush into print to re-assure the wealthy idlers, who are in the main, just as void of scientific knowledge as the workers. The professors who ridiculed the idea knew they were safe in this case, because they alone would have been able to say "we told you so."

The Propheteers' Harvest.

When financial or trade crises ruin many capitalists, economic and social quacks get busy explaining causes; prophesying rapid recovery, and generally offering advice and administering comfort to those who are threatened with disaster. But it is when industrial disputes develop and spread from one occupation to another, when waves of discontent surge backwards and forwards, and the structure of civilisation seems threatened, when Bolshevism is triumphant in Russia and all middle Europe seems affected by it, then it is that the experts get busy explaining, warning, and advising their capitalist masters. Revolution is hinted at, prophesied for the near future, already here, and utterly discredited by politicians, economists, and social reformers with equally plausible arguments.

The Prime Minister says that "a revolutionary spirit in the air." In his usual self-advertising style he proclaims his ability to turn it. "It is simply the flood," he goes on, "the spade in the stream. What it wants is direction." Mr. Bonar Law said : "I am not afraid of the revolutionary spirit; revolution and the danger of it will come only if the social and economic conditions become intolerable." And of course they are not intolerable for these two gentlemen and the class they represent.

After them comes Mr. McCurdy, M.P., who says : "Not one man in a hundred of our strikers knows anything, or cares to know anything, about the philosophy of anarchism or syndicalism. He is looking for a way out of his own personal troubles—high prices, the irritation of profiteering, the limited share he gets of the comforts of life."

This is pleasant reading for the average capitalist, who wants to believe that the workers still lack the knowledge and intelligence necessary for combination against him on sound lines. But in his further remarks Mr. McCurdy goes far to prove that conditions are forcing the workers to become revolutionary.

"Higher wages," he says,"lead to higher prices, unless there is increased production." But, like all the advocates of greater production, he means greater production per worker, who cannot, therefore, get his better conditions, because prices will not fall until demand has contracted, which means increased unemployment and lower wages to correspond with the reduced prices.

The worker is never in a position ta take advantage of the redactions in price. Whether his wages are high or low, prices always soar at a level that prevents him attaining to a comfortable standard of living. Resolutions demanding drastic government action against the "profiteer" have no effect because profiteers are capitalists just the same as other capitalists not "lucky" enough to be profiteers, but hoping to be so shortly. The workers are baffled whatever action they take along the lines they have so far been accustomed to follow. But Socialism is at their elbows—will they pause and examine it ?

Another mistake that Mr. McCurdy makes is in thinking that Syndicalism or Anarchism are really dangers to the stability of capitalist society. Their real danger is to the working class, which, in so far as it heeds these things, neglects the obvious course of gaining control of the political machine, and lays itself open to militant suppression by the Government—a form of suppression the ruling class have proved themselves only too ready to adopt, many of them, without doubt, considering it necessary that society should be periodically purged of its revolutionary elements. And what more favourable opportunity could present itself than large numbers of workers imbued with the belief that they can carry through the Revolution by means of strikes or looting, or by physical force ?

It was this belief on the part of the Parisian workers that gave Theirs and the French capitalists the opportunity to massacre the communards; and that massacre will no doubt be repeated on a more colossal scale in Russia unless the Bolshevik leaders are wise enough to effect a compromise before the full weight of surrounding capitalist forces is hurled against them and their premature revolution.

The economist is an adjunct of the political party and manufactures arguments, principles, and even economic "laws" according to the needs of his party. When he speaks of revolution as the outcome of present working-class discontent he refers to it as a convulsion of society, with nothing to follow but brutal dictatorships or universal chaos. It would not suit capitalist ideas and interests to even admit the possibility of an alternative system of society. Capitalism, in the opinion of capitalists, is the highest expression of social organisation. Consequently the Russian movement and the general unrest, if it means revolution, is the beginning of the end: the annihilation of the human race through the absence of law and order.

In the "Review of Reviews" (Aug. 1919) Mr. J. A. Hobson says that the "scientific Socialist hails this intestinal warfare with a sombre satisfaction as the fulfilment of his law of economic determination." It is far easier to hazard sneering guesses about the emotions of Socialist opponents than it is to pulverise the "law of economic determination." though it matters nothing what the Socialist, or even Hobson, feels about it. if it is a law. Grudgingly he admits that the Socialist is right when he says that the development of capitalist society means the growing antagonism of the working class towards capitalism and all those who seek to maintain it. But his admission matters very little; the fact remains that "human society is out of harmony with its surroundings and must re-adapt itself in order to continue its existence." But to re-adapt itself means, not superficial, but fundamental changes, and Socialism alone contains such fundamental changes.

