Finance and Industry: Flurry in the chicken coop (1963)

The Finance and Industry Column from the October 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Flurry in the chicken coop

 “I had three conversations with Mr. Kennedy, and each time he brought up “the subject of poultry. Is he a President or is he a chicken farmer?”

Thus Dr. Adenauer, the German chancellor, rather scathingly, about the American preoccupation with chickens. So preoccupied, in fact, that the U.S. Government announced a few days afterwards that they were prepared, if necessary, to do economic battle with the whole of the Common Market to establish their right to continue exporting broilers to Germany.

Second thoughts have taken over since then and U.S. official remarks have become much less belligerent. Some unkind critics have remarked that the thaw set in immediately members of the Six began to point out that they imported three times as much from the U.S. as the U.S. imported from them and that if there was going to be a trade war it wouldn’t be the Six who would come out worst.

But why such a fuss in the first place over a cut in, of all things, chicken imports? A cut which in any case only amounted to about $46 million, 4 per cent. of total American broiler production, and a fleabite in total exports? As usual, a small upset is only the first symptom of much more serious trouble.

What the U.S. Government is really afraid of is that the restriction on broiler imports is but a prelude to bigger cuts later on. The Common Market countries in fact import about $1,200 million of agricultural products a year from the U.S., including S370 millions of cereals. “Where will the next cuts fall?” is the American worry.

The whole disturbance, of course, is yet a further reflection of the present crisis in agriculture affecting many parts of the world, the Common Market in particular. Among the Six, France is determined to make herself the chief food provider —at the expense of the United States. At the same time, Germany must come to terms sooner or later with its high cost farmers; it can’t go on protecting them with high tariff walls unless it is prepared to see retaliation against its industrial products. And the German capitalists see the red light and are already beginning to squeal.

Only a couple of months have passed since we said that we were going to hear a lot about agriculture in the months to come. It may be the poor relation of present-day capitalism, but it is going to cause lots of trouble to the better-off members of the family before they decide what to do with it. They may end up by palming it off with a regular allowance, small, of course; or marry it off into a richer circle and make it one of themselves, big and efficient. Many of them, of course, would probably like to have it put quietly away—quite an impossibility, however, since capitalists appreciate their food even more than most.

But, by the way things are going, they will need to make a decision one way or the other before very long.

Together again

When the Allies got to work on German industry after the war, they made a brave show of doing something about the Krupps, the Thyssens, and the other steel barons. Their huge empires were broken up as “politically dangerous concentrations of political power” : never again were they to come together to threaten the peace of Europe.

The table published elsewhere on this page shows how successful all these wonderful aspirations were.

At the same time in Japan the Americans were busy dismantling the huge Mitsubishi trust. Never again was this powerful economic empire to overshadow Japanese policy and help push the country into aggressive war.

Now the three units into which the original group was broken up have just been put together again into Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. The new company will become Japan’s biggest shipbuilder and one of the biggest producers of railway rolling stock, cars, industrial machinery, and aircraft. Only Hitachi, again mentioned in our “top twenty” table, will have a larger turnover. With 77,000 workers Mitsubishi will have the biggest labour force in Japan.

Yet another example of the intrinsic drive for capitalism’s units to get bigger and bigger in spite even of difficulties deliberately put in the way.

The top twenty

Earlier this year (in our February issue) we published details of the top twenty British firms. Now Fortune, the American finance magazine, has compiled a list in its August issue of the top two hundred firms in the whole of the world, excluding the U.S. itself.

It is obviously too much for us to reproduce the full list, but readers may be interested to see the names of the top twenty. The list relates order of precedence to sales; there would be some changes in the order if net assets or net profits had been taken as the criterion. But the main pattern is here, nevertheless.

             Company Nationality Total Sales $ million

1 Royal Dutch/Shell Neth’ds/Britain 6,022

2 Unilever Britain/Neth’ds 4,136

3 National Coal Board Britain 2.490

4 B.P. Britain 2,011

5 Nestlé Switzerland 1,829

6 I.C.I. Britain 1,621

7 Volkswagen Germany 1,596

8 Philips Netherlands 1,529

9 Siemens Germany 1,350

10 Fiat Italy 1,262

11 Daimler-Benz Germany 1,176

12 Krupp Germany 1,040

13 Thyssen-Hutte Germany 1,029

14 Bayer Germany 1,004

15 Rhone-Poulenc France 992

16 Hitachi Japan 955

17 Hawker-Siddley Britain 915

18 Mannesmann Germany 915

19 British American Tobacco Britain 882

20 British Motor Corp Britain 871

An analysis of all the two hundred firms shows that 54 of them were British or had British connections; 36 were German; 31 were Japanese; and 27 were French. More than anything else, perhaps, it shows how Japan has risen to the top rank of the modern capitalist powers.

Stan Hampson

The Passing Show: The Wall (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

If we do not realise that the third world war—with its probable loss of many millions of human lives may break out at any minute, it is not the fault of our rulers. They never weary of warning us. If the third world war does come, we cannot say we have not been told of its likelihood many, many times in advance. Whether the recurrent crises are over China, or Cuba, or the U2 planes, or Berlin—to name only a few current head-liners—the leaders of the Western and Eastern blocs never miss a chance to tell us that this is exactly the kind of behaviour—by the other side— that could well lead to the ultimate explosion. And these speeches and warnings are not simply fortuitous. They are part of the necessary conditioning of the workers in all parts of the world to the idea that war may come at any moment, so that if it does come they will once again be prepared to go out and sacrifice their lives in defence of their masters’ profits.

The wall

The Berlin wall is high up on the list of the pretexts which the great powers are keeping warm as excuses for a third world war when they decide it will be in their interests to have one. For a pretext is all the wall could be.

Let us see what both sides say about it. The Western bloc say it has been wantonly built by the East Germans right across the middle of Berlin, dividing German from German, in order to prevent East Germans fleeing to the west. The Eastern bloc says that the wall is a deplorable necessity, which had to be built to fence off West Berlin, since it had been turned into a nest of spies and agents-provocateurs. Both sides agree that the wall is regrettable and unnatural, but each blames the other for its erection.

Frontiers

In fact, there is nothing unnatural about the wall. Frontiers, which divide the world up into segments, are a natural concomitant of capitalism. All capitalist states, whether their frontiers are old-established or newly-drawn, erect fences to keep their own people in and “foreigners” out. Where frontiers are changed, through wars or treaties, defences are soon put up along the new lines. And anyone trying to cross the frontier without the necessary papers and permissions will find himself treated as roughly as anyone caught on the Berlin wall, especially if the two powers on either side of the frontier happen to be hostile to each other. The only thing that is “unnatural” about the Berlin wall is that such a long time elapsed before it was built to mark the new frontier. There are reasons for that, of course; the East German rulers hoped for a long time that they could extend their sway over West Germany as well, while the West German leaders hoped to bring East Germany under their control. The building of the Berlin wall marks the abandonment, or the postponement, of these hopes by the East German regime.

The same language

The Western bloc makes great play with the fact that the wall divides German-speaking people from other German-speaking people. This, of course, is nothing unusual. The Franco-Belgian frontier divides French-speaking people from each other; the Belgian-Dutch frontier divides Dutch-speaking people from each other; the Swiss frontier cuts across areas of German-speaking people, of Italian-speaking people, of French-speaking people. The majority of frontiers in South America divide Spanish-speaking people from each other.

In Africa, the great powers in the last century cut up the continent among themselves without the slightest reference to the wishes or language of the inhabitants, so that there are now very few frontiers in Africa which do not cut across the old tribal or speech-group lines. For the capitalist power-groups of the world —East and West—to make public professions of regret at the carving of Germany and Berlin into two pieces is sheer hypocrisy.

