Paul Mason and Socialism (2015)

From the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog

Paul Mason (economics editor at Channel 4 and author of the recent book Postcapitalism: a guide to our future) has reported (Guardian Weekly 02.10.15) on a paper by the Morgan Stanley economists Charles Goodhart, Manoj Fradhan and Pratyancha Pardeshi.  Their argument goes that global demographic trends have resulted in a glut of labour that has exerted a downwards pressure of wages for the past three decades (the result of a baby boom in developed economies, urbanisation in the industrialising economies and the entrance of millions of women into the workforce).  As urbanisation peters out and birth rates fall, it is suggested, a labour shortage will develop leading to a rise in the bargaining power and wages of the labour force.  This will counter the predictions of rising twenty-first century inequality by the likes of Thomas Piketty.  We will find out in good time who is closer to the mark.

 In practice any gains by workers will depend not only on global economic conditions (the vagaries of the business cycle) but on the balance of class forces (improvements in pay and conditions need to be maximised by a strong trades union movement) and on the economic, political and cultural conditions in different localities.  Mason, however, regards the report as grist to the mill for his ideas as to how a post capitalist world may materialise.  Faced with the possibility of a higher paid labour force, Mason asserts that the stimulus for businesses to introduce labour saving technology will be increased.  He uses the example of McDonalds, which he says are introducing touchscreen technology to replace that portion of its labour force currently taking orders and payments from customers.  The pursuit of flexible labour markets over recent decades has led to a substantial increase of employees on temporary and informal contracts (a section of the workforce Mason calls the ‘precariat’).  Mason cites another recent report by economists (at Delft University) that such flexible workforces come at the expense of expanded management and limited incentive to increase productivity through technological innovation.  Hence the reason that “it’s common to hear politicians of all stripes say that wages need to rise.”  Mason is concerned that these politicians succeed in tackling the presence of the ‘precariat’.  The theory goes (see his recent book) that continued increases in productivity will see the value of goods reduce to the point where they become virtually free heralding a transition to a postcapitalist era, a sort of lengthy and convoluted transition from capitalism to a kind of communistic society. 

Capitalism undoubtedly does demonstrate a tendency for the price of goods to fall over time due to the development and implementation of labour saving technology.  This drive to reduce labour costs (to maximise profits) is a basic feature of capitalism and not just when wages are rising, after all the touchscreen technology being introduced by McDonalds is being carried out despite its labour force consisting of the ‘precariat’.  The drive to innovate may well be stimulated by rising wages but it is doubtful whether the trend for increasing productivity will reduce the value of a significant amount of goods to the point where their value is negligible at any point in the next 50-100 years, despite the fact that some goods can or could do (digital technologies).  Such developments certainly do highlight a major contradiction of capitalist production - an increase in material wealth (more goods) leads at the same time to a fall in the value (per unit) of those goods.  However, waiting for this trend to result in a postcapitalist world will probably be like waiting for Godot.

 There are contradictions enough in capitalist production for workers to see the necessity in ending it, not just following through the logic of its development.  Just as the transition from feudalism to capitalism entailed political struggle, battles over different visions of the future, of different ideals, so will the transition from capitalism to socialism.  The difference is that now the struggle is not over one group of owners, of rulers, supplanting another in a struggle in which intentions and ideas were often veiled (by religion) and unconscious.  Marx has some interesting things to say on this when he writes about the fetishism (veiled appearance) of commodities: “The veil is not removed from the countenance of the material process of production, until it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control.” (Capital, vol.1, p.173)  In other words, the transition from capitalism to socialism, by necessity, has to reject capitalist social relations (appearing as a society of free and equal exchange but based on exploitation and the extraction of surplus value from workers) and establish a new society of free association and conscious and planned control of economic activity.  In other words, the transformation of a society based on commodities and value (buying and selling) to one based on the free exchange of use-values, the establishment under democratic control of the means of living (nature, factories, transport, etc.).  A transition between capitalism and socialism must therefore have to be conscious and clear-sighted and involve a relatively short period of rapid social change, a revolution, a break from one kind of society to another.

 The contradictions within capitalism of the kind that Mason cites, that make some goods effectively free (as examples of different social possibilities), may be part of the story of how such a revolution comes to pass.  However, there will, at some point, need to be conscious process of social change and not, as Mason suggests, a lengthy opaque and semi-conscious process where various policies are advocated that would encourage the digital revolution in order to transfigure capitalism rather than end it.

Colin Skelly

Without distinction of sex (1979)

From the December 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

If women's bodies are used to sell everything from mustard to motor cars, this is an expression of their peculiar oppression under capitalism. Whether we examine the family, women's sexuality or women's employment opportunities, we find the same kind of story.

Young girls are systematically trained for the role of wife and mother, with dolls and toy Hoovers as playthings. Throughout their school years too they are conditioned to accept that the highest - indeed only - calling for a woman is the servicing of a man's needs and the bearing of "his" children. By the time such girls enter the employment market as young women, they are less qualified than their male peers and are taken less seriously by their employers, who see them as a pool of cheap and docile labour. Their comparatively low wages and even lower prospects at work then serve as yet another inducement to leave the labour force and take up the role they have in fact been prepared for from birth.

And so, under capitalism, a woman has become the biggest-bargain-ever package-deal to hit the market. With an attractive wrapper to please its owner, this package-deal includes sexual services, baby production line, household servant and general comforter-cum-ego-booster for a bargain price of board and lodging only, with the occasional lipstick thrown in to smarten up the weary wrapping paper.

But it is not only capitalism that has oppressed women; the history of women's oppression is also the history of property society in all its forms. In property society a woman's sexuality and child-bearing are not under her control or subject to the widest interests of the community, but must be subordinated to the needs of the patriarchal family and ensure "legitimate" heirs. The nature and extent of women's oppression in different phases of property society can vary a great deal, but can be understood only when seen as part of the development of the system of social relations of production, together with the ideological forms of that society, such as religion. So, for example, to understand the position of women in Iran today, we have to look both at the development of the social relations of production of that country and the religious teachings of the established Muslim church.

In linking women's oppression to property society, we differ from those who argue that women's enemies are men. This view has led some sections within the Women's Liberation Movement to dissociate themselves from men both in personal life style (for example women's communes and political lesbianism) and, in political activities (women-only demonstrations and "consciousness-raising" meetings.)

But the force behind women's oppression is given ultimately by the property basis of society. Under capitalism, women's oppression can be understood in terms in the needs of capital and the amassing of profits. And where profits are made by selling commodities on the market, there will be a tendency to also put a price on all those goods and services traditionally located outside the market. Consequently, sex itself has become a marketable commodity on an enormous scale.

Sometimes it is in capitalism's interest to bring about reforms which are also in women's short-term interests. In periods of labour shortage, for example in times of war, positive steps are taken to encourage women to enter the labour force through provision of child care facilities. When capitalist planners feel that the population is growing too swiftly, contraception is more readily available and may even be provided free of charge. As industry requires a more skilled workforce, so women too may have greater access to increased educational facilities. However, there are other ways in which the interests of capital run counter to women's interests. Commercial exploitation of women's sexuality has been increasing over a number of years and it is difficult to conceive of personal relations not being exploited in some way as a result. Access to the employment market and the economic need for married women to take a job outside the home has resulted in double shift working for many, who effectively have two jobs to run.

