Capitalism and underdevelopment: where Leninists go wrong (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

The whole Leninist theory of imperialism turns on two or three major concepts: the twin notions of super-profits and super-exploitation, monopoly (denned in a strictly legal sense) and investment strategy. In Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Lenin pretended to have discovered an ultimate and final stage of capitalism, and this discovery has been widely attributed to his astute grasp of the materialist conception of history. Reading his pamphlet between the lines, however, we discover the existence of at least five acutely unMarxist tendencies:

First, Lenin ignores the definition of monopoly favored by Marx as a monopoly established socially by the capitalist class over the means of production, proceeding instead to adopt a conventional (bourgeois) definition of it as the centralization of control of industries resulting in "restraint of trade".

Second, Lenin identifies capitalism as a system of production with its regime of 19th-century Liberalism, thus persuading himself that the latter's all too apparent demise meant the onset of the socialist revolution.

Third, Lenin describes the frenzy of imperialist acquisitions by the European powers in the last quarter of the 19th century as being the result of monopoly defined in the above manner, in so far as the super-profits made by the monopolies forced capital to be exported abroad to the system's undeveloped periphery, foisting super-exploitation on the local working class and a pattern of "dependent" economic development on the local capitalist class.

Fourth, investment strategy moves quickly to the fore as the dominant focus of Lenin's analysis. His theory of imperialism orients itself around decisions as to how to invest capital rather than around the conflict between capitalists and workers.

Fifth, Lenin's theory is preoccupied with questions of international commodity exchange and very little with capitalist production as such.

Later Leninists have built on these erroneous views of their master to argue that the fundamental cause of underdevelopment is the unfavorable relations of exchange that have evolved between capitalists on the "periphery" and those in the "metropolis", rather than the rigid social structures inherited from colonial times or from home-grown traditions.

ROADS TO CAPITALISM

Teresa Meade in an article in Latin American Perspectives (Summer 1978) on "The transition to capitalism in Brazil: Notes on a third road" argues that "normal" capitalist development in Brazil (and hence, by implication, everywhere that comparable conditions existed) was impossible, owing to the region's integration into the emerging capitalist world economy.

The "third road" referred to in the title of her article is distinguished from the classical or "first" road (according to which small independent producers challenged the dominance of an assumed "pre-capitalist mode of production") and a Prussian or "second" road (where the Junker landlords retained control of the agricultural system even as they benefited from its overall industrialization).

Here Leninist theory has typically inverted the relationship between agricultural backwardness and capitalist development. But it does call attention to the fact that capitalism is a single system of production which develops differently under different conditions. Many a critic of Marxism has concluded with premature glee that the very diversity of capitalist development disproves Marx's analysis of it. What Meade curiously - or not so curiously - neglects to do, however, is to broaden her criterion to include all forms of capital accumulation regardless of ideology. For she has managed to leave out Soviet (or Chinese) state capitalism as an intervening "third road" before she got to the case of Brazilian capitalism.

In the same issue of Latin American Perspectives Peter Singlemann argues that:

during the initial phases of the industrial revolution in the advanced capitalist nations, colonies and dependent nations contributed to the formation of relative surpluses in the industries of the metropolis . . . The amount of relative surplus can be increased by decreasing the amount of socially necessary labor which, in turn, entails a devaluation of the means of subsistence.

This "devaluation", it turns out, is really the campaign to cheapen labor-power, the model case for this being the Anti-Corn Law struggle in mid-19th-century Britain carried out by the industrialists, who subsequently kept the price of grain down by importing American wheat "which paid no rent".

This idea of rent holding up the value of labor-power is in fact interpreted in a very rigid manner: in his The Law of Value and Historical Materialism Samir Amin advances the thesis that there exists a "world-scale hierarchy in the price of labor-power" (radiating outward from the developed centers), in which the price of labor-power and the productivity of labor are disconnected from each other, owing to the distortions created by an export-oriented production strategy. This strategy in turn marks the subordination of local capital to that of the center, perpetuating "super-profits" in the center and "super-exploitation" of labor-power on the periphery. The point, according to Amin, is that the reduction of ground rent to insignificance has failed to take place to a large extent throughout the third world and therefore has blocked the further investment of capital in productive activity, with a consequent brake on industrialization.

LENINIST INVESTMENT ADVICE

Since third-world countries have generally had or continue to have an agonizingly protracted experience of pre-industrial capitalism, Leninist theory has seen in agricultural backwardness an effect rather than a cause of "low and slow" industrialization. However, whether or not we are talking about "classical" economic development, the original source of the "industrialization fund" of an economy based on commodity exchange is an agriculture which has been monopolized (in the Marxian sense) by agrarian capitalists or capitalist farmers. This process of social monopolization of the means of production carries with it the mass expulsion of the rural population - regardless of the exact course the process may follow - leaving behind only those whom wages can pay or those who can pay them. On the classical model, this leads to a direct polarization of capitalist-worker relations in the countryside and to a lowering of the value of labor-power as in Britain with the abolition of the Corn Laws in the 1840s.

Leninist theorists argue that this process (the "formation of relative surpluses") is blocked for third-world capitalists because of their investment strategy of channeling their capital investments into exports of locally produced goods and then compounding the contradiction by locking themselves into import substitution (instead of, as formerly, into conspicuous consumption).

Import substitution - the decision to manufacture domestically what before had been imported (a major trend after the second world war) — is arguably self-defeating as a way to capitalist development. But the propriety of advising the capitalist class on how to "correct" the situation (even if this means replacing wholesale one gang of accumulators with another) is highly dubious at best. It is not necessary, as Leninists claim, for the working class to achieve its emancipation from capital, in the underdeveloped countries or anywhere else, by proceeding to place commodity production on a competitive footing through the foundation of so-called "proletarian republics" (state-capitalist regimes) as a supposed means of allowing productive capital to build up its base of profits by turning its investments to light industry. State capitalism is not a necessary step in third-world countries towards socialism but just another road to capitalism.

Ron Elbert (USA.)

New Economics: old errors (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

Alvin Toffler, in his latest book about the nature of the global crisis, opens up with a compelling metaphor:

What is happening is not like a hurricane that sweeps across the landscape, leaving the earth itself unchanged. It is more like the beginnings of an earthquake. For the subterranean structure on which all our economics are based is now, itself, shifting, cracking. In our efforts to prevent a major collapse, we are dealing with surface phenomena rather than focussing on the deep-structure where the really big changes are occurring (Previews and Premises, Pan Books, 1984, p.9).

While, as Victor Anderson points out, the "New Economics" represents a "field of debate rather than a settled doctrine" (New Ground, No.6), one can detect within it a unifying theme: the desire to break out of the suffocating grip of market forces, to situate real needs and values at the centre of social affairs. For this reason it has been dubbed the economics of "anti-economics".

For socialists, this undoubtedly holds promise. Indeed, at the extreme cutting edge of this movement one may obliquely glimpse a vision of the socialist alternative, an alternative so long obscured by the prolific undergrowth of reformist politics. If today the tension between life as we know it and life as we could make it, has never been so palpable, than the significance of the New Economics is precisely that it often unwittingly mirrors much of this tension. Its aspirations, its assumptions, are channeled to no small extent along grooves gouged out by the material forces that have now made socialism, a non-market society based on voluntary work and the free availability of goods, a real possibility.