Divided world

Socialists oppose the Berlin wall for the same reasons that they oppose every other capitalist-made frontier—that it divides the people of the world from each other. So much emphasis is placed on whether a man is a Frenchman or a German or an African that it is often forgotten that he is primarily a human being. Socialists oppose state frontiers because they keep human beings apart; frontiers will cease to exist under Socialism. It is just as iniquitous to build barbed-wire fortifications manned with troops and police to keep Frenchmen and Germans apart as it is to keep Germans from each other. As so often happens when the issues of the day are probed more deeply, it becomes clear that it is useless to oppose the manifestations of capitalism while supporting capitalism itself. For the wall is merely a symptom of the class-divided, and therefore frontier-divided, world which produced it.

Alwyn Edgar

The Passing Show: The Psychologist (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Psychologist

 

Psychology has the answer to all the world’s problems. If only we all became psychologists, if only we all studied psychology and learned to understand the hidden springs of each other’s actions, then the difficulties and injustices of society would all melt away.

No doubt psychology has its part to play in the modern world, at least under capitalism. Certainly many individuals have been and can be helped by psychiatric treatment. But, wars, exploitation, poverty, and unemployment, arise not from any defects in man which could be cured by psychology; they arise from capitalism, and the resulting break-up of society into irreconcilable classes.

If you don’t believe that, you may care to reflect on conditions in what is perhaps the only country in the world which has a psychologist at the head of affairs. It is the near-Fascist republic of South Africa. Dr. Verwoerd, the Prime Minister, is a former Professor of Applied Psychology at Stellenbosch University. But the people of South Africa are not any better off for that. Dr. Verwoerd is the representative of the ruling landed and farming class of South Africa, and he and his Government run the country in the interests of that class. The fact that he is also one of the country’s leading psychologists makes no difference whatever to conditions in South Africa.

Mosley

Whatever may be the right way to deal with Mosley, to go along to his meetings and knock him down is merely foolishness. Firstly, it gives him and his party country-wide publicity in press, radio and television. Secondly, it is resorting to the very weapon—violence—that Fascists and Nazis prefer above all others. Violence is what they plan for, what they train for, what they hope for. To reduce political argument to the level of people knocking each other down in the street is to descend to methods which the Fascists and Nazis would probably use better than any others. As for Socialism, violence is totally irrelevant, even if there were no other objection to it; for the establishment of Socialism depends on an educated working class, which really understands what goes on in the world. Our weapons are argument, knowledge, and reason. Anyone with an understanding of the Socialist case would have no difficulty in pricking Mosley’s bubble.

Race-hatred

Equally irrelevant is the measure now proposed by some MPs of all three large parties to ban incitement to race-hatred. Acts of Parliament cannot kill ideas. If the ruling class of this country decided to bring in the Fascist form of capitalism, or a near-totalitarian system such as our rulers introduced in the last war, no Act of Parliament could stop them. It has been said before, but it will bear repeating, that the only sure safeguard against Fascism is the establishment of Socialism.

In fact, many of those now agitating for a Bill “against race-hatred” were in the forefront of affairs in the last war, writing articles and making speeches which had the single aim of inciting race-hatred against the Germans, Italians, and Japanese. If such a law as they now propose had been in existence from 1939 to 1945, they themselves would have been its most frequent transgressors. And in any future war, whether “conventional” or nuclear, we shall (if there is time) have to listen to the usual flood of propaganda inciting race-hatred against the Russians, or whoever the “enemy” happens to be. And any law there may be which makes incitement to race-hatred illegal will either be repealed or ignored by our rulers.

Militarism

This war-time propaganda is, of course, intended for us, the workers, only; it is hard to believe that the ruling classes of the world fool themselves. For example, the Anglo-American line in the last war was that the Germans and the Japanese were incurably militaristic, that they loved uniforms, drilling, and fighting, and that they rushed into the army at the least opportunity. This, we were told, was one of the “real reasons” for the war. At the end of the last war, the American ruling class insisted, as it had to do if it was to be consistent, that the Japanese should adopt a constitution which renounced totally and for ever any armed forces. But, of course, the realities of capitalism soon caught up with America. Within a few years the American capitalists saw that their next enemy would probably be Russia, and that Japan was almost certain to be America’s ally in that war. So, against strong Japanese opposition, the Americans themselves insisted on Japan renouncing its American-sponsored constitution, and setting up again a strong army, navy and air force.

Endanger the alliance

This, of course, is now history. But exactly the same thing is currently happening with those other “incurable militarists,” the Germans. The German capitalist class has made immense profits since the war, helped by the fact that they have not had to pay very much out on armaments. The German rulers feared attack only from Russia; such an attack, they thought, was almost impossible because the United States would immediately counter-attack with atom-bombs. But the American capitalists have been getting increasingly unhappy about having to shoulder the burden of Germany’s arms-spending as well as their own. Germany already has 350,000 men under arms, and has been persuaded to try to raise this figure to 500,000; but now the Americans are urging Germany to increase the Bundeswehr to a strength of 700,000. This suggestion, however, is very unpopular in German official circles. The German ruling class would much rather go on keeping its large profits and letting the Americans find most of the money for the arms build-up against Russia. In particular, they are relying on the American H-bombs in any future war. In a recent television broadcast, Herr Strauss, the west German Defence Minister, criticized the idea that Western Europe could rely on conventional weapons alone, and said that the theory that the United States would use its nuclear weapons only if American territory were attacked was false. But what he said next showed that he really meant he hoped it was false: “If this were the official view in Washington,” he said, “it would endanger the (Nato) alliance.”

So the present position is that the German ruling class is doing its best to avoid having to build up its armed forces, while America is doing its best to persuade it to do just that. It all seems a very long way from the propaganda we had thrust down our throats in the last war.

Alwyn Edgar

The Passing Show: The Same Everywhere (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Same Everywhere

The Balance of Payments. Four words which have meant a headache for every British government for umpteen years. “Our” gold and dollar reserves are too low. “Our” imports are too high. “We” are paying ourselves more than “we” are earning. “We” are heavily in debt. And so the moans go on and on. So much so that you could be forgiven for thinking that it is a peculiarly British situation, almost as if the rest of the world was flowing with milk and honey for the average inhabitant. Well, let’s take a look at it.

First of all, if you’re thinking that high exports and a favourable balance of trade mean that we could all sit back and relax, a little bit of history reading will do much to dispel that notion. Indeed, at a time when Britain was just about the most powerful nation in the world, ruling the waves militarily and commercially, working people lived under the most shocking conditions. But come a little more up-to-date if you like, and remember that only a few years ago West Germany had a gigantic balance of trade surplus (“embarrassingly large” one commentator once called it), yet her workers had to struggle just as hard for improvements in wages and conditions, and there have been some really bitter strikes there in recent times.

And today? The German capitalists have been getting jittery about the state of their economy. According to Chancellor Erhard, wages have been rising too fast (it’s always too fast—never too slow), since 1963 by 8½ per cent, while productivity has gone up by only four per cent. He has not been slow to threaten Wilson-like measures: —

. . .  we still have things under control. However, if we let them drift, then the same will have to happen to us, that is, a wages freeze, a prices freeze, a considerable rise in the cost of living, indeed even partial balance of payments control. (Guardian, 6/8/66)

It has been favourite with some people to recommend that British workers take a leaf out of their German brothers' book and work as hard. Doesn’t seem to have made much difference, does it? The cry for them, as for us, is still “work harder and pull your belts in!”

Just to show you that capitalism’s problems are similar, wherever you go, let us take another example, this time from one of the “poorer” countries—a rising power since the end of the war. India. There the government has published its fourth five-year plan, envisaging some £10,000 millions investment; yet even if it comes to fruition, the planners admit it will mean:—

. . . every Indian will have a bare two metres more of cloth each year, and three ounces more of food each day.

Not much to write home about? Ah, but even this miserable achievement has a backhanded slap to accompany it.

