Notes by the Way: Something to Cheer About? (1947)

The Notes by the Way Column from the December 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Something to Cheer About?

On November 6th Molotov announced that Russia had solved the secrets of making atom bombs.

The following is from the Daily Worker (7/11/47) : 

“When a mass meeting of 15,000 in the largest hall in Paris were told of the Molotov atom bomb statement, they rose to their feet and cheered enthusiastically for 20 full minutes.”

* * *

Scientists in Russia

In “Scientist in Russia” (Pelican Books Edition, 1s.), Professor Ashby tells what happened to a Russian scientist who opposed the scientific theory backed by the Russian Government. He writes as follows :

“The argument by heresy-hunt was used with deadly effect against the most outspoken and devastating critic of Lysenko, the famous Russian biologist N. I. Vavilov. Vavilov probably went beyond safe limits in condemning the new genetics as an outbreak of medieval obscurantism. He paid a high price. He was accused of dilatoriness in getting practical results, of lending support to fascists by his theory of centres of origin of crops, and of aligning himself with Bateson, the leader of genetics in England. In 1940 he was deprived of his directorship of the Institute of Plant Industry. He was subsequently imprisoned and he died, without any announcement or explanation, probably in 1943. The type of argument used against Vavilov is well illustrated by a comment made to me by a prominent animal physiologist in Moscow in October, 1945. ‘I reject Vavilov’s views,’ he said, ‘because Vavilov believed in Bateson, and Timiryazev condemned Bateson.’ The same argument has been put on paper by Prezent.” (P. 111).

In a letter to the Manchester Guardian, as in the book itself, Professor Ashby made it clear that such intolerance is not in his view the whole picture. He wrote :

“It is true that Vavilov was killed because he adhered to bourgeois genetics; it is no less true that there are to this day two professors of bourgeois genetics in the University of Moscow—no other kind of genetics is taught there, and the official text-book was written by an American. This sort of inconsistency is, in my opinion, the key to an understanding of Russian policy not only in science but also in public affairs.”—(Manchester Guardian, 1/11/47.)

To which the Manchester Guardian reviewer replied as follows :

“When Russian scientists see a political adventurer, half charlatan and half visionary, attacking the most eminent scientist of the country with pseudo-scientific, slogans steeped in political venom ; when they have to stand by helplessly and watch the victim standing at bay and being hounded in the end to prison and death (the campaign took about, ten years from start to finish) – then I am sure they felt exactly as any of us would if this happened here. The more dearly they love their country, the more bitter is their shame and horror, and their seeming unconcern is simply a token of the reigning political terror.”— (Manchester Guardian, 11/11//47.)

* * *

Why Financiers Like Labour Government

The following is from the Financial Times, (8/9/47):

“Despite a formidable total of bear points—inadequate supplies of coal, steel and other materials, reduced home consumption, dollar shortage, and a possible autumn Budget—there are more favourable aspects which, at the moment the market tends rather to ignore.

“This is the view expressed in their current circular by a leading firm of Stock Exchange brokers.

”‘There can be no comparison with conditions in 1931 when industry was facing a widespread saturation of its markets through over production,’ says the circular, ‘and while the sequence of events ten years earlier after the 1914-18 war were rather more closely comparable, there is one significant difference—the fact that a Labour Government is in office will surely mean that we need not fear widespread or long lasting strikes of the character which then caused the collapse of post-war industrial activity.”

* * *

Machinery and Unemployment

“NEW YORK, Friday.— Mechanisation and other agricultural developments threaten to make displaced persons of many American farmers, according to a report by the House of Representatives’ Agricultural Committee.

“More than 3,000,000 farm labourers were unemployed last year because of mechanisation, although crops beat all records.

“Further displacement of people now making some kind of living from the land is expected, says the report.–Reuter.”—(Evening Standard, 12/9/47.)

* * *

The U.S.A. and the Mediterranean

“Admiral Bieri, commanding the United States Mediterranean Fleet, has given an interview in Naples to the correspondent of the Milan daily Corriere Lombardo in the course of which he is alleged to have said :

”The United States Fleet is here and intends to stay here in Italian and Mediterranean waters. American interests in Europe will not cease with the signing of the German treaty. In accordance with the policy of the United States Navy Minister American forces will be allocated wherever there are American interests, in closest co-operation with the British’.”— (Manchester Guardian, 10/9/17.)

* * *

The Miners’ New Masters

“Mr. Bernard Rees, chairman of the National Union of Mineworkers’ lodge at Arrail Griffin Colliery, Abertillery, where 16,000 miners are on strike, said this afternoon :

” ‘Surface workers are still being paid wages at starvation level and the National’ Coal Board’s policy of subjection has been worse than anything we ever experienced under free enterprise.

” ‘N.C.B. officials are standing over men to time their movements, and the miners say that they are turning our colliery into something which resembles a concentration camp.’ “—(Evening Standard, 21/10/47.)

