Press Cuttings (1947)

From the November 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Son of Matteotti

“The municipal elections due to take place next Sunday have been marked by violence towards those left-wing candidates who are insisting on a Socialist line independent of Communist policy. Signer Matteotti, son of the man who died in anti-Fascist resistance during the Mussolini regime and who still vehemently insists on a policy opposing Communism, has had two meetings this week broken up by violence, his car burned and stones thrown at platform speakers.” (Rome Correspondent of the Times, 10/10/47.)

* * *

The Labour Party and Taxation

“We hold that indirect taxation on commodities, whether by Customs or Excise, should be strictly limited to luxuries; and concentrated principally on those of which it is socially desirable that the consumption should be actually discouraged.”—(“Labour and the New Social Order,” Labour Party, 1918, p.19.)

“Mr. J. W. Belcher, £l,500-a-year Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, said last: night: ‘When the price of cigarettes is doubled it makes far more difference to the £5-a-week man than it does, to me. The tobacco tax falls hardest on those who can least afford to pay it.'”—(Daily Express, 10/10/47.)

* * *

The United Nations Can Agree

“Lest it be thought, however, that the United Nations is incapable of making quick and lasting decisions, it should be reported that the Legal Committee yesterday settled something in five minutes that the League of Nations abandoned after ten years’ fruitless argument. It adopted a flag for the United Nations and left it to the Secretary General, Mr. Lie, to decide its dimensions and its code of courtesy. It is to be a white globe on a field of blue. And there is no truth at all in the report that the Yugoslavs have suggested it should bear the motto ‘Manners Makyth Man.”—(Manchester Guardian, 9/10/47.)

* * *

The Labour Party and the Factory Acts

“The amendment and consolidation of the Factories and Workshops Acts, with their extension to all employed persons and the restriction of the working week to not more than 48 hours, is long overdue . . .” (“Labour and the New Social Order,” Labour Party, 1918, p.6.)

“Night work in the factories for girls of 18 and youths of 16 will be legal after September 22.

“And anyone over 16 may work more than 48 hours a week—but not for two weeks running.

“These amendments to general conditions were announced last night as part of the staggered hours plan which will spread the electricity load.

“After September 22 a district inspector of factories can. permit an earlier start or later finish for day work.

“The starting and finishing hours of 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. can be extended to 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., and 6.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. for those under 16.”—(Daily Mail, 2/9/47.)

* * *

“More of Everything for Everybody”

”We have greatly increased our capacity to produce more things during this war. We must use the skill of our people and our great productive resources to make more of everything for everybody in times of peace.”—(From “Your Future—After Victory—What Then?” Published by Labour Party, June, 1944.)

”What the nation needs is undoubtedly a great bound onward in its aggregate production. But this cannot be secured merely by pressing the manual workers to more strenuous toil . . . What the Labour Party looks to is a genuinely scientific reorganisation of the nation’s industry . . . on the basis of the Common Ownership of the Means of Production; the equitable shaving of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity and only among these . . .”—(”Labour and the New Social Order,” Labour Party, 1918, p.12-13.)

* * *

Sir John Boyd Orr on Food and Capitalism

“Warning the United Nations Economic Committee, at Lake Success yesterday, that more people will die through the food shortage in Europe and Asia in the next 12 months than were killed in any year of the war, Sir John Boyd Orr declared :

” ‘This presents an opportunity to the nations, assembled here to concentrate less on the political problems which engender misunderstanding and conflict, and concentrate more on the concrete problems on which there can be no misunderstanding.’

“He pointed out that the General Assembly agenda contained no reference to food and economic difficulties, and stressed that the food situation in Asia was just as bad as in Europe.

“Food production would need to be increased by 110 per cent, in the next 25 years to provide sufficient for the world’s population.”—(Daily Herald, 7/10/47.)

* * *

“Meanwhile, in the producer countries, the paradox of the years between the wars shows signs of being repeated. While people elsewhere face starvation, farmers tremble at the prospects of ruin—not because they cannot produce the food the hungry peoples need, but because they can produce more than the peoples can buy . . .

“At one and the same time we have these problems : How to get maximum production to salvage the world from present hunger and how to deal with unmarketable surpluses which will again bring ruin and misery to millions of land-workers and endanger the stability of the whole economic system.

