Independence for All. (1916)

From the October 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the report of an interview with a Mr. R. M. Kindersley, which appeared in the “Daily Chronicle” of July 13th under the title of “The New Habit,” is about as much piffle as it is possible to get into two columns of that paper. The writer, Mr. Arnold Bennett, praises the subject of the interview for the part he is playing in getting other people to economise and save during the war, by the use of the bait of, not 9d. for 4d. this time, but £1 for 15s. 6d.— we are dealing with “high finance,” don’tcher-know.

Now, you 223,000 railway workers who, according to your “leaders” (“Daily Telegraph,” 21.8.16.) are getting less than 25s. a week, and you other workers who are getting less than a pound, have you read the scheme ? It shows you how to get rich without work ! Buy War Loan certificates. You will see you are on a good thing if I quote from the article. Mr. Kindersley is speaking.

“The proposition is the £1 for 15s. 6d. War Savings certificate. It means an unsurpassed security, the security of the British nation, and principle paid back at the end of a short term, together with compound interest at the rate of £5 4s, 7d. per cent. And no income tax ! And you can cash it at any time on three days notice. This form of saving presents every advantage.

There is simply nothing else to touch it anywhere on earth. Most people, old and young, have a foundation of common sense, and they only need to understand the advantages of the 15s. 6d. certificate in order to buy it.”

Stick a pin there—nothing to pay for the tip. This statement, of course, is wrong. You need more than to understand in order to buy a certificate : you need money. But still they have made it easy to quote again.

“Members need not wait until they have the 15s. 6d. in hand. They can begin to save at once with as small a sum as 6d. . . There is no limit except that no single human being can buy more than 500 certificates.”

This scheme is easy ; indeed there is nothing like it ; it gives everybody a chance. Mr. Kindersley has said so and he ought to know, as this article will show later. Let us see where the chance comes in for a person getting 25s. a week with a wife and four children to keep. He will probably have to pay out for

After providing for these items he has 11s. per week for food for six persons.

In order that at least one of the six can produce a profit for a boss he must be more or less fit and unfortunately (for the boss) he must eat a little. Consequently we will allow him, with things at present prices, 1s. a day, to be allotted as follows :

Now, Mr. Kindersley, after allotting the man a diet the cost of which would starve you, there are still five persons to feed on the princely sum of 4s. a week. How is it done? Do you feed one of your children at that cost ? Not much ! It is quite clear that there is nothing to spare for beer and tobacco, or holidays, or motor-car tours, or for governesses, toys, or pets for the kids. There is nothing for luxuries of any kind, or even to meet the expenses of illness.

Now, Mr. Kindersley, show us where it is easier to effect a saving—but I forgot, you are not doing that ; this side is left to the wives and maiden ladies of your class.

To turn to the interview again, Mr. Arnold Bennett asked, “And what are you persuading the women to do?” To this Mr. Kindersley replied: “We are persuading them to undertake house-to-house propaganda among women and to serve as honorary secretaries of associations, and to arrange for war economy exhibitions, competitions, cookery demonstrations, and all that sort of thing.” “But,” said Arnold Bennett, “this means heavy work for them.” “It does,” agreed Mr. Kindersley. “But the women will do it. They are doing it. They know, as a sex, the value of economy.”

Is it possible for impudence to go further ? For women who have as much in one week to keep a house on as the worker’s wife has in a whole year, to go and preach economy to these same workers’ wives is extreme irony. I should like to hear how they are received when they suggest cutting down the bill of fare in order to buy War Loan certificates.

“Don’t you want to hear about our advertising department ?” asked Mr. Kindersley. “Don’t you want to hear about, our travelling speakers ? And about our film ‘For the Empire’ ?” One of these talking machines or so-called speakers, has been found out by a section of the workers. He was billed to speak twice at an aircraft factory during dinner hours, bat his reception was such, and the heckling and questions were so much to the point, that only one meeting was held, and that of but 15 minutes duration.

Let me quote Mr. Kindersley again :

“But the most important reason is that we are showing members of the Association how to help the country, and this is what they want above all to do. They like to feel they have a stake in the country, and are helping it as well as saving. This combination is a new and delicious sensation to many of them.”

Until they wake up, when they discover it was only sensation.

The workers of this country, like the workers of other countries, have no stake in the country they happen to be born in. Out of the hundreds of thousands of members of the working class that have been killed in the present bloody war, how many have left wealth sufficient to have to pay death duty on, although the amount is only £100 ? Read the list of wills and you will see how seldom the working-class soldier has anything to bequeath. The butchered wage-slave has given all he had—life. And even that was not his. All there is in and on this country belongs to the capitalist class. Not only have the workers no stake in the country, they have no right in the country except at the bidding of the master class. This class has set up its tribunals to decide whether you shall work, where you shall work, and what work you shall do—or whether their interests would be better served by making a fighting unit of you, to go and murder other workers who are cajoled and coerced by masters in the same way that you are.

What rights have you ? For all the boasted “freedom” of the British race you have the right of slaves—the right to obey your masters. Anything you do in your own interests which is against the interests of your masters, as it must be since the interests of masters and slaves are opposite, is met with imprisonment, banishment, the ignominy of being strapped to a gun wheel, of even death by shooting or hanging.

Don’t blame the master class for what they are doing. Every class acts in its own interests as it understands them. Therefore as this country is owned by the capitalists who live in it it is to their interest to see that it is not endangered by the capitalists of another land, hence their present actions.

Just another quotation from the report in question ; it is a warning of what is likely to happen to all who don’t save. Says Mr. Kindersley :

“My belief is that these Associations are doing more than help the war—they are changing the nation. I foresee the day when the man, woman, or child who does not possess savings in the shape of a national security will be a marked man, women, or child.”

There’s a timely warning. Take heed, otherwise you will be marked “Cain” because you weren’t “Abel,” and the crime will not be on Mr. Kindersley’s shoulders.

Has it ever dawned on you why these people want you to save ? Some of the least astute of the capitalist class have partly told us, though we knew previously. Lord Clarendon, presiding over a War Savings committee meeting at Watford a few weeks ago said : “This saving scheme will not only help us now, but it will help to tide over the industrial depression which must follow the war.” There you are, fellow-workers, though these be lean years there are leaner ones to follow, and if you can be kidded to take up your belt another hole now and live on a bit less you will either be used to it or dead by the time the leaner years come. In either case you will not want poor relief. Should you fail to save in these times of “plenty” and dare to seek relief in the lean period, look out, for Mr. Kindersley has said you will be “a marked man, woman, or child.”

Perhaps the workers who exist in the small village in Herts where Mr. Kindersley’s large residence is situated will wonder what is going to happen to them seeing that their wages are well below 25s. per week. This apostle of working-class economy had the damned cheek to lecture these opulent villagers on the interesting subject of economy a few weeks before he took his family for a month’s holiday to Bangor. A staff of servants, averaging more than two to each member of the family, was sent on by rail, whilst the family followed by road in a Rolls Royce motor car and a cheap £750 knockabout Wolsely car (purchased to run one of the kids to and from school at Eton).

That is economy as practiced by a director of the Bank of England and a governor of the Hudson Bay Company. It is typical of the capitalist class as a whole. In peace time they rob you, the workers, of two-thirds of the wealth that you produce, and now when it is harder to live than any living person can remember, they tell you to save while they themselves spend more on their private billiard room than the average worker gets in wages all his life.

How do they manage it ? They are few compared with the working class, yet they control the lives of the latter. It happens this way.

The capitalists own the country and all on it. The business of the country is carried on through a political machine called Parliament. Control of this machine gives control over the Army, Navy, Police, magistrates, and all the judicial machinery of the country. All laws that matter are passed by and in the interest of those in control of Parliament, and are forced upon the people by the Army, Navy, Police, etc., who act according to instructions from Parliament. Any worker or body of workers who attempt to do anything against the interests of the capitalist class, who at present control Parliament, can at any time be punished or brought back to capitalist law and order by the coercive forces. How do the capitalists get control of Parliament and keep it ? It is quite simple. Every few years an election takes place, whereat there usually come before the people two persons, one calling himself a Liberal and the other a Conservative. Sometimes a Judas from the working class is allowed to take the place of the Liberal, but in the main it is Liberal v. Conservative. Now you know how they call each other names in order to get you to vote for them. Both are representatives of the class who own the country, and in the fight for the seat whichever gets elected makes no difference to the workers.