* * *

NOT the Socialist Party

“One of the richest men in England has just joined the Socialist Party. He is metal-magnate Steven James Lindsay Hardie, 62-year-old Scot, chairman of British Oxygen Company and its associated companies.

“British Oxygen has a capital of £6,000,000 and directly controls eight companies, with interests in South Africa, Australia, India find Norway.

“Total directorships held by Hardie, 27. Among them is vice-chairmanship of the £2,750,000 firm of Metal Industries, Ltd. As an industrialist Hardie makes metal products ranging from screws to ships.”— (Evening Standard, 14/10/47.)

* * *

Erstwhile Internationalist Proclaim National Sovreignt

The report to the Warsaw Conference at which the new Communist International organisation was formed was made by an influential Russian Communist, Zhdanov. Much of it was reproduced by the Manchester Guardian (3/11/47). One illuminating passage reads as follows:

“Taken up by the bourgeois intelligentsia, dreamers and pacifists, the idea of a ‘world government’ is being used not only as a means of ideologically disarming the people still defending their independence from the encroachments of American imperialism, but also as a slogan specially aimed at the Soviet Union, which constantly and consistently defends the principle of true equality and the maintenance of the sovereign rights of all nations, great and small.”

In the meantime Russia,, like the other capitalist Powers, keeps troops in occupation of several countries and is at the moment trying to induce the Persian Government to carry out the agreement to set up a Russian controlled oil concern in North Persia, the agreement having been forced on the Persian Government last year while Russian troops were in occupation.

Food as a weapon (1992)

From the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the ending of the Cold War. American military power is no longer sufficient to hold its real economic rivals— Europe and Japan—in check, and the three power blocs are squaring up for the battle for world economic domination in the 21st century.

The current battlefield is a scries of talks on world trade, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which have now been stalled for nearly two years, with the European and US governments hurling abuse at each other over the emotive issue of farm subsidies.

So what is GATT, and why does an apparently minor dispute over handouts to farmers threaten to bring the world trading system to the point of all-out economic war?

The GATT process is aimed at promoting “free trade" amongst the competing states of the world, tearing down barriers to imports and allowing consumers to choose the most efficient supplier of anything from banking services to hairdryers.

In reality, of course, there is never any such thing as free trade among equal players— no ‘‘level playing field". US-based multinational corporations. with the economic battering ram of vast scales of production behind them, and the military and political power of the US state in the not too distant background, are clearly going to make easy meat of the struggling young industries throughout the “Third World”, currently protected by their own governments’ trade barriers.

Trade wars

Now all this is fine with European governments as well. They too have multinationals based on their soil, only too eager to participate in the turkey shoot. In the coming months you will doubtless hear ministers extolling the virtues of Free Trade for the health of the world economy.

But when we come to agriculture. there is a slight fly in the milk churn. European farms tend to be small and “inefficient" (unprofitable), whereas their US competitors tend to be large and “efficient"—fully industrialised and reaping the advantages of economics of scale.

This, of course, would give them a significant advantage in a genuinely free market, almost certainly devastating the European farm industry, and scoring round one of the battle for 21st century economic domination to America.

And American farmers have never been more desperate for markets for grain, which regularly gluts the American market. (Of course, this does not mean that there are no hungry people in America, simply that they can’t afford to buy what lies rotting in warehouses).

In fact this is another bizarre consequence of the ending of the Cold War. since in those good old days the Soviet empire bought all Americas surplus grain and paid on the nose with hard currency.

Europe’s governments, then, urged on by the powerful farming lobby, are determined not to give up their agricultural subsidies, while the US is desperate to prise the European market open.

A few months ago. a high- level EC delegation led by Portuguese Prime Minister Cavaco Silva and Commission head Jacques Delors, visited President Hush in Washington for crisis talks, with Cavaco Silva making it quite clear how deep the rift had become. “Sometimes there is a discrepancy between the apparent political goodwill and the technical proposals put on the table by the US”, he told the European (9 April).

And that’s just about as close as a diplomat comes to calling the other side a dirty cheating liar.

Both sides only entrenched their positions at the G7 economic summit in Munich last month, with John Major suffering a major rebuff to his attempts to break the deadlock, and vowing to continue to “bully, badger and cajole" fellow leaders into living up to the undertakings to conclude a deal by the end of the year.

In fact, although the European side has offered a 30 percent reduction in protection and support for agriculture, this would be on the basis of levels operating in 1986—a real cut of little more than 15 percent (The Grocer, 23 November 1991).

In the EC’s last review of support prices in June 1991. ministers cut a modest 1.5 percent from levels of support for oilseed, and at the EC Lisbon summit price support for cereals was cut 29 per cent. "Still not enough" said Hush.

Agri-business

The Daily Telegraph issued a dire warning following the failure of the Munich summit that the world is edging closer to a menacing era of protectionism. “There is a real danger that the Uruguay round of GATT could breakdown altogether, taking us back to the unstable trade bloc structures of the 1930s” (9 July).