HUMAN VALUES VERSUS MONEY VALUES

One aspect of this revolt against the blinkered tyranny of abstract economic laws is the belief that "non-economic values" should be allowed to play a greater role in the capitalist economy. As Harford Thomas has put it, there is an "urgent need for new economic indicators which will show a cost benefit balance of loss and gain not only in money terms but also in terms of human needs and human values" (Guardian, 8 May 1985).

The major force for change in this direction has been the growth in ecological awareness. Conventional accounting measures economic performance in terms of Gross National Product (GNP) according to which losses inflicted upon nature may actually count as additions to economic prosperity. The New Economics argues that as long as governments are guided by GNP in their efforts to promote economic prosperity, they will remain blind to the environmental consequences of economic growth - until, that is, those consequences reach the point where they rebound against them, forcing them to re-assess the parameters of their economic thinking. Once again, Harford Thomas:

Money economics is treated as sacrosanct but the rate of return on money is no measure of the worthiness of human endeavour. It is inappropriate as an indicator of personal or social wellbeing. We need a new financial ethos.
We need a new economic language to match new concepts. This would distinguish between "sustained recovery" and "sustainable development". New accounting systems would distinguish between self-defeating and sustainable growth (Guardian, 5 June 1985).

What this proposal amounts to is a translation of ecological factors into monetary values. In theory, this would mean that if a particular amenity such as a river were priced, the destruction of that amenity would entail a cost that would have to be borne by the offending firm to hopefully deter it from polluting. The cost of disposing of its pollutants in an ecologically acceptable manner would thus be "internalised". Perhaps as a consequence, the local fishing industry downstream might live to see another day and in so doing, continue to provide employment for the local population. In this event, the "sustainable development" of the area would have been secured. But in order for this to happen, goes the argument, it is essential that the relevant authority - central or local government - takes the necessary steps to ensure that firms conduct their business with due regard for the environment Left to their own devices, market forces are quite "unfit for (this) purpose" (Harford Thomas). In any case, some elements of the environment - like the oceans or the atmosphere - do not lend themselves to private ownership by individuals or firms. Thus a political authority of some sort is regarded as a vital key to policing the environment.

BUT CAPITALISM CANT BE HUMANISED

The trouble with this scenario, and even more so, that proposed by the advocates of "zero growth", is that it assumes that governments operate in a social vacuum, that they are in a position to consciously direct economic growth in line with some preconceived objective. In fact, economic growth is subject to those very economic laws, the consequences of which the Green movement attacks, that arise out of the nature of the present social system, that transcend firms, governments and even international bodies. Capitalism is a system that is inherently dynamic and geared to "growth". It is a system based upon the relentless accumulation of capital out of the surplus value produced by workers. Because it is an intrinsically competitive system, each enterprise must strive to maximise this surplus value in order to extract from it as much capital for the purpose of investment so that the enterprise can remain competitive - the only alternative is economic bankruptcy. The tendency of a competitive economy is to force upon its competing units the overriding need to pursue short-term gain. It is hardly surprising, then, that the total effect of their actions should amount to a general disregard for the long-term costs such actions entail.

Of course, economic growth does not proceed in a straight line; it is periodically interrupted by recessions. But this is not something for which governments can be held responsible any more than they can take the credit for the economic upswing that follows on the heels of every recession. Rather, it arises out of the anarchic nature of capitalist competition itself, resulting in an uneven growth between different industries leading to cutbacks which spiral uncontrollably into a general recession.

Governments do not control the capitalist economy - the opposite is the case - and those who want the government to direct the economy along ecologically sustainable lines overlook that firms, including government -owned firms (which are among the most conspicuous polluters of the environment), invest their capital only if they see the prospect of profit in doing this. Ironically, in an economic recession when that prospect diminishes, the pressure on firms to "externalise" their costs actually increases. It is no coincidence that at such a time, "acceptable" levels of pollution are less rigorously adhered to or are deliberately downgraded by government decree. Under these circumstances to expect governments to compel firms to internalise their costs is to ignore the essential nature of government as an institution which seeks to promote the interests of the capitalist class within its territorial bounds, upon which it depends for its revenue.

Despite Murray Bookchin's claim that "carried to its logical conclusion . . . the struggle for a more balanced environment is the struggle against commodity production" (Post Scarcity Anarchism p. 16). it is clear that the Green movement with talk of a "new financial ethos" and the like is still trapped within a money-bound mode of thinking. Spurning the sacrosanctity of "money economics" it nevertheless pays it due homage. Yet it cannot hope to make much headway while it fails to extend its ecological awareness of the environment into a more fundamental analysis of the economics of capitalism.

TOWARDS A SOCIETY OF MASS UNEMPLOYMENT?

If the New Economics sees the "environmental backlash" to be an external constraint upon capitalism, supposedly forcing it to redefine its priorities, then the primary internal constraint is seen as the impact of new technology on the level of employment, forcing a separation of work and income.

The basic premiss of this argument, as presented by Andre Gorz. is the view that the new technology is of a qualitatively different order to that of previous technologies:

New technologies are being developed which are both cheaper and more effective than the old ones, allowing for growing quantities of goods and services to be produced with shrinking quantities not only of labour but also of capital. Whereas in the past, additional investment made for a growing number of jobs, at present it abolishes more jobs than it generates (Guardian, I August 1985).

Moreover, argues Gorz, it is no longer possible to count on the service sector to compensate for the elimination of jobs in manufacturing industry. Here too, jobs are under threat as automation bites deeper holding out the prospect of a tapering off of service sector employment. As a net result, a "society of mass unemployment is coming into being before our eyes".

How in the face of this chronic mass unemployment on an ever-increasing scale can workers expect to support themselves beyond the diminishing opportunities afforded by waged employment? For Gorz. the answer is to sever the link between income and employment by providing everyone with a "social income" as of right - an idea that can be traced back to the "underconsumptionist" theories of Jacques Duboin before the war and others before him (see Socialist Standard, February 1980).

To some extent, a "social income" of a sort already exists in that many workers receive an income out of state funds in the form of welfare benefits, to supplement, or to substitute for the total lack of. an income from employment. This is not merely a politically expedient development carried through by the state, mindful of the social consequences of absolute destitution on a large scale and aware of the advantage of holding large sections of the working class within a relationship of dependance upon the crumbs it doles out. There is also an important element of economic expediency in this in that it makes for a working class sufficiently fit and able to run modern industry with the degree of efficiency it requires.

On the other hand, there arc also counteracting tendencies that inexorably work to restrict the size of the crumbs doled out. Above all there is the fact that such benefits, paid for out of taxation, represent a burden upon the national capitalist class, whose competitive standing in the world economy would be adversely affected were that burden to become too great. This is why at a time of economic recession welfare benefits tend to be squeezed.

For this reason one would think that the notion of a "social income" has at best a limited applicability. Yet Gorz insists that it is bound to become a much more significant aspect of capitalism - indeed, a precondition for its continued survival - with the consequence that the law of value regulating the distribution of income will bear little, if any, relation to the way capitalism will operate in the future. Since the rapidly shrinking amount of wages as a result of growing unemployment will lead to a severe contraction of the market, capitalism will be increasingly forced to provide workers with a social income to buoy up its markets. In a sense, says Gorz, capitalism will thereby negate itself:

We are going towards a society where commodities will buy people instead of people buying commodities. It's what I call "dead-living" capitalism - capitalism which is a living corpse. Capitalism which is already dead but keeps up the appearance of the wage relationship and commodity production (International, January-April 1984).