Millions of pounds of the masters’ money are spent on elections, and it pays because it gives them political control. They dangle before your eyes on posters big loaves and little loaves. “The foreigner has got your job !” they tell you on other posters. “Vote for Have’em and work for all,” they implore; “Vote for Kidem and cheap food,” they wail.

All this goes on because the working class have the power in their hands to give or withhold control of Parliament. That is, they possess the majority of votes. Consequently they have the power to take the control of Parliament from the capitalist class and use it in their own interests. But while they continue to vote for the representatives of the capitalist class, thereby giving them power, they must expect that power to be used in the interest of the class who, for the time being, possess it.

The way out of the trouble is to organise for the capture of the political machine. Organise on the basis of your class interests ; that is, organise as a class who produce all the wealth and own none of it, but who has for its object the social control and ownership of all the means and instruments for producing wealth, and the wealth when produced.

In this way and in no other will you prevent an idle class robbing you of 13s. in the £, and be able yourselves to live a free and full life.

SNOOKEY

Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) is a deeply entrenched cultural practice that affects around 200 million women and girls. It’s practised in at least 25 African countries, as well as parts of the Middle East and Asia and among immigrant populations globally. It is a harmful traditional practice that involves removing or damaging female genital tissue. Often it’s “justified” by cultural beliefs about controlling female sexuality and marriageability. 

(The Conversation)

. . .  “the ELN claims to follow Karl Marx, but it seems to me they believe more in Pablo Escobar.” Indeed, drug trafficking helps explain why, after more than 60 years of armed conflict, peace continues to elude Colombia. The violence briefly diminished after the country’s largest guerrilla group, known as the FARC, disarmed in 2016, but the government failed to take control of coca fields and drug trafficking routes that were abandoned by the FARC. And now ELN rebels and a new generation of criminal groups are fighting over this territory. 

(KAXE)

Representatives for the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant declined to comment on how the pause could impact the plant and jobs. …The plant ‘is not the largest employer by any stretch,’ said Bob Durkin, president of the non-partisan Scranton Chamber of Commerce. ‘But it’s a very important employer. The jobs are really high-quality jobs. They are well paying, family sustaining jobs’. 

(BBC)

In a staggering display of police callousness, the South African government has caused one of the worst mining disasters in the country’s history…. The Stilfontein massacre, which left almost ninety dead, has split the South African opposition and exposed a ruling bloc corrupted by mineral wealth. At its heart, it is a story of the contradictions of politics in an extremely unequal extractive economy. 

(Jacobin)

James Schneider, Jeremy Corbyn’s former Director of Comms, argues for a new party…. Zack Polanski, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, says we don’t need anything new. There is, after all, a socialist party in the UK already: it’s the Greens. 

(Novara Media)

. . . William Morris . . . believed that the creation and enjoyment of pre-industrial arts and crafts could undo the assumptions about natural inequality that were baked into capitalism. Influenced by both Karl Marx and John Ruskin, he demanded that works of art should actually embody the equality and freedom that had disappeared in an age witnessing the rise of mass production and excessive consumption on the one hand and widespread poverty and drudgery on the other. In News from Nowhere — his novel-length description of an egalitarian, anti-consumerist society — he aimed at nothing less than rewiring his readers’ minds and hearts. 

(Los Angeles Review of Books)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

The old old story. (1914)

From the December 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The B.S.P., keeping up its reputation of madness, has recently issued to its members and friends a circular entitled: “A Call to Vigorous Effort,” and with it a letter—begging subscriptions for carrying on a National Winter Campaign, to stir up public opinion in order to obtain from the master class “stepping stones to Social Democracy.”

In the letter, which is dated Nov. 4th, it states that: “In a matter of ten weeks, more progress has been made in the direction of Socialist legislation than during the previous ten years.” From this it would seem that if the war continues as long as some of the half-penny daily “military experts” inform us it will, Socialism will have become an accomplished fact !

Go ahead, then, B.S.P.! Go ahead !

—–O—–

But, as usual, the B.S.P. puts the noose round its own neck, for when we turn to the “Call” we find that it endeavours to describe what actually has taken place, and what the B.S.P. calls in its letter, “progress towards Socialist legislation.” It says: “The Government, which promised that the real producers and defenders of the United Kingdom should receive fair treatment, and that their dependents should be fully cared for, is breaking every pledge it made.” By the way, who produced the United Kingdom ? “Cumbersome and unworkable machinery has been set up in order to evade responsibility ; doles have been cut down below the slow starvation limits; the workers in distress are being left to the tender mercies of the ‘charitable rich’ . . . capitalists have taken advantage of Government subsidies, Government guarantees and Government protection to increase their profits.” Progress ! Socialist legislation !

—–O—–

Perhaps we are just getting to it. Further it reads : “Public opinion must be stirred to follow actively on the lines of National Control of Railways, National Fixation of Prices, and National Insurance of Shipping already secured.”

So far as the control of railways and the insurance of shipping goes, we venture to assert that the majority of capitalists in other industries would be only too pleased to have their profits guaranteed and secured in a similar manner. That the B.S.P. jubilates over this action only goes to prove what we have always maintained, viz., that, like the other pseudo-Socialist bodies, it is composed either of misguided mortals or deliberate frauds deluding their fellows in the interest of the capitalist class.

The Government has not fixed prices, nor can it do so. All it has done is to state a price arranged beforehand with the capitalists beyond which certain commodities must not be sold. And here again the Government took particular care that profits were not in any way reduced. It was officially stated that these prices allowed “a good profit both for the wholesale merchant and the retailer” ; and when the representatives of capitalists talk about “a good proft” they usually mean what they say. Far from the prices being fixed, they have fluctuated even more than at ordintry times. Take sugar, for instance; the maximum price has been bobbing up and down all the time, 4½d., 3¾d., 4¼d., 3¾d. and so on. And don’t forget it that in most cases out of ten the dealers charged the maximum.

—–O—–

The S.L.P. is also in a bad way. So bad that the editor of their official organ has to warn its readers not to understand any of the articles therein as expressing the Party’s attitude or view regarding the war. This, mark you, after the war has been in progress for three months ! In fact, he admits that he does not know what the official view is ! One of its contributors, presumably a member of the Party, says “The S.L.P.—let us admit it freely—has been taken by storm, though not so disastrously as other parties. . . . What policy does the S.L.P. follow with respect to this war ? We don’t know. We are disunited. We are groping for a lead at the present time.”

Lead kindly light !

J. W. Pyle

The Politicians and the crisis: Part 2 (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

These are the times when unthinking workers look for scapegoats, as they did in Germany in the latter period of the Weimar Republic. There the once proud and powerful Social Democratic Party (SPD) were in government; they unwittingly paved the way for the Nazis. Hence, the concern of the political leaders of Western Europe, North America and Japan. They reason as follows.

The slump of the early ’thirties undermined the established regimes in places like Germany and Japan and many other less powerful countries too. Imitative fascist-type parties sprang up all over Europe (some holding power), gaining support from disenchanted workers. In the case of Germany the Nazis gained power through the ballot box in 1933. In Japan the militarists managed to mobilize popular support against the existing Liberal administration because of the economic situation—unemployment and deflation—not, as now, inflation. The new regime began reflation in 1932 and before the bottom of the world slump had been reached Japanese industry began to recover being propelled along by an aggressive drive in export markets.

This was bad news for capitalist interests whose markets were being successfully penetrated by Japan, e.g. the colonial possessions of the Western industrial states were taking an increasing volume of textiles. This was one of the reasons for “protectionism” of the 1930s, which the governments now wish to avoid. This encouraged Japanese capitalism, with militarists firmly in the saddle, to possess colonies of their own. In 1937 they attacked China, having as early as 1932 driven the Chinese out of Manchuria without any formal declaration of war.