The point is that food production is governed by the laws of competitive production for profit. Manufactures of food only survive by selling at a reduced price against their competitors, and with a glut of unsaleable food on the world market, pressure to subsidise unprofitable, mainly small-scale European producers against their industrialised US rivals is immense.

So the EC’s subsidies pile up yet more unsellable food, and US farming corporations are forced to watch their own surplus production rot in warehouses because it can’t be sold anywhere. The GATT negotiations are therefore a trial of political and economic strength between US and European agri-business, with their respective governments fighting their corners round the negotiating table.

What insanity! Capitalism— the competitive production of goods for sale at a profit—yet again proves itself to be completely unable to cope with a world in which we could provide an abundance of food for each citizen of this planet. It is the only system that actually manages to find adequate food production a major crisis. Surely its time to establish a system where this is an opportunity. through free access to all food production, to abolish hunger once and for all.

Andy Thomas

Voice From The Back: Deep sea diving (2000)

The Voice From The Back Column from the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Deep sea diving 

 . . . has always been a hazardous job, but now industrial pollution of the sea bed is making it silently deadly. The Western Australian published a two-page feature last October about three experienced divers working for the Texan company Oceaneering under contract to Hyundai Heavy Industry 40 metres down in the South China Sea. As soon as they left the diving bell foul smells invaded their air supply. They were told to ignore it. They felt dizzy, the fillings fell out of their teeth. Then their teeth began to fall out. After repeated complaints, their diving bell, itself letting in the lethal volatile chemicals, was moved, still pressurised, to another site for two weeks while the toxic area was dredged, when they were taken back again, but it was little better. One man was close to death when they were finally brought up after a month. Even the laboratory technicians who tested samples of the mud became ill. HHI then hired Chinese divers who were poisoned one after another. The Australians are still fighting for adequate compensation. The Chinese will probably get nothing. The only thing that finally matters in capitalism is money.

Das Kapital Vol.III summarised 

Only a fool thinks price and value are the same. Silk Road, Chinese Fortune Cookie.

Forcing homeless people 

. . . off the streets may prove harder than the government thinks. Chris Holmes, director of Shelter, says present hostel places are 99.8 percent full the year round and Shelterline, the housing advice phone service gets 100 calls a day from single people desperate for somewhere to stay that night. There are over 600 a night sleeping on the streets of London, 2,400 people a year.

The Scottish Socialist Party

. . . is campaigning for a new bus shelter in Fort William, protesting about water rates in Inverness and complaining about the condition of a school in Easter Ross. This “socialism” has brought them “phenomenal growth” according to their Highland regional organiser, Steve Arnott. He doesn’t explain what bus shelters have got to do with socialism.

The American family farm 

. . . is almost extinct. In the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administration 85,064 were taken over for $3.5 trillion. In the seven Clinton years, 166,310 corporate mergers, worth $9.8 trillion, have almost completed the job. Farms are no longer viable alone. They are only a small part of a vertical agricultural monolith in which the money is mostly made in processing and sales—not growing crops. Food retailers over the last ten years have returned 18 percent on investments, food manufacturers, 17.2 percent, agricultural banks 10.8 percent and farmers only 2.38 percent.

Half the population of Britain 

. . . have less than £750 in savings and investments, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. About one in ten have no savings at all.

Another Tony Blair promise 

. . . has fizzled out. The reform of company law to make “stakeholders” replace shareholders as the controllers of companies, taking into account the interests of customers, workers and environmental interests, has been thrown out by the officials responsible for reviewing the Victorian statutes. In a report which will surprise nobody who has any understanding of the capitalist system, they have reiterated the supremacy of shareholders. They do suggest, however, that directors should be aware of wider social responsibilities. So that’s all right then.

Clare Short is foolish 

. . . enough to believe that getting a ministerial job in a Labour government enables a concerned person to achieve improvements for the poor, the homeless, the starving. She told the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle last year facts like:

• A fifth of the world’s population own 86 percent of its wealth.
• If the world’s richest 200 people gave up one percent of their wealth per year, it would pay for free primary education for every child on earth.
• As it is, 1.3 billion people have to live on 60p a day.
• The tiles in Bill Gates’s kitchen cost £450 each—twice the average annual income in Africa’s poor countries.

Clare Short hasn’t realised, what the delegates to the WTO meeting know only too well—that capitalism can work in no other way. The poor are poor because the rich are rich.

50 Years Ago: Misery from Surplus, Profit from Disaster (2000)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

[. . .] One of America’s problems is too many potatoes. The Government pays the farmer the guaranteed price for his potato crop on the farm, then the farmer pays a trifling price to the Government and buys them back again, but only on condition that he does not sell them in the market but uses them as animal feeding stuff. He can if he likes let them rot. Some potatoes are painted with blue dye so that they cannot illicitly be sold to the public for human consumption.