Hence we come to the question of whether it is possible to put an end to women's oppression within the framework of property society and whether the aims of the WLM can be achieved within a capitalist framework. On the one hand, women are being drawn increasingly into the labour force and some women (and some men) are questioning the validity of gender-based roles. But on the other hand, more subtle forces of sexual exploitation are resulting from the increased commercialisation of all aspects of our lives.

But there is one aspect of women's position under capitalism that we have not yet considered. So far, only women's oppression as women has been discussed; but the majority of women are also members of the working class and are therefore dependent on the sale of labour-power, their own and their husband's, in order to buy food, clothing, housing - the things they need to live. And, as workers under capitalism, there is no way that women's (or men's) problems can be solved within a capitalist framework. Even with adequate childcare facilities (are any facilities adequate under capitalism?) and abortion on demand (what standard of care under a creaking National Health Service even without harsh Tory cuts?), women would still be subject to all the pressures and material deprivations of working or housekeeping under capitalism. This is the reason why it is in all our interests—as women and as men and as workers—to struggle for socialism where human needs will be put first.

This may seem an attitude similar to the "socialist feminist" within the Women's Liberation Movement. However, the "socialist feminists", in spite of their recognition of the role of capitalist and property society in the oppression of women, focus their energies on trying to secure improvements for women within capitalism, rather than struggling to achieve a socialist consciousness among the entire working class in order to overthrow capitalism now. In this they are representative of the left-wing generally who, in spite of their revolutionary rhetoric, dissipate their energies in pursuing ameliorative measures within capitalism, and, in so doing, reinforce both capitalist ideology and capitalism itself.

Instead of equal or "fair" pay, socialists emphasise the necessity to abolish exchange relations altogether. Socialism will institute free access to the goods we need, in the complete absence of commodity or property relations. This is the only guarantee that every individual, as part of a caring community and irrespective of gender, age or colour, will have the  means to live freely and fully. Thus the answer to the charge that women are still oppressed in countries such as Russia and China is that, yes, women are oppressed there, but this is because these countries are state capitalist.

Socialists share the WLM's distrust of leaders and rejection of hierarchical political structures, but for quite different reasons. While their objection to hierarchical structures is based on their perception of them as patriarchal forms of oppression, we argue that they are the result of the power relations deriving from the property basis of society, and as such are antithetical to a socialist organisation and a socialist society.

But if capitalism is to be overthrown then the working class must be united. Women and men, whatever their age or colour, have to work together in the fight for socialism. This is where we cannot agree with the Women's Liberation Movement; they are struggling for the liberation of women only, whereas the socialist struggle is aiming at the liberation of all, regardless of gender , age or colour.

Viv Brown 

Editorial: After the Election (1910)

Editorial from the February 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The General Election is over, and once again the workers have placed the powers of the State within the anxious grasp of the master class. Deluded by the Babel of lies and false issues, the hirelings have again embraced the yoke of wage-slavery. Some voted Liberal—or Labour (same thing)—to keep the "food-taxer" out, while others voted Tory to keep the "Foreigner" out; between then they succeeded in keeping those grand old institutions, the British Empire and the workhouse.

Amongst the Labourites and pseudo-Socialists, compromise and election dodgery have been well to the fore, as indeed was inevitable. We give elsewhere some instances of the game and there are more to follow. The ludicrous posture of the Social-Democratic Party consequent upon the contemptuous rejection of its overtures for alliance ("joining hands," they call it) by the Liberals, have disgusted many of its members, while the pandering to ignorance and the, for the time being, popular, which marked the utterances of its candidates and their prominent supporters, evidently had, in many cases, the opposite effect to that intended. Its own members were dismayed and it polled badly. The "hysterical error of judgement" to which we draw attention under "Election Notes," can have no other meaning. And withal the utter failure of the time-honoured S.D.P. policy even as regards electoral support should go far to convince erstwhile adherents of that organisation of its impotence for ought else than confusion and injury to the cause of Socialism. We fear that after this the good old S.D.P. may not very long survive to "see that the Liberals do not lower the flag", the Union Jack of old England, we presume (happily there are still papa Blatchford and the Boy Scouts).

Also the Labour Party has but slight ground for congratulation, for, as the "Labour Leader" has it, "it has lost proportionately most heavily." The protecting partner, the Liberal Party, has lost ground and with its protege.

The hypocritical pretence of independence is to-day seen through by many who helped form the Labour Party, and so the ground is being cleared for the growth of the genuine Socialist Party - the party of revolution.

The S.P.G.B. has made its influence widely felt during the election by distributing its "Election Manifesto" in different districts over the country. From widely separated constituencies comes the gratifying news that its recommendations to ABSTAIN FROM VOTING—because there were no Socialist candidates in the field—has been followed; the voting papers being "spoilt" by having "Socialism" written across them. Our action has been well appreciated, and will redound to the strength of the Party. Let those who know the day must come when we shall be in a position to put Socialist candidates in the field now join the Socialist Party of Great Britain, for that is the way of success and emancipation.

The role of the state (2004)

Book Review from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Consensus or Coercion? The State, the People and Social Cohesion in Post-War Britain. edited by Ross McKibbin (New Clarion Press. £12.95)

This is a collection of studies of various aspects of social and political life in Britain from 1945 to the end of the 1970s, covering such fields as television, immigration, housing policy, even the role of the defunct Communist Party.

   

But what is the state? To most people it will be the centralised administrative machine controlled by the government, which provides various services (health, education, social security, defence) for “the nation”. To Marxists, the modern state is indeed a centralised administrative machine controlled by the government, but one which is used to manage the common affairs of the national ruling class (today, the capitalist owners of the means of wealth production), including the provision of education, health care, etc for the subject class (the majority class of wage and salary workers), and whose ultimate weapon is force, coercion; hence Engels’s definition of the state as in the final analysis a body of armed men.

   

For the Oxford sociologist, Ross McKibbin, who has provided a foreword to this book, the state “represents the governing elites, both political and bureaucratic, but is distinguishable from (say) the ruling party and has an interest which, although influenced by party-political competition, stands above such competition”. To which the anonymous author of the introduction adds, its role is to ensure the social cohesion of the population of the “administratively defined community” that is the “nation-state”, ideally by consensus but otherwise by coercion.

   

Although Marxists see, even define, the state as a coercive institution at the service of a class, this does not mean that they are committed to the view that the ruling class rules only by coercion. That would be an absurd view since no “nationally administered political community” could survive if it was held together by coercion alone. A degree, in fact a fairly high degree, of consent is required: the subject class has to agree to being ruled by the class that controls the state. So, one of the important functions of the state is to actively promote such agreement. Obviously this wouldn’t work if the state tried to openly persuade people to be ruled by a ruling class; it has to be more subtle and is done by promoting the idea that all the subjects of a particular state form a national community and are in fact “citizens” rather than subjects. The state is then seen as the management committee, not of the ruling class which owns and controls the means of production, but of all the citizens, who elect the government.