War economy

Germany from 1933 onwards pursued a twin policy of re-armament and so-called "economic self-sufficiency”. Unemployment decreased (although it was still above 1 million in 1936) and the armaments industry and its adjuncts, like the new autobahns and airfields, increased. Many workers were employed on the work connected with numerous Nazi rallies; the 1936 Nuremberg Rally alone cost £2,000,000 to stage. To limit imports, license schemes were introduced and synthetic materials developed, partly to deal with Germany’s balance of trade problem and also geared to their “war economy”.

Germany entered into trade arrangements with countries in South-East Europe and Latin America. These countries agreed to take more exports from Germany in exchange for imports from them, but their volume was only 69 per cent. above 1929; whereas Britain’s exports were then 83 per cent. above that year. Britain had achieved this advantage by bi-lateral arrangements with various countries. The Commonwealth and Empire countries increased their import preferences for each others’ goods and as mentioned above placed restrictive quotas on textiles from Japan.

In spite of all this, unemployment in Britain was still over 1.3 million in 1937. In the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard was the following:

When Hitler for the German capitalists says that Germany must expand or explode, find markets or perish, he meets his opposite in Mr. Hudson. British Secretary for Overseas Trade who said in Warsaw on March 21st [1939] that “we are not going to give up any markets to anyone . . . Great Britain is strong enough to fight for markets abroad. Britain is now definitely going to take a greater interest in Eastern Europe”. (From News Chronicle, March 22, 1939). Fighting that at present takes the form of words, trade agreements, loans, guarantees against aggression etc. may. as in 1914 turn into an armed conflict, and that armed conflict will be yet another war produced by capitalist rivalries.

This area of Eastern Europe was Germany’s existing and expanding sphere of influence, for recovering territory lost in the previous imperial conflict—the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, Danzig and the Polish Corridor, and Memeland from Lithuania. Germany also had eyes on the Rumanian oilfields (hence the British guarantee to that country in spite of the fascist regime there), and the wheat-growing areas of the Ukraine, in Russia and Poland.

These brief references are to the seeds which helped produce the second world war, and the politicians at the recent London summit conference said so quite openly. By any sense of logic working-class ears should be pricking up at these statements, questions should be asked and conclusions drawn. The Socialist Party does its best to help draw these conclusions and to develop a Socialist awareness.

It was noteworthy that Mr. Fukuda was particularly alive to the dangers of the present slump. He was a young diplomat in London in 1933 at the time of the World Economic Conference which broke up solving nothing, to be followed by “beggar thy neighbour” policies which were already under way prior to the conference. One of the major factors preventing even formal agreement was America’s refusal to stabilize the dollar; Roosevelt having taken them off the Gold Standard with a view to raising US commodity prices as an inducement for investment by the industrialists. This caused the US dollar to fluctuate wildly in the foreign exchanges. The delegates from the other countries at the conference wanted America to stabilize back on the Gold Standard: this Roosevelt refused to do, being pre-occupied with the domestic effects of the Depression.

Crisis capitalism

This was and is crisis capitalism. Predicament—the conflict between national economic interests and the stability of the international trading and monetary systems. This was recognized well enough in 1933. 

The journal The Round Table declared, some months before the Conference at the time of the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa, that "within a few months, conclusions must be reached in the financial and economic field, the effect of which will probably be decisive for or against the happiness of at least one generation of human beings all over the world.”

In September 1933, two months after the conference broke up, the same journal commented: ‘‘The great international conferences have come to little. The pulse of the Disarmament Conference is beating feebly (which began in June 1932) . . . The World Economic Conference has failed to reduce the obstructions to international trade, or even to make a tentative approach to agreement upon a solution of the world’s monetary problems”.

In the Daily Telegraph of May 9th, 1977, the day after this year’s conference, in an Economic Commentary article ‘‘Best view of the summit in few months” the author, Rodney Lord, stated: ‘‘It is idle to expect any great progress on persuading countries to regulate their economies for the general benefit of international stability. Politicians look first to the interests of the people who elected them.” The latter part of that quotation cannot go unchallenged of course—but we know what he means.

Politicians are the custodians of nation-states in a competitive world—that is, custodians for the capitalist class of their particular countries. At the same time they depend on the working class to go along with the arrangement, and have to try to placate them when it is necessary.

Conflicts of ‘national interest’

This conflict of national interest and international stability, with its inherent dangers, was demonstrated in Tokyo only four days after the end of the Economic Summit.

There were reports of a fire in an oilfield in Saudi Arabia which supplies over 30 per cent. of Japan’s crude oil imports. Prices fell on the Tokyo stock market and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry assured the Press that the fire would probably not have a serious effect on Japan’s supplies in the long run.

At the same time Mr. Fukuda, the Prime Minister, told a meeting of business leaders that the government is to press the case for Japan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. He said that at London he had the ‘‘strong impression” that it will be difficult to get America’s approval because of President Carter’s “deep-rooted opposition”. However, Mr. Fukuda assured the businessmen that he was “most determined” to negotiate the issue with the US independently of other countries. The Japanese, apparently, have been shocked by the American President’s nuclear energy policy (from a report in the Daily Telegraph, May 13th).

An indication of Japan’s problems—even though being currently the world’s most successful economy— is the news that from the end of 1971 to the end of 1976, 30,000 shipyard workers lost their jobs. It is estimated that another 25,000 will go before the end of 1978, which is nearly the total workforce in British yards. (From the AUEW journal for May 1977.)

On May 9th the Daily Telegraph reported that British TV manufacturers were protesting to the Government that Japanese TV manufacturers were “bent on destroying” the British industry. This was in response to the plans of the Hitachi Company to build a factory at Tyne and Wear.

Commercial ‘aggrandisement’

The British businessmen said that there was already over-capacity in the industry. 1,751,000 sets were made in 1976 as against 3,000,000 in 1973, and Hitachi’s arrival would increase to 400,000 the number of Japanese colour sets made in Britain. Two other Japanese companies are already established here. Many more jobs would be lost—up to 6,000—than would be created, it was claimed. Hitachi had already a 20 per cent. interest in a Finnish company which is expected to export to Britain for assembly a substantial part of 800,000 total output of colour tubes. It is part of a policy of “commercial aggrandisement” in Europe, say the British capitalists.

No wonder Mr. Fukuda and the other statesmen are worried.

Frank Simkins

To be concluded

Whither Britain? (1939)

From the July 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before the War, the Labour movement of this and other countries had come to regard the progress of democracy as something inevitable. In spite of the lean time democracy has gone through since the suspension of hostilities, both Labour leaders and ruling-class politicians still successfully manage to create the myth that, in England, at any rate, democracy is still the order of the day. Democracy here is said to provide a striking contrast to the totalitarianism of Hitler and Mussolini; indeed, the chief task of our politicians to-day is to maintain that illusion above all others in the minds of people. But the view of the Socialist has always been that, although the growth of capitalism necessitates certain democratic features, anti-democratic elements are also bound up with its continuation. In spite of feverish appeals to defend democracy, signs are not wanting that, behind this façade, the ruling class are getting ready to march along a path similar to that of Hitler’s Germany. There is no doubt that the development of capitalism in recent years has modified much of the normal workings of the system and has thrown up, as a result, new and more complex problems to be solved. The attempts to solve these problems, as always, endanger working-class interests. It is true, of course, that the basis of capitalism is the two-class nature of society, with its contrasts of riches and poverty, and the contradictions which arise from the ownership by a small section of society of the means of wealth production. Nevertheless, the working class should become aware of these changes and what they entail in democratic England as well as Fascist Germany. It is childish to assume that what is happening in Germany is independent of the remainder of the capitalist world. The problems confronting the ruling class in Germany are in the last analysis the problems that confront the capitalist class of the rest of the world. What are these problems? They are the furtherance of the interests of the national sections of the capitalist class in order to maintain or secure what is euphemistically called “a place in the sun,” or, more brutally, to satisfy the insatiable quest for profits. The task before the German ruling class is to secure for itself a privileged position, but it can only do so at the expense of its brother, the English capitalist class.