A massive export drive, if necessary by curbing consumption at home, and Additional taxation . . . are considered essential. (Guardian, 30/8/66)

This, by the way, is one of the countries figuring prominently in the Oxfam appeals, and there is no doubt about the poverty, squalor and starvation of many millions of its inhabitants. But developing Indian capitalism is interested in this only incidentally. Its prime concern is the sale of its goods on the world market. And if this means that the Indian workers have to make do with even less than they get now, the government and employers will not shed many tears—except a few crocodile ones.

Want to be a Postman?

There is a delightfully colourful set of brochures which you can get from any post office, listing the delights of a career with the G.P.O. Read it, and discover that when you work as a postman you “enjoy” such perks as “ a safe job” and “a steady wage”, to say nothing of “an easy mind” and “a friendly atmosphere”. Just think, at 23 and over, you can earn the princely sum of £15 11 s. a week, basic, if you work within four miles radius of Charing Cross, and the opportunity to work overtime.

Perhaps like me, you have your doubts about the adequacy of such a wage, especially if you have a wife and children to think about. But, of course, you can’t expect the Post Office to introduce such a discordant note into their literature, which reads like a song of self-praise from beginning to end. In fact, if everything in the postman’s garden is so lovely, why you may ask, does the G.P.O. have to try so hard to entice you into it with such garish and elaborately printed leaflets?

The answer lies not so much in what has been said as in what has been left out. Shift work in all weathers, for example. And the fact that even the present miserable rate of £15 11s. a week has been won only after a determined strike two or three years ago—the first in the Post Office for more than, half a century. The G.P.O. leaflet is typical of much of the stuff you will find in the Situations Vacant column of any newspaper. No employer, particularly in times of labour shortage, is going to lead off with a list of snags. They will become obvious only when you start working for him. Then, in the manner of Orwell “interesting” becomes “boring” and you find that those “gd. wages and conds” are not really enough after all.

But that’s the outcome of a wages system. No matter what honeyed words your employer uses, your wages are always a problem to him, and to you, too.

Thoughts on Crime

But not very deep ones. I’m afraid, from the Evening Standard leader writer of August 24. He was no doubt prompted by the recent outbreaks of violent crime, and gently chided Lord Butler and the present Home Secretary, Mr. Jenkins, for their “bafflement over the causes of crime in an affluent society”. Yet for all the contribution to our knowledge in this particular editorial, the writer might just as well have left his pen in his pocket.

He makes some sweeping and quite unsupported assertions in his attempts to cover this pressing problem in about 10 column inches, and ends up just as much without a real answer as when he started. “Man is a basically aggressive and pugnacious animal,” he writes, but gives no evidence for this, or for his quite startling suggestion that the object of wars, military training, etc., is to provide a safety valve for the pent-up feelings of bored youngsters.

This editorial caught my eye for its complete refusal to ask one simple question—why? If young people are bored, what is the reason, especially in a rapidly changing world? Isn’t the prospect of a lifetime of wage work enough to make anyone bored? And what do people fight about anyway? This is the question the writer should have begun by asking, but never did. We agree with him that poverty is not the cause of crime, though it may aggravate the situation at times. People fight and knock each other about for very material reasons, when you get down to the bottom of things. Over private property, in fact.

The outbreak of violence is just one aspect of the general competitive struggle which affects each one of us throughout his life. We are all jockeying for economic elbow room, and on the international field, this throws whole nations against each other in massive armed conflict. That, by The Evening Standard’s criteria, should be classified as the biggest and most violent crime of all, involving wholesale murder and robbery, yet the editorial never touched it. A crime, apparently, is a crime when it does not have the blessing of your own ruling class. Rob and murder on their behalf, and you might even get a medal for it. Under any other circumstances, a nice long stretch behind bars.

Gaspers

"The Treasury has received several hundred pounds in cash contributions from members of the public since the Prime Minister announced his measures to deal with the economic crisis.”

(Guardian, 12/8/66)

"I won't retire—I wouldn’t know what to do all day.” (Mr. H. Jennings, winner of over £92,000 in Vernons Pools. Daily Mail Advert, 18/8/66)

‘The pressure of events is remorselessly leading towards a major war, while efforts to reverse that trend are lagging disastrously behind.” (U Thant’s statement to the United Nations, 1/9/66)

“The government spent £3,600,000 in assisting the Potato Marketing Board to take potatoes off the market and push up prices for the remainder last year . . .

(Daily Telegraph, 26/8/66)

Eddie Critchfield

Editorial: Tobacco workers' dilemma (1953)

Editorial from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the annual conference of the Tobacco Workers' Union, held in London in June, the delegates were discussing unemployment which has recently increased in the industry. The president of the Union, Mr. D. G. Bowry, drew attention to a problem affecting tobacco workers.

“In a number of our factories we have had to endure short time. We have seen the elimination of certain smaller manufacturers with certain dismissals of staff. Yet we are told that if we are to survive we must produce more. It seems to me that we in our industry are tossing up with a double-headed penny. If we produce more we are faced with redundancy, and if we produce less we are faced with the same medicine.”—(Manchester Guardian, 12th June, 1953.)

The point was neatly put; but Mr. Bowry did not state the problem fully and did not offer a solution.

Stating the problem fully he would have included all industries everywhere, not merely the tobacco industry in this country. He would not have called the factories “ours,” for in no country do the factories belong to the workers or to the community as a whole; in all countries all industries, including those run on nationalised capitalist lines, are run for profit not solely for use.

Consequently it is all workers, in all countries, who are tossing up with the double-headed penny. If they produce too little they get the sack; if they produce too much they work some of their number out of their jobs. And if they follow a happy mean their fate is just the same whenever an industry (or all industries) suffers from one of capitalism's chaotic phases of “overproduction” in relation to the market as did textiles last year. Nowhere at all are the workers free from poverty and safe against insecurity.

This is not what the workers are told. All governments and employers, and many labour leaders, tell the workers that if they produce more they will be better off and will be safeguarding themselves against unemployment.

As it happened, a day or two after the Tobacco Workers’ conference the Sunday Express (14 June) published an article by Dr. Ludwig Erhard, Minister for Economic Affairs in the West German government. In it Dr. Erhard offered to Britain and the British workers the advice he offers to the workers in Germany. Recently, “travelling in his fast Mercedes car he went round the Ruhr urging more steel production," and he would tell the British workers:—

“ It is no use for a working man to say, ‘I’m safe whether I work hard or not.’ It is no use saying: 'I won’t go without food even if I’m not worth a job ’ . . . But I would also add this: If you work hard you should eat well. If you eat well, you will work.”

Dr. Erhard thinks that British industry has nothing to fear from German competition as “there is room in the world for both British and German exports." He notes just one difference between Britain and Germany: “ our men work harder and faster.”

But one thing Dr. Erhard forgot to mention is that in West Germany there were at the end of March 1,392,870 registered unemployed!

So far what we have said could only strengthen Mr. Bowry in his conviction that we live in a hard, cruel world, for we have not yet attended to the remark he made at the end of his speech, that he would be “quite happy to hear the solution to this dilemma."

We are quite happy to supply the solution though surprised that among those tobacco workers there was nobody able to do so on the spot.

The dilemma glimpsed by Mr. Bowry is just an aspect, an inevitable one, of capitalism. And the only cure for capitalism is Socialism.

If, as so often happens, the tobacco workers hear the solution and then dismiss it from their minds on the ground that Socialism calls for a radical change of thought and action and is therefore difficult to grasp and endorse, they should remember that that difficulty will be as nothing compared with the miseries of poverty, unemployment and war they will undoubtedly suffer if they go on hoping that social reforms and Labour Governments and nationalised capitalism will get them out of the mess they are in.

Dear Old Pals. The Anglo-German line up (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well! Well! So the Germans are Britain’s Allies now! Dr. Adenauer himself has said “it is astonishing.”

“Britain and Germany have signed a treaty to defend one another instead of attacking each other "—(Sunday Express, 24/10/54.)