Mr. Hobson concedes to the Socialist the correctness of his diagnosis, and, therefore, admits the inevitability of the class war. But he asks, "need we succumb to this terrible philosophy ? I think not." And then he tries to comfort his friends the capitalists by assuring them that "the vast majority of the workers mistrusts all conscious formulation of aims and policy except for short range and concrete objects." These "concrete objects are, a voice in workshop control, security of tenure, a reasonable standard of comfort and leisure. "

But capitalism has always refused these to the workers, except in rare instances when labour-power has been in great demand. Wages must be kept down while industry is carried on for profits, consequently there must be an unemployed army which imposes on the work the competitive struggle for jobs and a reasonable standard of comfort and leisure is an impossibility under the system for all those who sell their energy for wages

Then Mr. Hobson shows how "short range" are capitalist "politics and economics." He is confident "that the great mass of the workers would accept these substantial gains and would not clamour for the destruction of the wage system" But he realises that "no present settlement on these, or any, lines would have permanency"—another admission that must give "sombre satisfaction to the scientific Socialist." 

Politicians and economists alike, with all efforts to bring comfort and assurance to their friends the capitalists, cannot conceal the pessimism they feel. They rack their brains for rough and ready arguments that will deceive the workers and bolster up a rotten system, carrying it on from day to day. They declare that revolutionary Socialists are small in number and that the mass of the workers are not affected. They indulge in cheap sneers at the founders of modern Socialism, and denounce the workers as the enemies of society when, driven by actual want, they strike for some slight improvement in their conditions. But they cannot explain, scientifically, the growing universal antagonism of the workers towards the ruling class.

There is an element of uncertainty about the growth of the Socialist movement. Not even the Socialist can tell how far the minds of the workers are turned to receive the principles of 
Socialism, or how many, already understanding them, are only waiting a popular movement basis on Socialism. The working-class mind, trained to materialism in industry, quite easily grasps the principles of Socialism when clearly presented. The avowed numbers to-day may be small but it is the soundness of the principles, and the ease with which they can be understood, and the growing realisation by the workers that their accustomed methods achieve nothing, that is driving them to Socialism. The capitalists' fear of the future is a convincing answer upon this point, while no Socialist has any doubt as to the future.

F. Foan

Ghosts. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world is suffering from a plethora of fat boys who will persist in trying to make our flesh creep. We have no objection to them practising their black magic in the privacy of their back parlours, to the prostration of their maiden aunts, but the limit is reached when they insist upon the rest of the world witnessing their performances. We refer to that cult of neurotics of both sexes, viz., "Spiritualism," and to the publicity that the "sensation press" is giving it.

Some time ago the Weekly Dispatch worked overtime getting out extra copies, while it was running a series of articles by Mr. Vale Owen which purported to convey "communications from departed spirits." Now Mr. James Douglas, the editor of the Sunday Express is performing similar stunts albeit in the guise of a "not-yet-convinced agnostic." Yet it is easy to perceive that Mr. Douglas, as a smart journalist, is, among other things, endeavouring to emulate the commercial success of his contemporary and draw the coppers from the pockets of the mystified working class to the coffers of Lord Beaverbrook, "the apostle of success."

Although one may have a doubt as to whether Mr. V. Owen was a knave or a fool, Mr. Douglas has a more accessible public record, and we know he is no fool. It is perhaps only just, however, to concede him the point that he is the tool of an exploiting master class, to whose interest it is that confusion should exist in the minds of the workers.

It is not our mission, or of any propagandist value to debate "Spiritualism" as distinct from any other phase of religion. Socialism as a system of society means the end of supernatural beliefs. Our work has as its objective the overthrow of Capitalism, and we do not care to spend much time on its various side shows. We therefore are not primarily interested in exposing the credulity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or the senility of Sir Oliver Lodge. Mr. Joseph McCabe and others can do that quite well enough in their professional capacity. But where we are concerned with the question of Spiritualism is that Capitalism prolongs its lease of life while the minds of the working class are confused and side-tracked from the path of progress towards their emancipation.