Thus Fascism is not only bound up with world capitalism but is itself a product of it. The defeated ruling class in Germany, stripped of its former colonies, its territory in Europe annexed, and weighted down by reparations, was forced into a desperate position. The Social Democracy, along with the other political parties, though trying to rebuild German capitalism, had been unable to continue doing so, because they lost working-class support and therefore ceased to be a fitting instrument. The conditions of the working class had not improved, as the Social Democrats promised they would. The task of Fascism became then one of restoring German capitalism to its pre-war strength and at the same time gaining the confidence of large sections of the working class, peasants and middle layers of the population, by promising to free capitalism from the anomalies that ordinarily affect it. The demagogue Hitler promised to provide work for all, to establish economic and national security and to balance out the periodic fluctuations and crises associated with capitalism. Thus, the first task of Hitler on attaining political power was to provide work of some kind for the six million unemployed. It was useless to produce consumption goods depending for their sale upon an increased purchasing power of the people. What was needed was a type that would not be thrown upon an already saturated market. New roads, land improvement schemes, military equipment, such as barracks, guns and aeroplanes, can be produced independently of the income of the masses. It is even possible under those conditions to produce a growing volume of these goods while wages are being steadily reduced. A gigantic programme of rearmament allowed Hitler to revive German industry, to put Germany back on the political map, and further, to fulfil his promises to the masses, through the grim formula of “guns instead of butter.”

So, to-day it can be said that unemployment in Germany is practically non-existent, and the “work for all” slogan has been realised. For gradually the rearmament industries have expanded and unemployment has fallen; indeed, many workers from other branches of industry have had to be drafted into this field of production. To finance this huge programme, methods have been adopted which have horrified our orthodox capitalist and Labour leader alike. They view with dismay the stringent Governmental control and regulation of profits and prices, and of wage rates and supplies of labour. A picture of the state of present-day Germany, from a capitalist standpoint, can be obtained from the following quotation from Lloyds Bank Monthly Review (July and August, 1937): —

“In the National Socialist State all economic activity must serve the interests of the community. Business interests in Germany must, therefore, regard themselves as subordinate to the general policy pursued by the State. Early in 1937 the German people were told that all activities will be governed by the law that the nation does not live for the benefit of the economic system, nor the economic system exist for the benefit of capital, but capital serves the economic system and the economic system the Nation. . . . With regard to the individual, the National Socialists claim that they must put an end to class differences in order to secure national harmony. Individual and class differences are subordinate to those of the national community. Under a Government with full and supreme power of enforcing its will, even to the point of overriding established law, one of the practical results of this theory has been the suppression of strikes, lock-outs and wage disputes generally.”

Thus the Fascists have created a machine which in time may have repercussions throughout world capitalism. Already it would appear that the threat of a rearmed and highly organised German capitalism is compelling British capitalism to adopt similar drastic measures. An article in The Banker (April, 1939) raises certain issues, largely, it is true, from the point of view of the capitalist class, but issues which vitally affect the working class. The writer commences by pointing out that the Government will be a borrower in the capital market of between £350 and £400 million, and the effects of a single borrower, such as the Government, taking such a large amount from the capital market and distributing it amongst a relatively small section of industry, namely, the rearmament industry, will be grave. The demand for workers in these industries will greatly increase; in fact, the writer of the article thinks that the whole of the unemployed may be re-absorbed into industry. This may well be so, when we remember that, even at the present time, there is a shortage of this type of skilled labour, and that, in addition, an increased number of men are required in the armed forces and other defence preparations. As a result of the large sums paid out in the form of wages following on the increased employment and the substitution of full-time for short-time workers, a greatly increased demand for consumers’ goods may be expected. The Government, if it is to keep at the head of the armaments race, will be forced to increase its expenditure, the money being raised either by borrowing or by taxation. In either case, it will be forced to exert a greater control over the capital market. Manufacturers of consumers’ goods will be faced with an increased demand for their products, and at the same time a shortage of the necessary capital and labour to effectively expand production. Prices will tend to rise and the standard of living of the workers fall unless they are successful in securing higher wages, a demand which will be strenuously opposed by the manufacturers and Government alike, for higher wages mean an increased cost of rearmament. The City Editor of the Manchester Guardian says (April 6th, 1939): —

“Unless the Government then assumes the direct control of industrial production and investment the arms output will be curtailed and a general rise of prices will ensue.”

This rise in prices can be offset in three ways, all at the expense of the working class. The social services may be reduced on the plea of economy, the working day can be lengthened without raising wages, as in France, or the standard of living of the workers can be reduced by allowing prices to rise more rapidly than wages. This attack upon working-class standards has begun. The Press reports to-day the strike at an aircraft factory caused by the employment of unskilled girl labour. Workers’ memories may be short but they still remember the dilution that took place during the last War. As is commonplace nowadays, the men have gone on strike without Union recognition, thus losing strike pay, but they already have the support of the workers in another of the company’s factories, from whom they have received a big collection and a weekly levy on their wages until the dispute is over. All workers should realise that this is only a prelude to a general attack upon working-class conditions and democratic rights. There are not wanting signs that British capitalism will require the working class here to follow in the footsteps of the German working class. By specious pleas of patriotism and emphasis on the horrors of Fascism, an attempt will be made to render the trade unions innocuous and to persuade the working class to be drilled and dragooned. And, needless to say, the trade union bureaucracy and Labour leaders will perform the same service for capitalism now as in 1914—note already the discussions between trade union leaders and the Government on the steps to be taken in an emergency war situation.

Although trade union leaders are paying lip service to voluntary effort as opposed to conscription, they are prepared once again to place the movement at the disposal of the State. Mr. Bevin himself agrees that prices must be controlled and profiteering cease, thus fitting in easily with capitalism organised on a war-time basis.

Now, more than at any other time, is it necessary for the workers to think and act along the lines of their own class interests. Safeguarding working-class interests is the best and only way of safeguarding working-class existence. And the action of the working class here may yet, by its example, have a stimulating and regenerating effect upon the working class of all other countries.

Sound working-class action will still prove to be the greatest impediment to the threat of war. Without this action, we must agree with the Manchester Guardian (April 11th, 1939):—

“War apart, it would be idle to predict either the form or the degree of that Governmental control of finance, employment, prices and profits that may be found necessary as borrowing and spending are increased.”

Already three Conservative M.P.s, Mr. L. S. Amery, Sir Edward Grigg and Lord Wolmer, have placed a resolution on the order paper of the House of Commons (Manchester Guardian, April 17th, 1939): —

“That this House is in favour of the immediate acceptance of the principle of the compulsory mobilisation of the man, munition and money power of the nation.”

In a circular to M.P.s, the sponsors state: —

“We feel it opportune that as many members of the House of Commons as possible should assure them (the Government) that we are ready to proceed to all lengths in pursuance of their policy. The time for half measures is past. We believe that all the resources of the nation should be mobilised now against every eventuality. ( ! !)”

So it can be seen that the State, instead of being capitalism’s sleeping partner, is becoming, as in Germany, the active and directing agent for mobilising industry and dragooning and drilling the population along lines suitable for its purpose. In addition, we have our defence dictators, and A.R.P. closely linked with the police, veiled threats of powers extraordinary in times of emergency, e.g., the right to enter individual houses, etc. So it can be seen that Hitler and our ruling class speak the same language when their interests are at stake.

Surely at such a time the voice of the Socialist should be heeded by all thoughtful members of the working class. History has placed the solution in your hands and given you the opportunity to rid yourselves, once and for all, of the poverty and misery and grey anxiety which capitalism entails. You, the working class, are the overwhelming majority of the population. It is you who make everything possible under capitalism, including war. When this is realised in sufficient numbers, you can take appropriate action, not only to dispense with capitalism, but to build a system of society fitted to the needs of a decent existence. By becoming Socialists you will help to swell our ranks, so that, when sufficient numbers are gained, there can begin that last and greatest march of the working class out of the grey menacing shadows of capitalism into the light of a system of society based, not on the dictates of a minority, but on the needs of humanity.