It must be a great comfort to the people. After two most frightful wars to smash Germany down, the capitalists of Britain and America are now intent on building Western Germany up.

Those past the half-century mark, with a moment to spare for introspection, may well recall the scenes of days gone by. “Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag!” “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” The Recruiting Office in Whitehall packed with jostling crowds fighting to get into the army first. The Derby Scheme with its armlet, German bakers' shops looted. “ Society ladies chasing about with white feathers. The Great Shell Shortages! Lloyd-George! Minister of Munitions.

The 1915 disasters, Lloyd-George, Prime Minister 

The same Sunday newspaper which reported the news of the Anglo-German Alliance is serialising a new biography of David Lloyd-George.

“To-day’s episode tells of a military disaster which caused grief and misery in nearly four hundred thousand British homes.”

It is the story of Passchendaele, the most stupid and disastrous blunder of the 1918 war.

Four hundred thousand men floundered through mud knee-deep to their doom, trying to capture a piece of land the size of Green Park, Piccadilly.

This was the area at which Haig’s Chief of Staff, Kiggel, visiting the scene after the battle, broke down and wept, sobbing “Good God! did we really send men to fight in that”

That same Passchendaele of which Siegfried Sassoon wrote:

“If I were bald, and fat, and short of breath 

I’d live with scarlet majors at the base 

And speed glum heroes up the line to death 

You’d see me with my puffy petulant face 

Gulping and guzzling in the best hotel 

Poor young chap. I’d say, I knew his father well.

Yes! we lost heavily in that last scrap 

And when war was o’er and youth stone-dead 

I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed ”

Months afterwards, years afterwards, Lloyd-George was asked, if he knew how idiotic Haig and Robertson really were, why he did not sack them out of hand. In his Memoirs he said he dared not take the risk, when the Press were supporting the High Command, which might have required a General Election.

This explanation may satisfy Mr. Owen and some of his readers. It will not do for Socialists. The Socialist Party has a very vivid recollection of those war years.

It was during 1915 and '16 when Haig was “speeding glum heroes up the line to death" that our public meetings were smashed up by hysterically-patriotic members of the British working class.

The self-same violently nationalistic propaganda-drunk workers who cheered Haig’s ludicrous military blunders—booed the Socialist Party speakers who stood up to say that the war was for profits, and would bring workers nothing but disaster.

While nearly a million British soldiers staggered through a sea of mud in Belgium a tiny handful tried to fight through the sea of lies at home—the odds proved too great—the Socialist Party did the only thing possible, stood down until a few more workers came to their senses.

This is the real explanation of those harrowing events. Even two years afterwards, Lloyd-George could still win an election on “Homes for Heroes,” “Make Germany Pay,” and “ Hang the Kaiser,” though the victory was short lived. The political ignorance of the working-class was the ground upon which Haig could hound them to death.

It was this ignorance which blinded workers to their own interests. Understanding nothing of class society, the majority of workers thought they had something to gain from the defeat of Germany. They thought it their interest to prevent German capitalists acquiring British trade. Most of them thought their employers their benefactors—not their exploiters. In brief, knowing nothing of Socialism they supported Capitalism—and inevitably its wars.

Lloyd-George’s election stunts became notorious. The mere mention of “‘Homes for Heroes” got laughs for years, but, after many twists and turns, Baldwin, Ramsay Mac, Chamberlain and Co., the same old routine started all over again.

The same blunders were repeated in 1939/45 by military commanders who must not be mentioned because they have not yet “died in bed.” 1939, a change of labels—but basically the same—and a working class which still did not know that society is divided into two classes, with opposing interests, marched, or now, was rushed, to the shambles in fast trucks.

By now, science had “improved” war. No need to rush to the front, the aeroplane dropped it on you. Still, the workers support their masters, although 60,000 registered objection to the war.

And now, after two doses, Britain and Germany are Allies, “pledged to defend each other against a common aggressor.” What again? Yes! All over again.

And will all those who marched to smash Germany and “make her pay” rise up as one man in burning indignation at the futile squandering of life and wealth in two past wars, and cry aloud—"We will not fight for Germany, and mock our fallen comrades?”

They will not.

Until such time as a sizeable number of workers are Socialists, the people remain hydrogen-bomb dust for the modern Douglas Haigs.

Horatio.

The Cynicism of Capitalism: 2: Partners Wanted (1972)

From the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The company’s prospectus is a colourful document of orange, red, yellow and gold paper. Pages are perforated by cut-outs of hearts. If all this seems a bit unusual, the prospectus offering is more so, as The Guardian (17th January) revealed. It is an invitation to the West German public by Kohle Liengeschaften to purchase limited partnership in an operation currently consisting of brothels in Konstanz, a town on Germany’s Swiss border, and Kaiserslautern which is near Mannheim and a NATO base.

“The oldest profession in the world is also the solidest,” the Company says on the cover of the prospectus. And an accompanying letter to potential investors suggests that purchasing a partnership in the enterprise “is an investment worth while because Irma La Douce never has a recession.”

The profession may have been around for a long time but it is believed that the Kohle venture is the first time capital has been publicly — and legally — raised in West Germany for an enterprise of this kind. And the financial enticements are substantial since the company is guaranteeing a minimum annual return of 9 per cent. “This is a better investment than stock,” asserts Herr Kohle, founder and managing director.

In Germany prostitution is considered a social necessity. The administration generally approves the existence of bordellos on the ground that they keep prostitutes off the streets (brothel bedrooms are officially referred to as places of work). So accepted is the profession in fact that there is even a slickly-written travel guide to West German brothels and red-light districts that lists each house and its location on a city-by-city basis and rates the house according to parking facilities, prices, service and amenities.

Prostitution is not a new venture for Kohle Liengeschaften. The real estate operation currently derives its income from renting small apartments to prostitutes and from concessionaires such as the night-club operators at the Kaiserslautern facility. The company, Herr Kohle emphasises, receives no direct part of any prostitutes earnings. Herr Kohle says that there are currently forty-seven “lady tenants” at Kaiserslautern and thirty-five at Konstanz. Generally, he says, a girl stays for three or four years. How long she stays usually depends upon whether she is making money and whether she feels secure.

The brothels are advantageously situated. The Kaiserslautern operation is the only one of its kind near the NATO base, while the Konstanz operation is near a casino and just across the border from Switzerland, where prostitution is illegal. The brothels’ “lady tenants” are checked by the management for police records, among other things. "We don’t take all the girls who apply,” Herr Kohle says. “For example, we don’t want wild women.” The girls, he adds, come from all over Europe. In return, the girls sign rental contracts for an indefinite period. In addition to protection, Herr Kohle says the company also provides apartments at Kaiserslautern where the girls’ relatives can stay when they visit. He adds that the company is also considering construction of a separate facility next year at Kaiserslautern for children of the prostitutes. These features, Herr Kohle says, offer the girls some security and "take some of the harshness out of the profession”.

Herr Kohle’s “new style” operations have borne financial fruit. So far nearly £600,000 in limited partnerships has been purchased by 120 to 130 investors. The limited partnerships are sold in £5,500 units. However, to attract the small investor and to provide anonymity, several investors may each put up £550 and pool their investments to make the minimum for a partnership unit. According to its prospectus, Kohle Liengeschaften is currently offering equity capital equivalent to £1 million or about £150,000 less than the estimated market value of the two properties. By the end of 1973 the company hopes to have eight brothels in Germany and Austria. To reach this goal he says about £4.5 million will have to be raised.

The company is advertising in newspapers and is selling partnerships through investment consultants and through its own sales office, which includes some former IOS Mutual Fund salesmen. Herr Kohle is a 43-year- old entrepreneur who is also in the construction and investment business and says that he put together Kohle Liengeschaften because "there was still room for adventure” in his life. He says he is optimistic about the future of the venture. “Prostitution has weathered all the storms over the past 2,000 years without a crisis and I don’t see one now unless the human race changes,” he says.

