Sting in the Tail: The common factor (1994)

The Sting in the Tail column from the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The common factor

Following the Estonia tragedy:

"Swedish and Finnish ferry lines admitted hushing-up six serious incidents which preceded the Estonia’s sinking ” (Teletext 30 September).

These roll-on roll-off ferries are liable to capsize when even a relatively small amount of water enters the vehicle decks, yet Alan Clark, ex-Tory MP, said on Question Time (29 September) that marine architects can quite easily design ships which prevent this, but, with touching concern for human life asked “would this really be worth all the expense and inconvenience?”

And this is what it is all about:

“The economic reason why vehicle decks are not subdivided to prevent rapid capsize is that this would obstruct bailing, increase turnaround times and reduce the number of cars or lorries a ship should carry. That would mean higher fares, lower profits, or both — and at a time, so far as British operators are concerned, when ferries are facing fresh competition from the Channel tunnel” (Guardian 24 September).

Every disaster which comes along, be it Piper Alpha, the King's Cross Underground fire, the train crash at Clapham Junction or the Herald of Free Enterprise, provides evidence aplenty that capitalism’s remorseless drive to cut costs at the expense of safety is the prime cause of them all.

Healthy profits

Today’s economic climate has seen many employers cut the wages and conditions and increase the workload of their employees.

This often leads to the deterioration of the physical and mental health of the workers involved, but some other employers recognise that this approach is counter-productive and are concerned to protect and even improve the health and well-being of their employees.

Companies such as Grand Met, Glaxo. Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer, IBM and Nestle are participating in the Wellness Forum which promotes preventative health care by health screening along with weight control, anti-smoking and anti-alcohol abuse programmes.

There are sound commercial reasons behind this. A spokesman for the Institute of Personnel and Development told the Independent:

“Employers in their own interests have got to maximise the use of people at work as far as they can. Absenteeism is very expensive ” (9 September).

This absenteeism is estimated by the CBI to cost £13 billion a year, and the Independent adds that the Forum has “a belief in the correlation between a healthy workforce and healthy profits”.

Looking after the goose that lays the golden eggs always made more sense than killing it.

YC’s get KO’d

A new book True Blues, claims that Tory Party membership has slumped from 2.8 million in 1952 to below 500,000 now and is still falling.

Feeling better? Well, there’s more good news, because the Young Conservatives are set for the chop. And no wonder. Having been taken over by the “radical right” in much the same way as Labour's youth wing was by Trotskyists, the YC’s have long been a thorn in the side of the parent party.

There were well-publicised links with the BNP and other racists groups, support for apartheid, jokes about the Holocaust, vicious faction fighting and lots of hooliganism From a peak of 100,000 membership has plunged to around 5,000, so Tory Central Office probably reckons that what’s left isn’t worth the hassle.

A Tory' youth organisation may well continue to exist in one form or another, but the heady days when the YC’s seemed to consist of youngsters all desperately trying to outdo one another in sounding more reactionary and bloodthirsty, are probably over for good.

Heller’s history

Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, published in 1962, was a brilliant and hilarious account of the corruption and insanity of capitalism set against the background of World War Two.

The long-awaited sequel is now ready, so Sally Vincent travelled to interview Heller, and her account of their meeting appeared in Weekend Guardian (24 September).

Heller’s perception of capitalism has not dimmed. According to Sally Vincent he thinks:

“We can produce enough food to feed the world, hut simultaneously can V because there's no profit producing enough food. ”

And he apparently thinks that “Marx was right”, although about what he didn't say, but his perception leaves him when it comes to interpreting history which he thinks is “autonomous and proceeds independently of the people who make it.”

Marx took a very different view: 

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. ” 

As a novelist, Heller takes some beating, but when it comes to explaining history then it has to be Marx.

Doubting Thomas

The sacking of the Sussex vicar Anthony Freeman for revealing that he doesn’t believe in God highlights the problem facing many of these sky pilots.

Take the example of an anonymous Church of Scotland minister, whose dilemma was reported in Scotland on Sunday (14 August):

“Thomas does not believe in God. There was no virgin birth, no resurrection, Jesus was a mere inspirational mortal like Ghandi and there is, most sadly, no life after death. The last bit gets tricky, for he must pretend to believe in some kind of afterlife to soothe many of the pensioners he talks to each Sunday from the pulpit. "

All workers must sell their ability to work for a wage or salary, and these professional holy men are no different. Here is what our reverend gentleman has to say about it:

“To be honest, I've got a family to feed and a career and a pension to think about. I don't think I should put my job on the line just for the sake of discussion of some arcane beliefs and ideas that probably don't really matter anyway. ”

Blogger's Notes: 

• Joseph Heller's Catch-22 was reviewed in the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard.
• The King's Cross Underground fire was covered in the March 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard.
• The Piper Alpha disaster was covered in the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Festival of thieves (1982)

From the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Approaching from a distance it seemed as if it could have been a meeting of the Youth section of the Bulgarian Communist Party: flags attached to poles were held high by blank-faced patriots who clapped occasionally with all the passion of a fly drowning in a glass of water; on the makeshift platform stood grey-suited, makeshift leaders whose faces seemed to blend in to the empty slogans which were written on the solitary blue banner; the hum of conformity was in the air and, approaching, it became clear that the three hundred or so people assembled in Hyde Park stood beneath a banner which announced that this was a “RALLY FOR FREEDOM”.

Freedom, eh? Certainly not the Bulgarian CP, then. On closer inspection they might have been a regiment of newly-recruited Boy Scouts — or perhaps a crowd of extras waiting around for a re-make of Mary Poppins. But then came that all too familiar clapping sound — that sound which tells you that “Britain" or "Our Boys” or “Long Live Maggie" have been mentioned — the sound of non-verbal consent and complacency which is Nature’s little way of telling us that Conservatives are around. There is no mistaking the Tory clap; your reporter had stumbled upon a Young Conservatives’ rally — a rally for freedom, no less — freedom under capitalism. The Houdinis of British politics were about to perform live — well, almost.