But is Gorz right in claiming that a "society of mass unemployment is coming into being before our eyes" as a result of new technology? Similar claims have been made in the past about other technologies. Generally speaking, such claims have proved unfounded, based as they were upon a grossly exaggerated view of the increase in productivity that could be achieved by the introduction of such technologies. In focussing attention upon the particular area of employment immediately affected, they failed to notice, or greatly underestimated, the repercussions this had for the wider picture of employment as a whole. In this respect, the claims made about new technology are no exception.

An an antidote to Gorz's conjectures, one can cite the conclusions reached in a major study recently published by Wassily Leontief and other researchers of the Institute of Economic Analysis of New York University. This study, called The Impacts of Automation on Employment 1963-2000, which relies on an input-output analysis of different sectors of the United States Economy, argues that new technology, far from precipitating  a fall in aggregate employment, is likely to result in a substantial increase:

Far from it being likely that machines will displace workers, it is more likely that there will not be enough workers to operate all the machines we will want Equally, the changing structure of the labour force will not be dominated by a decline in production workers who will probably increase their share of jobs. But there will be a dramatic fall in office workers and a rise in the number of professionals (Guardian, 7 February 1985).

How is it possible to have such vastly different predictions about the future? The answer is that both scenarios - those who foresee the "collapse of work" and those who imagine there will be abundance of jobs - take as their starting point what they believe is an existing trend and, differing markedly over their interpretation of this trend, are able to reach very different conclusions about what the future might hold.

But there is an inherent weakness in the procedure of extrapolating from an existing trend. It assumes the linear progression of that trend indefinitely into the future. As earlier pointed out, economic growth does not behave in this fashion. Unemployment, as a feature of capitalism, waxes and wanes in response to the capitalist business cycle of boom and slump. In every slump there have been prophets to predict that mass unemployment was here to stay. In every upturn that followed those prophecies were proved false as industrial growth eventually led to more workers being employed.

A DUAL ECONOMY: MARKET AND NON-MARKET

For the New Economics, the administration of a "social income" poses a particular problem. It could massively reinforce the power of the state, a prospect which it does not welcome. The way round this difficulty, suggests Gorz, is to create opportunities for the "autonomous production of use-values", that is, people using their free time to produce goods and services for their own consumption (what Toffler calls the "prosumer economy") rather than for sale on a market. What is interesting about this proposal is the way Gorz relates it to the socialist objective:

Today there is another technological revolution going on which can be compared in its significance to the industrial revolution and which holds out the possibility of the dream of the first socialists - the abolition of wage labour. In the Grundrisse, Marx opposed disposable time to labour time. And certain key parts of his work say that the measure of wealth is disposable free time. "Really rich" is a nation where you work six hours and not twelve hours... When people work two days a week, the essence of their life is no longer labour, it's no longer the wage relation, it's what they do with their free time (International, January-April 1984).

According to Gorz, the realisation of socialism is only possible through the spaces opened up within capitalism for the utilisation of free time for the purpose of autonomous production; the development of technology under capitalism has effectively short-circuited the possibility of socialism being achieved in the way classical Marxism envisaged. The division of labour, having evolved into a highly integrated system of mass production, does not lend itself to a "socialist rationality" with its emphasis on the "free development of each individual as goal and precondition of the free development of all" (Marx):

Technology is not neutral, it was developed precisely in order to destroy workers' power in the factory. You can win a certain amount of control overworking conditions, over the technical process of production on the shop floor. You cannot, as Marx thought in his early period, say that the working class will feel at one with a comprehensive social process of production. You have to compare the working class as it is now with an army. It is structured by capitalist management, like an army. It is subdivided by smaller units led by what Marx called the "officers and petty officers of production". Of course an army can take power. But as long as the technology of production remains the same, the division of labour remains the same, the subdivisions will remain the same and those who will take power will be the officers. It will not be the soldiers (International, January-April 1984). 

What is at issue, then, is a form of alienation inherent not only in capitalist relations of production, but in the socialisation of the process of production itself; in the workings of a complex machine-like society. The effects of this alienation can be attenuated, but never entirely eliminated. (Farewell to the Working Class, Pluto Press, 1982, p.9)

So for Gorz, there will always remain a residual area of what he calls "heteronomous activity" - that is, activity over which individuals have relatively little control, activity that is determined by the technical requirements of the production system. In other words, the opposite of autonomous or self-determined activity. For example, no individual or group of individuals can manufacture a complete washing machine. As Gorz points out, "because there are so many inter-dependant processes you need a country of five million people to make one washing machine". In that each of these processes is tightly honed into, and governed by the specifications laid down by, numerous other processes, there is very little room within which individuals can freely develop, can creatively identify with the product of their collective efforts.

It is worth relating this point to the recurring theme in Alvin Toffler's work that, as a result of the revolutionary impact of new technology, society's dependance on socialised mass production techniques is now diminishing. According to Toffler, the trend towards a de-massified economy signals the end of a centuries old process of "market building". This marketisation of the economy went hand in hand with the socialisation of production itself based upon an ever more complex division of labour. The more elaborate this division of labour, the greater the split between producers and consumers, between production and consumption. This led as a direct result to the market playing an increasingly important role of mediating between the needs of producers and consumers (including, of course, the consumers of producer goods such as machinery). Now that the divorce between producers and consumers is narrowing - as shown by the growth of the "prosumer" economy - so the role of the market itself is corresponding contracting.

Gorz himself appears to endorse this view of the market as inextricably bound up with the development of socialised production. But whereas for Toffler the necessity for the market lies in the fact that it provides an indispensable mechanism to facilitate the flow of information linking producers and consumers (a quite mistaken view, as it happens, since it is entirely feasible to convey such information purely in terms of physical quantities by means of a self-regulating system of stock control), for Gorz market relations will remain an inevitable feature of a socialised system of production by virtue of the alienating experience of work within such a system which necessitates the retention of labour power in its coercive, commodity form. Like Toffler, he sees the decline of market relationships in relative terms as being connected with the growth in autonomous production:

The liberation of individuals and society, together with the regression of wage labour and commodity-based relationships, requires the domination of autonomous over heteronomous activity (Farewell to the Working Class p. 10).

Thus, instead of what the Communist Manifesto described as a "radical rupture with traditional property relationships", Gorz envisages the emergence of a socialist society in terms of a process of change analogous to the way capitalistic relationships developed within, and ultimately gained ascendancy over, feudalism. As he puts it:

The outlines of a society based on the free use of time are only beginning to appear in the interstices of, and in opposition to, the present social order (p.3).

However, this analogy only holds good up to a point Whereas capitalism supplanted feudal society, Gorz does not foresee the growth of self-determined, autonomous production leading to the elimination of externally-imposed, heteronomous activity. On the contrary, he asserts that that very growth will depend crucially on the goods and services provided by the latter. For example, advanced technology like computers which could be used for autonomous purposes depends crucially on research and development which can only be effectively carried out on a socialised basis. Generally speaking, local communities or groups lack the means to undertake such work, but the large-scale production of such technologies at low cost puts them within a price range that the latter can afford.