“For failure will mean that the existing economic system cannot carry the burden of the material wealth which modern science can produce.”—(Sir John Boyd-Orr, News Chronicle, 1/8/47)

* * *

Labour Party and Conscription

“The Labour Party declares emphatically against any continuance of the Military Service Acts a moment longer than the imperative requirements of the war excuse.”—(“Labour and the New Social Order,” Labour Party, 1918, p.11.)

* * *

Labour Government and Wages

” ‘As a trade union official, if I were, faced with the choice of keeping the Labour Government in office or a reduction in wages, I would advocate a reduction of wages,’ said Mr. Sam Watson, general secretary of the Durham area of the National Union of Mineworkers.

“He was speaking at a week-end school of the National Council of Labour Colleges at Morecambe.

”‘Unless we can lift production, increased wages are simply a means of increasing the dangers of inflation and rising prices,’ he said.”—(Daily Herald, 6/10/47.)

* * *

Housing under the Swedish Labour Government

”Many tourists, observed Mr. Osborn, have come back believing that the Swedes have everything to tell us about standards of housing and architecture. They are misled by the cleanliness and furnishing taste everywhere displayed. Housing standards in Stockholm are, as in most other European cities, appallingly low. Of the 670,000 people within the city boundaries, 90 per cent. live in flats, and only 7 per cent, in one-family dwellings. More than half the dwellings (51.6 per cent.) have only one room and kitchen or two rooms without kitchen. Another 26.7 per cent. have two rooms and kitchen.”—(Mr. F. J. Osborn, Chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association Municipal Journal, 26/9/47.)

Scandinavian Fairy Tales: The Worker's Paradise (1956)

From the July 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

In any country where a Labour Party is out of power it is natural that its propaganda should include glowing accounts of the success a Labour Government is supposed to be having somewhere else. Between the wars when the Tories governed here, Labour Party and I.L.P. supporters were inspired by pamphlets describing the alleged glories of Labour rule in Australia, Austria. Germany. France or Spain and whenever the British Labour Party has been in office similar propaganda went on in overseas countries where the local equivalent of the Labour Party was the opposition. Since the 1951 election, when Attlee was defeated, the centre of interest for Labour Party supporters has shifted to Denmark and Sweden. We have been told what a magnificent "Welfare State" they have, how the extremes of riches and poverty have been abolished, and how well they manage relationships between employers and workers. For a long time Denmark and Sweden were running pretty close for favour in British Labour circles, but with Denmark undoubtedly a short way ahead

Something Rotten in the State of Denmark

Then suddenly the lead passed to Sweden and not at all because of the visit to that country of the British Royal Family. The reason was that happy, Labour-governed, Welfare State Denmark suddenly erupted and threw its admirers into consternation. Here is a brief account from the Scandinavian correspondent of the Economist (28 April, 1956):—

  “The series of strikes, which for four weeks threatened to paralyse the country's economy, were only checked when the Folketing [Parliament], after a stormy all-night session, passed an act giving the official mediator's proposals the force of law. These proposals, which satisfied only a small part of the workers' original demands, had been accepted by 74 per cent. of the Employers' Federation but rejected, albeit by a narrow majority, by the Federation of Trade Unions. Had these positions been reversed the Social Democrat government would have felt itself on firmer ground. Its reluctant intervention was greeted by a 24-hour general strike, and a countrywide wave of protest demonstrations. In Copenhagen a crowd of 100,000 strong demonstrated before the Parliament, brought traffic to a standstill, and called for the Prime Minister's resignation. Demonstrations in Odense stopped buses and overturned cars. At Aalborg, a policeman died after being struck by a missile. Rioting dockers at Esberg attempted to throw the cargo of a British merchant ship into the harbour. In the large centres throughout Denmark the police made numerous arrests."

There is much more in the Economist's account about the troubles in the Danish paradise and although for the moment the workers have been forced by the drastic action of the Labour Government to return to work with a 3 per cent. wage increase instead of the 20 per cent. they claimed, the Economist says:—

 “there is a deep malaise beneath the surface which may well lead to fresh outbreaks," and among the workers “there is a widespread feeling that the Social Democrat government has betrayed its own supporters.”