The truth is that capitalism can produce a surplus in terms of the market, the final result of which will be a cutting down of production, but it never has produced enough of all the things human beings need to satisfy their requirements.

The powers of production reached under capitalism could, if fully used and if devoted to human needs instead of being largely wasted on armaments, etc., satisfy all the requirements of the human race. But to allow them to be so used would wreck the complex and delicate marketing and profit-making organisation of the capitalist system.

(From editorial, Socialist Standard, May 1950)

The Capitalist System: How It Works. (1929)

From the July 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is taken from the “Daily Telegraph” (Wednesday, May 22nd). It tells its own story. The italics are ours :—

From Our Own Correspondent.

NEW YORK, Tuesday.

The owners of America’s surplus wheat crop, it is estimated, to-day will have to face a loss of more than £11,000,000 unless the price of the commodity rises substantially before the new crop is harvested.

Two big crops in succession have left the world “gorged” with wheat, and with the prospects of another full crop this year the price has fallen until it threatens to break through the four shillings a bushel level.

The world’s carry-over of wheat at the beginning of the new marketing year on July 1 is expected to be 350,000,000 bushels, or about double the amount on hand last year. The major portion of this amount is in the hands of middlemen, who will bear the brunt of the reduced prices. But the large carry-over is likely to continue to have a depressing influence upon the grain market. In that case it will be difficult for the American farmer to dispose of his new crop at a fair profit.

The only hope, apparently, is for a poor harvest, and of this there are no indications at present.

Food or Profit? (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again over-production and unmarketable supplies of food are the order of our day. In America food is being stored in barns, caves and even aeroplane hangars, at a cost of approximately £9,000 an hour to pay for storage and the rapid deterioration which is taking place in certain food commodities. Mr. Brannan, America's Secretary of State, says “the situation contains warnings that we cannot ignore, but there is no solution in sight to stop the surpluses piling up higher and higher.” (News Chronicle, 6/3/50.) What wonderful system is this—that brings about the position of food piling up and deteriorating when there is still poverty in our midst?

Why is it—that in Asia, there are millions of people living in poverty and in the main underfed (News Chronicle, 6/3/50), and yet at the same time the other half of the world are letting food rot?

Lord Boyd Orr said at a meeting of the Association of Scientific Workers held on March 5th, that he saw threats of the same vicious circle that contributed to the crisis of 1929-30. He went on to say : “There is already a fight for world markets and this would be intensified when Germany and Japan again entered the field and other countries became more industrialised" (Manchester Guardian, 6/3/50). Lord Boyd Orr thinks that the United Nations with its Agricultural Organisation and World Banks will somehow or the other solve this problem, but it is very noticeable that he does not say how.

Statisticians in the same category as himself miss one vital point, that Food, Clothing and Shelter, which are necessary to sustain human life, are produced, not because people need them, but for sale on a market with a view to profit. When goods cannot be sold, markets become glutted and there arises the position of commodities piling high in warehouses and the like, as already witnessed in America at the present time.

The only solution to any problem is to remove the cause, and until this is accomplished all the Lord Boyd Orr’s in the world will not be able to bring about a state of affairs where there is plenty for all.

Only Socialism can solve this problem, a system of society in which goods will be produced solely for use, where people will work according to their ability and take according to their needs.

J. P.

Too Much Food (1980)

From the June 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness; it has developed the means of production and distribution to a point where abundance is within our grasp. Yet as the twentieth century totters to a close, we still have to contend with the same old problems that were a feature at the turn of the century —unemployment, poverty, bad housing, war and so on, and, in some parts of the world, starvation wipes out thousands of human beings. If these deaths were the result of an unbountiful Nature, of the world being incapable of producing sufficient food for its people, we would be faced with a very difficult problem. But this is not the case.

Capitalism is a system of commodity production — of buying, selling, profit. Sometimes the wheels grind to a halt, with too many cars, carpets, ships, suits or whatever to meet market needs. And "too much" food, even when so many go without; but food, like a car, is a commodity. If too much is produced for the market to absorb production is cut back.

When Russia invaded Afghanistan President Carter, waxing indignant, decreed an embargo on US exports of grain to the Soviet Union, which is heavily dependent on this feedstuff to increase cattle population. The American farmers, who for long have looked on the Russian market as a profitable channel for their surplus grain crops, hummed and hawed, did a bit of tooth sucking but eventually agreed to support Carter. It was supposed to be their sacrifice for the nation's good — but the farmers were not about to turn a shotgun on themselves. It was of course agreed at the time, that the US government would compensate them by itself buying this grain.