Ted Wilmott

Editorial: Capitalist “Socialism”—The Great Swindle of the Age (1943)

Editorial from the August 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Future historians, looking back at the corrupt final decades of dying capitalist society, will be struck by the systematic attempt to prolong the life of hated institutions by giving them new and fancy names. They will notice, too, how the practitioners among the ruling class have been aided and abetted in this deception by the muddle-headed reformers, and how wholesale hypocrisy has been raised to an art. In our own times we have seen naked annexation of territory renamed “League of Nations Mandate”—though a cynical Japanese delegate at the League was reported to have said that it was clearly understood to be only a new way of spelling the old word. League acts of war became known more politely as “sanctions.” “Coalition,” a word with unhappy associations, is now known as National Government, and conscription is known as National Service. “Pauper,” “Poor Law,” and “workhouse” have given way to Public Assistance and Public Institution, without any real change in their nature. In the field of industry the once detested capitalist monopoly has been reborn with the sweeter name Public Utility Corporation, with the blessing of many labour leaders. Elsewhere in this issue is an article on the attempt to represent war-time industrial conscription as having in it features of a Socialist character !

In the field of political propaganda it was the reformers who paved the way for the astute capitalist politicians. It was the Labour and I.L.P. reformers who imagined that State intervention in capitalist concerns is Socialism, but it was arch-swindler Hitler who brazenly turned it back on them by labelling totalitarianism “National Socialism.”

While the labour leaders denounce the Hitler system, they are still playing into the hands of the capitalist class by their absurd propaganda, which affects to see Socialism in war-time controls and restrictions. So insidious is this idea that we have supposedly well-informed self-styled Socialists deceiving themselves and others with the belief that the capitalist class are introducing Socialism for us. At the Annual Conference of the Labour Party in June last, Mr. Attlee put forward the preposterous idea that the capitalist politicians have been forced by events to adopt Socialist policies, and that Socialists are winning the fight for Socialism without knowing it! Dealing with schemes for world economic planning, he said: —

“The logic of the facts has made responsible people agree with us. I doubt if we recognise sufficiently the progress our ideas have made. The British never know when they are beaten—and British Socialists seldom know when they have won.” (Daily Herald, June 15th 1943.)

He also asserted that “in organising this country for war, we are increasingly adopting Socialist principles.”

Mr. Attlee should remember that he is only repeating about this war what some of his Fabian and Labour Party colleagues said of the last war. What has happened now to the “Socialism” which they then affirmed had stolen on us unaware, like a thief in the night? Some 20 years ago, Mr. Sidney Webb made a statement just like Mr. Attlee’s : —

“The process of Socialisation has been going on for a whole generation in National and Local Government without our realising it.”

In his book, A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain (July, 1920), he claimed that every industrialised country had in the early years of the twentieth century found itself “increasingly driven to measures of Socialist character,” and that “over a large part of Europe definitely Socialist administrators are actually in office, and the principles of Socialism are avowedly accepted as the basis of social and economic reconstruction.”

At about the same period, in the early twenties, the I.L.P. were selling by the thousand pamphlets with the titles “Socialism in Practice” and “Socialism in Queensland,” telling the workers of Britain that the administration of capitalism by Labour Governments in Queensland and other Australian States was Socialism !

If this had been true, we would be compelled to admit that Socialism has been tried out in Australia, and “over a large part of Europe”—and has failed. It was not true, and to pretend that it was hindered the Socialist movement. Likewise, Mr. Attlee’s action in giving the label “Socialism” to present war-time capitalism helps nobody but the capitalist class. Having bestowed the Socialist blessing on it, he is compelled to defend every iniquitous detail.

At the present time it is Russia which attracts widespread attention owing to the falsehood disseminated by Communists that the social system there is Socialism. Once having hitched their propaganda to the myth of Socialist Russia, the Communists in their attitude to Russia are in the same situation as the British labour leaders in their attitude to war-time capitalism—they are compelled to defend whatever takes place in Russia.

When Lenin was alive the Communists defended his view that the growth of inequality in Russia was a retrograde step, forced on them by regrettable necessity. Now they defend with equal zeal the present official policy which encourages inequality. The Daily Worker (July 13th, 1943) has the following disingenuous defence of the recently disclosed rapidly growing wealth of some Russian farmers on collective farms : —

“First, a rouble millionaire is very far from being a sterling millionaire. Secondly, the accumulations of a Soviet millionaire have been gathered together entirely without exploitation of any kind, solely as a result of personal labour, or, more probably, the joint labours of a family over many years. . . . The emergence of millionaire collective farm families is an indication that that pledge [Stalin’s pledge in 1933 to make collective farmers prosperous] is on the way to being fulfilled.”

According to the Economist (July 3rd, 1943), one of the main reasons for this growing wealth is that the farmers can sell the produce of their own private allotments for their own benefit, and many of them choose to sell in the uncontrolled market where prices are very high. (In the controlled markets prices are lower, but the farmer who sells in the controlled market can then use the proceeds to buy other goods—if available—at controlled prices. If he sells in uncontrolled markets he can only buy other goods at uncontrolled and correspondingly high prices.)

The Daily Worker’s defence turns mainly on the fact that the farmer is selling goods produced by the personal labour of himself or his family. What a multitude of sins that defence can cover. The low-graded bottom ranks of the Russian factory workers are likewise giving their “personal labour” 12 hours a day, but their war-time earnings are labour about 3,600 roubles a year (Economist, July 3rd), so even if they saved 1,000 roubles, or more than a quarter of their earnings, it would take them 1,000 years to reach millionaire prosperity. The Economist states that the present earnings of some higher paid workers range up to about 34,400 roubles a year, while “Stakhanovites” may be getting 48,000, and the salaries of technical staffs may be as much as 72,000.

What has happened to Lenin’s declaration that’ what the Bolsheviks aimed to achieve was the policy “of reducing high salaries to the standard wages of the average worker” ? (Soviets at Work, Lenin, 1918.)

And what has any of this system got to do with Socialism? The Communists claim to be Marxists. Why do they not proclaim with Marx :—

“Instead of the Conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work’ they (the trade unions) ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wages system.'” (Value,Price and Profit, Marx.)

Imagine a Russian worker asking for the abolition of the wages system on the ground that the existing propaganda for “a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work” is conservative !

Then we notice the Daily Worker’s defence of the Russian system of giving substantial prizes (but no interest) to individual investors in War Loan who happen to draw lucky lottery numbers—

“Those terms appeal to Soviet millionaires. They would not be likely to do so to the barons of Wall Street or the City of London.” (Daily Worker, July 13th).

Since when, may we ask, has the principle of prizes to holders of lucky numbers been regarded as a feature of Socialist society?

In conclusion, to return to the original point about the prevailing cult of retaining the evils but giving them different names, we place on record the following earth-shaking proposal of a prominent employer: —

“Mr. E. G. Tarran, a Hull industrialist, suggests the abolition of five words from the English language—capital, labour, rich, poor, and foreigner.” (Daily Mail, July 15th, 1943.)

Good News for Shareholders (1942)

From the December 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following the British and American occupation of points in Morocco and Algeria, the Times (November 11, 1942) reports that there was a further accession of strength to the stock markets. “The large bulk of the active trading was in the industrial and kindred markets, but the more spectacular gains were in oil and mining shares, Far Eastern issues, and European bonds. . . . The feature of the foreign bond market was the strong demand for European and Ear Eastern loans; Greek bonds were marked up by a further two or three points, French railway bonds by four or five points, and Chinese bonds by three or four points. . . . Oil shares were strong, particularly the Eastern group.”

The Times does not report any simultaneous spectacular rise in the wages of the workers.

R. M.

“The Spoil of Europe” (1942)

Book Review from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Spoil of Europe by Thomas Reveille. (Allen & Unwin. 10/6)

The author evidently, knows his German and his Germany, and from the point of interest of the Socialist, this is a book which relieves one of the task of ploughing through pages of the usual descriptions of the Nazis and the Nazi machine, in order to obtain some idea of the mechanism of the German administration, although the book sets out to prove how the Reich is plundering Europe.