This is dismaying to the British Labour Party because the Danish Social Democrats have a policy identical with their own. But the real betrayal in Denmark, as among Labour supporters everywhere, is that they betrayed themselves in ever supposing that the Labour policy of trying to make capitalism work beneficially can be a success.

In Sweden, too

Now Sweden has the limelight and Mr. Paul Andersen, formerly Paris correspondent of the Observer, in a broadcast reproduced in the Listener (31 May, 1956), describes that country as “the Egalitarian Paradise,” “the world’s most perfect Welfare State.” Of course his picture of Sweden as a land of equality is far from true and indeed his own account gives a little evidence of its inaccuracy. For example he tells both of “a modest-priced if most luxuriously decorated, communal canteen, but also a Vaellihgby branch of one of Stockholm's most expensive restaurants.” And while the rich can eat “for about £3 a head, lobster thermidor, washed down with Chamberlin '47. In the self-service canteen you will also sit in near luxury comfort behind glass walls and find three hot dishes at about 2s. each . . .” In short, Sweden, like every other country whatever the party label of its government caters for the rich and for the poor. Indeed Mr. Andersen does not really mean equality of wealth distribution but "greatest possible equality of its distribution.” We know how great a difference that can mean for we have so often heard Britain described in similar .terms.

There were things about Sweden that Mr. Andersen did not say. He did not mention unemployment of 4.3% at the end of 1955, about four times the percentage in this country, or the 158,000 who received Public Poor Relief during 1953 (latest figures available). And his broadcast ended on a curious note. He says he asked “an old and famous Swedish Socialist ” if everybody is happy “in this gilded germ-free egalitarian paradise.” The gentleman in question (who, from other quoted remarks, is no more a Socialist than any other of the muddled-headed believers in Labour-governed capitalism) “told me firmly, 'No,’ and added, 'of course I shouldn't tell you, but it’s the truth. Life seems to have become empty and void of purpose.”

He went on to explain that because life in Sweden now lacks tension “people replace the normal fears and tensions of the normal battle of life by artificial fears and by personal tensions—by neurosis.”

The broadcaster capped this with the following:— 

“ . . . the most surprising fact, perhaps, of the most advanced Welfare State in being, is that last year’s figures of suicides exceeded the annual toll of fatal road casualties.” 

Mr. Andersen and his Swedish friend who believe that people commit suicide because they have no tensions and fears to make them unhappy can hardly be congratulated on their insight. It might help them to correct their judgment if they looked across the frontier into Denmark and recalled that the same kind of nonsense about industrial and social harmony was related of that country—until the sudden explosion of industrial strife proved how wrong it was. And it is a curious oversight that no mention was made in the broadcast of the fierce and costly struggle to build up the Swedish paradise into a militarily powerful state competent to be an effective factor in another war. Only a very superficial observer of the modern world of war-ready Powers could suppose it possible that the people of Sweden (or of any other country) are really free from the universal dread of possible atomic annihilation.

Edgar Hardcastle

Capitalist reformism (1969)

Book Review from the September 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Functional Socialism: A Swedish Theory for Democratic Socialization, by Gunnar Adler-Karlsson. Bokforlaget Prisma, Sweden.

This is an unusual pamphlet. For it is actually a defence of the reformist policy of the Swedish Social Democratic party in the name of Socialism. This party of course is no more a socialist organisation than the British Labour Party and has managed the affairs of Swedish capitalism for the past 35 years.

What Adler-Karlsson calls 'functional socialism' is basically what was put forward here by Labour Party anti-nationalisation thinkers in the 1950s. Ownership, the argument goes, is made up of a set of functions which the capitalists exercise. If we control these functions in the interests of society then there is no need to formally take all industry into state ownership. "We have", claims Adler-Karlsson on behalf of Swedish Social-Democracy, "limited the rights of the owners of the means of production to use their goods in an unsocial way" and he instances measures like profits taxes, state control of banking, anti-inflation moves, etc., etc. All we can say is that if this is socialist then the Tories must believe in so-called functional socialism too.

The whole argument is absurd. When the modern state intervenes in economic affairs and limits the activities of individual capitalists it does so in the interests of the capitalist class as a whole. This has nothing to do with Socialism. Besides, it is based on the false premise that nationalisation is Socialism. Once you realise that it is only state capitalism then you can leave it to the reformists to argue among themselves as to the desirable degree of state ownership and control in a particular capitalist country.