That the phenomena supposed to have been experienced by Mr. Douglas at the "Black Seance" cannot be substantiated by any scientific fact is obvious to the logical mind, but that the working into a hysteria of nervous apprehension of a great proportion of the populace is a direct advantage to the Capitalist class in their business of keeping the working class submissive and enduring is obvious to the Socialist.

If a table can defy the law of gravity and float round the room of its own volition, well and good; scientists must alter their texts books accordingly. And if a spirit can sing "The long long trail" without a larynx, anatomists must also revise their opinions ! But what we do discover about these seances is that no dead Socialist has come back to tell the readers of the Capitalist Press how they are exploited in the interests of the humbugging Capitalist class! And there must be many of our comrades wandering about the Astral Plane we think! Perhaps—horrible thought—the spirit of Capitalism reigns up there too, and has clapped our departed pals into ghostly jails so that they shan't blow the gaff on the fat men below !

But, maybe, we wax flippant. The situation has really no funny side. It calls for the same stern comment that the Armistice Day hypocrisy demands, and indeed, as do all the dodges that Capitalism uses to maintain its existence. The Cenotaphs and bunting, the ceremonies and sentimentalities, the panem et circenses, that seem to be more in evidence than ever before, all serve their turn, and the brutal rapacity of the Moloch we endure battens on the ignorance they signify.

Spiritualism will have its brief turn on the stage of history and make its exit, and something else will take its stead in the public mind and eye; but in the meantime the facts remain that Society here below is rotten to the core, that a small section of it lives in luxurious idleness on the profits rung from the remainder, who, as a consequence, suffer the pangs of hunger, the diseases attendant on slum working class should fix its mind upon. Directly the master class discover that flying tambourines and mystic ventriloquisms no longer absorb the attentions of an awakening proletariat they will command the spirits they have summoned to emulate the Arabs by "folding their tents and
silently stealing away." It will be almost time then for the Capitalist class to do likewise.

S.

Between the Lines: Racism in Poland (1990)

The Between the Lines column from the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Racism in Poland

Jew-hating is the echo of fear. Frightened little men with distorted images of the world and ignorant louts with leather-boot-brains are to be found seeking someone — anyone — to blame for the predicament of their misery. Failing to recognise the real foe, which is the profit system in which they exist as the providers of their masters' privilege, they seek out a cultural group and chant their poisonous slogans of hatred. In Poland jew-hating (better to call it that — anti-semitism makes it sound like a philosophical outlook) is on the rise. Frozen prejudices are thawing out in the new, freer political atmosphere of post-state capitalism.

Assignment (BBC2, 7.45pm, 13 November) showed how the current Presidential election in Poland has brought out some of these sickening old prejudices. Workers interviewed on the street complained that the Jews ran the country. The reason for the awful poverty of most Poles was the Jews. The Walesa campaign has pandered to the kind of crass nationalism within which portrayal of the Jew as a non-Pole — a disruptive alien — has a place. This is the dirty work of running Polish capitalism which Walesa and those other brave workers of ten years ago have taken on.

In 1980 they knew who their enemies were: the Communist Party bosses; today the Jews are the scapegoats. The irony is that there are hardly any Jews left in Poland. The Nazis saw to that — about four million Polish Jews were systematically slaughtered. In Russia the same hatreds are being concocted by those in need of new enemies to blame.

Decades of so-called communist education and media have left nothing but a working class which is prey to this most ignorant of bigoted beliefs.

Gullibility in Britain

Equinox (Channel 4, 7pm, 18 November) reminded us just how many mugs there were in Britain and how many swines there are who will happily take money for exploiting such gullibility.

The programme examined the attempts to expose the frauds and — more often — self-deceptions of those who claim that they can read fortunes by looking at tarot cards, communicate with the dead and hold conversations with men from flying saucers. It is fear of rational thought which attracts the believers to such nonsensical beliefs.

Doris Collins was shown prancing up and down a stage delivering phoney messages from dead people to ignorant workers who do not want to believe that death means the end of life. "I have a message here from someone from a Jim — or a Jimmy — or a Timmy . . ." And someone somewhere whose father was called that or something like it or something close enough to let them imagine that they are getting their money’s worth raises their hand and allows Doris to tell them what they want to believe.

Then there was the expose of the detestably stupid Christian Dion: a caricature of a fair-ground fake — but perhaps he believes in what he says. Dion appears on London radio telling callers what their future will be like. By employing an array of cliches and likely possibilities Dion is able to create an image of a man who is doing something other than looking at a pack of silly cards and telling people what they want to hear.