Germany has taken over the whole of the banking system of Europe “to mobilise the surplus of capital in Western Europe for financing of Continental objectives.” Germany, in fact, has become Europe’s banker, but with a new principle. “That soil and labour rather than gold should be the basis of a currency is the recurring Nazi assertion.” (P. 22.)

That this should support the “banks create credits” cranks here is smashed by the chapter, “The Golden Haul,” where the author asserts that all the gold holdings of Europe’s banks have been seized by the authority of the Reichsbank and “gold certificates” given in its stead and so likewise the gold of private persons, together with the legal “sequestering” of gold held by banks in their name abroad so that the Reichsmark notes all over Europe have some sort of gold backing.

The comprehensive picture of the State administration of industry and agriculture, in which each industry has its own “Industrial Board,” together with the Labour Front—the organisation for the industrial workers—which is dominated by the political party of the Nazis in the shape of the “Nazi Party Factory Cell Organisation” (N.S.B.O.) leaves the Socialist with the impression that the whole outfit was copied straight from the Russian State system and adapted to German capitalist conditions.

The German worker is told that this is the German version of Socialism. “The worker need not consider himself the inferior of the employer, because all members of the German Volk are ‘equal.’ Strikes and lock-outs are forbidden, and the recalcitrant employer is tried before ‘Courts of honour,’ and is fined for offending against the social honour of work” (p. 22). Real wages are kept down and “thrift” encouraged by stringent taxation and savings, in order to divert the new income from consumers’ goods to armaments, with the reduction of interest on investments from the previous 6 per cent. to 3½ per cent. from January 1st, 1941. (P. 226.)

The full name of Germany’s set-up is the “National Socialist German Workingman’s Party,” a title that is all things to all men, and advantage has been taken of the slogans and aspirations of men ranging from Jew-haters to Communists, industrialists and monarchists.

The technique employed differs somewhat from the Communist method, as the author points out. “The Communists pursue methods known as boring from within, while they are out of power. As soon as the reins of state have been seized they unmask themselves and start a clean slate by destroying everything before them. The Nazis are much smarter. They continue boring-from-within methods well after they have assumed power, and never come out into the open until all opposition has been brought within their control, adopting any pose necessary to do this” (p. 27).

That the German ruling-class plan by all means to become the complete masters of Europe is labouring the obvious, but what is not obvious is their attitude to Britain and her Empire. According to Reveille, the Reich had no intention of invading or smashing Britain, or her Empire, but to keep her neutral with her navy here, not steaming away from a defeated Britain. And even when war was declared every effort in the way of offers of peace were made, with a scheme for recognising Germany’s hegemony of the Continent, and a free hand in her land policy, while the Reich would acquiesce in British overseas supremacy, and pledge her might as the guarantee of the British Empire.

“A model for the accord of world markets already exists; this is the agreement concluded at Dusseldorf in March, 1939, between Reichgruppe Industrie and the Federation of British Industries. Both were official bodies, and the agreement was sponsored by the Reich and Chamberlain Governments” (p. 308).

That Churchill ended this policy of “appeasement,” backed by the role of the United States of America becoming the arsenal for the democracies, while the Luftwaffe, plus the flying emissary Hess, attempted to “induce Britain to ‘voluntarily’ fulfil her assigned role in the Fuehrer’s grandiose plan,” is the burden of the last pages in the book.

Appended is the National Social Party Programme, declared by Hitler to be “immutable,” and no Socialist reading it could (except for the clauses dealing with Jews and non-Germans) say whether it was drawn up by Communists or any other reformist organisation. Take only a few.

“We demand the abolition of a professional army and the creation of a people’s army” (clause 22).

Socialists will remember this as the aim of the old Bolsheviks and the substance of the “People’s War” nonsense to-day: “In view of the terrible sacrifice in money and blood which every war inflicts upon the people, we demand the integral confiscation of all wartime profits, the nationalisation of all existing trusts” (clause 12).

The Labour Party or the I.L.P. could not beat this clause as a war cry. In fact, the Labour Party recently evaded the issue of the nationalisation of the mines of Britain and fell in with a scheme propounded by the Tories, which left the owners in possession.

“The Spoil of Europe” leaves untouched any conclusions of a theoretical nature. But it can be said that the military needs of countries preparing, then waging war, are the driving forces, whereby because of the mechanical nature of modern war, all production of field or factory must be co-ordinated.

There are independent writers who argue that the anti-democratic features of State-capitalism arise out of the very machinery necessary to run it, that in so far as a whole country’s resources are integrated and brought under control of the State, that this can be pictured as being one productive unit, where, as in an up-to-date works, if one division of labour gets out of step, no time is lost in ending the stoppage. The State officials therefore become responsible for the dragooning of everything and everybody, to fit into the centralising plans issuing from the higher authorities. Propaganda, and this includes the arts, stage and literature, is controlled, with the motive of allowing nothing to interfere with the direction that the leaders have laid down.

Although substantially true, this dictatorship which can allow of no political opposition, cannot be regarded apart from the phenomenon of war, in which the fear of defeat, invasion, or worsened conditions, can be the lever, used by the dictators to move the masses to collaborate in plans which virtually deny them the right to organise independent of the State.

It must also be borne in mind that the totalitarian countries have performed a “forced march” of their economic systems in order to balance, and be prepared against, the slow, yet highly industrialised, states which they will clash with in war.

This war has given some cruel lessons to the workers of the power of the capitalist state, for the state is but the “executive committee” of the ruling class, and it is in being to promote the interests of the ruling class. Yet it exists solely because the working class is wedded to capitalism, and bound to the fortunes of its commercial rivalries, its wars and poverty.

State-craft has added stage-craft to its arts and the workers are induced to cheer the very caricatures and skits of their own aspirations. Capitalism robed as “communism” and “Socialism” in full German battle kit can make their bow before thunderous audiences.

Members of the S.P.G.B. propose that the working class take the state-power into their own hands, to establish Socialism, the class-less society. The workers will be convinced of this necessity by Socialist education, driven home, unfortunately, by bitter experience. Thereafter the State will “wither away.” the need for its existence ended, never to return.

Frank Dawe

Troubles of the Post-War World (1942)

From the September 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that World War the Big has already been going three years politicians are working hard on the “after-the-war” racket.

We know from the evidence of experts in industrial fatigue that the rate of the workers’ output cannot be raised above a certain level determined by the machinery at their disposal. According to Mr. Bevin this has been reached now in Great Britain.

“The great test now was not between British and German man-power, but between British and German managerial ability.” (Bevin, House of Commons, May 31st.)

The Economist considers that Russia has reached the peak of productive capacity.

It is held by some that German production is already declining. Though it should be added that statements about the internal condition of Germany frequently evoke scepticism.

Nevertheless, it would seem that a certain war-work weariness is due to set in, which inevitably produces a corresponding listlessness in regard to actual alleged “aims” of the war themselves.

Therefore, the Labour Party Conference, the T.U.C., the Co-operative Party and the various Trades Unions have all concerned themselves with “two issues. . . in the forefront … in all the conferences. One, the demand for the more vigorous prosecution of the war, the other . . . the conditions which must follow the victory of the forces of democracy.” (Transport Union Record, June, 1942.)

Probably the most typical and oracular was the Conference of the Labour Party.

“Two problems dominated Conference—the war effort and the problems of the peace that will follow. It was clear that the delegates were united in desiring a greater drive to win the war but they attached no less importance to the work of reconstruction, and they thought still more could be done to prepare for the peace now.” (Transport Record, June.)

And so, after the usual resolutions nationalising coal mining and transport now (to the consternation of the Labour Leaders, it looks as though the former is actually going to be partially applied), Mr. Harold Laski moved a resolution “asking for the socialisation of the country’s basic industries and services, after the war.” It affirmed that “there must be no return to an unplanned competitive system after the war.” And after all, perhaps some not very critical workers may be forgiven their pathetic faith in Labour Leaders when they read : “The organising of the world order which will make available to the people the goods they have produced is not impossible. It has long been the aim of the Trade Union movement. To-day the Atlantic Charter … to which the Soviet Union is now a party, and recent speeches of men of Cabinet rank, including Ernest Bevin, encourage us to believe that at last it has been brought within reach of achievement.” (Transport Record, June.)