The American government has just completed the purchase of 156 million bushels of grain at a cost of 600 million dollars. With this amount of grain around, storage space is at a premium and there is a constant search for any odd corner where the stuff can be dumped. The bottom fell out of the market and as a result many American farmers have gone bankrupt. As those still in business (the majority) plan their sowing schedule for this year, the high cost of borrowing money (US Bank Rate around 20 per cent) for seed and fertilisers is having its effect on the total acreage to be planted. This cost, and the large surplus of grain available, has led one Chicago grain analyst to say . . . "It would be economic suicide to plant at these prices". Prudential Insurance of Chicago, one of the largest agricultural finance houses, has already stopped loans to farmers and does not know when they will recommence.

Food production and selling is big international business. To add to the woes of the American farmer, Canada is planning this year a 6 per cent increase in planting acreage; the Indian harvest looks good; Brazil has just gathered the largest soya bean crop for years and the world stock of grain is the highest for 15 years.

Anyone who thinks this promises well for the starving millions should remember: in the past, grain stocks have been high and yet people died through lack of food. In the Guardian (17 April) a large advert stated that harvest failure has led to a new crisis in Kampuchea. This country desperately needs food to survive, but the profit motive of capitalism ensures that it does not get enough of it. As long as food is produced for sale and profit, then so long shall we have these futile appeals.

When food is produced for the sole reason that people need it then we shall have socialism —a world community based upon common ownership of the means of production and distribution. It will be a way of life divorced from the stupidities of a wages and monetary system. For the good of all, the earth with its riches and potential, harnessed with humanity's creative ability, will provide what we need for a full and meaningful life.

Cyril May

Finance and Industry: Back to the land (1962)

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

Back to the land

Last month new information was published about small farms and holdings that is of interest because it recalls the puny results of laws that took years of hard campaigning by social reformers to put on the Statute Book.

Whenever the normal developments of capitalism produce new evils, the cry will go up for a law to be passed to stop, whatever it is that is happening. But the optimists who put their trust in this procedure should remember that if there are strong economic forces, and prospects of profit, behind the new development it will persist. The restraining laws will be evaded, defied, amended or allowed to be forgotten.

Back in the 1880's politicians and reformers were alarmed at the mass exodus of farm workers and farmers looking for a new life in America, Canada, South Africa and Australia, because they could not survive the competition of cheap food from some of these countries that was undermining British and Continental agriculture. So the reformers campaigned for legislation to promote a back-to-the-land movement, and the Conservative “radicals," Chamberlain and Jesse Collings, got Acts passed to create a new peasantry, under Codings' slogan, “Three acres and a cow.” It fitted in with their general philosophy of helping the “little man" against the big landowners and big combines, in agriculture and in industry. But capitalism just marched over them.

At that time there were in this country a million agricultural workers; by 1948 it was down to 890,000. In spite of laws and lavish government aid to farming it has fallen to 750,000 in 1951 and now to 600,000; so, too, with the small holders. The first enthusiasm for a new peasantry was trimmed to a more modest plan, after the first world war, to put ex-servicemen on the land as chicken farmers and fruit and vegetable growers. Later on in 1934 came the Land Settlement Association to put some of the unemployed into small holdings. Now the Association reports that its smallholders are doing quite well, but there are only 699 of them, and to get on the vacancy list you need five years agricultural experience and £500.

Two experts of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Ashton and Mr. Cracknell, have been examining the statistics of land holdings. The official figures for England and Wales show about 370,000 holdings above 1 acre with an average holding of 70 acres. But their inquiries bring additional information. They find that 30,000 of the holdings are occupied by individuals who have two, three or more holdings, and that about half of the total (180,000) “are not strictly speaking farms at all,” but are occupied by people doing other jobs or who have retired from other occupations and have other sources of income. (Financial Times, 2/3/62.)

The fact is that agriculture, like industry, is more and more falling into the hands of individuals and companies who can afford to put up the increasing amounts of capital required to run them efficiently and with up-to-date machinery and methods. Government aid to farmers, costing £200 million to £300 million a year, may slow the trend of capitalism but can neither reverse it nor halt it.

And as a postscript, Mr. R. H. Turton, M.P., maintains that if Britain enters the Common Market, the Common Market policy of combining small farms into more efficient big ones will have the result that “more than 115,000 small farmers will be squeezed off the land in this country.” (Daily Mail, 6/3/62.)


Shadow over Steel

To the gloom over motor car prospects come worries over the future for steel.

1962 seems pretty certain to be a poor year and 1963 is hardly more promising with European competition likely to be making itself really felt. The Chairman of United Steel says that there is likely to be a surplus of capacity for some time to come, and the Chairman of Dorman Long talks about the present low order books in structural engineering being “ominous.”

British manufacturers have been pouring vast quantities of capital into the industry, but some European countries have been modernising their plant even faster. They also seem to have been sharper at accepting the fact that in modern steelmaking conditions the plant must be sited on the coast so as to get the cheapest processing of imported ore.

The American industry has, of course, been working well below capacity for several years and business still shows no real sign of picking up. The Europeans, are also feeling the pinch and German production actually dropped last year. Even in France, where modernisation has been going on at a hectic rate, production in 1961 was only a few thousand tons above 1960.