The flags were upside-down Union Jacks and their holders were young Tories who had come to cheer their leaders who had come to tell them that there could be no sweeter freedom than that which capitalism offers. An exiled Hungarian general was brought on to frighten the crowd with horror stories about “Hungarian Communism”. “We must keep the flame of democracy burning” he said (by which he did not mean that we should burn down the House of Lords) and “the Communists must be opposed with all our might". The crowd applauded heartily, not realising that by “Communism” the general meant a society based on authoritarian government, impotent trade unions, intense militarism and national chauvinism (all of which are features of state capitalist Russia and all of which also happen to be Tory objectives) and that by “freedom” he meant the right of the rich and powerful 10 per cent to exploit the propertyless 90 per cent. The deception of rhetoric is well disguised by a long, hard Tory clap.

Next comedian to mount the podium was Rhodes Boyson, government minister for indoctrinating the wage slaves. Ex-headmaster Boyson spoke with all the arrogance of a village idiot who has become drunk on a pint of shandy, thus acquiring the confidence to open his mouth as if he knew what he was talking about. He referred to the Berlin Wall and the need for respect and said that meetings like this could certainly not take place in Red Square. He was right about the last point — in Moscow they are able to assemble even more deluded patriots in their cynical attempts to manipulate wage slaves in the name of “freedom". The crowd clapped Rhodes Boyson until they were exhausted (for some of them this was the most energy they’d expended in months) and fifteen seconds after his speech ended the next contestant to be Tory Twit of the Year ascended the platform.

The third man was concerned about “defence”, by which he meant attack, and felt that fifth columnists were at work in our schools, by which he meant that it was terrible that not all teachers are in favour of telling children that when they grow up they must go out and kill people. He said that “we need to get back to teaching the basic values of civilisation; we need to explain . . .” “Yes, the basic values of sending workers to kill each other in your commercial wars" interjected a bearded heckler in the front row. He was soon surrounded by three or four Tory stewards w ho wore Union Jack shirts and looked as if they had failed the intelligence test allowing them to join the National Front. No questions allowed at Young Conservatives meetings: so that’s what they mean by “freedom”..

The star speaker was John Biggs-Davison who announced that the theme of the rally could be summed up in one word which was . . . um . . . er (reaching for his prompt cards) “Ah yes, self-determination — that's what we stand for. The right of people to live as they choose to live." He failed to mention that this “right" would be denied to the vast majority of the population who produce the wealth of society. Capitalism offers workers no more than the right to live as we can afford lo live. The freedom to be impoverished — to be alienated from ownership and control over the world we live in — is no freedom at all.

In the subway leading to Hyde Park there used to be a couple of old con-men who obtained fivers from gullible Americans by performing the three-card trick. One day they were arrested and now they are conning tourists in a different area of London. But what of the Tory con-men for whom freedom means exploitation, liberty means inequality and peace means oppression? Trading on the political ignorance of the exploited class, these people have police protection while they perform the political three-card trick. But nothing will defend the advocates of capitalism against the genuine case for social freedom. Be they Tory. SDP or Labour, the misleaders of the working class will not succeed forever.

Steve Coleman

Sting in the Tail: Good news, bad news (1995)

The Sting in the Tail column from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Good news, bad news

The publication of a 400-page Genome Directory as a supplement to Nature Magazine should be really good news. It is an attempt to provide a map of a large portion of the 100,000 or so human genes. Medical experts believe it could be a step on the road to finding the genetic causes, and eventually the cure, of many killer diseases.

But we live in capitalism, so this good news has a major downside to it. In America where many companies provide their workers with health care insurance as part of their wage, we learn how such advances are being used to cut the capitalists' health care liabilities:

“To avoid hiring people with ‘disease genes' some companies ask job applicants about their family medical histories or ask for samples of blood or cell tissue without revealing that they will be used for genetic tests " (Herald. 19 October).

Job losses inevitable

That proposed merger of Lloyd's bank and the TSB has once again had banking unions complaining about likely job losses. They pointed to the increased profits of the Big Four last year—up £1.5 billion to £5 billion, and Ed Sweeney of BIFU argued that:

“The shareholder will do very nicely and top executives will get fatter pay cheques. The least they can do is ensure staff there will be no sackings ” (Guardian, 11 October).

Those increased profits are mainly due to fewer bad debts and not to any growth in banking activity. Then there is fierce competition for business from building societies and now the insurance companies are entering into banking. Also, new technology means that banks simply don’t need as many workers now, so the pressure is on to cut costs.

Fair enough, unions must protest at job losses, but oh for even a glimmer of recognition from them that their real enemy is capitalism and not mere mergers, executives or shareholders.

Of cops and hookers

Members of the working class have to sell their abilities to work for wages and salaries. Some even have to sell their bodies.

“Prostitution is not legalised, yet in genteel Edinburgh there are about 400 women at work in saunas or massage parlours, earning £2,000 per month, according to a recent survey.

"Trying to stop prostitution is like trying to compress water: all you do is displace it. It will come squeezing out of the sides somewhere else, ’ says Tom Wood, assistant Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders police." (Independent, 26 September).

If the assistant Chief Constable had prefaced his remark with “Inside a buying and selling system like capitalism . . ." no-one could have disagreed. But he didn’t, so let us be quite plain about this matter.

The only way to stop prostitution is the establishment of the classless, private property-less society. Inside that system the 400 hookers and the even more numerous policemen can start doing worthwhile and dignified work for the first time.

Hell drivers

Ever felt a little queasy on the motorway as you passed one of those mammoth heavy lorries and wondered if it was swaying a bit on the road? Well start feeling really queasy for a report in the Observer (22 October) makes frightening reading:

“Lorry drivers forced to work illegal hours by unscrupulous employers are to blame for up to 200 road deaths a year. Haulage firms, prompted by the recession to cut costs to the minimum, are pushing drivers to break the law or face dismissal."

When you read that between 600 and 1,000 people die in accidents involving HGVs every year in Britain; that 20 percent of these are caused by lorry driver fatigue and that up to 40 percent of the drivers have been asked to exceed the legal limit of 10 hours a day, you may come to the conclusion that the sway you detected was because the driver was half-asleep at the wheel.

It is just another example of capitalism lowering costs to boost profits and to hell with people’s lives.