Thus, what Gorz is arguing for is what he calls a "Dual Society" with the emphasis on enlarging the sphere of autonomous production by making the sphere of non-autonomous, wage-based production as productive as possible through widespread automation, with workers moving continuously to and fro between these two spheres. He relates this scenario to Marx's reference in Capital Vol III to the "realm of freedom" and the "realm of necessity". The latter cannot be merged with the former and the former can "blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis" having "the shortening of the working day as its basic prerequisite" - a prerequisite which Gorz would contend has now been met with the aid of new technology.

SOCIALISM AND WORK

Let us now examine Gorz's claim that the nature of "socialised" or mass production techniques makes for the retention of wage labour (however marginalised it may become as a result of the growth in autonomous production) because of the "alien" technical requirements imposed upon the workforce. Put simply what this suggests is that, in any sort of society that makes use of such techniques, there would be certain types of work that would still have to be done but which could not be made intrinsically enjoyable or satisfying, regardless of the extent to which such a society sought to attenuate "the effects of this alienation", and that therefore people would have to be offered monetary incentives - a wage - to undertake them.

Quite apart from the absurdity of imagining that money could be an incentive - could have any sense even - in a society where goods and services would be freely available, there are several reasons for supposing that such work would not present the insurmountable difficulty it would appear to in a society based upon the purely voluntary efforts of its members.

Firstly, there is the fact that having established socialism people would not wish to jeopardise what they had consciously achieved. In so far as such work was seen to be a vitally necessary contribution to the material security of a socialist society it would be carried out. Gorz's claim that "socialist morality - with its injunction that each individual be completely committed to his or her work and equate it with personal fulfilment - is oppressive and totalitarian at root" and that it is "a morality of accumulation which mirrors the morality of the bourgeoise in the heroic age of capitalism" (Farewell to the Working Class p. 10) completely misses the point To describe as totalitarian what (for want of a better term) is a self-imposed sense of duty, a desire to cooperate out of a sense of enlightened self-interest to carry out the more routine humdrum tasks of a socialist society, is to strain the use of language beyond all reasonable bounds. Oppression presupposes the division of society into oppressors and oppressed. In a socialist society where all have free and equal access to the wealth produced by that society there can be no leverage that one could apply in order to oppress others.

Secondly, it is quite mistaken to argue that the only source of satisfaction in work derives from the intrinsic nature of the work itself. Another source of satisfaction is the social esteem that attaches to such work. In a socialist society, where the products of work are made freely available to all, status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be rendered meaningless: the only possible basis of social esteem would therefore be one's contribution to society. This being the case, it would seem likely that the less intrinsically satisfying a particular task is held to be, the greater would tend to be the social esteem that attaches to such a task.

Finally, one has to question whether the externally-imposed nature of some aspects of work today would in any meaningful sense persist in a society based upon voluntary effort. It is true, of course, that having volunteered to work for a certain length of time in some process such as the mass production of washing machines (to use Gorz's example) one would have to submit up to a point to the technical requirements this involves. But the point is that one would have consciously chosen to do this. In this sense one's activity is of an autonomous or self-determined nature however little one is able to individually influence or alter the technical process of production itself.

Robin Cox (Britain)

Hard Times

An excerpt from Robert Barltrop's The Monument: Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1975) 

I first knew the SPGB when I was a boy, in old Knight's boot-repair shop. My father stabled his carthorse in the yard next to the shop; when he went in to pay the rent he always lingered to listen to the talk, fascinated by the erudition and vehemence of the men who seemed to stand there all their lives. His admiration for them was so obvious that when in my teens I was drawn to their revolutionary creed I assumed it would give him pleasure. Instead, he was angry and fearful for my welfare: those men would not go to work, he said.

The charge was half just, half unjust. If it had been made directly to Crease, Allsopp and the others who thumped endlessly on old Knight's counter with their fists, they would have replied at once that there was no work to be had. This was in the depressed age between the wars; a million men were desperate for work, walked the months and years away for work, grovelled for work. The hopeless crowds at the Labour Exchange were as much part of the life of our town as the street market or the rackety silent picture palaces. There were beggars, barrel-organ players, kerb singers and pavement artists wherever one went, half of them war-maimed and with placards which said: 'No Pension, No Work.'

There was no doubt, on the other hand, that these same conditions had produced a small class of men unprepared to make the show of seeking work that self-respect demanded. The revolutionary socialists cared little for respectability, or for the difference between outdoor relief and the meagre wages a desperate search might bring. A man with a family might get thirty-five shillings a week from the Board of Guardians when a labourer's wage was not much more. And if he were thoroughly contemptuous of the system and its authority, the Guardians and the Labour Exchange might be swindled out of more — except that it was no swindle, but mere partial restitution.

The shifts and subterfuges born of those circumstances and that frame of mind were remarkable. It might be unwise even now to explain the flaw in the system of franking unemployed men's cards that was first discovered by a supremely scientific socialist. It became common knowledge in the SPGB, and the knowledge meant simply that anyone bold enough could  draw dole from two Labour Exchanges instead of one. Indeed, it could have been drawn from twenty a week by the same procedure, but the limitation was that 'signing-on' times were too nearly universal to give much time for travel.

James did this for a long time. A severe-looking man who always wore a stiff white collar and dark clothes, he was a passionate revolutionary to whom work meant self-abasement before the capitalist class. He had come to the neighbourhood from another district, where he had lately bought a quantity of furniture on hire-purchase and immediately sold it (a relatively easy practice for a respectably-dressed man then, when hire-purchase was less efficiently organized then it has become). He and another socialist would draw their dole at half-past ten each Friday, and rush for a tram to be in the next town and present their cards again at eleven. James's enthusiasm for the scheme knew no bound; he was for hiring a taxi to a third Exchange, but the other man thought it tempting Providence too far.

The Public Assistance system was squeezed for all the small allowances and extras it gave. Once a relieving officer said to James: 'Your wife is claimed to be an invalid, but I see her regularly in the queue for the fivepennies at the cinema'; and James replied indignantly 'You are a liar, sir — my wife pays never less than eightpence.' Many of the out-of-pocket expenses of living were passed by, too. No-one paid fares; everyone knew the geography of all the railway stations, and a member who was a tram-conductor let his comrades know his time-table to provide a free service up and down East London. If a likely windfall appeared, members wrote letters of recommendation for one another, signing them with the names of bishops, lords and well-known public men.

To see all this as either reprehensible or comic would be to miss the bitter taste of the time. There was little conscious drollery about it all. Some of the revolutionists were unemployable through their perversity, their arrogance against all authority; but the whole vast army of unemployed was unemployable through the chronic depression of the capitalist system. The frauds, tricks and perjuries were the only alternative to acquiescence — the fight was an unfair one anyway. Moreover, every issue of the Socialist Standard quoted instances culled from newspapers of the cynicism of the rich and powerful. There were always reports of luxurious dinners and conspicuously wasteful parties in 'society', and always speeches by incredible public figures who thought the poor deserved no pity. If the upper class had no conscience, how could the unemployed afford one?