   

Surprisingly in view of the book’s title, only two of the studies address this question directly, dealing with the question of immigration from the Caribbean and the problem this has presented the state in terms of integrating such and other “non-white” (to use the old Apartheid classification) immigrants into the British “national community”, given the previous definition of this community as being made up of “white” English-speakers. After passing racist legislation in the 1960s to stop “non-white” immigration, the British state opted for extending the definition of “British” to include “non-whites”. It appears to be working, but now their problem is the reaction of a signification minority of “white” people who don’t agree and who may well have to be coerced into accepting it.

   

A third essay, on the Labour Party’s attitude to Europe in the period 1945-50, does, it is true, touch on another such problem: how the British state is to get its subjects to agree to its policy – in the interest of its ruling class – of European integration. After having successfully inculcated the idea of a “British nation” this is now proving a barrier.

   

The other essays, even though off-subject, are still interesting in their own right, especially the one on the Labour Party’s opposition in the 1950s to the introduction of commercial television. Everything that was said would happen if this was introduced – dumbing down, commercialisation, the “idiot box” dominating the home – has come to pass, and worse. But it was always going to be a losing battle since, in a capitalist society, the capitalists are always going to get their way in the end.

   

Conspicuously lacking from the book are studies of how promotion of support for “national” sports teams and the teaching of history and civics in schools work towards sustaining the myth that all who live within the administrative boundaries of a particular state constitute a community with a common interest, whereas in fact in all states there are two classes: an owning, ruling class and the rest of us.

Adam Buick

Early critics of capitalism (1999)

Book Review from the February 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Real Rights of Man: Political Economies for the Working Class, 1775-1850 by Noel Thompson, Pluto Press, 1998.

Between 1775 and 1850 Britain was transformed from a country of largely rural communities into a nation built on industrial capitalism. In 1791 Tom Paine's Rights of Man argued for universal political rights. But as early as 1793 Thomas Spence's The Real Rights of Man countered with the claim that political rights were grounded in economic power. For Spence, the question was no longer about "what form of government is most favourable to liberty" but:

"which system of society is most favourable to existence and capable of delivering us from the deadly mischief of great accumulation of wealth which enables a few unfeeling monsters to starve whole nations."

This is a history of the struggle for an anti-capitalist, but not necessarily pro-socialist, political economy. Anti-capitalist writers such as Spence, William Ogilvie, William Cobbett and Thomas Hodgskin were reactionaries who wanted to retreat from urban squalor to the rural idyll. They were not opposed in principle to class society but to the way "unequal exchange" drove the newly created working class into poverty. Their political economy (not pseudo-scientific "economics") explained working class poverty as the result of a failure of workers to get the full value of what they produced. The "unequal exchange" meant employers paid wages less than the value of the product and so were cheating workers.

Robert Owen attempted to rectify "unequal exchange" by establishing a number of producer and consumer co-operatives around the country, linked by labour exchanges. The guiding principle of these labour exchanges was that goods were exchanged according to their value as measured by labour time, with non-circulating labour notes used to facilitate the exchange of goods. In this way, it was believed, there would be equal exchange and no exploitation. However, these co-operatives were short-lived and had difficulty in providing even basic provisions for exchange against labour notes.

According to Noel Thompson:

"the problems of valuing goods in terms of labour time meant that errors were made and, inevitably, there were goods undervalued in relation to their market equivalents that were quickly purchased, while there were others that were overvalued and just as rapidly accumulated in the exchanges. Only where the labour exchanges replicated the market valuation were there no such problems. In effect, therefore, market price rapidly exerted its hegemony over labour values."

A distinctively socialist political economy did not emerge until the Chartist movement. Ernest Jones, for example, dismissed the demand for "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work", which was to ask for:

"a golden slavery instead of an iron one. But that golden chain would soon be turned to iron again, for if you still allow the system of wages slavery to exist, labour must be still subject to capital, and if so, capital being its master, will possess the power and never lack the will to reduce the slave from his fat diet down to fast-day fare!"

Even though Jones was a friend of Marx and Engels, he and other Chartist leaders still saw exploitation originating in the sphere of exchange, as "unequal exchange." It was not until after the period under review that Marx provided a proper explanation of exploitation: exploitation takes place in the sphere of production. Workers generally get the full value of what they have to sell, their "labour power" or capacity to work sold as a commodity, which the employers buy and put to work. But the employers can extract labour greater than the equivalent of that wage or salary. This is the source of profit that is realised when the commodities are sold. A wage or salary is the market-determined price of the commodity labour power. Generally no cheating is involved: exploitation is the normal function of the capitalist economy.

Lew Higgins

Marxism (1998)

From the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Conceptions and definitions are the basis of all thought processes. We call our method "Marxism" because the fundamental theoretical work was in the main accomplished by Marx. Three interrelated principles--the materialist conception of history, the class struggle and the theory of surplus value--worked together to initiate this method.

The materialist conception of history arises out of the use of the dialectical-materialist method in political economy. It is materialist as it recognises the primacy of matter in the surrounding world. It is dialectical because it recognises the universal interconnection of complex and dynamic objects and events within a single form-and-content totality.

It regards motion and development as the result of both the unity and the struggle of opposites. It explains change, reveals causes and analyses effects by locating the source of the motion of the processes within which contradictions are embodied. It shows how these contradictions determine the level of development of these processes, and it brings out the conditions for their resolution.

This method is not a dogma. It too develops in a dynamic fashion and is subject to change within its own framework and is able to understand and review its own basis.

In contradistinction to idealist theories, this universal scientific understanding of the world develops upon the premise that it is not our consciousness that determines our life but our life that determines our consciousness and that consciousness, in turn, influences our life. In other words, being determines thinking and thinking influences being.

This understanding of history is not derived from any philosophical or contemplative premises, nor from any better insight into eternal truth and justice, but from production. In two senses, production of the life of the species itself and its needs together with production of the means to meet those needs.

Progress is ultimately determined by the changing character of human productive powers giving rise to more improved modes of production and resultant social structures, such as primitive communism, chattel slavery, feudalism and capitalism, the latter three being forms of class society.

The origin of class society dates back several thousand years to when private property and the state originated and social relationships were turned into exploitative and antagonistic class relationships with their array of economic categories such as rent, interest, exchange, barter, simple commodity production, buying and selling, market, money, capital, commodity, value and price, profit vis-à-vis wages.

Marxian economics regards relations of production as manifestations of levels of technological progress. But, within a given mode of production, developing productive powers eventually come into conflict with the existing relations of production which from forms of their development turn into their fetters.

This conflict expresses itself in the struggle between two opposing classes, with the owning and exploiting minority class having a vested interest in maintaining the existing relations and a new propertyless exploited class working towards the further development of the productive forces; this requires a revolutionary replacement of the antiquated relations with new ones. Resolution of the conflict is obtained with the seizure of political power by the new class in order to use it to usher in the new mode of production.