“Support” — Tory style

Last November we mentioned on this page that the Young Conservatives were “set for the chop” because they had become an embarrassment to the Tory Party. This provoked an indignant letter in the January issue from a YC who told us:

“The Young Conservatives are not for the chop; both the Prime Minister and the Party Chairman have pledged their support for the organisation. ”

What this “support” amounts to was revealed in the Guardian (13 October). Tory’ Central Office has closed its youth department and the YCs now have to share the services of “one tenth of a person” at Central Office with Conservative Students.

Often, when the Tories have wanted to kill off some state benefit or allowance but without causing a row, they have left it to, in their own words, “wither on the vine”. The YCs are looking like a bunch of mouldy grapes to us.

Sting in the Tail: The Daily Grind (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the April 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Grind

A survey carried out by an insurance company has shown that more than half of male office workers spend much of their time at work making personal telephone calls, reading newspapers and magazines, and slipping away to attend to their personal business. More than a third dream of changing their job while 40 per cent long for love affairs with younger colleagues.

Bloody typical, isn't it? No wonder this country can't compete with the Japanese . . but wait a bit, the insurance company IS Japanese and the male workers work in Tokyo !

But aren't Japanese supposed to be much more loyal to their employers and dedicated to their work than us ?

These findings only confirm that wage slavery has much the same effect on workers the world over and never provides the satisfaction and fulfilment that work could and should be.

House Hunting

Towards the end of last year an item in a newspaper mentioned that Donald Trump, a New York property magnate, has an apartment in Manhattan which cost 17 million dollars.

Astonishing as it may seem this is not the top end of the market for the really rich. Two years ago a Fifth Avenue apartment worth 30 million dollars owned by Adnan Khashoggi, the Iranian arms dealer, had been seized by the New York court as security in a law suit brought against him by Lonrho.

This "apartment" was created out of sixteen smaller ones and takes up two entire floors in one of New York's most fashionable areas. Anybody who is worried that Khashoggi will not have a roof over his head will be relieved to know that he has other homes in Marbella, Paris, Cannes, the Canary Islands, Madrid, Rome, Beirut, Riyadh, Jedda and Monte Carlo.

Rumours that he is looking for a home in either Brixton, Handsworth or Toxteth have not been confirmed.

Militant Tactics

How often have we come across examples of left-wing organisations recruiting people on the basis of some single issue or other. The Socialist Workers Party do it all the time. They get people to join over such issues as "Troops Out", "The Right To Work", etc., etc., but never on the issue of the abolition of the wages system.

The latest example is Militant's drive to recruit opponents of the Poll Tax into the Labour Party in Glasgow. Militant organisers have been telling the local press that they have recently signed up many new members for the Labour Party ("30 after one meeting") who joined purely on the grounds of their opposition to the Poll Tax.

Militant's aim is to use these recruits as voting fodder to help de-select sitting Labour councillors and, ever hopeful, replace them with Militant supporters.

Recent history makes it extremely unlikely that they will succeed in even this trivial objective but their action highlights once again the unprincipled and non-socialist outlook of the would-be "Vanguard".

An Apology for Thatcher?

Sir Douglas Hague, chairman of the Economic and Social Research Council from 1983 to 1987, was recently reported as saying:

. . . most of Britain’s social scientists seem to me not completely in touch with the real world.

He said Britain's economists should apologise to Margaret Thatcher for their misguided policies. Now there's an idea!

During the farce of Mao's Cultural Revolution in China one of the strange spectacles was university professors parading through Peking with placards proclaiming "I am a complete dumpling. I was a capitalist deviationist. Long live the Glorious Cultural Revolution."

Something similar seems to be demanded by Sir Douglas of the 364 economists in April 1981 who had the effrontery to criticise the Government's economic policy.According to Sir Douglas

Never in history can a profession have been so manifestly proved to be so wrong in its predictions, yet no collective apology has come.

London Tourist Board could exploit Sir Douglas's apology idea. Lines of discredited economists parading past 10 Downing Street in Dunce's caps and carrying placards proclaiming " I was a Keynesian dupe. Privatisation for pavements."

This could provide Mrs. Thatcher with her "photo opportunity" as contrite academics kneel to kiss her arse.

What troubles Sir Douglas of course is that the Government funds these ungrateful buggers and they are not coming up with what the Government wants to hear. According to Sir Douglas:

. . . too much attention was being devoted to the study of the problems of the deprived and disadvantaged.

Apparently his idea of "being in touch with the real world" is to ignore the unemployed, the homeless and the exploited.

What a Shower

When one of the speakers at the recent Young Conservative conference angrily denounced the "headbangers" who was he referring to?

The IRA or the Loony Left? No, this was just one of the "wets" referring to those of his fellow YC's known as the "libertarians". And no wonder.

Here's what one of them had to say during one of the debates "Socialism is a filthy, disgusting perversion. We are the pure." The "pure" what he didn't say, but there are several things we can think of.

The hang 'em flog 'em bunch spend a lot of their time trying to outdo one another in being "right wing". Indeed their main objective seems to consist of being as reactionary (they call it "revolutionary") and obnoxious as they possibly can be.

They support every authoritarian regime as long as it is "right wing", they flaunt "Hang Nelson Mandela" T-shirts, and when striking miners and their families were suffering then they had callous, jeering songs to sing.

Perhaps no one can accuse these "libertarians" of being "wet" but as sympathetic, considerate human beings they are a complete wash-out.

So They Say: Prospective Candidates (1977)

The So They Say Column from the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prospective Candidates

Labour’s by-election defeats have led to some soul-searching by its supporters and most notably the Labour Party Young Socialists. This ill-named assortment of nibbling sprats held a conference recently at which they made the following astonishing discovery :

  The Government is losing support because it is not implementing genuine socialist policies. Instead it is doing the Tories’ job for them and betraying the working class.