Here we have an example of the mentality that views all things as commodities, including the female sexual capacity. The brothel in this case is the market place, the buyers desirous males. Herr Kohle need fear no change in the human race, but he has left out of his calculation the fact that a section of the human race — the working-class section — will change conditions and, as a consequence, will change the behaviour of the human race. This is a change that will remove the commodity status from society and thus eliminate all forms of prostitution — and prevent the likes of him from exploiting women.

R. Ambridge

The Passing Show: Houses (1952)

The Passing Show Column from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Houses

We hear a lot about the housing shortage. Officially, housing is considered to be adequate when there is one room per person in a household; though anyone who has to live in a household where six persons are crammed into a six-roomed house may be excused for supposing that the official who arrived at this conclusion has never had a similar experience. But the last census shows that more than a quarter of the total population lives in households where not even this ratio is attained—where there is not even one room per each member of the household.

This is, however, only one side of the picture. There is another, and a happier, side. For like food-rationing, the housing shortage is a problem that affects one class in the country only—the poorer class, the working class. Just as the rich have never needed ration books—the restaurants and hotels have always been able to provide them with all the food they wanted without rationing—so have they never needed to put their names at the bottom of the housing lists. For the question the social system asks of the house-hunter is not "How badly off are you for accommodation? ” but “How much capital have you got?” If, like most people, you have none, you can join the housing queue; but if you have five or six thousand at your command the estate agents will fall over themselves offering you desirable residences with all mod con. Take one issue of The Times—for example, that of August 5th. Here there are a hundred houses and more offered for sale; there are none below £1,000, and only one or two below £3,000, the prices of most being from £5,000 up to £35,000. But supposing there was a worker so frugal that out of his wage of £6 or £7 a week he managed to put away £1 each and every week, even when he was out of work through illness or "redundancy"; how long would it take him to save up £5,000 for one of these desirable properties? If he began saving now, he would have his five thousand in the year 2052. This scheme, though, like all schemes for the amelioration of the working class under Capitalism, has its drawback: the snag in this case is that the worker would almost certainly be dead in 2052. 

Personal Column

While you are looking in The Times for your house, turn to the Personal Column. Here you will find houses for sale at £10,000, houses or flats to rent at £20 a week (e.g., 31.7.52). Here you will come across a number of other items which might lead you to suspect that the Labour Party’s claim to have taxed the rich out of existence is exaggerated. On July 29th there was an advert, inserted by someone who had £100,000 to spare to buy a drapery business; on July 23rd there was offered for sale a book-publishing business for the same sum. Then on July 31st a gentleman going to Scotland for a month wanted a “chauffeur-loader-handyman”; in other words, besides being able to go on holiday for a month himself, he could afford to take a servant along. And students of the rate of interest after six years’ Labour Government will be interested in the following item, which appeared on August 2nd: 

Torquay.—Sound investment offered; 12 new proprietary 4-berth caravans £4,250; net £800 yearly income guaranteed.—Write box . . .

The happy purchaser will be able to rake in £16 a week net, this being a return of nearly 19 per cent., at the expense of the twelve unfortunate families who have to pay what must be high rents for caravans.

Korea

As the war continues in Korea, the headlines still say “No progress in truce talks.” What discussions still go on are now largely taken up with arguments about how to translate “United Nations” into Korean. But each side claims that deadlock has been reached because of the intransigeant attitude of the other side in the matter of the return of the Korean and Chinese prisoners held by the so-called “United Nations” forces. It is certainly difficult for the impartial observer to decide whether these prisoners would be worse off in North Korea under the Stalinists or in South Korea under Syngman Rhee. One thing is clear: whichever part of the country finally gets them, their social position as propertyless workers will be exactly the same. North of the firing line or south of it, the social system is capitalist, and will continue to be so for as long as the present sets of rulers hold power.

The Koreans

Each world group maintains that its forces went into Korea to defend the Koreans against aggression and to uphold their liberties. But while each side poured men and arms into the country, both nominally in defence of the inhabitants, what actually happened to the Koreans? At the meeting in Toronto of the International Red Cross, it was stated that ten million people had been driven from their homes, and another million were permanently injured or had disappeared (Times, 4.8.52). And this in a country the total population of which is only nineteen million!

Woe betide any people when the power-blocs of the world decide that its liberties and independence are in danger.

Wage-freeze

At the end of July the engineering employers turned down the claim of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions for a £2 a week increase in pay. Two of the reasons they gave are worthy of note. The rise in the cost of living, they said, had been partly offset by higher family allowances. This reinforces the Socialist case that family allowances are in effect merely one of the devices of the employers to keep down wages. In fact, a given sum paid as family allowances is worth more to the employers than the same sum paid in the wage-packet. For wages are paid at the same level irrespective of whether the worker is married or has any children to keep. But family allowances go solely to the man who has a sizeable family to support, and thus allay discontent among that very section of the working class who would be the hardest hit and therefore the first to complain when the cost of living rose. In this way family allowances act to keep the general wage level down.

Germany and Japan

And, secondly, the engineering employers pointed out that the industry was faced with a revival of competition from Germany and Japan. This competition, which is no doubt a very real menace to British capitalists, leads the worker only to speculate on the uselessness of war. For as soon as Germany and Japan were defeated, the ruling classes of Britain and the United States decided that the real danger to their overseas markets and sources of raw material now came from Russia and her allies. After the first world war it was fifteen years before Germany rearmed. This time it has taken only seven years, and Germany is rearming at the instance of her late enemies. Rearmament is impossible without flourishing heavy industries. So the last war, while it halted Germany’s aggrandisement for a time, and while it provided British industry with orders for a time, was only a temporary palliative. In order to prepare for a third world war, British Capitalism has now to watch the resuscitation of its German rival.

Militarism

What of the workers, who were exhorted to fight Germany in the last war under the pretence that the real fight was not so much against the German state as against the Nazis and German militarism? If this tale ever carried credence, it should do so no longer, as more and more reports come in of the Nazis and militarists, once supposed to be defeated, still in the seats of office in Germany. The Krupp family were prominent among the industrialist supporters of Hitler; on August 4th it wasreported that the Villa Hugel, the Krupp family home, was being derequisitioned, and that Herr Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was building a new house in the grounds—this while many of the British houses destroyed by Krupp armaments are still unreplaced. On August 8th an article in The Times, remarking on the difficulties encountered by the Israeli-German conference on reparations, contained the following comment:

“Some of the Jewish delegates had themselves suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazis and before sitting down to the same table with the Germans had to submit to the difficult process of sinking their own feelings—a process which was not made easier by the fact that some of the German delegates themselves had been members of the Nazi Party or had worked in the German Foreign Office under Ribbentrop.”

In the same paper, on the same day, a letter appeared from Randolph Churchill attacking a suggestion that “no former German officer should be allowed to serve in the German contingent of the European Defence Community,” on the unusual ground that it was un-Christian. Well, perhaps; but if this proposal is un-Christian, it doesn't say much for Christianity. And finally, General Sir John Harding, one of the NATO European commanders, and next year’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff, has said, “I think that German military thinking will contribute immensely to Western defence.” Obviously, if Randolph Churchill and General Harding have anything to do with it, the old gang of German militarists will be fully employed in the expected struggle against the Russians.

So anyone who thought we were fighting against “German militarism” in the last war will have to think again.

Nationalisation

From The Times, 31.7.52:

“Russian armed guards are to-day reported to be patrolling the power station at Amstetten, Lower Austria, to prevent its being taken over by the Newag—the Lower Austria Electrical Supply Corporation — in accordance with the federal nationalisation law."

But if nationalisation is supposed to be to the advantage of the workers, why are the Stalinists denying its benefits to the Austrian workers?