Marxists are not ideologues who invent social systems. For us social systems are the necessary outcome of history. Ideas, in all epochs, are basically the products of production. This is not to uphold economic determinism. Ideas do develop also in the realm of "pure" thought and fantasy. But, however they originated, their seed-bed is the economic soil of society wherein only some take root and spread because they correspond to reality.

In a class society the ideas of the ruling class rule over the ideas of the ruled. Thus the social selection of ideas applicable to a given mode of production depends on the class that is in a position to select and on the method it applies.

The historical materialist method is the science of the working class, which consists in the criticism of class economy. As Marx aptly said, "So far as such criticism represents a class, it can only represent the class whose vocation in history is the overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and the final abolition of all classes--the proletariat" (Afterword to the Second German edition of Capital, 1873).

Could it be otherwise? Could anyone ever thinking of grasping the science of the working class without having already rejected the capitalist interest and adopted the working class interest? Certainly not.

Binnay Sarkar (World Socialist Party of India)

Editorial: Blatchford, War and Socialism. (1910)

Editorial from the January 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Upon the cue of the General Election, the Conservative party has acquired the services of (for the moment) a most useful journalistic hack. We refer to Mr. Robert Blatchford, the idol of the multi-coloured conglomeration, the Clarionettes. An able writer or speaker who will (for a consideration) beat the big drum of "the country in danger," "the peril of invasion," etc, is sure of a large hearing in the present state of mind of the working class. This the Tories well appreciate, and their object in giving "Nunquam's" German War Scare and pro Conscription twaddle such enormous advertisement through their perhaps most widely read organ, the "Daily Mail," and elsewhere must be patent to all.

Meanwhile Socialists have an account to settle with Blatchford. This man has for many years taught in gentle phrases what millions have in all confidence mistaken for Socialism.

He gained the confidence and affection of thousands — only to betray them. For to invite the British workers to arm themselves to fight their German fellows—to ask them to give "the question of national defence" "precedence of every other question"—in a word, to ask them to drop Socialism, is nothing less than betrayal. However, the betrayed have not been without warning. Since its inception the Socialist Party of Great Britain has frequently demonstrated Blatchford's worthlessness as a teacher of Socialism, and his culpability in misleading the workers. So in passing we may perhaps be allowed the mixed consolation afforded by the reflection that their idol's flagrant jingo and anti-Socialist attitude will, for some "Clarion" worshippers at least, have the effect of breaking their mental bonds and set them to reconsider their position.

Blatchford appeals to "the evidence of facts." But what facts? The facts that most nearly concern this and every other capitalist-dominated country? By no means. Had he dealt with the facts of working-class misery and enslavement—the hideous facts of the capitalism his pen is to-day helping to perpetuate—his screed would not have been printed in the "Daily Mail" nor in any other capitalist daily. Not by helping the toilers but by their betrayal could he gain prominence in immense type, and for many days in succession, on the placard of a great capitalist paper.

The fact is the the working millions are impoverished and subjugated, whether under the Kaiser and his German Rothschilds et al, or under Edward and his English Rothschilds & Co., and consequently have no business to offer their blood and interest for the war service of either set of bloodsuckers. This is unwittingly suggested for the British workers by Blatchford himself when he says: "I got back from Germany and I saw the wretchedness and squalor of the Borough and Bermondsey and the rest of London's underworld. You don't see anything like that in Germany and I thought to myself "Is this how we are preparing to fight for the existence of our empire? What use will these ragged, famished spectres be?" (Italics ours.) Indeed, this language invites the reflection that if such is the case, conquest by Germany might, then, mean an improvement here.

So, then, in view of the simple facts we must invite our readers to do all they can to counteract the evil works of capitalism's ally, Robert Blatchford. We invite them to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain and this help render impotent all the misleaders and their pay-masters, and bring nearer the day when a people's dreams shall no more be haunted by fear of famine, rapine, and the shambles.

Christ as a Capitalist. (1935)

From the March 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

On November 11th last year, there appeared in The People an interview with Mr. Ernest Thompson, the retiring Mayor of Louth, a "bustling" little town in Lincolnshire. Louth is a remarkable place for these pagan times. It is supposed to "bustle" with the Christian spirit. Mr. Thompson is also a Christian, but it is not the ordinary brand of Christianity. Mr. Thompson is a practical Christian. He believes that practical Christianity is the only remedy for present-day problems. "Not your so-called religion,: he says, with a frank smile, "but practical Christianity—applied to every-day life, can solve all our problems—even that of unemployment."

At last the saviour! After nearly two thousand years of searching, the true Christian doctrine has been discovered, and we have to thank the Mayor of a "bustling" little town in Lincolnshire.

Of course, Mr. Thompson must have told The People that the reason why the workers are poor is because they produce the wealth for the benefit of the master class, and not for themselves. Surely he pointed out that the profit-making nature of this system restricted the production of wealth and reduced millions of workers to the aggravated poverty of unemployment. There can be no doubt that he urged the establishment of a social system where goods shall be produced for use, and not for sale. What else could he say? Alas, no! What he said was:—

If employers would use their capital and possessions as Christ would have them used, then there would be no money lying idle in the banks and men would be trooping back to work . . . 

And how? As Christ had no possessions and despised them, the answer is obviously a lemon. But Mr. Thompson has solved the riddle. Mr. Thompson, you see, does not keep all his eggs in one basket. He is a contractor as well as a practical Christian, and from all accounts he is a very practical contractor. He has begun work on a new housing scheme to provide work for the unemployed, because he has been "guided by God" to buy the land for that purpose . . . And here is the gem—the master-stroke:—

The men I have employed are all working with the Christian spirit in their hearts—and that alone is going to have a sound practical result . . . It means that they are working harder and better than ever would have done. They are building the houses faster, and consequently, more cheaply than usual. And that means I shall be able to sell them at a lower price and develop the estate further . . .

Councillor Thompson smiled. "You see," he said, "Christianity can be practical . . . "

Such simplicity is positively staggering. Mind you, no mention is made of profits. But, remember, Mr. Thompson insists that the necessary condition for producing cheaper houses is harder work from his wage-slaves. Strange as it may seem, the Practical Christian, like any other sort of employer, wants to squeeze the utmost out of the workers. If this pious gentleman is only eager to find work for the unemployed in Louth, he would give them a five-hour day and urge them to take it easy. What should it matter to the Practical Christian if he gets no profits on his capital so long as it is used to make people happy? . . . "I do not profess to be a saint,"  said Mr. Thompson, "but I am convinced that here is the solution the world is looking for . . . "

Mr. Thompson is certainly no saint. He is just a plain, simple, ordinary capitalist exploiter.

KAYE.

Socialism Now (2003)

From the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Today, in the first years of this 21st century, we can look back on the climactic events of the 20th, and see that indeed, that was the defining century of capitalism. Capitalism as an economic system has existed in tiny segments throughout history, but it was not until the 19th and especially the 20th that it became the truly global system it is today.