The likes of Doris and Dion prey on the uncertainties and anxieties of working class life. They persisently fail to be put to the test of rigorous scientific scrutiny. They are the fools of a foolish culture and the providers of untruth to those who cannot face the truth. It has been a bad month for prejudice and fraud — bring on the Queen's Speech and the nativity play and let the sickly trend continue.

Steve Coleman

Notes By The Way: “The Daily Express” Star Performer (1936)

The Notes By The Way column from the April 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Daily Express” Star Performer

There are many good reasons why workers should disregard the politics preached by the Daily Express. Now its readers are deprived, too, of what was one of its most entertaining non-political features, the column of guidance from the stars contributed by the “astrologer,” Mr. Naylor. Every day (including Sunday, in the Sunday Express) he advised readers what the stars foretold for those born on that day and for the whole 1¾-million not born on that day. When he missed a day consternation reigned throughout the land—or, so the Editor says. All day long the office was besieged on foot or by ’phone. Hundreds of readers refused to leave their homes in the morning to meet the day’s battle without first knowing whether this was a day for an ardent love affair, for buying houses or selling pepper, for avoiding sea-trips, or for bearding the boss for a rise. But even into the astral regions the class-struggle had intruded, so the day’s readings often gave separate advice for employers and employed.. This advice, on Saturday, February 29th, covered both that day and the next. On Saturday we were told that those born on February 29th, if in the ranks of owners of businesses, “May achieve a successful year financially by hard work. Those in employment, on the other hand, must take extra care not to offend those higher up, who can make difficulties for them.” Mr. Naylor has yet to learn that the capitalists do not thrive on their own hard work, but on that of others, and that all workers, not only those born on February 29th, have to take extra care not to offend their employer, because he can always “make difficulties for them.” The advice for all readers was sound enough, “Employees, look out for trouble, and give no cause for complaint,” though the last sentence “avoid extravagance” was hardly necessary.

The bright spot in the advice for Sunday was “Employees must try to be more assertive;” As nine-tenths of the workers do not work on Sunday it is a good day to be assertive, provided, of course, that they carried out Saturday’s instructions of minding their p’s and q’s. It is a pity we cannot know whether the Express staff working on Sunday asserted themselves to Lord Beaverbrook and, if so, with what result.

By coincidence, an article on Japan in the Sunday Express next day told us to be amazed at the queerness of that nation because, among other things, they consult astrologers!

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Poverty is not being Abolished

Ceaseless propaganda goes on—as it has for a century or more—designed to convince the poor that their poverty and the wealth of the rich are alike diminishing. The Times Literary Supplement, reviewing a book “Farewell to Poverty,” asserts (March 7th) that there has been a “great redistribution of wealth and income . . . .  in this country since the war,” and that capitalism “during the century before the war . . . .  was successfully spreading abundance.” The Economic League publishes leaflets assuring the workers that “small and working-class investors have savings of something like £3,000,000,000 in value.”

All of this propaganda is the product of ignorance or deceit.

It may be true that the funds in Savings Banks, Building Societies, etc., etc., total nearly £3,000 millions, but how much is that per head of the millions who own it? And how many of them are workers? The Economic League and the Times are silent on this. Mr. Hargreaves Parkinson, of the Economist, in his book, “The Small Investor,” provides an answer. The people who own this sum constitute “at least 75 per cent. of the total population,” and the property they own does not amount to “more than 10 to 14 per cent.” of the total national wealth. (“Small Investor,” Blackie & Son, Ltd., 1930, p. 109-10.) So we are asked to be impressed by the “equality" of ownership demonstrated by the fact that less than one-quarter of the population own nearly nine-tenths of the national wealth!

Moreover, neither the League nor the Times has ever shown that the owners are wholly or mainly workers. As Mr. Parkinson points out (p. 10), an official inquiry showed that “in any savings bank, four-fifths or more of the total deposits are in one-fifth of the accounts." He goes on to say that in his opinion the relatively wealthy depositors “comprise certain Provident and Charitable Societies, and Clubs, which deposit their accumulated funds with the savings banks; foremen and others in the 'non-commissioned' ranks of industry; the wives of middle-class professional or business men. . . ."

Now Professor G. W. Daniels and Mr. H. Campion, in a paper read to the Manchester Statistical Society on March 11th (see Manchester Guardian, March 12th), have examined the present ownership of capital, and compared it with ownership in pre-war days. This is their conclusion:—

  . . .  it cannot be said there has been any marked change in the distribution of capital in individual hands in England and Wales during the last 25 years. 