At the risk of incurring some antagonism from those misled workers we have to state bluntly that the Atlantic Charter will do no such thing. Indeed, before the end of the World-War-the-Big is even in sight, there is documentary evidence giving proof in practice of what Socialists were stating theoretically before the Atlantic Charter was drafted.

Capital as an economic system causes antagonism between capitalists, to-day organised in colossal trusts. These conflicts of economic interest often lead to war. The Atlantic Charter is a document pledging the signatories not to exercise “undue discrimination” against each other in tariff barriers and customs duties. The result of this may be in practice that the weaker Allies are to throw their countries open to markets for the exports of the stronger, the final conquering of the world market by the U.S.A., and the collapse of the foreign trade monopoly in the Soviet Union, so highly prized by Lenin.

Already, as pointed out by Mr. Hobson, the News-Chronicle’s expert, these ideas clash directly with the Ottawa agreements, as the National Union of Manufacturers point out, while already industrial capitalists (e.g., Mr. R. Stokes, the “Labour” M.P., in his managing director’s address to the forty-sixth annual general meeting of Ransomes & Rapier, Ltd.) are protesting that “unless the Lease-Lend arrangements were fairly worked we would end the war with the whole of our export trade in the iron and steel industry gone . . . surely it was never intended that they should refrain from shipping any machinery abroad to any market, unless the Americans specifically stated they did not want that market.” So the most cunning capitalists find themselves beaten by the capitalist system, and the Atlantic Charter, so far from eliminating capitalism, and “organising a new world order,” may exacerbate it and “organise” a new world war.

So far as Mr. Bevin is concerned as a guarantee of a new world order after the war, he can best speak for himself.

Replying to Debate on the Essential Works Order, he claimed support for these orders on the ground that those hitherto casually employed had a guaranteed week. It cannot be denied that this is a great improvement in the lives of many dockers, building workers, etc., but like many such innovations it has been introduced because the war has created temporary insatiable demand.

Even so, some thick-headed employers are still. against it.

Says Mr. Bevin : “One of the greatest things that would smooth the working of the war would be for industry to come forward now and agree whole-heartedly to accept the basic principle of the Essential Work Order not only for the war—but for after the war.”

Two points emerge from this. First, the “working of the war” is apparently NOT smooth. Secondly, Mr. Bevin would regard it as a great achievement after the victory, if employers would pay regular weekly wages to casual workers.

Not the Atlantic Charter, not Mr. Bevin, but Socialist workers equipped with Socialist knowledge will bring the real new order—Socialism.

H. Y.

Cooking the Books: An arms economy? (2022)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speaking in June at Eurosatory, a weapons industry fair, French President Macron said that France ‘has entered into a war economy’ (bit.ly/3AI99pQ).

Strictly speaking, this is not true as a ‘war economy’ is when a state at war mobilises its economy for the one aim of winning the war. France is not currently at war, even though it is playing its part in arming NATO’s proxies in Ukraine. All he seemed to mean was that the French state should devote more resources to equipping its armed forces with the most up-to-date weapons of death and destruction and, as he was speaking at a merchants of death trade fair, selling some to other states.

There is another sense in which the term ‘war economy’ has been used – ‘military Keynesianism’. Keynes argued that there was no tendency under capitalism towards full employment and that the situation could occur, as in a slump, where not enough paying demand was being generated to bring about full employment. His answer was that the state should step in and increase its spending so as to boost demand. ‘Military Keynesianism’ is if this spending is on arms.

This appeared to work in Germany where the Hitler government’s spending on re-armament did reduce unemployment. In the US, too, the mass unemployment of the 1930s was not eliminated till the US entered the war. When the war ended this was not followed by a slump as many expected (including ourselves). One explanation that was offered for this was the continuing high level of government military spending.

One variety of this was the ‘permanent arms economy’ theory, espoused in Britain by the SWP’s predecessor, the International Socialists, and expounded by its economic expert, Michael Kidron. In an article with this title in 1967 (bit.ly/3c8gEfM) and repeated in his 1968 book Western Capitalism since the War, Kidron said he shared ‘the assumption that we should collapse into over-production and unemployment were it not for some special offsetting factor’. That factor, he went on to argue, was a ‘permanent arms budget’.

He offered two explanations of how this worked to save capitalism. The first was pure military Keynesianism. ‘Expenditure on arms is expenditure on a fast-wasting end-product’, he wrote, that ‘constitutes a net addition to the market for ‘end’ goods’ and that ‘one obvious result of such expenditure is high employment and, as a direct consequence of that, rates of growth amongst the highest ever’.

But he also advanced the opposite view that arms spending slowed down the rate of capital accumulation and the fall in the rate of profit this caused and saved capitalism in that way. ‘Were capitalism left alone to invest its entire pre-tax profit, the state creating demand as and when necessary, growth rates would be very much higher’. It was this over-accumulation which, if unchecked, would lead to ‘collapse into over-production and unemployment’.

He was right about government arms spending slowing down capital accumulation as, having to be paid for out of taxes on profits, it reduced the amount of profits available for re-investment. But he was wrong that this saved capitalism from collapse. For, while there is indeed ‘a permanent threat of over-production’ under capitalism this is for other reasons than any long-term trend for too much capital accumulation leading to a fall in the overall rate of profit.

In any event, the permanent arms economy turned out to be not so permanent. It did not prevent the post-war boom, caused by reconstruction and the expansion of world markets, coming to an end in 1973 and replaced by a two-year period of slump that no government expenditure on arms or anything else was able to end. Keynes was wrong and so was military Keynesianism as an explanation of the post-war boom.

Blogger's Note:

A review of Michael Kidron's Western Capitalism Since the War appeared in the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Will the Workers Learn? (1942)

From the June 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard 

We can tell you the answer in a moment. They will learn. And there are abundant reasons for thinking so. But there are others who hold a contrary view. These gentlemen constitute two schools of thought. One group says that the workers are mentally incapable of ever understanding Socialist ideas, and the other group believes that there is something defective in Socialist propaganda. They say that our appeal lacks colour and vigour, in short, imagination. For example, we do not paint pretty pictures of what life will be under Socialism, the changes in domestic life, personal habits, social customs, architecture, music and art. Now, of course, we are aware that a system of production solely for use will make human society quite different from what it is now, but we obviously cannot sketch the details, It would be foolish to assume that we could accurately foretell the detailed reactions of the majority of people to the conditions of a Socialist society. In fact, we cannot say that everything will be perfect, that there will be no problems to solve, and no difficulties to settle. What we do say, and say it continuously, is, that in present society no problems may be solved, and no adjustments made, without first giving due consideration for the interests of a class of property owners. That only in a classless society will these hindrances be removed, and the way thrown open for development and improvement, and that there will be no poverty problem. We offer Socialism to the working class as a simple and practical solution to certain problems that face them. These problems are serious, and they become more and more urgent with time. The workers are faced with increasing insecurity set in a background of poverty and unhappiness. They are compelled to endure the kind of poverty that injures their health, and puts them into premature graves, half-starved or completely starved. This, mark you, in the so-called rich countries where the workers are said to consume larger quantities of nutritious food than the unfortunate workers in other countries that are not so prosperous. Remember that we are told that the workers of America and England drive their own cars, live in their own houses and that they bring home heavier wage packets than the miserable work beasts of Germany, Italy and Japan, not to mention the teeming millions of “over-populated” India and China. It is true that the workers in some countries eat more meat, but eating-more meat, particularly the embalmed variety, is no more indicative of happiness and good health than buying a car on the H.P. is evidence of economic security !

Many workers support the war because they believe that the imperial wealth in their employers’ hands allows them a much better standard of life and that the loss of this wealth would place them at a disadvantage. Now if it is true that German capitalism was too impoverished to allow the workers in that country higher wages and better social services, how can one explain its tremendous military power? It was estimated in 1939 that the Nazi Government had spent something like £6,000,000,000 in military expansion. Surely manna from heaven !