With the triumph of capitalism over feudalism, many thinkers analysed the new system and saw how it could be converted from the system of continued class tyranny and exploitation into an instrument of global prosperity and progress for all. While Marx was frustrated in his yearning for communism, it was probably not a practical possibility during his time. He died with Europe firmly enthralled in capitalism, and the rest of the world soon to follow.

Now however, in the 21st century, after many years of capitalism as the definitive world system, we have seen at first hand how despicable and outdated the system is. Two massive world wars, with workers butchering each other for the interests of global capital, have caused millions upon millions of deaths. Since then it has been near endless war in some part of the world or another, all perpetuated by the endless demands of capital to accumulate more and more. Untold amounts of resources have been squandered by the rival capitalist states in new and more powerful means of suppression and destruction in order to protect their interests. It has come to the point where they possess the weaponry to destroy all life on the planet.

The Earth's atmosphere itself is becoming less and less hospitable to human life, as pollutants are released because rival capitalists desperately compete with each other to cut costs and gain greater profits. Millions of people are starving amid plenty even as food is destroyed to drive up prices on the markets to yield continued profits. People across the world endure terrible and alienating working conditions, with claims of a “classless society” spouted by the reformists a laughable and unrealisable utopia within the present system. Poverty has not been eradicated in the “developed world” and poverty in the “third world” is not a product of some unassailable trait of human nature, but a matter of the productive system that is capitalism. All this and more assaults the human race as a vast unsolvable problem, a nightmare with no end, and apathy soon sets in. In fact there is a solution; never in history has socialism been so relevant as it is now.

No matter how much it has been lied about, ridiculed and twisted from its original form, scientific socialism is now, more then ever, needed to solve the crisis humanity finds itself in.

Socialism is common ownership. Socialism is production for need. Socialism is real democracy.

Socialism is for the global working class, who can use the vast productive powers for the free development of all. We, in the 21st century, now have that potential. It is possible to house everyone. It is possible to feed everyone. It is possible for everyone to live a decent and fulfilling life as real people, and not just as objects on the labour market. The only thing stopping this is the outdated profit system that constrains production to the will of private property and privilege.

The productive powers have been increased to a vast degree, yet people are still idle, starving, poverty stricken, and homeless, while the machinery of production is misused or neglected. This must change. This will change. This, the 21st century, can be the true century of revolution, of true socialist revolution. We must abandon the faith misplaced in the leaders and apologists of capitalism and move on, ourselves, to our new global society, where the free development of each will be the condition for the free development of all. These words have never been more relevant than they are now, and we have nothing to lose but our chains, and a world to win. Workers of all countries unite!

Dan Read

TTIP: Putting Profits Before People (2015)

From the October 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a free trade and investment treaty  being negotiated in secret between the European Union and the USA. The main goal of TTIP is to remove regulatory barriers which restrict the potential profits to be made by transnational corporations on both sides of the Atlantic.

The British government claims TTIP could add £10bn to the UK economy, $80bn to the US and €100bn to the EU every year. It says consumers would benefit by the removal of EU import tariffs. And reducing regulation would help UK small businesses export to the US. Tariffs between the EU and US are already low, averaging around 3 percent but both sides foresee they will be eliminated under the agreement. The main focus of negotiations is on harmonising regulations, reducing 'non-tariff barriers' to trade, or abolishing them if they're deemed unnecessary. US and EU regulators have different requirements for testing the safety of products. Going through the different tests is expensive for business but TTIP aims to reduce those costs by bringing in common standards.

TTIP is championed by the capitalist class. Cameron has described it as 'the biggest bilateral trade deal in history' (Guardian 17 June 2013). John Cridland of the CBI added 'with the UK already trading more and investing more with the US than any other country, there are real advantages to drive home particularly for smaller firms. TTIP would be the biggest free trade deal ever negotiated' (CBI News 18 December 2014).

Godfrey Bloom, the ex-UKIP MEP commented:

'For the conviction Free Trader, the international classical liberal TTIP is very natural progression in a global society especially between two great trading blocks the USA and the EU. It begs the expectation of such supporters of 19th Century advocates such as Frederick Bastiat that 'when trade crosses borders armies do not'. A qualified welcome therefore from such idealists was fairly immediate, rightly so. One might carry forward Bastiat's theory to fit with more pressing international concerns such as migratory refugees: 'when trade crosses borders migrants don't'. Liberal societies with free trade agreements prosper.'

Bloom concluded 'the theory of TTIP is noble and worthwhile but in practice is doomed to failure. Does anybody imagine for a moment the regulators both sides of the Atlantic will not protect their turf, that they will voluntarily give ground, that big business in the world of crony capitalism really want to see increased competition from small and medium sized businesses?' (Huffington Post UK 11 June).

Trade and investment deals

The EU has been negotiating a similar trade and investment deal with Canada, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). One of Canada’s key negotiating aims was to promote the use in Europe of oil from its tar sands. In 2012, the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) proposed that oil from tar sands should be given a 20 percent higher carbon value than conventional oil. This reflected the greater pollution caused by its production and was designed to steer companies away from using it in the EU. However, a few weeks after CETA was concluded, the final version of the FQD had been watered down, and lacked the earlier requirement that companies needed to account for the higher emissions from tar sands, effectively neutering it.

Another free trade agreement is the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) which would further consolidate transnational corporate power. TISA covers 52 countries including the EU, North America, some South American nations, Japan, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan. It is set to affect up to 70 percent of the global services economy. It includes the removal of restriction on moving 'natural persons' from one country to another which will mean the capitalist class can use migrant workers to drive down wages and conditions. For some countries their only 'comparative advantage' is cheap labour. TISA would allow multinational corporations to exploit migrant workers with impunity.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is considered by the US as the companion agreement to TTIP.  This agreement covers the US, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan. TPP is one of the primary goals of the trade agenda of the Obama administration in the US.

Right to sue governments

TTIP also consolidates the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which gives transnational corporations the right to challenge a country's laws. ISDS allows transnational corporations to receive compensation for the absence of a 'predictable regulatory environment.' Already under existing WTO free-trade rules this type of argument has been used to attack clean energy, mining, land use, health, and labour rights. More than $14 billion in 16 claims are now under litigation in the US. Under TTIP, a transnational corporation could sue a Government if their profits might be affected by food safety standards or wage increases. ISDS creates a parallel legal system, independent of national law, allowing transnational corporations to sue governments in secret corporate courts over laws or regulations that might prevent or reduce profit, what they term 'indirect appropriation.'

In 2012, the government of Ecuador decided to terminate its contract with US oil corporation Occidental, after Occidental sold 40 percent of its production rights to another company without abiding by its legal obligation to obtain government approval. Occidental turned to the ISDS provision in the US-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. This allows companies to sue governments through international courts for policies that threaten their profits. Occidental won and, as a result, Ecuador was forced to pay out $1.77 billion to Occidental, the highest compensation awarded to an investor through ISDS to date.

The government of Slovakia moved to restrict the powers of private insurance firms in the public health system which led to a number of health insurance companies successfully suing the Slovak government for their loss of profits. The Dutch firm Achmea attempted to use the same powers to block the Slovak government from setting up a public insurance scheme that would provide health cover to all the country's citizens. Achmea lost but because the scheme had not yet been adopted. If it is, no doubt they will try again.