Alwyn Edgar

The Passing Show: May Day, May Day (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day, May Day

Definitions: (1) A radio distress signal, repeated at rapid intervals, for ships at sea. (2) A working class distress signal, repeated at yearly intervals. It's the second definition which concerns us. You want me to justify it? Of course it’s not the way that Labourites and other left wingers will look at it when they assemble once again this year for their processions. To them it will be a fine opportunity to make the usual protestations of “solidarity’’, “peace”, “progress" and so on, with workers abroad which, for all the fire and eloquence with which they may be delivered, will be vague, empty, and not worth the ink that's used to print them in the next day’s newspapers.

May Day demonstrations began with the passing of a resolution by the Second International Working Men’s Association in 1889 to set aside the First of May as a workers holiday, so that mass demonstrations could be made to affirm the international solidarity of labour. But solidarity for what? Workers may have avowed such solidarity in 1889, but there was precious little of it in 1914, except perhaps in the only place where nationality didn’t count—in the grave. It has been the same story many times since then to some extent or another, yet down the years the farce of the May Day ritual has been observed.

But a “distress signal” I called it. Well, take a look at some of the things they will be talking about this time. Vietnam? Wages? The Bomb? Pensions? Housing? A superficial conclusion might be that the scope of May Day has broadened since the early days, yet really all these issues can be put under the headings of War and The Poverty of Labour, both inseparable from capitalism and very distressing indeed. Taken collectively they represent a massive S.O.S., a cry for help from a working class floundering in a sea of bewilderment. But the orators who thump the tubs in Hyde Park and elsewhere are just as ignorant as the listening crowds of the way to answer the cry. There is a lifeline which is there for the grasping, but it cannot be thrown by such as the Labour and Communist Parties; it is the lifeline of Socialist knowledge. When the working class have reached out for that, in no time at all they can haul themselves high, dry and safe, to a new world.

Sing, Bing

The wheel has turned a full cycle and Mr. Geoffrey Bing, Q.C. is back in Britain again. This is the man who was once Labour MP for Hornchurch and who climbed aboard the Ghanaian bandwagon when it began to roll some years ago, becoming Dr. Nkrumah’s principal legal adviser. He wasn't the only one to support that vicious and repressive regime of course, but although the two press interviews he gave at the end of March were noteworthy for the evasiveness of his replies to questions, at least he did say something. The other individuals and organisations in this country who hailed the new state, and incidentally sneered at us for refusing it our blessing, have all been conspicuously silent.

Now, what did our ex-Labour hero have lo say when he got back home? If we accept his version at its face value, whoever was to blame for the disturbing things that went on during Nkrumah's reign, it was certainly not Mr. Bing. He was “not there” when the notorious Preventive Detention Bill was announced in the Ghana Parliament. He was “ill” at the time of Nkrumah’s removal of the Chief Justice, and so on . . . He didn’t say what he was doing in November 1963, when the Preventive Detention Act was amended to increase considerably the government’s already harsh powers. He does seem to have learned, though, how unpleasant prison can be (“the actual physical conditions of prisons in Ghana are deplorable”), and how nasty it is to be “manhandled by soldiers” (his wife had that experience). Perhaps some of the five-year detainees could have told him all about those sorts of things if they’d been let out in time. However, that’s the snag with supporting dictatorships; the boomerang sometimes hits you before you have time to get out of the way.

“I have supported ideas and not individuals,” said Mr. Bing on March 28 in a final disclaimer. Ah, yes. Thats the crux of the whole matter, and if Mr. Bing had not said it, we would have had to say it for him. indeed he has supported ideas, and always the wrong ones just like every other Labour MP. True, not every member of his former party would be a deliberate supporter of dictatorships just like that, but so long as capitalism lasts, there is always the threat of it sometime, somewhere. And no capitalist politician can ever be entirely above suspicion in that respect. Even the best of intentions are derided and destroyed in the capitalist jungle, so that the democrat of today (perhaps without realising it at the time) is often a trainee for the dictatorship of tomorrow.

This is where we came in

Take heart, Lord Robens and others Who supported nationalisation of the mines in 1947. You think you have problems with falling coal demand and competition from oil? Well, so have others: this time it’s the West German coal owners who are running into trouble and are actually being paid by their government to take pits out of production. On March 17th, The Guardian described the Bonn government’s actions as “. . . measures . . . designed to help the coal industry to adjust itself to the realities of industrial life.” Which is a nice way of saying “no profit—no production”, no matter if some people do go short of warmth this winter. Incidentally, it does illustrate one point contrary to Tory claims; and that is that the profitability of an industry is not realty affected by whether it’s nationalised. It’s the current market conditions that count.

But don’t get too shocked or surprised at the news from Germany, will you. Governments often act in this way. A few years back, the British textile industry got the treatment, and before that American agriculture. Yet there are plenty of ill clothed and ill fed people around, aren’t there? Profit is the raison d'etre as far as capitalism is concerned, not human need.

Gaspers

“Just because you caught me polishing my Rolls-Royce doesn’t mean I’m a Tory. I'll vote Labour.” (Man at Morden Hill. Guardian report 16.3.66.)

‘‘While we act to suppress the ugly activities, if anyone dies we shall not be bothered." (Indian Premier Mrs. Gandhi. 16.3.66.)

"He (the Tory) must persuade a substantial mass of the voters . . . to identify the defence of their own interests and values with the defence of privileges which are—and are likely to remain—beyond their reach." (Why I am voting Tory, by Henry Fairlie. Observer 20.3.66.)

"A Conservative speculative builder in Cambourne this weekend described Mr. Wilson as "the nearest thing we’ve had to Churchill." (Peter Jenkins, Guardian 21.3.66.)

"I have a feeling that . . . voters are getting much more shrewd.' (Leonard Beaton. Guardian 30.3.66.)

By The Way: Canadians on Germany (1945)

The By The Way Column from the February 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Canadians on Germany

The Canadian Army newspaper, The Maple Leaf, has conducted a poll among Canadian troops now fighting, on post-war treatment of Germany.

“Less than ten per cent, suggested the partition of Germany, and less than ten per cent, the separation of Prussia from Germany”.—(Daily Herald, January 3rd, 1915.)

The Maple Leaf’s comment was: —

“The whole wipe-out-the-German-nation idea is knocked on the head by these men. Many even mentioned this idea and pointed out that they considered it absurd and impossible. . . . There is a general impression among these fighting men that any term of war debt in money or any partition of Germany is very likely to lead to another war !”

Everybody who does a job of work for a living knows how quickly one’s pre-conceived notions of a particular job vanish when you come up against the job itself.

Perhaps if Lord Vansittart and one or two others (Pollitt & Co., etc.) had a few weeks fighting at the front, it might alter their ideas.

* * *

More Belt Tightening

“Two of our large banks, Barclays and the District, report larger profits in 1944 than in 1943. Barclays’ net. figure has improved from £1,584,000 to £1,673.000, and the District Bank from £434,000 to £449,000. In each case the dividends remain unchanged. Barclays Bank are paying 10 per cent. on the ‘A’ and 14 per cent, on the ‘B’ and ‘C’ stocks, and the District Bank 18⅓ per cent. on the ‘A’ and ‘C’ shares and 10 per cent. on the ‘B’ shares.”(News-Chronicle, January 5th, 1945.)

“Midland Bank profits for 1944 have passed the Two million mark for the first time since 1939. The figure is £2,038,274, against £1,984,396 for 1943. Dividend is maintained at 10 per cent.

“Westminster Bank profits are up. Dividend remains 18 per cent. on the £4 shares, and 12½ per cent. on the stock.

“‘Big Five’ aggregate profits for the year are 4.1 per cent. higher—£8,004,602—a new war peak.”—(Herald, January 10th.)

“Lend to the End” (18 per cent.)

* * *

Can We (?) Afford It?

A spate of writings on this theme is now filling the columns of the public press.

The end of the European war is alleged to be in sight, though some of the optimists (as usual) seem to be equipped with conveniently powerful telescopes.

We are approaching the period when the rosy promises of the early days—”jobs, homes, security,” etc.—made to induce war-enthusiasm, are beginning to fall due.