There are anxious days ahead for all of them as competition inevitably begins to get fiercer. We may be hearing of some of the weaker ones going to the wall before long.


Liberals

A Liberal Party leaflet, Where Does the Money Go? dealing with the Cost of Living, promises that if the electors put in a Liberal Government, they could watch prices fall—unlike the years of Labour and Conservative governments with prices going up.

There were Liberal governments continuously from 1905 to 1915, with prices steadily rising. They rose about 11 per cent. up to 1914 when the War broke out and another 25 per cent. before Asquith handed over to another Liberal, Lloyd George, who headed a coalition. Before Lloyd George went out of office the price level was three limes what it had been in 1905.


Where there's Smoke

In a recent editorial discussing the recent spate of mergers and take-over bids, we mentioned that these were going on everywhere and that there were probably more big surprises in store.

The Common Market has in fact just been considerably shaken about rumour of a big motor deal between Michelin Citroen and Fiat. Under this deal it is reported that Michelin, the French tyre manufacturers, would sell their present controlling interest in Citroen to the Italian Fiat company so as to develop what is alleged to be a breakthrough they have made in synthetic rubber. Such a merger would make the new company the third largest motor car manufacturer in the world behind General Motors and Ford.

As is usually the case, the rumours have been promptly denied by all the parties concerned and there are in fact quite a few practical difficulties in the way of such a huge merger. But in spite of all the denials there is obviously something going on behind the scenes which might end up in trouble for other makers both cars and tyres.

We can remember some big Continental manufacturer (we think it was the Chairman of Renault) saying that it would not be very long before there were only three car manufacturers in Europe. He was taking a pretty long shot, but who knows that he might not turn out to be right?

One thing is certain in capitalism. The big get bigger — and the small get swallowed up.


Food and Farming

The best joke of the month must surely be, not what Kennedy and Kruschev said when they met, but what they were saying about food and farming in their own separate capitalist countries. While Kruschev was storming about low productivity and the urgent need to step up the production of foodstuffs, Kennedy’s administration was planning to reduce American farm surpluses. According to Kruschev everything would be well in Russia if the peasants would produce more, but in America Kennedy was trying to grapple with the disaster that too much production brings. As the Financial Times had it: “The basic problem about the American farmer is that he is too productive.” (Financial Times, 1/2/62.)

If Kruschev has troubles now, what bigger ones he will have when Russian peasants catch up with American productivity.


Printing of Bank Notes

When Lord Dalton died the Daily Mail said he had been a disaster because, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he went in for “the printing of paper, and other inflationary measures’” (Daily Mail, 14/2/62).

As far as increasing the Note issue is concerned, Dalton as Chancellor of the Exchequer was responsible while in office. But his score was only £169 million, so what prevented the Mail from recalling other much higher scores? Butler's £400 million and Heathcote Amory's £250 million, and a total of £1,000 million since the Tories came to office in 1951?

Edgar Hardcastle

Misery From Surplus: Profit From Disaster (1950)

Editorial from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the end of the war a battle of words has been going on between those, like Lord Boyd Orr, who were alarmed about the danger of world starvation through growing population and low production of food and those who said that it was merely a short-term deficiency that would soon right itself. Among the optimists the lead was taken by the Express group of newspapers whose editors scoffed at the “prophets of disaster.” In this wordy warfare the early battles were won by Boyd Orr’s army and he succeeded in impressing his views on many Governments and international agencies but lately the tide has turned and the Express is now celebrating its victory. A Daily Express editorial (12th April, 1950) fires the following salvo at Boyd Orr: —

  “At this moment the United States Administration has 76,000,000 lb. of dried eggs in store and does not know what to do with them. It has 50,000,000 tons of potatoes. It is the embarrassed owner of a wheat surplus sufficient to bake 12 loaves for every man, woman, and child in the world. It has enormous surpluses of butter, prunes, dried milk, cheese, rice, and countless other articles of food. The American Government is at its wits' end to know what to do with those stocks of food—particularly the perishable varieties. Almost without noticing the transformation, the world has swung from the shortages of wartime to sufficiency—to abundance—to glut! How foolish the calamity howlers look in the new age of food plenty!”

The Express goes on to appeal to the Minister of Food to get rid of rationing, bulk purchasing “and every other barrier between the British housewife and the world of plenty.”

It all looks very simple and unanswerable but in fact both of these schools of thought are wrong, they both leave out of account the world of capitalism that we live in. As they see the problem the world sometimes has too much and sometimes too little, or there is too much in one part of the world and too little in another—a food surplus in America and starving millions in China; not to mention the harassed British housewife whose votes the Conservative Express wishes to win at the next election. The real barrier between people's needs and the things they want but can’t afford to buy is a class barrier. Neither in China nor anywhere else do the wealthy go without food or other things they want but in America itself, as another correspondent reports, “American housewives would take up the surplus at cheap prices. But sale to them below the current high price levels in banned. . . Millions of poor Americans are deprived of cheap food.” (People, 26th March, 1950). Thus correspondent reports the recent discovery of 100 children who were starving in Arizona; “The cold weather had thrown their fruit-picking parents into the ranks of America’s 4,684,000 unemployed.”