Japan, another “poor” and “over-populated” country, has maintained armies in China for four years, and is now strong enough to overrun strongholds in the Far East, even if only temporarily. This was accomplished by a superiority in machines. Quite obviously, men with empty stomachs cannot fight wars, nor can they work in armament factories. In order to produce the same tanks and planes as the workers in this country they have to be maintained in approximately the same degree of efficiency. In all of these “have not” countries there are groups of wealthy people who are engaged in the war with the one object of increasing their wealth because they feel that they are strong enough to do it.

The fact is glaring. The world is rich in untapped resources. Its mineral wealth is incalculable. Many more acres of land could be placed under cultivation. More factories could be built. And there are millions of men and women expending their energies in unproductive work who could easily do something useful. Socialism would make this possible. Why then do the workers turn a deaf ear to the message of the Socialist?

The question can only be answered by taking a long view. The workers are a comparatively young class, hardly out of their swaddling clothes, even in England. The vast countries of the East, with their great resources, have merely been scratched by capitalism. It is only in the last twenty years that Russia has begun to develop its agriculture and industry along modern lines.

In fact, it is only in America, Europe and the British Dominions that there exists, at present, the economic foundations on which Socialism could be established. It would be difficult to find means of measuring whether working class political development is slow or fast, but there is certainly not a shred of evidence to indicate that the workers will never understand their class position. They have definitely made very useful progress. They are enfranchised and educated slaves. They read and write, and they produce complicated instruments of great ingenuity. They have a knowledge of organisation and administration.

Darwin has shown that even animals will learn from painful experience. Men also learn from experience, perhaps more rapidly.

If the great majority of mankind were incapable of absorbing ideas, learning from their mistakes, and adapting themselves to changing conditions, then present development would never have appeared. But men fear the future. They cling tenaciously to outworn institutions until it becomes clear to them that these institutions have to be abolished if life is to become tolerable for them. The people who say that the workers will never understand Socialism are always anxious to emphasise that the capitalists are well aware of their own position in society. But if their theory is sound why should this be so? What is it that makes the capitalists conscious of their interests in apposition to the workers? They certainly do not possess a more than average capacity for abstract thought. But they to have something which the workers lack. They possess centuries of accumulated experience behind them. They have learned their lesson. The workers have yet a larger field of experience to investigate before they learn their own lesson.

Kaye.

The Reality Doesn’t Enthuse (1942)

From the May 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The conflict now raging is unfolding many dramatic incidents, and most of us are so absorbed in observing what is transpiring in the theatre of war that we fail to note the signifiance of events taking place in other quarters. War is an industry. The means of production are now mainly utilised to produce the means of destruction: the wage slave is employed by his masters in producing and using the implements of war.

Capitalism is run for profit. War is embarked on by the capitalist class because it is considered by one capitalist group or another that this course of action is the only course open to them in the circumstances in which they find themselves. They calculate they can retain or obtain what they desire only by war.

Whilst a war is on the future is given much consideration by those who live on rent interest and profit; they try to discover a ways and means of repaying themselves for the trouble and inconvenience the war has entailed. The plans of the profit band are formulated with the above objects in view. It is well to note that neither in war nor peace does the exploiting class produce; labour applied to the natural resources of the earth brings into being all exchange values; this being the case, the recipients of profit do not give to the cost of the war anything more than they have previously wrung from the working class.

A portion of the income of the exploiter is advanced in the form of a loan to the government; during war-time profits are high in war industries, and no matter how glibly our masters may talk of the income tax ruining them, when the war is over they will be found to possess bonds, etc., worth thousands of millions of pounds, claims to the interest on vast amounts that did not exist at the beginning of hostilities. A brave new world for our masters if they can get away with it: the next generation of the working class mortgaged to capitalism. Certain patriotic gentlemen are very much disturbed by the lack of patriotic zeal shown in some circles of the wage earners. It is considered lamentable that working men should diverge from the path chosen by their masters for them to follow: they should not think of anything but striving to defeat the enemy. When the workers desire to know whether they are likely to have to go back in millions to the labour exchanges and the doles, when the lights of London shine again, the question is looked upon as bordering on sedition, but, like Banquo’s ghost, it will not down.

By means of the rationing system and the curtailment of consumption in one sphere after another, together with the contribution the wage slave is induced to make towards the war effort by means of an “income tax,” etc., the real wages of the working class are very low indeed, almost as low as they can be if efficiency is given full consideration. Real wages are food, clothing and shelter. If you live in a better house, wear better clothes, or have better and more regular food than formerly, your wages have risen; if the contrary is the case, they have fallen.

When a boy of eighteen is discovered doing a man’s work and in receipt of six or seven pounds a week, the attention of the public is drawn to the fact: it is inferred that this is wrong; it should not happen, althought the boy has earned the money; the profits of those that live by exploitation are not advertised in the same way; it is held they are morally entitled to them. The religious groups are busy trying to increase their business; the present period is considered to be a favourable one, but the working class are not responding; the parsons butt in on the radio, and are now also very much interested in getting at the children in the day schools; they profess to be very much concerned about the children’s moral welfare; the youngsters must not be allowed to grow up without any proper respect for the property rights of the master class. Moves of deep significance are taking place in the upper circle of those who wear the clerical garb; the stars who appear in the saintly show are being given new parts; Church interests must be safeguarded; they constitute the sacred property bulwark of the nation.

One of the alarming features in present day developments is the declining birth rate; our pastors and masters are agreed that the sellers of labour-power are selfish and consider only their own well being and pleasure, and fail to realise that they owe a duty to the country. A wage slave, a labourer, when questioned on this matter, answered tartly: “It doesn’t pay either the kids or us to breed ’em.” He knew what his own life had been, and he did not want to bring children into a world to undergo a like experience. It is now suggested in influential quarters that a bonus of 5s. per week should be given with each baby. How cheap we are !

The fact is that the war cannot be won for the Allies unless these receive the whole-hearted support of their working class; the working class do not display the enthusiasm the masters think they should because the wage slaves cannot see anything ahead that bids fair to improve the workers’ condition; the vision at present is a vision of what happened after the Armistice of 1918. The strange thing is that the capitalist class have nothing to offer. Capitalism has nothing within it for the working class, no matter what may be attempted, except a continuance of what it has produced heretofore.

In this extremity what will our masters do? Why, call in the Labour Leader, of course! If he is sincere, so much the better. They will advertise him, play him up, and he will make futile efforts to do the trick. So long as it is believed there is a possibility he may deliver the goods, he will bask in the sunshine of the smiles of those who count in the world of wealth and power, but when capitalism’s turn is served, or the workers fail to respond to the leader’s voice, he is likely to be cast into outer darkness. A ruling class knows how to choose and use. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Mark Antony words which clearly express the idea: —

“And though we lay these honours on this man,

To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,

He shall but bear them as an ass bears gold,

To groan and sweat under the business,

Either led or driven as we point the way,

And having brought our treasure where we will,

Then take we down his load, and turn him off,

Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,

And graze on commons.”

The fight can be won for true democracy but a brave new world can only come into being by making the means of life common property. This our masters will not do ; anything but that ; for such a move means their finish as a master class. This accounts to some extent for the psychological conflict now raging in the capitalist world. History says that we must go forward to the new social order. Our lords and masters are compelled by circumstances over which they have no control to liberate forces that move inexorably in the direction of common ownership.

After a few more years of war the peoples of the earth may look at capitalism with the eyes of understanding. As soon as the source of exploitation is made plain to the working class in general, it will be eliminated. Our task is to explain and keep in tune with the forces making for Socialism. The capitalist class are caught in the cleft of the class struggle. If they refuse to make the means of life common property and do not allow the establishment of a system of production solely for use, they will be ruthlessly thrust aside by the forces their own system has engendered. Society, in this respect resembling an organism, will struggle to maintain its existence. Society must eliminate capitalism or capitalism will eliminate society. Mankind is not going to perish—it is going forward. The working class are called upon to march in the van. Let us work unceasingly at our job until the working class declare for Socialism without equivocation and do away with the cause of war, poverty, slavery and the class struggle.

Charles Lestor