This was the temper of the men who used to stand in old Knight's shop. Knight himself was a former member of the SLP; a revolutionary, but at variance with the SPGB over the subject of industrial unionism. He was an impressive man, with a great white moustache and a voice like thunder. He did little work in the shop — most men in those hard times mended their own and their families' boots — but lived mainly on the rents of the stables. His passion was for philosophy; he refused to mend the boots of a local schoolmaster because the master said he had never heard of Socrates.

The talk, the marvellous talk that flowed unceasingly in that dingy little shop! There seemed nothing those men did not know, no book or theory they could not quote and criticize. Nor is this merely an illusion preserved from boyhood. Groups of this kind were the real equivalent, in the hungry years in Britain, of the American socialist circles which Jack London described in Martin Eden. But whereas London's contentious oracles, pictured from his associates in San Francisco, were Bohemians touched by travel and aesthetic experience, these socialist talkers were down-at-heel working men whose knowledge rarely came from any other source than a lifetime of self-instruction.

The exception, and the dominant figure in the little group, was Arthur Crease. A man of sixty, he had been well-to-do; he had been an actor, and was said to be an accomplished musician. He would never tell the reason for his fall in fortune, except in vague phrases about 'bad times'; but his family blamed his socialism, and it was more than likely. He sometimes came to our house for an evening, and would fascinate us with music and Shakespeare as well as with savage commentary on the capitalist system.

Crease had joined the SPGB in its early days, left in one of the controversies, and became one of the band of perpetual supporters who were scarcely distinguishable from members. Often, though it was strictly forbidden by the SPGB's rules, he took the platform at street-corner meetings for the local members. His power of rhetoric alone was enough to command respect, and — though most of them understood probably not a word of it — his audiences would stand spellbound as he quoted pages of Marx, Spencer, Darwin, Nietszche, Morris and, it seemed, everybody else. On the other hand, he loved to be in the crowd at a Communist or Labour meeting and roar ridicule at the speaker.

The Party itself was in low water in the nineteen-twenties. The Russian revolution had excited radicals as nothing before, and the angry discontent of the post-war years found its outlet in the belief that here at last were a signal and a hope for the oppressed working people of the world. Thus, the energy of those who wanted sweeping change now went into the building of the  Communist Party and its offshoots. The members of the British Socialist Party — the SDF had changed its name in 1911 — and the SLP, who in disillusionment might have been ready to listen to the SPGB, became Communists instead. And, at the same time, those who sought change in more moderate terms saw the Labour Party, emergent as a new power in 1918, as the means to eventual economic and social sanity.

Obituary: Robert Barltrop (2009)

Obituary from the June 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Former member Robert Barltrop died on 26 April after a short illness. He joined the SPGB in 1946 as Robert Coster. A prolific speaker and writer for the Party, his work including the pamphlet Schools Today (1959). He resigned in 1959, before drifting into the fringes of the anarchist movement, and for a time even became an independent local councillor before rejoining the Party in 1970. He wrote prolifically for the Socialist Standard (and drew its first ever cartoon-strip feature), also serving for several years on the editorial committee. He left again in 1982.

Born in 1922, in his youth, he was, amongst other things, an enthusiastic boxer, and always retained an interest in the pugilistic arts. He worked as a school-teacher. He was an excellent artist, especially line drawing, and an expert in calligraphy. Very proud of his London heritage, he wrote several books on the cockney patois, a pride also reflected in three short autobiographical works published by Waltham Forest Library and in his regular weekly column in the Newham Recorder. He also notably wrote a book on the American author Jack London.

He was best known though for his work The Monument (1975), which remains a fascinating and entertaining introduction to the history of the SPGB. The book was largely written in the 1960s while he was out of contact with the Party, which explains the contentiousness of some of its many stories, anecdotes and perceptions.

Robert Barltrop was a controversial figure in the Party but he was always very civil to younger members who had not crossed swords with him politically. With him vanishes a great London character.

Kaz

Billy and Ben (1978)

From the January 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ben believed in God, a superior spirit in the sky,
An all powerful being, a saviour on High.
God, he said, was in you, around you.
A part of your life
Whether you be rich or poor
In peace or in strife. 

Billy, Ben's neighbour, asked how he knew He was there
And Ben said: "Don't be impertinent! Besides, that's not fair.
God is God, the giver of Love; the Lord is always so near.
Everyone knows it's Faith you need, then you'd know for sure He was here".
The observers of this encounter cheered Ben's clear cut words
For if there was anything clearer than what Ben had explained
Then they were sure that they'd never heard. 

Billy slowly walked away, a frown flitted across his brow so sad
But no-one was concerned at this facial expression
Because everyone knew that Billy was mad.
You see, Billy believed in this little green man
Who wandered the streets of the land.
You couldn't see him, hear him or speak to him at will
But as sure as the sky above was blue
The little green man had everything planned. 

"I'll go to the green man when I'm dead!" Billy yelled.
"The green man's garden is the best place to stay."
He told everyone this from his box in the town
And they came and locked poor Billy away.

Paul Breeze

The pilgrim's tale (1983)

Book Review from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba. Paul Hollander (Harper, 1983).

This book provides a comprehensive catalogue of the statements, of varying degrees of fatuity, of those who have visited Russia and other so-called communist countries and have mostly come back back with tales of how very much better things are over there. Two quotations show how ridiculous widely respected individuals can become when they put their critical faculties to one side. One of the earliest pilgrims, Bernard Shaw (Rationlisation of Russia) had this to say about the Russian prison system:

In England a delinquent enters (the jail, that is) as an ordinary man and comes out as "a criminal type", whereas in Russia he enters . . . as a criminal type and would come out an ordinary man but for the difficulty of inducing him to come out out at all. As far as I could make out they could stay as long as they liked (p.46 in Political Pilgrims).

Half a century later Susan Sontag (Trip to Hanoi) tells how love transforms the one-party state:

When love enters into the substance of social relations, the connection of people to a single party need not be dehumanizing (p.273, ibid).

The author is of Hungarian extraction and is currently a Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts. He makes quite clear his support of the American side in the main conflict between the rival national groupings of the capitalist world and in common with most present-day observers sees this rivalry as a struggle between capitalism (described as "Western societies") and the "socialism" allegedly practised by the enemy. Thus it is no surprise that when he comes to put his own interpretation on the facts he runs into difficulties. One of these is the definition of the term "intellectual:, which to him means "famous writers, well known academics, journalists, artists" and the like, who are "sensitive, insightful and critical". Clearly we are expected to regard their counsel as especially wise and well considered, and to accept that they know better than we do. Indeed, while Hollander rejects the opinions expressed by Bernard Shaw, Julian Huxley, C. Wright Mills and many others of the so-called communist countries, he clearly continues to regard them as great men for their efforts in other directions.

The subject matter of the book is largely confined to those who went on political pilgrimages because they believed that the "socialism" they would find there was radically different from the open capitalism they experienced at home. There are however a few examples of workers who, in contrast to the intellectuals, decided on the basis of what they saw to emigrate. Their reported experiences as members of the working class under "socialism" is interestingly compared to their reception on the original visit. Intellectuals opted to remain at home and not put at risk their positions of relative comfort, many rationalising their decision as "fighting for socialism at home".