The crazy situation is one of those necessary results of capitalism. Food stuffs and all other articles are produced for sale in order to make profit, not with human needs in mind. If there is more produced than can be sold at profitable prices to those who have the money to buy, then prices fall and production is curtailed. In the crisis of the nineteen thirties we were told that the unemployment of industrial workers was due to the low world prices of food; the farmers were facing bankruptcy and could not buy industrial products. Then in the years immediately after the second world war we were told that the austerities imposed on British and other industrial workers were due to the excessive world prices of foodstuffs due to scarcity. The high prices encouraged more food production and now we are facing another glut which will again hit food producers. It was to ward this off that the American Government introduced the policy of paying high prices to American farmers and of putting their produce into store, with, as a result, the Gilbertian situation that has now arisen. The Manchester Guardian (14th April, 1950) has the following comment on it.

  “Nature is after all turning out not too unkind to the United States Government. The problem is the surplus of crops such as wheat, which under the price- support programme the Government has been having in effect to buy from the American farmers in order to build up stocks that cannot be sold. To prevent its financial commitments from growing still heavier the Government a few months ago got the farmers to agree to sow 15 per cent less winter wheat than they did the year before. But then the weather proved exceptionally good; it seemed likely that after all the crop from the reduced planting would be almost as high as last year’s. Lately, however, dry weather, dust storms, and insect damage in the south and centre of the Great Plains have come to the rescue. This month’s official crop report estimates that the harvest will after all be 15 per cent smaller than last year’s. The issue is still, of course, in doubt. A wickedly smiling Nature in the next few months may force the estimates up again; on the other hand, the insects and the rest may remain obliging.”

One of America’s problems is too many potatoes. The Government pays the farmer the guaranteed price for his potato crop on the farm, then the farmer pays a trifling price to the Government and buys them back again, but only on condition that he does not sell them in the market but uses them as animal feeding stuff. He can if he likes let them rot. Some potatoes are painted with blue dye so that they cannot illicitly be sold to the public for human consumption.

The truth is that capitalism can produce a surplus in terms of the market, the final result of which will be a cutting down of production, but it never has produced enough of all the things human beings need to satisfy their requirements.

The powers of production reached under capitalism could, if fully used and if devoted to human needs instead of being largely wasted on armaments, etc., satisfy all the requirements of the human race. But to allow them to be so used would wreck the complex and delicate marketing and profit-making organisation of the capitalist system.

These Foolish Things . . . Harvest (1997)

The Scavenger column from the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Harvest 1

A recent US study has found that for every dollar spent on foreign aid for rice research, the US got back $17 in better varieties for its own crop. Aid dollars for wheat research realised 190-fold returns, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Guardian, 24 October.


Harvest 2

“I do it because I would prefer to die than see the rest of my family starve,” said Sabir Saleh, a middle-aged man who used to be a farmer but is now too poor to hire a tractor to plough his land. Every morning he goes out into the minefields laid around Penjwin, a village in northern Iraq shattered by fighting in the Iran-Iraq war. Mr Saleh looks for one mine in particular, the Italian made Valmara, one of the most lethal anti-personnel mines in existence. It is not easy to spot, because its five khaki-coloured prongs look like dried grass. Pressure on any one of them causes the Valmara to jump to waist height and explode, spraying 1.200 ball bearings over a range of 100 yards. “I defuse the mine with a piece of wire.” said Mr Saleh. “Then I unscrew the top of it and take out the aluminium around the explosives. When I have taken apart six mines I have enough aluminium to sell for 30 dinar (about 75 pence) to a shop in Penjwin.” Independent on Sunday, 20 October.


Our friendly bobby

Two policemen have been accused of abducting a homeless old woman who had been sheltering in a terminal at Heathrow airport . They are said to have bundled her into a van and dumped her 25 miles away on a golf course at midnight. In December last year an officer was reported for attacking a down-and-out with his American-style baton. A pilot spotted the officer hitting the man five times, causing head injuries which required hospital treatment. Mail on Sunday, 20 October.


Trust the market!

There are 40,000 programmers working as temps in the UK alone—a figure that has doubled in the last two years. Basic pay is £200 a day, a total wage bill for British industry of at least £2 billion a year and. because there’s still a shortage, rates are climbing . . . Contract programmers might seem risky and expensive, but they’re better and cheaper than the alternative . . . Sharing the available bodies helps meet the demand for their skills. But this is only half the solution—the skills gap in the industry is getting worse, according to a depressing report from the Institute of Data Processing Management called “The End is Nigh”. The report says that too few programmers are being trained—partly as a result of companies relying on contractors . . . “New programmers are not coming through and there’s still a shortage for the older languages. Training for contractors is pretty rare, so they can't develop new skills.” Guardian, 7 November.