The Vattenfall Corporation, a Swedish energy company is using an ISDS clause in an energy treaty to sue the German government for €4.7 billion following its decision to close its nuclear power stations in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. This case has not yet been decided.  Corporations don’t win every time but merely suing is an attempt to stop governments acting. As TUC General Secretary, Frances O’Grady has pointed out, it represents the spread of ‘compensation culture’ to the international level. Addressing the European Commission Trade Policy Day in Brussels in June, she said that ISDS identifies 'the compensation culture that is building up in multinational companies, where suing democratically elected governments becomes more remunerative than actually providing a service' (TUC, 23 June).

Screening regulatory measures

All new US or EU proposals for legislation or regulation would have to be screened first for their impacts on trade and business. 'Mutual recognition' means that the EU would recognise US standards as 'legitimate' and would therefore allow US exports into the EU even when they don't meet EU standards.  TTIP is not to stimulate trade through removing tariffs between the EU and USA, as these are already at minimal level. The main goal of TTIP is to remove regulatory 'barriers' which restrict potential profits to be made by transnational corporations. The EU has much stricter regulations on GM crops, pesticides, food safety, and the environment than the US. TTIP deal could open the EU market to cheaper products with poorer standards such as hormone-fed beef rinsed in acid, genetically modified oil from pesticide-soaked crops, and butter laced with antibiotics. In the EU, the precautionary principle is paramount to policy-making, meaning that a business must prove to government that a product poses no threat to human health or the environment. In the USA, a product is presumed safe, and for it to be banned government must prove that there is a threat to human health or the environment.

If global temperature rise is to be kept below 2 degrees and the most severe impacts of climate change mitigated, around 80 percent of known fossil fuel reserves must be left in the ground. The EU is pursuing a trade deal that would undoubtedly lead to even more money being poured into fossil fuel extraction. One of the key aims of TTIP is to push the US to reduce or remove current restrictions on the export of crude oil and shale gas.  This would facilitate the export of tar sand oil, mined in Canada and refined/transported via the US. A EU 2014 report by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate confirmed that high-carbon investment over the next 15 years will only serve to lock in the risks of dangerous climate change.

TTIP would allow private firms running NHS services to sue the government. The NHS is a 'public service' (the 1993 General Agreement on Trade in Services Treaty defines a 'public service' as one supplied 'neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers') but as a result of the 2013 Health and Social Care Act, more health services in the UK are being put out to tender in a competitive market by Clinical Commissioning Groups. This commercial competitive element means that large parts of the NHS will not be protected from TTIP.

Unemployment

The EU has admitted that TTIP will probably cause unemployment as jobs switch to the US, where labour standards and trade union rights are lower. Examples from other similar bi-lateral trade agreements around the world support the case for job losses. The Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC estimates that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico caused the loss of a million US jobs and shrinking real-terms wages for millions more workers. The Centre for Economic Policy Research concluded in a study commissioned by the European Commission itself that TTIP could cause between 680,000 and 1.3 million job losses in Europe and between 325,000 and 715,000 jobs in the US.

The US also has lower labour standards and employment rights than EU countries. The US has not ratified a number of the most important International Labour Organisation Conventions, including the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The US has also passed Right to Work legislation in 24 states, most recently in the traditional union stronghold of Michigan, which clamp down on unions capacity to bargain and organise. European companies may take advantage of the ease of market access created by TTIP to relocate to the USA, and take advantage of the weak labour regulations. There is also the possibility that American companies may be encouraged by TTIP to relocate to EU states such as Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia where incomes are low and trade unions are weaker than in other parts of the EU.

For transnational corporations, barriers to trade are things that restrict their profits such as labour rights, food safety rules, regulations on the use of toxic chemicals, the minimum wage, health and safety laws, and environmental regulations. TTIP is a charter for profit before people. The casualties will be working class people the world over, who will end up as collateral damage, more powerless and more vulnerable than ever in the face of global capitalism. TTIP is a race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator that will further the interests of global capitalism.

Marx in his Speech on the Question of Free Trade in Brussels in January 1848 pointed out that 'when you have torn down the few national barriers which still restrict the free development of capital, you will merely have given it complete freedom of action... every one of the destructive phenomena to which unlimited competition gives rise within any one nation is reproduced in more gigantic proportions in the market of the world.' He concluded 'the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favour of Free Trade.'

Steve Clayton

Between the Lines: Much ado about nothing (1987)

The Between the Lines Column from the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

There now follows . . . 

Am I just getting more fed up or are party political broadcasts getting worse? One has only yo hear those words, "There now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of . . . (Don't try turning over because we've stuck them on all channels)" to know that an insult to the public intelligence is about to be perpetrated. There was a time when these affairs were pretty simple efforts: Harold Wilson sitting behind a desk puffing lies in a fatherly sort of way or George Brown looking into the camera with the sincerity of a man who showed signs even then of ending up an SDP member of the House of Lords. In those days they would deliver their messages as abbreviated speeches and get off the screen. No we are in the age of hi-tech lying: video edited, maximum visual impact porky pies.

Take the Labour PPB of a few months ago where an actor stood next to a big globe and pointed at it with an imposing looking stick while talking about how the Tories are leaving the damned place undefended with their lack of expenditure on conventional bombs. This was drama, not politics, the medium was the message; vote for us if you like my shiny medals and big stick (This is the way to win the Harvey Proctor voters over). Then there was the Tory pre-local election PPB (5 May, all channels). This one had dire pictures of people in pain whom it was soon explained were in fact ratepayers in Ealing and Waltham Forest — of course, why didn't I guess? — whose rates had been put up by Labour councils. These rates, we were told with the aid of horrific graphics, were to support gay centres (there are simply hundreds of them in Ealing and Waltham Forest, don't you know) and anti-police campaigns.

Norman Tebbit came on at the end warning voters in hysterical terms that voting Labour would lead to suffering beyond conception. Perhaps my awareness of the inanity of it all was heightened by the fact I coincidentally watched the BBC2 version of the broadcast put out for the deaf with subtitles. You can watch TV politics and think it's twaddle and you can an article by a politician and think it's twaddle, but there is nothing quite like watching and reading it at the same time to confirm that it is pure, unadulterated twaddle.

Much ado about nothing

This Week, Next Week (3 May, 1pm, BBC1) had a bad dose of election fever. No election was announced, but that did not deter the producers of this little roll-in-the-mud from insisting upon a pre-election shove-around in the studio. So, in were brought Bryan Gould and Lord Young, two men whom few people had heard of a year ago, but who look like being the election faces of the year. It seems that, in the tradition of all jolly good public school pranks, Labour's Bryan Gould had written and had a published a Tory manifesto which looks just like the 1983 Tory Manifesto (Tee hee!) Lord Young was angry because Labour had nicked their design. Pushed to promise that the Tories would not do the alleged deeds Young wisely declined to commit his party to not doing anything. Also in the studio was an Alliance spokesman and a rubber plant.