Not surprisingly, Hollander classes himself as an intellectual, and his elitist attitude becomes too obvious when he deals with the cases of Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine. These two well known actresses have undertaken the same pilgrimages and responded in the same manner as the great majority of the club, yet the author cannot bring himself to class them as genuine intellectuals. He described them as "quasi-intellectuals" and arrogantly states: "I would have purified my sources by removing all such questionable or marginal material without any damage to the substance of the book". Fully accepted as having impeccable credentials are a long list of clowns of the looney left, plus Billy Graham and Malcolm Muggeridge. (The latter is considered exceptional by the professor because his experiences as a newspaper reporter converted him into an open supporter of capitalism.)

The professor is also in difficulties when he tries to account for the continued antagonism shown after World War Two by the intellectual pilgrims towards their domestic capitalism. One chapter is entitled "The rejection of Western society in the 1960's and 70's", but even though the second preface is dated July 1982, the remarkable feat is performed of not mentioning the current world slump anywhere in the book. Hollander thinks that the so-called affluence of this period should have quietened the dissenting voices. Combined with his inability to see a better way of living, he becomes more disturbed than puzzled by the continuing waves of protest. The following quote betrays his anxiety:

It seems to me that what has been consequential is not the perception or praise of particular countries and their political systems at any given time. What makes a difference in the long run is the cumulative impact of the denigration intellectuals direct at their own society . . . The cumulative effect of this steady debunking and preoccupation with the ills of society intensifies the sense of malaise and alienation arising out of the problems and frustrations, many of which are unlikely to be resolved. (p. 434 ibid).

The quotes from the 1960s and 70s make no mention of any recession, and the author draws attention to the difference between their critique and that of the pre-war pilgrims, who made frequent allusions to the slump of the 1930s. It is of course perfectly correct to take on board new criticism as further unpleasant features develop. However, the quotations given do show considerable confusion as these "intellectuals" appear to have largely accepted the current ruling class propaganda that capitalism has changed fundamentally for the better. To some extent this arose because they were divorced from, and felt themselves several cuts above, the mass of the workers; in the modern plants of Silicon Valley members of the working class are exploited in the same way as in the inner city factories of Karl Marx's day. The industrial disputes which periodically arise over wages and conditions of work are basically the same now as then.

Hollander recognises that "social criticism must rest on a vision of alternatives". Recognising some of the social evils of capitalism, and refusing to believe that there is no alternative, the pilgrims take so-called communist propaganda at its face value. This leads them in the quest of one Shangri-La after another. First Russia then, when the repressive nature of that regime became too obvious to ignore, Cuba, China, Vietnam . . .

A factor Hollander leaves out of account in considering the "affluent" period which preceded the current slump is the increase in expectations engendered during that epoch, helped by the tremendous advance in technology compared with pre-war. That this advance continues, the recession notwithstanding, increasing still further the gap between what is and what could be, makes even more apt Murray Bookchin's admirable summing up (Post-Scarcity Anarchism, 1971):

In attempting to uphold scarcity, toil, poverty and subjugation against the growing potential for post-scarcity, leisure, abundance and freedom, capitalism increasingly emerges as the most irrational, indeed the most artificial society in history . . . On an even greater-scale, potentiality begins to determine and shape one's everyday view of actuality, until a point is reached where everything about the society — including its most "attractive" amenities — seems totally insane, the result of a massive social lunacy.

In his exasperation at the way social criticism lives on, the Professor quotes approvingly the complaint by Bernard Henri Levi (Barbarism with a Human Face):

Levy writes: "We have a Marxist urbanism, a Marxist psychoanalysis, a Marxist aesthetic, a Marxist numismatics. There is no longer any realm of knowledge that Marxism fails to have a look at, no area off limits, no taboo territory . . . no cultural fronts to which it fails to send cohorts of researchers (p. 419 ibid).

And so there should be. There are in fact no off limits — areas which exist in limbo. unaffected by the prevailing social relationships of production.

Hollander's essential reasoning seems to be that the only alternative to "our" capitalism is the regime of "communist" countries. As this alternative is worse than what we already have, we are stuck with capitalism and can only try to make it work as well as may be. There is no doubt the rave reviews which the first edition enjoyed came mainly because of the book' support for this line of reasoning, which has spawned the belief, widespread in America and apparently gaining ground in Britain, that socialism is now an outdated concept. In assisting these confusing this book, although helpful in disillusioning workers still over-respectful of so-called intellectuals, does the socialist movement no service.

E. C. Edge

The Long and Short and the Tall (1959)

Theatre Review from the March 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

As might be guessed, "The Long and the Short and the Tall" is a play about men at war, written by Willis Hall and presented by the Royal Court Theatre. It is not a great play; it is not great drama or even great entertainment but as the characters come to life' as the action of the play unfolds itself, it highlights some interesting and important points.

A British Army patrol takes a Japanese prisoner in an area forward of the main fighting line in the Malayan jungle. At the end of the play, the patrol itself is encircled and trapped by the Japanese troops.

The play reminds us of the vicious anti-Jap propaganda of the war years when soldiers were taught to expect in their enemies a kind of sub-human order of life. Japs were alleged to be little yellow people with slanted eyes that denoted the worst kind of calculated slyness. Their protruding teeth eventually became animal-like fangs, and they were all obsessed with the plan to exert a malignant perverse cruelty on humanity at large. The Japs, it was said, just because a hatred of democracy was inherent in their national character, had decided to enslave and torture the peoples of the earth. Unless they were thwarted, a future was postulated where the entire earth would be in the grip of "things" beside whom Dracula and Frankenstein would pale into friendly, amenable good chaps. Thereby war and retaliation became not only justified but crucial to the survival of Western society and its democratic institutions. This was a bitter lie.

The soldiers had been sent to Burma and had begun fighting in an atmosphere of deliberately contrived hate, How strange, then, how completely taken by surprise were they when the first prisoner they took appeared to be "almost human." He was actually frightened: he seemed to expect his death because no doubt he had heard and believed the Japanese propaganda about "British monsters."

But the prisoner was not immediately killed and the few hours that followed allowed a pathetic fragment of a personal friendship to develop between him and his captors, and as it developed, the greater became the lie of war propaganda as compared with their personal experience. "He's human," his captors reiterate, as the Japanese soldier smokes a cigarette and produces photographs of his wife and children. "He's a family man. He's one of us."

The contradictions pile up. The biggest collection of loot is held by the blue-eyed boy from the Church Army who doesn't like to swear and curse. "We're fighting for the democratic British way of life," says one cynical squaddie, "but there's no democracy in the Army."

For a moment they lapse into confused disillusion.

"It's bloody murder."
"Of course it is—that's my job."
"I just take orders."
"We're all mugs."
"We don't know why we're here or what its all made of."
"You think too much."

The tragedy was that they didn't think enough.

The complete ignorance and lack of any coherent idea about the cause of war adds further tragedy to their desperate position. On stage the characters mill about violently involved in a situation they don;t understand.

The play makes ridiculous the bogey's placed in people's minds by the mass propaganda agencies about the enemy during war and times of preparation for war, and though it's 1959 when the play is presented and not 1939 when it had a more critical social relevance, one can welcome the way its central theme cuts through the nationalist fervour that usually surrounds war and spotlights war as a human tragedy.

Though the play is an expression of indignation that war should ever happen, its contribution to the understanding of war as a social problem is deficient and superficial.