We will leave Adler-Karlsson arguing with the supporters of Russian state capitalism. Unfortunately, he wrongly believes them to be genuine Marxists with the result that his own references to Marx are mostly inaccurate.

The pamphlet ends with a call to "strip and divest our present capitalists of one after another of their ownership functions". We are sure that, after 35 years of Social Democrats rule, Swedish capitalists like the Wallenberg family are trembling at the prospect!

Adam Buick

Finance and Industry: Tycoons in Sweden (1968)

The Finance and Industry column from the May 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tycoons in Sweden

Capitalism is based on the monopoly of the means of production by a minority. In Britain, for instance, the top 1 per cent of the population owned 42 per cent of personal wealth in 1960. It has been argued by our Labour party opponents that this position can be changed gradually by means of penal taxation, nationalisation and other reform measures, so that capitalism would be transformed into Socialism. Things have not turned out that way. Labourites may claim to have had power when things have been at their worst, acting as a stop gap while the Tories take a breather. True, the Labour party have not had the twenty-five years of power Bevan claimed was needed to do the job. Ideas of gradualism are not confined to Britain alone. They are common to the Social Democratic parties of Europe.

In Sweden the Social Democrats have had power almost without interruption since 1932. The war which saw British industry run down gave an impetus to its Swedish counterpart. The “misrule” of their predecessors is long forgotten. There is no East of Suez policy to dog their footsteps. Nor do the gnomes of Zurich threaten the kroner. In fact this is the type of situation that Labour ministers, harassed by capitalism’s problems in Britain, would regard as ideal to bring about their gradual transformation. There is even talk of “Scandinavian socialism” (whatever that might be).

But consider this Daily Telegraph report of 15 February on a survey of the distribution of wealth in so-called socialist Sweden:

  Fifteen families control one-fifth of Swedish private industry . . .  In 94 of Sweden’s 232 leading companies whose record the committee scrutinised, the share majority was held by one person. In 96 it was held by two persons, in 81 by three persons and in 11 by four or more persons. The tendency for wealth and voting power to accumulate in the hands of a few has been steadily increasing since 1960, the committee added.

This government survey gives the answer to the gradualist argument. Under capitalism the tendency is for wealth to accumulate into a smaller number of hands, whatever type of party tries to run it.

Labour and Social Democratic governments have no role to play in establishing Socialism, where the means of production are owned in common and are democratically controlled by the whole community. This can only be done by workers organising consciously for the job in Socialist parties. The lesson of over thirty years of Social Democratic government in Sweden is there for all workers to learn.


Robbing Peter

The decision to close the Woolwich telecommunications plant of GEC-AEI in which 5,500 workers are employed does not mean that the new group is giving up this side of their business. Rather it is part of the rationalisation that is taking place. Production will be concentrated in factories in north-east England and in Scotland. Jobs are harder to come by in these parts of Britain, but the move is not being made out of philanthropic concern for the unemployed workers there. The work will be done in brand new factories, with greater productivity as 3,000 fewer workers will be turning out as much as the 5,500 at Woolwich now do. Another attraction is the regional employment premium paid by the government in these areas. So it is a case of transferring production from one [place] to another in order to cut costs so as to capture a larger share of the market and increase profits for the shareholders. It is a grim game of musical chairs where 5,500 people in London leave the work bench for the dole queue, while less than half this number leave the dole queue for the work bench in the north and Scotland—the music is played on cash registers and scored to the requirements of the balance sheet.

The affair shows that under capitalism it is the profit motive that dictates the line of action to those who try to plan it. It also shows that one set of planners can cause havoc to the carefully prepared blueprints of another. The regional policy of the government involves offering subsidies to attract industry to areas of high unemployment. They succeed with GEC-AEI and ruin the plans of the GLC who are having the new town at Thamesmead built to relieve the pressure on London’s housing. Prior to their takeover by GEC, AEI hoped to expand their Woolwich operations to provide 2,000 jobs. All the signs suggested that there would be plenty of jobs for workers from the new town in nearby Woolwich. Also a new housing scheme is going up on the site of the old Woolwich Arsenal. All this is going to mean people having to get jobs elsewhere in London, adding to the congestion of the already inadequate transport system.