Benn falls in love

With Peter Ustinov and Tony Benn as guests, Wogan looked worth watching. (29 April, 7pm, BBC1) After all, both are eloquent men who have been known to have more to say for themselves than Wogan's usual guests. In fact, the appearances were disappointing but that is not important: guests on chat shows quite frequently sell themselves short, simply because of the pressure placed by the format of such programmes to push your personality, as if the latter is something you slip into in the morning like your shirt.

What was striking from this programme and it has never been apparent (at least to this writer) in the past, was that Tony Benn had fallen in love with Russian state capitalism. Gorbachev's reforms are the greatest thing in 40 years . . . the Russians are a peace-loving people who are determined to avoid war . . .  the problem is that we have all these lies in the West about Russia. Benn sounded like a fellow traveller, pouring out all sorts of half-open hints of friendship in defence of one of the greatest tyrannies in the modern world.

Perhaps it was inevitable that an isolated Labour leftist, never really at home among the non-ideological void of Kinnockism, should finally drift towards the illusion of Stalinism. But it was sad to perceive. Benn said he was more optimistic now about the prospects of world peace than he had been in decades; the Gorbachev weapons reduction proposals were magnificent. If he believes that he'd believe . . . well, I suppose he does.

Right royal rubbish

Aren't Charlie and Di a fine couple? Isn't it lovely to see her changing her frock every fifteen minutes? Doesn't he do fine work to help the poor? Wasn't it pleasant to see him walking around the grounds of one of his palaces talking to the plants? No to all questions, and that is why I, like others of sound mind, switched the nauseating parasites off after twenty minutes and went up the pub. (4 May, 8pm, ITV, The Prince and Princess of Wales: In Public, In Private.)

Steve Coleman

Between the Lines: News priorities (1986)

The Between the Lines Column from the March 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

News priorities

On the day the Space Shuttle exploded, thousands of people — most of them under five — died of malnutrition. There was no report on the news. And how many lives were in ruins that day because mothers could not feed or clothe their children, families were living in overcrowded slums, or children were turning to drugs to escape the reality of a miserable system? Approximately eighty per cent of news broadcasts were devoted to the deaths of a group of people who had chosen to go on a dangerous mission, but was it really necessary for American TV networks to point cameras at the relatives of those killed, catching every twitch of their faces?

What is called "news" is determined by the perverse priorities of capitalism. We cannot help thinking that the America government was grieving rather more over the setback this even will have caused to the Star Wars military project than over the day's many other victims.

Spitting Image

The doubt in my mind about Spitting Image is the extent to which it fosters the belief that by ridiculing leaders — and in some cases their appearances rather than their ideas — one is being political. In fact, it can be argued that precisely this kind of comedy defuses whatever anger workers have against the system itself. And the politicians probably don't mind the publicity. Revolutions do not, after all, start as a result of watching TV puppet shows. The question worth pondering is, are they delayed because workers are sitting in their armchairs laughing at caricatures instead of the real TV comedy: the party political broadcasts?

The SWP show

Diverse Reports of 22 January (Channel 4) was virtually a party political broadcast on behalf of the Leninist Socialist Workers' Party. Its content was predictable, commencing with the absurd statement that the Labour Party has recently moved away from socialist policies. When has the Labour Party ever stood for anything but capitalism? The fact is that the SWP is just as confused about socialism as the Labour Party, and it was indeed strange for them to devote their programme to exposing the Labourites when they urged workers to vote for them in the last election and will do so in the next. Nevertheless, the Socialist Party is in favour of minority parties having access to TV slots, even if they have as little worth saying as is clearly the case with the SWP. Whenever the Socialist Party has approached TV companies (including the nominally radical C4) and asked for a slot of this kind, we have been told that it is against their regulations to give time to minority parties. Even when one of our prospective parliamentary candidates appeared on C4's Comment a few months ago, he was forbidden to mention the party's name. If that is the policy of the TV companies, why was it not applied in the case of the SWP? C4 has to come out in the open and state whether or not minority political parties are to be censored, leaving viewers with the impression that they have nothing to say. if their undemocratic policy has now been rejected, then the SWP has had its chance and we want ours. If the policy is to be upheld, then we accuse C4 of hypocrisy and call for an explanation. The matter will be raised with the TV controllers concerned and we will report fully their response — or lack of one.

Entering an institution

They say that marriage is not a word but a sentence, and if anyone needed any proof they had only to watch Desmond Wilcox's voyeuristic documentary series, The Marriage (Wednesdays, 9.30 pm, BBC1). The series followed the first year of married life of a couple of people who seemed pretty typical. The degeneration of their relationship from unlimited affection to evident strain was almost entirely caused by money. Almost every argument they had was about it — he spent more than she liked; she wanted money for their own home; he took on a new job so that he could earn more; he had to buy a new car but she wanted it to be a cheaper model. Here on our screens was a microcosm of what is going on in most working-class relationships. The souring effect of money is something we will probably never comprehend fully until it has been abolished.

Steve Coleman

Between the Lines: Passing of a Texan Idiot (1985)

The Between the Lines Column from the September 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Passing of a Texan Idiot

Wipe away those tears, fellow workers: mourning will not bring him back. Those of us who watched the BBC's final screening of Dallas (BBC1, 17 July) saw how Bobby Ewing, the not very bright Texan oil millionaire, planned to marry two rich women in one episode and, just as he'd decided which one to leave on the shelf, along comes another woman in a fast car and . . . bash! Next scene: Bobby lies dying in a posh Texan hospital surrounded by the whole cast and not a single doctor or nurse. After mumbling some soppy sentiments — "Don't let them sell you to the ITV, Pam" and "Don't forget the number of the Swiss bank account, J.R." — his eyes close and the contract runs out. The other characters stand around and weep, presumably because this is the last episode to be shown in Britain. If I was J.R. I'd sue the hospital for negligence, leaving the poor man unattended in his final moments, with nothing but a second-hand script of a death scene to keep him going. 

Millions of workers watched this sentimental garbage, pushing it into the top programmes in that week's ratings. While wage slaves mourn the fictitious of a privileged parasite there are millions of the wealth-producing class living in squalor — as shown on the very good portrait of the declining british welfare services, From The Cradle To The Grave (ITV, Mondays, 29 July-19 August). The choice is clear: do we treat into the fantasy worlds of Dallas and Dynasty or look at the less glamorous, less jolly, less simplistic world of social reality for the working-class majority? We know which choice the programme-controllers would like us to make.

News?

Talking of utter triviality, have you noticed how TV news often repots as issues of importance matters which inform us of nothing but the empty-headedness of the news editors? The recent story about Labour MPs dangling a topless woman over the River Thames (BBC News, 29 July) was about as important a contribution to human knowledge as the lengthy reports a few weeks earlier about a manifestly deranged ex-SAS man who spent several weeks living in a small rock — a British rock of course — somewhere to the north of Scotland. When one considers all the important happenings in the world which workers should be hearing about — the oppressive activities of governments, the mass murders and mutilations in wars, the millions dying of starvation in a world of food surpluses, the uncontrollable fluctuations of world trade — why is it that the important news is all too often left out to make room for insignificant trivia? Could it be that, like the producers of Dallas, the news editors prefer a good bit of diversionary escapism to a healthy dose of useful knowledge?