For a real analysis, we must move beyond the narrow language of this play and begin to use the higher abstractions of political discussion.

The views about war expressed in the play are crude and shallow and yet in real life are often repeated in seriousness.

"Bints!" "Men will always fight," etc.

So we must ever fear that whilst such ignorance prevails violence and military strength will remain the arbiter in the settlement of international disputes and the world's workers will yet make fodder for the atomic cannon.

Pieter Lawrence

An ahistorical nitwit replies (2003)

From the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the March issue of the Socialist Standard there appeared a short item in the Voice from the Back column that has obviously annoyed a supporter of capitalism. It was criticising an article in the Observer of 9 February and has led the Observer writer to describe us as “ahistorical nitwits clinging to a fundamentalism every bit as odd as the Islamic variant”. To put our readers in the picture we will set forth what has been said, and will also put in our own tuppenceworth. It is up to you to decide.

In March we wrote:

“You can always rely on journalists to write nonsense whenever they are dealing with capitalism and socialism. Take the recent example of Will Hutton writing in the Observer (9 February). 'Socialism and social democracy are secular forms of Christianity whose insistence on justice, fairness and equality have palpable Christian roots, while Christian Democracy's embrace of market capitalism is qualified by its Catholic commitment to a just wage, just prices and just profits – and that work should be a source of human dignity.' It would be difficult to find a sentence with more nonsense if you spent a year searching. Socialism is a materialist view that opposes the slavish notions of Christianity. The source of all profit is the surplus value that the workers produce over their wages. To speak of 'just wages' is as daft as 'just robbery'.”

Will Hutton was sent a copy, to which he replied:

“I receive over 100 e-mails a day regularly – sometimes over 200. I don't know where to begin with the criticism. It rests on the belief that the values which socialism promotes somehow did not exist before socialism; and that socialism has a monopoly of concepts like justice – hence the mockery of the just wage. If early socialist thinkers had been as poor as this, the ideas would have got nowhere. Sadly today's champions are ahistoric nitwits clinging to a socialist fundamentalism every bit as odd as the Islamic variant. That is why they have so little influence. If you don't see the pedigree of values upon which socialism rests and is built, you don't deserve to be in the game.”

Wow! Take that you, bounder and other put downs. Now let's take a look at the real world. The Catholic Church's “just wages, just prices and just profits” and commitment to “human dignity” is a historical nonsense. Has Hutton heard of the inquisition? Or the Pope's support of Franco and Mussolini? The Catholic Church, like the Protestant Church is a whole-hearted supporter of private property.

More importantly than Hutton's strange views about socialism and christianity is that he doesn't challenge the basic premise of socialism that profit is derived from the unpaid labour of the working class. Hutton is a very talented worker who sells his ability for a wage or a salary to a member of the capitalist class. He is dependent on a wage or a salary, just like, this “ahistoric nitwit”. Men and women of the working class produce all the wealth of the world. Even silly articles in the Observer. The proprietor has got to fill the spaces between the adverts after all.

Richard Donnelly

Who Will Do The Dirty Work? (1974)

From the September 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

"But who will do the dirty work" demand critics of Socialism. Well, it all depends on what one means by dirty work. Socialists look upon as dirty work that carried out by the armed forces of states and nations the world over. Killing, maiming, mutilation and brutality of infinite variety are part and parcel of the effects of capitalism the world over, and along with armed forces, would disappear in a Socialist world.

But such capitalist atrocities are not what the opponents of Socialism mean by dirty work. They are referring to menial, monotonous, poorly paid and unpleasant work.

Menial jobs in the sense of servants waiting upon masters would disappear under Socialism. No one need be servile in a society in which all the good things of life are freely available to everyone.

"But who will sweep the streets?" some demand. This old chestnut us well on the way out as, even under capitalism, many roads are cleaned by specially designed vehicles operated by the drivers. Most other "dirty" jobs could now be taken care of by vehicles or automatons in a similar way. But in any case these jobs cannot be described as lowly occupations. Who is to say who, amongst the manual, clerical and professional workers are the most useful or valuable to society when all are essential?

Public lavatory attendants are often cited as those having to do dirty work. But this is a job which some can and do take pride in. I have heard such attendants boasting of the spotless condition of "their" toilets. Indeed, on at least one occasion, one of those workers, interviewed on the air, staggered hardened radio interviewers by the obvious pride he took in his work.

Many jobs are thought to be unpleasant because of the poor levels of subsistence associated with them. Under Socialism there would be no poorly- (or well-) paid jobs. Work would be done because it would be necessary and because people would enjoy their part in it.

The navvy is often thought of as having a "dirty job" and he certainly gets dirty doing it (but then, so do professional footballers and nobody thinks of them as having to do "dirty work") but then there can be pride in the skill and strength needed to wield a fourteen-pound hammer, which explains why some people like watching navvies at work on a building site. There is a parallel between watching a navvy wield the hammer and watching a golfer wield a club. The latter isn't manual labour merely because the golf doesn't usually have to wield the club in order to earn a living (and might well arrive for the game in a Bentley!)

The jobs of nurses and doctors are glamourized with the business of sterility and asepsis—the scrubbing of hands, the dramatic life-saving operation, the laying of cooling hands on fevered brows, the taking of temperatures and the giving of "miracle" injections. In fact doctors and nurses get their hands far more unpleasantly dirty than people realize. Nursing can be a heavy, dirty job, especially mental and geriatric nursing, entailing cleaning and changing the clothes of incontinent patients. Yet nurses do it out of choice and, as most people realize, could hardly be pursuing their vocation for monetary reward!

As a medical student I hated the subject of pathology and couldn't imagine anyone wanting to carry out post-mortems or squinting down microscopes for a living. But practically all the pathologists I ever met brimmed with enthusiasm for their job.

It takes all types to make a world—fortunately for the Socialist.

Most medical students like and are keen about their calling, but not all. At least one would have settled for a "lowlier" lot in life. He told me he was darn sure he wouldn't go through six years of rigorous study to be a doctor if he could earn as much driving a cart.

Another medic who qualified without being dedicated was a square peg in a round hole, due to being the son of a wealthy family who wanted him to "do medicine". He just wasn't cut out for it and disliked it. He liked to get his hands dirty tinkering with motor cars and things mechanical in general. But his mother had a social status to preserve and simply "had to have a doctor in the family".

Thus, under Socialism there would be no clean or dirty work—only useful work due to society having within itself a ready hand wherever there is a human need.

R. B. Gill

Sad news - Dick Donnelly

Sad news reaches us via the Socialist Courier blog:

Sadly, the Socialist Courier blog has to inform its visitors that Richard "Dick" Donnelly has died. He had been a member of Glasgow branch of the Socialist Party since the mid-1950s and was a regular outdoor and indoor speaker and frequently a contributor to this blog. Dick would probably be the first to tell the branch, "Don't Mourn - Organise!"

The Socialist Party website has a few recordings of Dick that are well worth listening to:

• The Principles of Socialism  (16 April 1976)
• How Can a Real Revolution Be Achieved? Debate between Dick Donnelly, SPGB, and Albert Meltzer, 'Black Flag' (anarchist) (12 February 1987)
• Why Socialism Is Still Relevant (12 June 2004)

He was one of the best (and funniest) socialist speakers I ever had the pleasure to listen to. This is a massive loss to both the SPGB and to its Glasgow Branch. Condolences to both his friends and family.