Before workers in the north-east and Scotland take their new jobs for granted they should take heed of the Postmaster General’s dissatisfaction with the industry that will employ them, which is running late on delivery on over a thousand of its 1,700 contracts. The PMG threatened to place contracts for equipment overseas if this is not improved; This would mean that the brand new factories might not be needed after all.

Workers suffer insecurity under capitalism, with or without futile attempts at planning. The system cannot be planned, not even with computers, the planners might as well consult astrologers — if no more reliable it would at least be cheaper.

Joe Carter

The Myth of Swedish Socialism (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of all that has happened in Europe since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the demise of Russian-style state capitalism, there is still a tendency for leftwing parties to refer to themselves as “socialist" and to claim the mantle of representatives of the working class.

The Swedish Social Democrats are no exception. In fact, their leader, Ingvar Carlsson, having just taken power from the conservatives in September with 45 percent of the votes cast - the biggest swing to the left in sixty years - declared his party to be "classically socialist".

The foundation of this assertion appears to be the fact that the Social Democrats have for years pursued Keynesian policies and that they have a welfare system the envy of Europe.

Sweden has indeed an enviable welfare system compared with those of other European countries, with unemployment benefits, for instance, still standing even after a recent reduction at 80 percent of average take-home pay, but at the same time Sweden has 14 percent of its workforce unemployed.

The unemployment statistics were what Carlsson largely capitalised on in the run-up to the recent election, promising that future Keynesian policies would ensure that no one under the age of 25 would be out of work for more than 100 days. At the same time the Social Democrats were intent on cutting child care grants, reducing pensions and raising taxes. In short, everyone was being told they must shoulder the burden of Sweden’s current economic crisis - a crisis evident in most European countries at the moment

Sweden's welfare system, as Peter Cohen recently pointed out in an article “The Model That Never Was" in the July-August issue of Monthly Review, "can be traced to the same factors that generated the Beveridge report . . .  a higher standard of welfare for workers means less ‘absenteeism’, a lower employee turnover and higher productivity, which means greater profits”.

That the granting of benefits to the working class of Sweden had an ulterior motive - the maximisation of profits - was only to be expected from the Social Democrats. themselves never representatives of the working class. In fact, as Peter Cohen also pointed out, the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party since the first world war shows that it "not only accepts capitalism, but defends it against any attempt at change".

On Hitler's 50th birthday it was the Social Democrats who sent their blessings along with troops to take part in the celebrations. And it was the Social Democrats to whom Hitler turned to provide the Nazi war machine with iron, raw materials and weapon technology, while the voice of Swedish protest, the "communists", were interned.

Since 1945 Social Democrat governments have seen to it that Sweden participated wholeheartedly in an assortment of imperialist ventures, including GATT, IMF, OECD and the World Bank. They permitted Sweden to be used as a US communications centre for projected nuclear strikes, backed Pinochet in the wake of his coup in Chile, refused to impose sanctions on racist South Africa at the request of Swedish workers' organisations and openly connived with the CIA, Mossad and the West German Bundesdienst.

Neither can LO, the Swedish equivalent of the TUC, be considered an ally of the working class. In 1983 it urged wage restraint on behalf of the Social Democrat government who feared Sweden losing overseas markets to foreign capitalists. The same year the West German steelworkers came out on strike, a move meant to hit the car companies at a crucial time. To avoid any havoc this would have caused, the Social Democrats and the LO ignored requests for sympathy action with the West German working class and were only too happy to send supplies of steel to the German capitalists.

In the past five years 100,000 jobs have been cut in the welfare sector and it is unlikely that these workers will be reinstated by Carlsson. Moves are already underway to dismantle the public education system and to introduce more private schools. Nor do Sweden’s unemployment statistics look like improving, with recent reports showing that the country's biggest companies see no recruitment drive in coming years, although all expect the near future to bring huge profits.

In reality the Social Democrats in Sweden, like every other party in power in Europe, have to defend the interests of Big Business and can remain in power only by kow-towing to the rules of capitalism. That they call themselves "socialists” is an insult to the millions of workers who put their misguided trust in them. That they are so guilty of class-collaboration is the reason why they are so "classically unsocialist”.

John Bissett