The slight extent of the change, and the present enormous inequality, is shown by their conclusion

that 

  In 1924-30 1 per cent. of the persons aged 25 and over in England and Wales owned 60 per cent. of the total capital; in 1911-13 1 per cent. of the persons owned 70 per cent. of the total capital.
  In 1924-30 80 per cent of the total capital and in 1911-13 85 per cent. to 90 per cent. was owned by 5 per cent. of the persons aged 25 and over.

They find also that “there is no evidence that the inequality will grow less marked in the future." 

The Manchester Guardian, while deploring this inequality, sees in the small change a disproof of the views held by “the cruder Marxists." It may be worth while considering this point on another occasion. Here it is sufficient to say that even if there had been a slight over-statement of views as to concentration of capital it shows the bankruptcy of Liberalism, that it can find no other answer to the appalling facts.

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“Communist-Patriots”

In 1914 Lenin and his associates coined a name for so-called Socialists who deserted internationalism. They were called “social-patriots." Through ignorance or for pay (e.g., Benito Mussolini) they preached war and nationalism. Many of them were the scum of the working-class movement.

In 1936 Lenin’s followers-from-afar are being manoeuvred by Moscow into the same position. The Daily Worker of March 9th reports that the French Communist organ L'Humanité has issued an appeal “for a united France for the struggle against Fascism and against war.” The appeal ends with the slogan: —

“Long live the Unity of France."
"Long live the International.”
“Long live the unity of all peace-loving people.”

This is precisely the way the "Social-patriots” phrased their desertion in 1914.

The Daily Worker of March 10th shows another aspect of the same “Communist-patriotic" trend. The cartoon presents a group of fearsome-looking Nazis, armed with machine-guns, to represent Germany, surrounded by a group of handsome unarmed workers representing Britain, France and Russia. The pretence that England and France (i.e., the respective Governments) are peaceful and proletarian is precisely the line those Governments themselves will take if and when it comes to a clash. The cartoon might have been taken from the Daily Mail any time between 1914 and 1918.

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Salvation by House-Ownership

One of the gifts of the "practical" men to suffering humanity is the building society movement, preaching salvation of the working man by means of house ownership. Not only the Church and the orthodox political party leaders, but also many of the Trade Union and Labour leaders have backed the movement. Now that more workers than ever before have tasted the joys of crippling mortgage payments, of road charges, repairs, jerry-building, and the impossibility of getting anything like the purchase price in the event of compulsory removal to get work elsewhere, companies building flats to let are busy exposing the snags of house-ownership. Posters on the hoardings irritate the unfortunate owner of a few bricks and a mortgage by reminding him too late that he has fallen for another illusory social reform.

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A New Kind of “Socialism"

An addition to the numerous misuses of the word Socialism was contained in a Sunday Express article on Japan (March 1st).

The aim of a movement was described as “a sort of Fascist dictatorship, combined with 'Imperial Socialism' of a Marxian tinge.”

If the Japs try to swallow that awful mixture they will be very sick.

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Blot On or Blot Out

The Daily Herald (February 22nd) had a leader on the pepper speculation, which is called a "blot on the City.” It promised that under Labour Government the blot will be erased, and the City's financial morality purified. Nothing could show more plainly the gulf between Labourism and Socialism. Under Socialism, there being no use for financial mechanism, the “City" will not be cleansed, but blotted out. Bankers, stockbrokers and others, now preparing to carve out careers teaching “Socialists” how to run finance, please note.

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Capitalism does not Feed the Workers

Defenders of capitalism who are so lyrical about the technical achievements of modern industry, might try to explain why, after all these years, even the most elementary needs of the working class remain unsatisfied. Sir John Orr, a leading expert on nutrition, in his “Food, Health and Income” (Macmillan, 2s. 6d.), states that there are 4,500,000 people in this country whose income per head is 10s. a week or less, and whose estimated average expenditure in food is only 4s. a week. Not only must many of these 4,500,000 be definitely undernourished, but millions more have a diet inadequate for perfect health. A completely adequate diet is only obtained by half the population. To raise the whole population to the standard attained by the wealthy 4,500,000 who spend 14s. per head on food each week “would involve increases in consumption . . . . of milk, eggs, butter, fruit, vegetables and meat varying from 12 per cent. to 25 per cent.”