I will make a point of posting some of Dick's articles and reviews from the Socialist Standard on the blog in the coming days.  

The Illusions of Sir Oswald Mosley (1930)

From the July 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Oswald Mosley has resigned from the Labour Ministry and made a great noise with his proposals to deal with unemployment. Though they are largely taken from the official Labour programme (Labour and the Nation) the Mosley plans are criticised and opposed by "official" Labour. An examination of his schemes shows that they are borrowed very largely from the Liberal Party programme, and hence Lloyd George sings their praise.

Raising the school age, pensioning some workers over 60, and making roads, bridges, etc.—these comprise the cream of Mosley's programme.

Do they deal with the cause of unemployment? Will they absorb the unemployed? Will they stop industry adding to the army of out-of works? The answer is No! Like Lloyd George's platform call, "We can conquer unemployment," the Mosley schemes play with effects and merely carry on the ordinary repair work the capitalists need to make their industry more effective.

Take cheap wage slaves over 60 out of the factory. Does that mean younger and more expensive workers will be employed instead?

Past experience shows that women and machinery will be used to keep down costs whenever production expenses are raised by legislation or Union activity. Young boys and girls taken out of the factory will provide another inducement to rationalisation by means of machinery, etc., and so, instead of older workers being employed, cheaper methods of production will prevent the increased employment of older workers.

Mosley and Lloyd George schemes—like the Labour Party policy, official or otherwise—simply mean that the ordinary and normal work of making repairs to capitalism is boomed as special relief work. Where it is not that, it is like making new roads—an attempt to increase the efficiency of capitalist production and distribution of goods.

Thirty shillings per week as a retirement pension may sound inspiring to Mr. Mosley, the millionaire, but it simply means the most pressing poverty for a married couple after a lifetime of toil.

Lloyd George and the Liberal manufacturers are uniting with the Labour Party on a common capitalist programme, not to solve unemployment—but to capture votes and pretend they are helping the workers. Both Liberal, Labour and Tory pin their hopes on rationalisation, which increases unemployment faster than relief work provides work.

None of these parties of capitalism face the fact that modern industry constantly and continuously produces an unemployed army of workers. The only way to cure unemployment is to stop the cause—the class ownership of the means of production.

Adolph Kohn

Where Leaders Lead (1997)

Book Review from the September 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Seizure of State Power by M. Velli. Phoenix Press, London. £4.50

Originally published in 1972 by the US group Black and Red as part of a "Manual for Revolutionary Leaders", this is a skit on the case for a revolutionary leadership put forward by Maoists and other Leninists.

If a bit belaboured (and the fact that it is printed as a 120-page essay with no chapters or subheadings doesn't make for any easier reading), it is nevertheless a good criticism of the Leninist idea of a vanguard party which seizes power supposedly on behalf of the workers and then rules in their name.

The author points to a contradiction in "classical revolutionary theory"which, on the one hand, presents the workers' revolution as an event in which workers emancipate themselves through their own self-organisation and activity, while on the other hand, insisting on the need for a vanguard party to bring the revolution to a successful conclusion by seizing state power.

But, says Velli, if the workers really were organised to emancipate themselves, why would they need a vanguard party to act for them? Surely they would simply go ahead and dissolve capitalism and the state.

The fact is, he argues, that a mass independent conscious working class movement is not a precondition for the seizure of power by a vanguard party. The situation is the exact reverse. It is only where workers are not yet capable of emancipating themselves—because most of them still have a "psychology of dependence" which leads them to believe that they must have leaders to tell them what to do—that a revolutionary vanguard has any chance of being able to seize power.

Historically, Velli points out, this has only happened in economically backward countries which, as a result, only have an undeveloped and inexperienced working class. This, Velli argues, fits in with the vanguard's real role which is, not to bring about the emancipation of the workers at all, but to do what the capitalist class did in the West: to organise the primitive accumulation of capital and break in the working class to industrial discipline and methods of control. But this, the author says, must not be openly stated.

For those who haven't worked it out already the M in Velli's name stands for "Machia".

Adam Buick

The unions we deserve (2000)

Book Review from the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

All Power to the Imagination!: Revolutionary Class Struggle In Trade Unions and the Petty Bourgeois Fetish of Organisational Purity by Dave Douglass. Class War Federation, P.O. Box 467, London E8 3QX.

This is really interesting and readable book, despite some horrendous comments on "national liberation", particularly relating to Ireland. The author is a life-long mineworker and NUM activist who is also a member of the IWW and the section of Class War which decided to continue with the CW paper and federation. The aim of this book is basically to attack the argument popular in some anarchist and left-communist circles that trade unions are inherently tools of the capitalist establishment that act to stifle workers' militancy and so on.

This position has led some revolutionaries to declare themselves "outside and against the unions"—though whether in practice they would choose not to join a union is another thing. The point about all this, as is brought home by Douglass, is that unions are essentially about workers uniting to defend themselves within capitalism. To criticise "the unions" for being reformist misses the point, as a union and its membership are one and the same. Workers are not "reformist" because "the unions" make them so; rather the level of political consciousness within a union will be a reflection of the general consciousness of the working class at the time. As Douglass points out, trade unions are not ideological monoliths—the processes of class struggle go on within unions.

If more militant members are losing the arguments then this reflects a wider passivity: something that is hardly surprising given the shattering defeats organised labour has suffered in Britain in recent decades. Trade unions can only be as militant and class conscious (and effective) as their memberships are, which must depend on the wider situation. Though this isn't to take away from the damage done by union bosses, whose frequent knighthoods and other "honours" are tawdry campaign medals minted by the real bosses, whose class interests they have served. However, to create a dichotomy between "the unions" and "the workers" can only lead to a distorted analysis of the uses and limitations of union struggle.

As a way of illustrating the dangers of this "against the unions" position Douglass points to the direct correlation between declines in union membership and the decrease in days lost (or won) in strikes. Hardly surprising—but if "the unions" were really responsible for holding back working-class combativity shouldn't the opposite be the case? In reality, non-union workers have not "broken free" from the unions—falls in membership are symptoms of the hammering the working class as a whole has taken. On the other hand, resistance to the attacks of capital is generally stronger in those sectors where there is still significant unionisation. There are some signs however that union membership and general combativity are rising. And let's not forget that this is vital if our class is to develop some of the solidarity and self-confidence essential for the final abolition of wage slavery.

Interestingly, one of the few sources quoted with any sort of approval by Douglass is the October 1994 edition of Spartacus, a publication put together by Socialist Party comrades in Norwich. He generally agrees with the case put in an article called "Socialism and Trade Unions":

"[T]he essence of the trade union is workers uniting to protect their interests in the workplace, and . . . ultimately the union and the workers are one and the same thing. If these workers have reformist outlook on life, i.e. believe that capitalism can be made to run in the interests of all, the unions must therefore have the same outlook; on the other hand if there were more revolutionary workers in the unions—and in society generally—then the unions would have a more revolutionary outlook, no longer harbouring any illusions about 'common national interests' or other such rubbish. That would not in any way alter the essential nature and role of the trade unions as the defensive organisations of the working class; but it would make them far more effective fulfilling that role" (p.10 - quoted from Spartacus).

Ben Malcolm