The Times, 11th April 77

That the Government has not implemented “genuine socialist policies” is not in doubt; what the LPYS have overlooked is that their heroes had never promised or intended this. The word Socialism applies, for example, to a society in which there will be no means of exchange because there will be no private property. Put that proposition to a member of the Government, or of the LPYS, and watch them shy away. The junior careerists have already learned that such ideas are not the way to win office. They have learned to be “realistic.” On one hand a succession of delegates to their conference blamed “the failure of capitalism for virtually all of society’s main problems” and yet:

  The Labour Party, which as Sir Harold Wilson said, is a broad church, tolerates criticisms from its youth movement, knowing that many of their best people become important members of the main party.

We draw LPYS members’ attention to the fact that it is not the “failure of capitalism” which is to blame for social problems—this suggests capitalism could behave in another way—it is the existence of capitalism which brings on and perpetuates social problems. LPYS members will note that the Labour Party is committed to perpetuating capitalism.

Ever the Twain shall meet

The Federation of Conservative Students were addressed by Mrs. Margaret Thatcher on the 4th of April, when she told them:

  Many people were deeply anti-socialist and were horrified that the Liberals had joined forces with the most socialist government in our history.

The Times, 5th April 77

Such stirring words must have had her supporters bristling in their tweeds with self-righteous fervour. However, Mrs. Thatcher is a busy woman and has other things to attend to: three days later she arrived in China and is currently hob-nobbing with the blood-red Chinese leaders. We could do no more than guess at the kind of justifications which the true blues are inventing to bridge the contradiction. One newspaper made an interesting point:

  . . . at a deeper level the politics of China are beginning to show distant but real parallels with those of Britain and other Western societies.

Guardian, 9th April 77

For all the mumbo-jumbo and smoke screens raised around their "ideology”, the Chinese leaders have been determinedly running their own particular brand of capitalism in practice. Goods are produced for sale at a profit, and exploitation of the working class takes place through a wages system. Certainly Mrs. Thatcher has not been baffled at any imaginary or superficial differences, nor have the Chinese leaders. The “real parallels” which may surprise some who have been taken in by all the waffling, is that both the Conservatives and the Chinese leaders have the interests of their respective portions of the ruling class in mind and meet each other solely on this basis.

Thing big

In general, as unemployment rises so too do the platitudes of “our betters” increase in velocity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer however seems to have developed a new line during his budget speech. He now sounds completely resigned to being led by the nose through capitalism’s chaos, albeit without actually resigning from office, while telling the working class that there is nothing better to be done in any event. In fact the present high unemployment may be viewed as “the good old days” of tomorrow.

  The most disturbing feature of the world scene is that for the last two or three years every major industrial country has seen the unemployment level rising to what had been regarded in the post-war years as an unacceptable level for a well-managed economy. Mr. Healey added: I would not expect any fall in the level of unemployment—in fact some rise may be likely because demand and production are expected to continue to grow slowly.

London Evening Standard, 29th March 77

Interesting to note that Healey’s view of “unacceptable” has an infinitely variable interpretation according to the height of the particular slagheap he is standing on at the time.

Alan D'Arcy

Sting in the Tail: The Herd Instinct (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the May 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Herd Instinct

Suddenly for no apparent reason, the herd was off in a panic-stricken stampede. Possibly it had heard something but nobody really knows.

A scene from a Hollywood cowboy movie? No, only the London stock market last month when “panic buying" by investors sent share values soaring by over £11 billion in one day.

And the cause? Various pundits thought that the equally mysterious rise in share values on Wall Street was responsible; others put it down to the “feel good" factor following victory in the Gulf war, while some suggested that falling interest rates had fuelled hopes that the recession was ending — the Director General of the CBI had “anecdotal evidence" of an upturn, and so on.

The fact is that big investors, especially the Institutions, all have vast amounts of cash seeking ways of earning rent, interest and profit The cash HAS to go somewhere so any hopeful sign, real or imagined, was enough to send those investors stampeding to buy, buy, buy, because, as one report put it, "they were afraid of being left behind".

£11 billion on nothing more substantial than rumour, hope and follow-my-leader. Who says capitalism isn’t a crazy old system?


A Happy Thought

Back in the 1960s and 1970s Labour leaders like Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan, etc., were forever being attacked by the grossly misnamed "Young Socialists" for being "right wing".

Top Tories used to laugh at this and give thanks that the Young Conservatives were more interested in ping-pong than politics. This situation changed in the last decade when the YCs became "radical" and their actions and utterances more and more embarrassing to the party leadership.

Now Murdo Fraser, National Chairman of the YCs, has denounced none other than John Major for scrapping the poll tax, being indecisive and having no sense of direction (ITV's Oracle 6 April).

Tory leaders were outraged at this attack but they're not the only ones feeling angry, for Major was the very one the "radicals" happily claimed was the man to "carry through the Thatcher revolution" when he became PM!

The fact is that it doesn't matter that Major is a dithering wimp, even if he was Rambo he wouldn't be able to make capitalism work except as a system that puts profits before needs.


Marx's Raw Deal

The Guardian has really got it in for Karl Marx. An article on 10 April outlining Albania's new draft-constitution appears below the headline "Tirana abandons Marxism". The article then reveals that what has been abandoned is "Marxism-Leninism" which is the Leninist distortion of Marxism.

This is typical of the Guardian. No opportunity to misrepresent Marx and his ideas is missed with every Eastern European or banana-republic dictatorship dubbed "Marxist" and without even a shred of evidence to support this.


Hard Times

Many workers are experiencing the full blast of the recession. Some are having to settle for less than the inflation rate in their annual wage negotiations. Some are even being told they will get NO increase at all this year.

Pickford's Travel have gone one worse by proposing that their employees take a 7.5% wage cut. This is bad enough but spare a thought for Gene Lockhart, the highest-paid director of Midland Bank. He has suffered a 41% reduction in his salary. Mind you that still leaves him £429,216 per annum to keep the wolf from the door.

Lockhart's salary is performance-related and the Midland Bank has experienced a particularly bad year only making £11 million profit in 1990. All is not gloom In banking circles however, because Sir John Quinton, chairman of Barclays bank managed to get a rise of 21% to £404,000.

This must be a great consolation to the bank clerks at Barclays who are being asked to accept a 6% increase. Hard times indeed — but only for some it seems.