Socialists and Censorship

In the same week that the BBC listed its twenty-year ban on The War Game it obeyed government wishes and banned the Real Lives documentary which included an interview with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein. Socialists aim to build a majority movement in favour of a totally democratic society; we have always emphasised that such an end can only be obtained by democratic means. Socialists are against government censorship whether it is by law, as in Russia and South Africa (where the recent emergency powers have seriously media censorship), or by hints and the use of political pressure, as in allegedly democratic Britain.

In this column last month we pointed out that, much as we deplore the anti-working-class aims and policies of Sinn Fein, we favour all opportunities for workers to be exposed to all political points of view. If the defenders of the IRA have a case to state we are in favour of it being heard, not censored, just as we want our own ideas to be given media exposure. The BBC has a long record of denying the Socialist Party of Great Britain TV time and it is worthy of note that the major capitalist parties, which do have access to TV, have not found such censorship in conflict with their professed democratic principles. In calling for the Real Lives documentary to be banned, the Home Secretary admitted that he had not even seen a recording of it. Perhaps he well urge the BBC to show it in twenty years' time.

Steve Coleman

Between the Lines: Sinn Fein, Game Shows and Live Aid (1985)

The Between the Lines Column from the August 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sinn Feigners

Beatrix Campbell, in Diverse Reports (C4, 3 July), sought to portray Sinn Fein as a progressive, caring, reforming party—an image it seeks to put across to electors. It should not be surprising that a programme showed Sinn Fein's policies without constant reference to the party's support for nationalist murderers; after all, the Tory and Labour parties support national armies committed to obscene acts of violence, but this is not mentioned every time there is a programme about their policies.

And having seen the uncensored picture, what are we to conclude? Quite simply, that Sinn Fein is just another party of reformist politicians who want to run capitalism. As the party's leader Gerry Adams, said, "All we can do is  . . . achieve those very small gains by working along with the people within the system". So much for Assembly member, Danny Morrison's throwaway comment that Sinn Fein is "a revolutionary party". From Adams we heard the usual vague claims of a reformist leader: first the nationalist movement must be built up to oppose British rule, and then after the British have withdrawn and Ireland is independent there will be "the beginnings of a socialist society". What does this mean? Uncensored Adams neglected to tell us. Campbell, who is a feminist, asked Adams what the position of women would be once Ireland had achieved Home/Rome Rule; she stated that "for women this happens to be one of the most repressive cultures you can think of." But Gerry told her that her question was based on "cultural imperialism" and she, being English, should learn that Irish people are different.

At the end of the programme one was left with the clear impression of a political party based on the twin confusions of nationalist illusion and reformist promise. If there ever is a united Ireland, presided over by Sinn Fein, it will be another capitalist state and the workers living under it will detest Adams and his fellow would-be rulers as much as they do their present representatives.

Even without the terrorist violence, which socialist unequivocally condemn, there was plenty shown about Sinn Fein to justify the unreserved hostility of socialists towards them.

Money sickness

It was D. H. Lawrence who referred to "the collective money-madness of mankind",  and where better to  observe that madness than in the gambling establishments of Las Vegas. Showdown at Glitter Gulch was a documentary about the world poker championship (BBC1, 3 July)  - an event where the winner gets a million dollars. It was an obscene spectacle, all these idlers throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars on to a table while millions of workers go without a decent supper and millions more die for lack of money for food. It was not "human nature" which led these men to indulge in an insane monetary ritual — it was a social system which elevates money into the god of life and trains those with more of it than sense to invest their energies in acquiring more. A mad system drives men mad and this programme was a peep through the window of one of the top-class asylums.

The price is indignity

The same "collective money-madness", but at a cheaper rate for the proles, is The Price is Right (don't know or care when it's on). The programme succeeds in being the ultimate in tasteless money fetishism. Crowds of impoverished workers scream and throw dignity to the wind as the prospect of guessing the price of an electric carving knife turns them into human cash registers. The aim of the game is to guess how much commodities are worth and if the guess is near enough to the price you win. Game shows generally portray capitalism as its most grotesque, and the trouble with watching them is that we are supposed to applaud contestants for doing well.

Live aid

Live Aid for Africa (BBC, 13 July) demonstrated several things that it did not intend, The purpose of the concert was to raise money to stop people starving to death in Africa. Yet its effect will be minimal, negligible, crumbs thrown into an ocean of despair. What then did the event show? First of all, that workers, even when motivated by immense goodwill and collective concern, cannot solve capitalism's problems. During the course of the sixteen-hour concert British workers donated a mere £4 million in telephone pledges, less than the British Government spends on the military machine every three hours every day; less than the richest woman in Britain (the Queen( receives as interest on her personal investments in one week. Workers were 'phoning up and saying that they would sell their cars and donate their precious savings to the worthy cause — but asking the impoverished in Britain to feed the starving of Africa solves precisely nothing.

Secondly, the show demonstrated just how superficial is the moralising self-righteousness of those who do not understand the capitalist system. Periodically we would be urged — by millionaires who became rich by dressing up in fancy costumes and singing about love through sore throats — to "feed the world". But why is food dumped while people starve? Why do some people have banquets while others do not? In short, the whole event was an invitation to weep at the symptoms, and to hell with any concern about the disease. Indeed, Bob Geldof (who may be sincere, but it certainly naive to a dangerous degree) was seen repeatedly throwing his arms in the air, like a man who feels something but does not know what, and declaring that governments should "do something". In fact, governments are doing something: running capitalism and feeding the capitalists' hunger for profits.

Thirdly, the show proved just how musicians have become incapable of performing without record producers to twiddle knobs and make them sound any good. Some of the sets from Wembley and Philadelphia, presented without the benefit of studio treatment, ranged from not very good to pathetic. Demonstrated above all, however, was the power of communication technology: fourteen international satellites beamed the show to 50 million TV sets, reaching an estimated audience of 1.5 billion people. But just as this technology can unite millions of workers for a lofty, if ultimately futile, moral cause, so too can it bind them together for more sinister propaganda messages, such as those demanded for example in the build-up to war. Left in the hands of the capitalist minority the means of mass communication are a potent weapon. But used for socialist purposes, think of how the worldwide unity forged by Live Aid could be turned into an instrument for making democracy work within the global village.

Watching the show until the final performance by Bob Dylan (not an occasion worthy of the wait, as it turned out), I was struck by an overwhelming sense of depression — not just at the thought that fellow human beings are starving to death, although that is good enough reason for a sleepless night, but because all the goodwill, energy, determination and technological know-how put into "doing something about it" will not feed the world. Despite Geldof's moral crusade the obscenity of mass human misery will go on and on and on until Elvis Costello stops singing "all you need is love" and the workers realise that the world os ours for the taking. And finally the national anthem came on, and by the time it got to "Long To Reign Over Us" I was fast asleep.

Steve Coleman