It’s the “morning after the night before.” The first ominous grey shadows of a frigid winter’s morning to dispel the romantic illusions of Churchillian radio rhetoric.

Members of Parliament, professors and “experts” are vieing in the attempt to calm the people down. “Don’t expect too much !” The things we want have got to be paid for! “There isn’t the money!” “How can we do it? Can we afford it? ” is their monotonous refrain.

Imposing arrays of figures are cited showing how poor WE (?) really are.

“By a great act of faith, we have mortgaged our, as yet, non-existent national income with colossal charges for education and social services. . . . Two questions at once arise. Can we stand this staggering expenditure? Will we stand it?” asks Captain Gammans, Tory M.P. for Hornsey.— (Evening News, December 27th, 1944.)

The “staggering expenditure” referred to is Two thousand millions a year. The current expenditure for 1944, according to Capt. Gammans himself, is Three thousand millions.

The plain simple man might well ask, “If we can stand it in 1944, why not 1947 or 8?”

But, no! it’s not so simple. You see, war-time is “abnormal.’

“What are the things on which we have set our hearts? They are social security, a greatly improved medical service, an educational system which will enable a poor child to enjoy the same advantages as a rich one. family allowances, good houses for everyone at rents they can afford, and on top of all these, and other things I have not mentioned, we are to achieve a rising standard of living”.—(B. Seebohm Rowntree,  Evening Standard, November 30th.)

“Economists tell us that to pay for them we must increase our exports by 50 per cent, above the pre-war figure, but we can only do this if we can sell our goods in the world markets at competitive prices.”— (B. Seebohm Rowntree.)

“The first is that we succeed in restoring a sufficient volume of export trade to provide for the essential imports, without which we do not eat or remain an industrial power at all. The second is that our industry and agriculture are efficient”—(Capt. Gammans.)

Our readers will see at once that we have two bright new boys for the “Export or Bust” chorus, now being produced at colossal expense, in inglorious Technicolour, by the British capitalist class.

They are bright new boys—both of them—because they have thought up one or two new ghost stories to curdle the blood of the British working man.

First, Mr. Rowntree (we’re glad his cocoa is a bit more nourishing than his arguments) : —

“Let us make no mistake. We cannot get these things merely by a redistribution of existing wealth; a little may be possibly got that way, but by far the greater part of the cost involved, which may run into hundreds of millions of pounds a year, can only be met bv increasing the total amount of wealth produced.”

Now Capt. Gammans : —

“If we were to confiscate every income of over £1,000 a year and distribute it among the rest of the community, each person in this country would benefit to the extent of only about 3s. 9d. a week.”

This is a perfectly simple straightforward proposition as old as the hills. It will be found in “Value, Price and Profit,” by Marx, published seventy years ago. It was the argument of Citizen Weston. He said, as Marx graphically put it, that “what prevented working men getting more out of the bowl (of soup) was its smallness.” Marx called this argument “rather spoony.” Interestingly enough, F. A. Ridley in the New Leader and Michael Foot in the Daily Herald say the same thing.

Ridley is supposed to be writing about Socialism and Equality. He actually writes: “Under Socialism everyone would get exactly the same.” (New Leader, September 2nd, 1944.) This is nonsense. Ridley goes on : —

“The extreme left—anarchists, S.P.G.B., etc.—will demand the application of the classic formula, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ . . . ‘To each according to his needs’ is an Utopian formula … it outstrips the present capacity of society.”

In other words, workers go short because there’s not enough. By the way, the S.P.G.B. is not the “left,” extreme or otherwise, but THE Socialist Party.

Lastly, Michael Foot (Daily Herald, January 9, 1945) :

“Now the subtle point about all this propaganda is that part of it is true. It is true that many British industries are hopelessly inefficient. It is true that an increase in production per man hour could, under certain other conditions, greatly increase the wealth of the community.”

So, according to Ridley, industry has not the “capacity”; to Foot, it is “inefficient.”

The bowl is too small. Seventy years ago Marx said that it was not the “narrowness of the bowl nor the scantiness of its contents” (“Value, Price and Profit,” Chap. II.), but the smallness of their spoons which prevented working men getting a larger portion.

The Government has now published figures of war-time production. The increase in production of wealth, despite war difficulties, is simply staggering. Despite the fact that some things (aeroplanes, e.g.) are produced in quantities for which no pre-war criterion exists—it is not unfair to say that, generally speaking, production has more than doubled, while workers’ consumption has been more than halved. (“Statistics relating to the War Effort of the United Kingdom,” Stationery Office.) It has never been the Socialist case that a redistribution of existing wealth would solve the poverty problem under capitalism.

Reference to our pamphlet “Socialism” (page 9) shows that:—

“Even with the present wasteful use of the productive forces there is enough wealth produced to raise the standard of living of the great mass of the population. Mr. Colin Clark, M.A., in his recent book, “The National Income, 1924-31,” estimates that if the total national income were equally distributed, every family mould have received about £349 during 1929, £311 during 1930, and £298 during 1931. These amounts are equal to about £6 14s. a week, £6 11s. a week, and £5 13s. a week for the years in question. In point of fact, they got about half this sum.”

Now, with production more than doubled, despite the absence’ of millions of the most fit, we’re told we are not producing enough to go round.

“The great inequality of income is, moreover, only one aspect of the poverty problem. Capitalism not only bestows on the rich a large share of the wealth produced, but—even more important—it keeps the total amount of wealth produced far below the possible total.”— (“Socialism,” page 10.)

This is the answer to Capt. Gammans (Tory), Seebohm Rowntree (Liberal), Michael Foot (Labour), F. A. Ridley (I.L.P.).

The abolition of capitalist ownership of the means of wealth production will remove the “chocks” from under the landing wheels of the productive system.

What has happened during this war, where the amazing capacity of a modern working class has been demonstrated, due to temporary, insatiable military demand, is a slight indication of what that working class can do, relieved of exploitation, and with the end of futile occupations like advertising, and fighting for and waiting on parasites.

We Socialists are not to be frightened by horror stories about whether WE can afford it.

We shall not be led up the garden path of renewed fierce competition and rivalry to export more than our American and German brothers, leading to a new war.

To-day we can make our bowl of soup as large as we like—once we’ve knocked the shovels out of the capitalists’ hands by intelligent political action—and issued everybody with a spoon.

Horatio.

Letters: Who are the cowards? (2000)

Letters to the Editors from the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the cowards?

Dear Editors,

There could hardly be a better symbol for how governments treat their mass public, than the 306 “cowards”, executed by British authorities during the First World War. Nothing has changed, either. There is no essential difference between the military, flexing its muscles, or the Thatcherite revolution throwing people out into the street, or even a Blairite dogma to “modernise”, but actually preparing everyone and every aspect of life to be merely the plaything of global capitalism. Then, if war is an extension of diplomacy, and business is a substitute for war, all this becomes more understandable, but not defensible, given the catastrophic effects on society’s weaker members.

The incompetent Earl Haig treated his troops as cannon fodder; Thatcher said there is no such thing as society; and Blair’s modernity will expose the unwary to a life of being only a marketing statistic. All these three were, and are, immune to the shock imposed on others less able to defend themselves, by pursuing their social revolutions. They also maintain their advantage, through an elite status. Hence, “deserters”, the dispossessed and disabled, or the incapacitated, are treated by their elected leaders as inferior, and therefore, fair game. These people are losers, and consequently seen by the elite as an embarrassment to their inflated opinion of themselves—and here we have the underlying reason for New Labour’s attitude to voters in wheelchairs: punish them.

Jeffrey Wheeler, 

Nuneaton, Warwicks

The Morgenthau Plan

Dear Editors,

The article “Why war is no accident”, (August Socialist Standard) claimed that “on the eve of allied victory the leaders of the victorious countries accepted a plan drawn up by . . . Morgenthau to de-industrialise Germany” Not so. The Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt on proposals to de-industrialise Germany was “initialled” (i.e. agreed to informally) by them on 15 September 1944. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt had with them their top advisors and there were no representatives present from the Soviet Union, the third of the wartime alliance.