The Military Mind

The splendid insanities of the military mind are a constant source of astonishment to socialists, but we have recently been sent a newspaper clipping that had even your old battle-scarred Scorpion gasping.

It seems at least one facet of capitalism's inglorious military paraphernalia may be due for the dustbin of history — The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

  On future battlefields unknown soldiers may well be identified by the genetic structure of cells found in the blood which vary with each Individual. The technology is so precise that the Pentagon plans to develop a kind of "DNA Dog Tag" for all military personnel. Major V. Weedn, Chief of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab. says, "In the future there should not be any more unknown soldiers.”

(Herald Tribune 11 March)

We suggest that the best way to ensure that we have no more Tombs to the Unknown Soldier is to get rid of the cause of war — world capitalism!


A Familiar Tale

"Fame is the Spur", shown on Channel 4 on 5 April, is the film based on Howard Spring's novel about Hamer Radshaw, a product of the Manchester slums in late Victorian England.

Radshaw used his talent as a spell-binding orator first for the rising Labour movement and then to become a cabinet minister in both Labour and National governments.

The story charts his unprincipled progress from street-corner agitator to "statesman" and finally to the House of Lords. Who was he based on? There's a bit of Victor Grayson there and Ramsay MacDonald too, but the Labour Party has spawned dozens of Radshaws, men and women who used the working class in their single-minded climb to power and privilege.

Eventually, workers will discard the naive notion that their fate can be left to labour politicians, but in the meantime there are many more Hamer Radshaws patiently awaiting their opportunity.


Prize Specimen

After the Oscars and the Tonys comes the Maggies. This is a prize that the Thatcher Foundation will award annually to the person whose work has best "identified free enterprise with freedom".

The first recipient is Professor David Marsland and he is a worthy winner of this Creep of the Year award. He recently declared "We must get rid of the social worker". He also wants to abolish unemployment benefit and he has great plans for our kids:

  He has also called for lessons in patriotism and civil defence to be put on Britain's academic timetables, with encouragement for children from the age of 11 to join "voluntary defence training corps in schools"

(The Observer 21 April)

Give him the Maggie — give us a bucket to be sick in!

Sting in the Tail: Do It Yourself (1990)

The Sting in the Tail column from the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do It Yourself

The idea of the division of labour runs deep in capitalism. Just as most workers entrust their health to doctors, their children's education to teachers, etc., so they leave their political thinking to politicians.

Even on the issues which most seriously affect their lives, such as war, the environment and employment, the attitude is "we needn't bother our heads over these things, that's the politicians' lob and anyway they know best". This attitude was voiced by the wife of a British hostage in Iraq who wants her husband home:

  All this politics is above me. Why can't they sort it out like adults? Why don't they leave it to the Arabs?

The Guardian 22 October

Obviously the lady hasn't even begun to bother her head over what the conflict in the Gulf is about, but the first condition for solving a problem is to know its cause, and workers who ignore the issues and leave their thinking to others do so at their peril.

Bulgar Bunkum

Besides expecting politicians to do their thinking for them, some Bulgarian workers imagine that politicians feed and clothe them and even oil the wheels of industry!

The strike committee of the Burgas petrochemical works say:

   We want a government which can feed us, clothe us, and supply as much oil as our installations need to work.

The Guardian 7 November

The committee has got it all wrong: it is the workers who do those things for politicians and not the other way round. Bulgarian workers obviously know as little about their role as wealth producers as do workers elsewhere. What have the Bulgarian "communists" been telling them these past 45 years?

What is a T-O-R-Y?

At a conference in Perth recently, delegates exchanged punches and kicks, one told another "his face would be punched in", the chairman invited one group to "shut up or get out" and various participants were described by others as "thugs", "soccer casuals" and "monsters" (Glasgow Herald 12 November)

A get-together of the Mafia's British section perhaps, or maybe a unity conference between the SWP and the RCP? No, it was only the Scottish Young Conservatives in typical action.

These YC's have been taken over by the "Radical Right" and no opportunity was missed at the conference to bash (sometimes literally) the "Wets", especially "the member for Baghdad and Sidcup"(Ted Heath) and the "enemy within" (Michael Heseltine), while the air was thick with pledges of undying loyalty to Mrs. Thatcher, appeals for a "a radical manifesto", etc., etc.

Most of this "Radical Right" will eventually grow bored with all this posturing and settle down to become the type of Tory personified by Messrs Hurd, Major and Patten, but in the meantime the term 'Tory" when applied to them should be an acronym for 'Thoroughly Obnoxious, Reactionary Yobs".

True Blues and Reds

Graeme Souness, the manager of Glasgow Rangers Football Club, hit the headlines of the Glasgow Herald on 10 November. Nothing unusual in that you may think — newspapers are always displaying an interest in the trivial — but this time it wasn't football that was the issue but politics.

Souness had barred the Glasgow Herald journalist James Traynor from any contact with Rangers officials. He was displeased with an article Traynor had written about Rangers failure in the European Cup.

  According to Traynor, the manager then said: "I've been reading your stuff over the past couple of years and it seems to me that you are just a little socialist."

Again you might think, so what — after all Souness probably knows less about politics than football and anyway Rangers have the reputation of being a True Blue Protestant Tory organisation, but the article on the sports page was an eye-opener. It stated:

  A socialist, according to the dictionary is an adherent to the theory, principle, or scheme of social organisation which places means of production and distribution in the hands of the community.

Now that is unusual. A newspaper that more or less correctly defines a socialist. Perhaps the sports editor should have a word with the news editor who constantly incorrectly describes the Labour Party as "socialist".

God on their side

While armies move along the Iraq/Saudi Arabia border preparing for the hellish conflict which begins to look more and more likely, the divines at home ponder on the morality of the affair.

  In Britain The Times has been running letters on the concept of a just war, mostly from Anglican bishops, since September. The Americans and French bishops debated the Issue at length at separate conferences last weekend, and on November 7th, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, the Most Reverend Roger Malory, sent a letter to Mr. James Baker, the American secretary of state.

The Economist 17 November

There is something particularly nauseous in the spectacle of young workers preparing to meet death, disfigurement and pain; while bishops in London and Los Angeles debate the pros and cons of a "just war".