One of the effects of the inadequate diet of the poor is that boys at Council Schools at age 13 are on an average 2½ inches shorter than boys at Christ's Hospital. At seventeen years of age the difference is nearly 4 inches, and at eighteen the sons of the rich at public schools are nearly 5 inches taller.

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Will Mussolini hold on to Power?

The following sober estimate of the condition of affairs in Italy is translated from a journal, La Voce, circulated illegally in Milan. The translation was published in the American International Review (March).

  There is always the possibility that we in Italy do not see as clearly as observers abroad. On the other hand, we are in a better position to learn what is the current reaction of the population of the country. A successful war must have the backing of the population. A revolution can only be made by the population of the country. Now while the people of Italy are grumbling here and there, it is untrue that the demands of the war have made them turn against it. As yet, they do not oppose Mussolini’s war. They will begin to show opposition with defeat in Africa and privations at home. But though our sympathies are with the Ethiopians, we still doubt that Mussolini will be defeated on the Amhara tableland. In order to be defeated in Africa, Mussolini must be opposed in Europe—by the same powers that rule the roost in Geneva. Now these powers have something more important in mind. Even England, which seems to have much to lose through the Fascist defeat of the Negus Negusti. They are playing a bigger game, and may all of a sudden decide to forgive small misdemeanours. The Hoare-Laval plan was a meaningful feeler. It suggested that London and Mussolini may reach an understanding any time the European (sic) scene dictates it. The sanctions remain to date so much preaching. Does Mussolini’s war machine really find it hard to buy coal and oil? No, they who are lyrically vituperous against naughty fascism over the Press table in Geneva continue to supply the Italian Fascist forces with large stores of oil. Let-us not be fooled by politicians’ “big and small manoeuvres.” Our job remains sober, patient education. We, unlike our Parisian and New York friends, cannot afford to listen to fairy tales.
  “When the million and a half soldiers are demobilised at the end of the war”—then Mussolini and his gang will have to pay the fiddler. Thus spake “Soda” who writes encouragement from Rome. There is something to such a promise. Demobilisation always presents a difficult situation to the capitalist State. But we have had a post-war situation before.
  “And Italian Fascists may go left with a losing war,” suggests another letter-writer. They may, because Fascism is, after all, a radical populist movement, and basically a reformist movement.
  Our job remains not merely of opposition to Fascism, but predominantly the deeper task of agitation for a fundamental social change.

Edgar Hardcastle

Proper Gander: A Load of Crystal Balls (2012)

The Proper Gander column from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Psychic Today (Sky 886, Freeview 32) must be on to something with its Tarot card readings and crystal energies. There has to be some kind of supernatural force which bewitches the viewer into watching such a brain-atrophyingly inane show.

A shiny presenter and her psychic sidekick sit in their flimsy, tacky studio waiting for your questions about your life. Callers to the show receive a ‘reading’ via the programme’s medium, and also the medium of premium-rate phone lines. Just send a text or leave a voicemail message, and one of a team of psychics will use cards, pendulums or ‘working with energies’ to interpret your situation or see what your future will bring.

Here are some chunks plucked out from their verbal vomit. Asked about a relationship between an Aries and a Cancer, one psychic ‘explains’ that “it’s fire and water, isn’t it? And sometimes fire can put the water out”. Another one ‘informs’ us that “the psychic ability is very much I feel surrounded within the body of the sixth sense”. Supposed psychic powers aren’t discussed in any more detail than that, forbidden by the set of guidelines the psychics must follow. This is presumably so they don’t risk dabbling with forces beyond their control, such as trading standards legislation. These rules also prevent the psychics making lawsuit-attracting readings about health, pregnancy, money and legal matters. So, most of the readings relate to the callers’ careers and relationships and are usually, as you’d expect, vague enough to apply to anyone.

These psychics aren’t as clear as a crystal ball. Despite their fuzziness, specific details about someone’s life can apparently sometimes be gleaned from only a date of birth, star sign, or – amazingly – even just a name. Tellingly, you never get to hear the punters say what they thought of their readings. Perhaps any criticism of their accuracy is avoided by the programme’s policy of only giving reassuring or empowering readings, such as “if the energies are right, he’ll come back. But remember you’ve done nothing wrong, and you’re the better person”. So, at least the show offers some kind of service to the lonely or confused, at a price. Sadly, the message: ‘Hopeful Piscean wants to know if there’ll be a revolution in his life’ was left unanswered by the psychics.

Mike Foster