Poor outlook

Nearly one household in six in Britain is living below the poverty line, putting the country on a par with some of the poorest states in the European Union, according to the The Cohesion Report, published by the European Commission, 6 November.

'Scavenger'

United States Farm Policy (1967)

From the April 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalist production is concerned with the realisation of a profit, not the satisfaction of human needs. No profit — no production, is the criterion, though millions of people are ill clad, ill housed and hungry. This is something we have said many times, and there are plenty of examples to support our claim. But perhaps one of the most outstanding in recent years has been the U.S. Government’s farm policy.

Attempts at ‘support’ for farmers in the States date back almost half a century with the first of the Farm Relief Acts just after the end of the first World War. But the foundations of modern policy were really laid in 1938, when the Agriculture Act was passed by Congress. It was an effort to ‘stabilise’ prices by a Commodity Credit Corporation, and involved loans to farmers at a specified rate. In return, the farmer had to store his grain for a fixed time, releasing it before the expiry of the period only if the market price rose above the ‘support rate’. He could then sell, repay the Corporation loan from the proceeds, and keep the remainder. If, on the other hand, the market price did not rise within the specified period, the grain was surrendered to the Corporation, who could store it or sell it at a loss, under Public Law 480 — a foreign aid measure.

Loans were made only to those farmers who planted within their allotted acreage. This system of ‘allotments’ was designed to restrict production of grain, and there was also a limitation on the range of crops a farmer could grow, to prevent him diverting to another crop and creating a surplus in that as well.

With modifications, this basic scheme has been in operation ever since, and it reflects the essential craziness of capitalist economics, and the inability of the ‘planners’ to make any sense out of it. For stripped of all jargon and verbiage, what does the U.S. Government’s policy amount to, other than the restriction of production during a slump and (as we shall see later) its increase during a boom? Perhaps the best that can be said is that they have tried to tidy up the process a bit. by eliminating some of its piecemeal aspects and pushing financial responsibility more onto the shoulders of the capitalist class as a whole. Memories of the severe depressions of earlier years, with agriculture deeply involved, have probably acted as an added spur to their efforts, and a similar attitude can be detected behind the farm subsidy programmes of other countries.

During the Eisenhower Administration, the policy was developed a stage further with the ‘soil bank’ provisions, enabling the government to lease land from farmers to save for future use. Which is just another way of saying that they were actually paying farmers to take land out of cultivation. At that time, you may remember, there was a gigantic surplus of unsold wheat which the U.S. Government had bought and was unable to release to the market for fear of depressing the price. It was stored, billions of bushels, in warehouses, ships and barges; in fact anywhere out of the way.

And millions of people starved, as usual. Some idea of the madcap state of affairs can be gained from a U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation report, published at the beginning of October 1959:-

World surplus stocks in agricultural products are estimated to have risen by twelve per cent in the past twelve months, North America holding almost eighty per cent of the total. (Guardian 1.10.59.)

And so helpless were the planners in face of such conditions that by early 1965, some 57 million cropland acres had been taken out of cultivation in America. Against this background, the statements of capitalist politicians are noteworthy for their cynicism and hypocrisy. Thus, President Kennedy at the World Food Congress, in Washington on June 4th, 1963: —

  We have the ability, we have means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth. We need only the will . . .  The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation. For victory in this war will liberate the energies and the talents and the creative abilities of an entire half of mankind.

Since then, the world market for wheat and other crops has begun to revive, so that the U.S. stockpile had by the middle of last year been depleted by half, and the crisis had changed to one of underproduction. There was now a rush to bring land back into cultivation, and the upward trend of production was matched by a boost in incomes. Already in the first few months of 1966, farm cash receipts in some areas of the U.S. had risen by as much as twenty per cent. (Financial Times 22.6.66).

It is true that a lot of the produce will be sent abroad on a ‘non-commercial’ basis (as the newspapers so delicately put it) to countries like India, but this only illustrates the strong political factors also involved in the change. The American capitalist class are anxious to maintain their strategic advantages and spheres of influence in a world where they are threatened by yet another competitor in the shape of China. They will obviously consider the cost worthwhile if they can can thereby keep such areas in their pocket. Sympathy for the millions of starving Indians and other Asiatics, is not a very strong factor in their calculations.

All of which merely goes to reinforce our argument that home policies are always at the mercy of world capitalist conditions; this applies just as much to America as to any other country. It shows also the sheer unpredictability of capitalism and the inability of the planners to control it. They never planned for a wheat glut, but they got it nevertheless. Now they have been caught even more unawares by the rapidly mounting demand, and so it goes on . . .

Eddie Critchfield