The history of war is full of examples of religion supporting "just wars". In the case of the Gulf Crisis the battle for oil will be disguised as a moral crusade. As the late unlamented oil billionaire Paul Getty said when he heard one of the beatitudes — Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth — "Yes, but not the mineral rights."

Supermarket Politics

Commenting on the similarity of Mr. Heseltine's policy to those of Mr. Kinnock, Peter Kellner in The Independent (16 November) compared the policies of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party to the goods on sale at Tesco and Sainsbury.

  Filling party manifestos is fundamentally not that different from filling supermarket shelves: both require a judicious mix of new and old, innovation and imitation. And an efficient political market is likely to generate choice among alternatives that are basically similar.

So there you have it — your choice is between "alternatives that are basically similar". Both Labour and Conservative stand for the continuation of the capitalist system. As far as socialists are concerned both are well past their sell-by dates.

Nightmare Economics

Capitalism is a real nightmare for the politicians who attempt to control it. Consider the current row over EC subsidies for its 10 million farmers. These subsidies allow uneconomic farmers to survive and the EC to undercut competitors on world food markets.

These competitors, especially the USA, all need to export food too, so they demand big cuts in the subsidies. But Germany and France have hordes of small farmers who have votes and can, as they have shown, cause serious civil disturbance, so they have persuaded the EC to cut subsidies by only 30%.

The outraged competitors have threatened to retaliate by excluding EC products from their own markets and set off a world trade war.

This is the nightmare facing the governments of the 105 nations attending the conference in Geneva this month on expanding free-trade. A nightmare indeed, but one which those who seek to run capitalism bring upon themselves.

Letters: Socialism and Communism (1995)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and Communism

Dear Comrades,

It was not Lenin who first claimed any difference between socialism and communism, but Marx and Engels, and the Manifesto of the Communist Party proves this. When written it could not have been thought of as the Socialist Manifesto because Marx and Engels wanted to distance themselves from the utopian socialists such as Fourier and Owen. It was after all Marx and Engels who put the science into socialism with a vision of a much higher phase in human and social development. Also in Engels’s time "Socialism was on the continent at least respectable, Communism was the very opposite" as Frederick pointed out.

Today, the once communist parties in the once socialist countries of eastern Europe now regard themselves as democratic socialists after the counter-revolutions reduced them to kow-tow to the politics of reformism. Add to this the socialist parties in western Europe whose manifestos are about reform rather than revolutionary transformation.

We should recognise that socialism can only be at its most radical in the period of transition between capitalism and communism, in other words the first stage of communism. Finally Marx and Engels knew that the spectre haunting Europe was communism not socialism.

James Nugent, 

Old Coulsdon, Surrey

Reply:

Your letter confirms what we said: that Marx and Engels used the words "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably to refer to a system of society based on the social, or common, ownership of the means of production, and not, as you imply, to two different stages in the future evolution of society.

In the 1840s, as Engels explained, they used the word "communist" because at that time the word "socialism" was used to refer to the followers of Robert Owen in England and Charles Fourier in France. Indeed, the Owenites actually invented the word (the first recorded use of it was in the London Cooperative Magazine of November 1827) and called themselves Socialists. Marx and Engels didn’t want to be associated with the advocacy by these groups of going to America or into the countryside to establish small-scale communities based on common ownership as the answer to capitalism, as what they advocated was political action by the working class to establish common ownership on a society-wide level. So they called themselves Communists and wrote the Communist Manifesto (rather than the Socialist Manifesto).

By the 1880s, however, these groups no longer existed and the word "socialism" was no longer associated with setting up small-scale communities, and the emerging working-class movement for a society of common ownership and democratic control was able to call itself "socialist". So, when William Morris. Eleanor Marx and others broke away from the Social Democratic Federation with Engels's approval in 1884 they called their new organisation the Socialist League. And Engels himself called one of his best (perhaps his best) writings Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (rather than Communism, Utopian and Scientific).

In short, what in the 1840s Marx and Engels had called communism Engels in the 1880s called Socialism.

In the 20th century usage changed again. After the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917 Lenin called his party "communist" to distinguish it from the "socialist” parties of western and central Europe which had been founded in Engels's day but which by then had become openly and hopelessly reformist. But he also made "socialism" a period of transition, when there would be full state ownership with everyone becoming a state employee, between capitalism and communism (by which he meant what Marx and Engels had called indifferently "socialism" or “communism" and what we call "socialism”, i.e.. a society of common ownership without money, wages, the state, etc). But this was state capitalism, not real socialism.

In 1936 Stalin proclaimed that Russia had become a "socialist country” and when the Russian army overran eastern Europe after the war it set up puppet regimes in the various countries there which, together with Russia. Stalin and his supporters called “the socialist countries". You seem to have fallen for this myth when you talk about the “communist parties" which used to govern "the socialist countries". But this — that Russia, etc were socialist — is the Big Lie of the 20th century. They were never socialist: they were always state capitalist.

You are right, however, that, since they were ousted from power by street-level popular action in 1990, these formerly ruling parties have transformed themselves into ordinary reformist parties competing with other parties for the job of running capitalism in their countries. Unfortunately, some of them, as in Hungary and Bulgaria, have chosen to call themselves "the Socialist Party". Needless to say, as far as we are concerned, they are no more socialist today than they were communist yesterday. They have nothing to do with us and are not genuinely socialist parties. 

Editors.

Swedish Searchlight on Capitalism

Dear Editors,

The Swedish section of Amnesty International has now existed for 30 years. Their general secretary said during an interview: "this means that we are still needed, and at the same time we will continue to throw a searchlight on governments who oppress individuals, collectively and otherwise with torture, deportation, violence and the death penalty. We hope however that sooner or later we will not be needed".

No doubt a Swedish entry into the Common Market will certainly increase rising racism here. It would be interesting to hear the SPGB's examination and analysis concerning the performance of Amnesty encased by global capitalism.

Obajimi Holloway, 

Stockholm, Sweden

Reply:
We don’t want to knock people who are doing something to try to help individual victims of state oppression, but it is clear that what Amnesty is doing is no more than this, carrying a few of the wounded off a battlefield without being able to stop the battle continuing.