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and American Secretary of State Cordell Hull were “horrified” by the proposals. Eden recalls in his Memoirs “I did not like the plan, nor was I convinced that it was to our national advantage.” Hull rejected it as being “a plan of blind vengeance.” The American Secretary of War Henry Stimson also strongly opposed it; it was “just fighting brutality with brutality.”

Historians have variously characterised the Morgenthau Plan as being “still-born”, “abandoned”, “pigeon-holed”, “did not…become official policy” and was “never put into effect.”

It was realised that a weak Germany with high unemployment brought about by de-industrialisation would be prey to political extremism (as it had been in the 1920s and 1930s) and liable to fall into the Soviet camp. American policy-makers planned for an “open” Europe of free trade which would be a market for US produce.

It has been suggested that Churchill had been reluctant to go along with the Plan but did so because he was at the time in negotiations with Morgenthau over post-war Lend-Lease arrangements. Britain had been offered $6.5 billion post-war credit and he did not want the promise jeopardised. His claimed that the Morgenthau Plan would leave Britain “chained to a dead body”. Although a de-industrialised Germany would remove an economic rival it would also entail the loss of a lucrative market for industrial goods produced in Britain.

A Germany integrated into a “United States of Europe” would be economically more efficient which would in turn (in the view of the US Department of State Division of Economic Studies at the time) give higher levels of real incomes leading to an increased demand “for imports of raw materials, food, and manufactured articles, of which the United States would be the primary beneficiaries.” (In 1937 Europe had been the destination for 41 per cent US exports and the source of 27 per cent of its imports).

It was these arguments that eventually won the day. Germany was not subject to “ongoing economic attacks” as the launching of the European Recovery Programme (the “Marshall Plan”) in mid-1947 demonstrates.

By 1946 there were an estimated 14 million “displaced persons” (i.e. refugees) in Europe—10 million in Germany (7 million in the Western Zones.) Deaths “may have been anything between 2 and 3 million” according to Hugh Thomas (Armed Truce). In their two volume study A History of West Germany D.L. Bark and D. R. Gress estimate that two million Germans died as a result of the immediate post-war disruptions. It is not clear on what authority the author of the article bases his claim of 5 million deaths and on what evidence it rests.

John E. Farquharson (in The Western Allies and the Politics of Food.) shows that the Allied system of food rationing was a continuation of the German one already in place. Ration allowances were supplemented by theft, forgery of ration documents, barter, recourse to the black market, self supply (e.g. allotments), and additional allowances for those employed in heavy work. In one area of occupied Germany the number of ration cards presented in one accounting period was twice the number officially issued. Less than a quarter of the population of the Western Zones were “normal consumers”, the majority claimed supplements of one kind or another.

This not to say that hunger and malnutrition did not occur, it did. However the “hard” figures represented by official ration issues for calories per day do not represent the true state of affairs. In the circumstances the Western Allies did what they could and it is incorrect to state that the Allies imposed blockade and starvation upon the defeated German nation. We do not need to exaggerate to make out a Socialist case against the pernicious nature of capitalism and its wars.

Gwynn Thomas, 

Colchester, Essex

Reply: 

Thanks for your interesting and useful clarification. The article’s main point was that blockading a rival state is a policy capitalist states are prepared to consider (as the existence of the Morgenthau Plan shows) and to implement (today as in Iraq) regardless of the consequences on the civilian population. And, as your letter brings out well, again as in Iraq, those capitalist politicians who oppose this option do so because they are more interested in export prospects than in the plight of the population. The source of the 5 million figure was the book Crimes and Mercies by James Baque, mentioned in the article.

Editors.

How I became a socialist

Dear Editors,

In the beginning, way back in the 1960s, I became, in my late teens, a so-called “hippie”. The hippies were a more progressive, creative and imaginative development from the beatniks in the USA—who were basically scruffy, layabouts, poets and artists. I remained in the hippie phase for about eight years, until the early 70s, when I changed my outlook gradually and became, so to speak, politically “radicalised”. I began to support the left wing, and joined CND, voting Labour, attending meetings, and taking part in protests and demonstrations.

By 1979 I grew deeply disillusioned with Labour and rejected its policies and ideology: I was then far-left in outlook. Almost a Trotskyite, in fact. It seemed to me that only a violent mass movement would change society, and that “direct action”, including the general strike and armed insurrection, could and would overthrow the state and ruling class.

This barricades mentality persisted in my mind until the mid-1980s, when I began to study the various “schools” or styles of anarchism. Reading the works of Peter Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin, Errico Malatesta, Emma Goldman, etc, etc. I became a militant anarchist. I was very determined and began fighting the police; even after several jail terms (in which I fought the screws), I persisted and persevered in anarchism. But by 1986, grave doubts and misgivings surfaced; I discovered serious flaws and errors in anarchist theory and practice. My conclusion was that it actually leads nowhere and achieves nothing but more bloodshed and frustration.

So, early in 1986, I abandoned anarchism altogether. A few months later my attention was drawn to some examples of Socialist Party literature. By chance, I came across a few issues of the Socialist Standard. After reading carefully and reflecting on it, I accepted the concept of socialism. Then I obtained some of the works of Karl Marx from a public library—in particular, the Communist Manifesto of 1848.

This really transformed my whole outlook on history, society and politics. Marx profoundly impressed and inspired me in a way no-one and nothing ever had before. Thus, acquiring a Marxist understanding and analysis of capitalism and of how to get rid of it, I became a scientific socialist by the spring of 1986: after which I contacted the Socialist Party, and subsequently joined.

The one thing about the Socialist Party that persuaded me, above all else, to join, was that all its literature is strictly honest, truthful and accurate; also that the party is fully and truly democratic in its organisation and activities. This meant a lot to me: I realised that here was one political party which not only had genuine principles but stuck to them through thick and thin without any compromise or “sell-out”.

So that is how and why I became a socialist, fourteen years ago. I lapsed from membership some time ago—but that is solely due to chronic, incurable disabling illness and my personal circumstances, which make it impossible for me to travel around and attend its debates and meetings. The only sort of contribution I can make is by writing articles and collecting the party’s audio tapes. I also argue the case for socialism with friends and acquaintances—and, occasionally, with strangers I meet in pubs, cafés, etc. (I’ve made a lot of enemies this way!)

Through the years, I have amassed a great deal of vital information on many subjects—including political history, religion, ecology and conservation, anthropology, the history of the socialist movement, and so on—and have written a book on the origins and development of capitalism, comparing it with the only sane alternative, World Socialism. My final draft typescript of this book is now in the possession of the Socialist Party’s archivists. I hope some day that it will be published.

In conclusion, I want to express my gratitude to the Socialist Party for providing me with the understanding and insight I sorely lacked before; and to Karl Marx too, of course: we all owe him a great debt for the tremendous work he did and his great achievements. We can’t all be like Marx, but at least some of us might approach his level of intellect if we make the necessary effort. Marxian knowledge can increase intelligence, I have found: and it produces the “quantum jump” in consciousness among workers everywhere which makes socialism possible. Speed the day!

David E. Finlay, 

Brighton

Labour history

Dear Editors,

I am writing on behalf of the North West Labour History Group. As part of our work in popularising knowledge of labour history we publish an annual journal and I would like to appeal to your readers for contributions to two forthcoming issues, one on the 1960s to be published in 2001 and one on the 1970s to be published in 2002.

We believe the time has come to examine the radical social, political and labour movement of those decades in the North West. We invite anybody interested in writing an article to contact us in the first instance at: North West Labour History Group c/o Working Class Movement Library, 51 Crescent, Salford M5 4WX.

Michael Herbert, 

North West Labour History Group