We say with absolute confidence that as long as global capitalism is allowed to continue Amnesty’s work will never be done. As long as capitalism lasts there will be states and as long as there are states there will be oppression, since states are by nature oppressive institutions whose job is to maintain the status quo in the interests of an entrenched ruling class.

Editors

Blue nose out of joint

Dear Sirs,

Despite being a Young Conservative, I regularly buy your magazine and although I do not agree with much of its content, I read the articles within it with great interest in order to obtain a different perspective on the political issues affecting the world.

It was therefore very disappointing to read the article by Scorpion in the November 1994 issue which revelled in the supposed demise of the Young Conservatives. Surely a party that wishes to put its views over in a democratic setting would welcome the opportunity for young people to take part in political debate whatever their political persuasion.

The article also contained two glaring inaccuracies which require correction:

1. The Young Conservatives are not for the chop; both the Prime Minister and the Party Chairman have pledged their support for the organisation.

2. You do your article no favours by merely repeating the ’’smears" from the left wing press regarding supposed links with racist groups and acts of hooliganism.

Finally the youth wing of the Party will not merely "fade away". There is to be an "Autumn Offensive" recruitment campaign, which should see the Young Conservatives' membership increase dramatically. This will lead to more people taking part in political discussion and activity, something which you as a democratic party will surely welcome.

R. M. Lees,

Vice-Chairman,

Worthing and Shoreham Young Conservatives.

Reply:
Our statement that the Young Conservatives were "set for the chop" was based on articles which appeared in the national press.

As for your denial of “supposed links with racists groups and acts of hooliganism", well, where have you been, because these have been reported in the media many, many times?

For example, a recent TV programme about John Major's "war on yob culture” showed how young Tory yobs in Oxford had smashed up a posh restaurant there, while a headline in the Tory Glasgow Herald (12 November 1990) read "Punch-up mars Young Conservative conference".

And you should know about the well-publicised links which such prominent young Tories as John Bercow, Stuart Millson, etc., had with the BNP. Indeed. Millson left to join the BNP.

Editors.

Proper Gander: Tory Teenagers (2012)

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

Leave a Petri dish in Oxford or Cambridge and chances are it will spawn a few young Conservatives along with other bacteria. The universities there have always been infected with teenage Tories, and two of these irritating germs featured on Young, Bright and On the Right (BBC2). Cameras followed them both as they tried to gain influence in their respective Oxbridge University Conservative Associations – CUCA and OUCA.

Joe Cooke hangs portraits of Thatcher and Churchill on his bedroom wall, where other teenagers might have posters from Nuts magazine. Nineteen-year-old Chris Monk describes himself as “a wild firebrand of the right”. Alas, he’s too ‘wild’ to ingratiate himself among CUCA, with his flailing arms, gawky demeanour and strange obsession with cheese and port. The most striking thing about each of them is their voice. Chris speaks in a whiny gargle, like Boris Johnson with a helium balloon. Joe’s decided to dilute his Yorkshire accent to fit in better with his posh, plummy peers.

Both want to start playing among the infighting and intrigue they find in their Conservative Associations. In their minds, they’re practising for when they’re in Parliament. In reality, they’re behaving like they’re in a sixth-form drama production of Yes, Minister. The game turns more serious when Joe gets revenge on those who mocked his real accent. He goes to the papers with evidence that OUCA sang racist and anti-Semitic songs at their meetings. He says he’s now seen through their “warped reality”.

Young, Bright and On the Right reveals that both Joe and Chris have grown up feeling isolated, and this led them to seek acceptance in the Conservative Party, of all places. Why there, rather than anywhere normal people go? Perhaps feeling some resentment towards their peers has contributed to their joining an organisation famed for trampling on people. It’s as if Conservatism is a symptom of their teen angst. Thankfully, it’s a phase both Joe and Chris should grow out of. By the end of the programme, they’ve both abandoned their political aspirations. Hopefully, in years to come they’ll be suitably embarrassed about being young, bright and full of shite.

Mike Foster

Sting in the Tail: Missing the point (1996)

The Sting in the Tail column from the January 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Missing the point

Paul Foot of the SWP, writing in the Guardian (20 November) bemoaned the closure by a Labour council of a day centre in Newcastle.

This had him recalling past arguments with Labour Party members in which they “scorned the luxuries of Utopian socialist visions” (presumably the SWP’s ease) and “boasted of their practical down-to-earth ‘municipal socialism’”, and asked:

  “Where are those arguments now? What is the point of joining the Labour Party if Labour councils are forced to cut the services which their predecessors provided to assist the people who vote Labour? ”

True enough, but by the same token shouldn’t Paul Foot be asking himself what is the point of him and the rest of the SWP urging workers to vole for the Labour Party at every election?


Blacker than black

The Advertising Standards Authority is the in-house watchdog of British advertising. It is supposed to ensure that advertising meets the criteria of honesty, legality and decency. Like most things associated with advertising it is a complete con-trick.

Hunter Marsden, a high-rolling American ad-man who works for the giant J. Walter Thompson agency, is reported in the Observer (5 November) on the present level of duplicity in world-wide advertising as saying:

  "Superiority claims are delicately stitched together by legal wordmeisters, aided by a hairy menagerie of weasel words, mouse type and squirrelly logic."

In other words, to paraphrase Disraeli, “there arc three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and advertising”.


No change there

The conference of the Scottish Young Conservatives in November threw up the usual quota of reactionary spoutings. For example, guest speaker Leslie Sharp, Chief Constable of Strathclyde "delighted the Tory faithful in Edinburgh with a robust attack on the link between poverty and crime, coupled with a strong defence of stiffer prison sentences” (Herald, 27 November).

And conference chairman Murray Roxburgh was loudly cheered by delegates when he blamed the strike by Scottish postal workers who were resisting the imposition of worsened conditions, on “lefty scum” (Teletext, 27 November). Roxburgh insisted that “management must have the right to manage”, meaning that workers must meekly accept whatever bosses throw at them.

However, the Herald also noted that:

   "Not so long ago, this event would have been big enough to take over a large hotel for an entire weekend. On Saturday, barely 70 gathered in a conference room at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. ”

The conference also showed that although the SYC’s numbers have diminished, their obnoxious outlook certainly has not.


“Middle-class” nonsense

What a lot of daft and contradictory definitions there are of the so-called “middle class”.

In Britain many politicians and academics would have us believe that this middle class is getting bigger and bigger and even constitutes the majority of the population, but in America, Republican congressman F.K. Heineman of North Carolina takes a very different view:

   “When I see someone who is making anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 a year, that’s middle class,' said Mr Heine man, a former New York City police officer and Raleigh police chief. ‘When I see anyone above that, that’s upper middle class’” (New York Times, 29 October).

The story reveals that the US Census Bureau has just released figures showing that only 5 percent of American households earn more than $109,821 a year, so the percentage earning from $300,000 to $750,000 must be even less.

Going by Heineman’s definition, the American middle class, far from getting bigger, is practically non-existent.


Dear Brutus

In the desperate competition for customers, banks and building societies spend millions of pounds on advertising, marketing gimmicks and giveaways. The Abbey National, though, has surely scraped the bottom of the barrel in its latest gimmick. It is offering a booklet “Your Astrological Guide to a Secure Future”.

It is written by Jonathan Cainer, described as “Britain’s most authoritative astrologer”. This is akin to descriptions like “most pregnant virgin” or “wisest idiot”.

Presumably the Abbey National are only being humorous in this latest gimmick, but given the “success” of predicting the market by the various “experts”, who is to say Cainer will be less accurate?

To understand how capitalism operates workers would be better advised to consult Marx’s Capital than squinting at the stars. As usual. Shakespeare had a helpful couple of lines to say on the subject:

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. ”

Dances, Jumble Sales, Table Tennis (1967)

From the June 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why do young workers join the Conservative Party?

Of those we interviewed, most admitted that it was the social life organised by the Young Conservatives which attracted them. Reasons given for joining varied from "I was at a loose end in the evenings" to "I fancied this girl in our local branch". This impression is backed up by a passage in a recent issue of their news magazine, Impact:

'But I'm not interested in these events,' came the comment from someone looking at a local programme for the Young Conservatives.

'What are you interested in then?' asked a Young Conservative.

'What most people of my age are interested in, going out, cars, fashions, pop music, we like to enjoy ourselves.' The speakers was now chairman of the teenage Tories group formed in a town to satisfy the demand for these lively interests involving his own age group.

All this should be borne in mind when discussing this movement. The vast majority of their members are almost completely apolitical. Dances, jumble sales, parties and table-tennis from the horizons of the average Young Conservative's mind. Not that we sneer at these pursuits, or at the idea of enjoying oneself. After all, many of our young members are also interested in fashion and respond to pop music. But the young workers in the Socialist Party of Great Britain joined because they saw through the rottenness of the capitalist system and recognised socialism as the only alternative for the working class. On the other hand, political conviction of any kind is about the last thing the Young Conservatives could claim to have.

One unpleasant feature which any contact with young Tories brings out is that, as with all the capitalist parties, there is a small number of careerists in the organisation. This is hardly surprising because the Conservative party is a powerful, national force and, when you take a look at some of its leaders, you realise that one does not need very much in the way of intelligence or personality to shine in it. Nonetheless, coming from a party where there are no such time-servers, it was a nasty business listening to a few of these greasy characters.

To the Socialist, the most striking feature about the Young Conservatives is the complete absence of even the faintest glimmerings of class-consciousness. Discussions with the, always revolved around "our industry", "our profits", "our balance of payments" and so on. None of them seemed to have asked themselves the basic questions of what stake they have in Britain's industry, or of what profit they are ever likely to realise as wage-earners. A group in one branch was asked whether they thought anyone was exploited in Britain today. Their general opinion was that the workers are—and it was also felt by them that this was only right and proper. It was uncanny listening to these young people, workers like the rest of us, identifying themselves so wholeheartedly with the capitalist class and its system.

A majority of Young Conservatives, like the population as a whole, think of themselves as "middle class". Exactly how they differentiated between one class and another was impossible to say. Most, however, were convinced that there was some identifiable distinction which separated them from the common mass of working men and women. The suggestion that anyone who sells his mental and physical energies for a wage or salary is a worker and hence has common interests with his fellow workers, which clash with those of the capitalist class—was, in most cases, greeted by blank amazement. A minority denied the existence of any classes in Britain today.

One reason for this lack of even an embryonic class-consciousness would seem to be that relatively few are trade unions. Of those who are not, most feel that the unions are too powerful and need to have their strength sapped, "in the public interest." The average young Tory also seems to be a rather blood-thirsty individual, for a large majority supported the American government's policy in Vietnam. War was gaily accepted as one of the facts of life, to be played in much the same spirit as their hockey and tennis matches.

Although the number of Young Conservatives seems to have declined since their peak in the early nineteen fifties, they are still about 100,000 strong—spread over 1,400 branches throughout the country. Bearing these sort of resources in mind, it is perhaps surprising that so much of their propaganda is of a very low calibre—even judged by the standards of capitalist parties in general. Their written material particularly is spiced with wet remarks—e.g. "Ernest Marples has been our greatest road builder since the Romans."

As much as any other movement, the Young Conservatives are evidence of the old socialist saying that the only workers who are opposed to Socialism are those who do not understand it. Objections were mainly on the grounds that it means nationalisation and state control. This is especially galling because the Conservative party—like all the capitalist parties—has supported nationalisation measures, whereas the Socialist Party is the only organisation which fights not just for an end to state domination but for the abolitions of the very system which produces class divisions and the consequent state machinery wielded by the ruling class.

To the Young Conservatives who read this, we Socialists have this to say. The problems which confront you are the same as those which harry us. You are worried about meagre wages and inadequate housing, about the threat of a terrifying nuclear war, in the same way as we are. Socialism offers both of us a way out. But as long as you bind yourself to the Conservative party capitalism, with all its misery and frustrations for working men and women, will grind on. The Conservative party's successes are the measures of your own failure, as a member of the working class, to get up off your knees.

John Crump