Production Solely For Use (1942)

From the September 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

A writer signing himself "Pep" has an article called "Production for Profit—or Use" in "Everybody's Weekly" (August 8th, 1942). He challenges what he believes to be the Socialist case and argues that there is not and cannot be anything else but production for profit—"no one at any time does anything whatever except for profit." It is necessary to emphasise the point that Pep's attack is on what he believes is the Socialist case, for he has neglected to state correctly what is the Socialist. Here is a passage which shows Pe's line of argument:—

I seem to have heard  . . . an orator declaring that the production of goods for profit was a root cause of industrial unrest if not for our defeat in Libya. He asserted that, according to the gospel of Marx, production should be for use. He pictured a greedy horde of plutocrats driving gentlemen called the workers into factories where they were sweated—not in order to make article of use in English homes, but to make profits for the obese owners of vested interests . . .
I objected to the picture because I hold it to be untrue that we who work are driven anywhere. We are, maybe, enticed by pay envelopes , bonuses, pensions and advancement, but we are not yet goaded on by whips or scorpions to produce profits for the rich. And as for ourselves, no one at any time does anything whatever except for profit.

Pep arrives at his curious conclusion by attaching to the word profit not one understandable meaning, but several different meanings: all of them wrong. In one place he appears to use the word to mean wages, and talks of a carpenter making a chair for profit; whereas it is characteristic of capitalism that carpenters, like other workers, live not on profits but on wages. Elsewhere he employs the term in a sense peculiar to himself. He writes:—

Who would make a hay rake except for use? On the other hand, who would dream of making it except for immediate profit—a profit which will be translated during the coming winter into terms of milk, cream, butter and cheese.

Here, it will be seen, he is using the word profit to mean exactly the same as use. He could more sensibly have written in place of his second sentence—

Who would dream of making it except for immediate use—a use which will be translated during the coming winter into terms of milk, cream, butter and cheese.

It is in this curious way that Pep sets out to enlighten the readers of "Everybody's Weekly."

If we now state the Socialist case as it really is we can begin to enlighten Pep. What the Socialist ways is that under capitalism production is carried on for the profit of the owners of the means of production, though the usefulness of the products is not in question, and that under Socialism  it will be carried on solely for use—note the word solely. As Pep questions the Socialist explanation we can perhaps make things clearer to him by referring to some statements in his own article.

It will be noticed, for example, that in the passage quoted above Pep makes use of the phrase, "We who work." Thus does the truth slip out in the most surprising places, for by singling out "we who work," Pep is disclosing that even he recognises the existence of some others who do not have to work. In the same passage he notes that "we who work" are enticed by "pay envelopes." So "we who work" receive "pay envelopes," which again differentiates us from some other persons who receive incomes from the ownership of property. The remark made by Pep is that the workers, far from being driven by whips or scorpions to produce profits for the rich, "are enticed by pay envelopes." He does not, it will be noticed, go so far as to deny that profits are produced for the rich, and he does not try to explain why it is that carpenters and other producers of useful articles should be content to produce profits for others. Can Pep really be so ignorant of the world in which he lives that he has never noticed how much more persuasive than whips and scorpions is the goad of starvation, or the semi-starvation of unemployment pay? Yet Pep must truly be ignorant for he has not noticed the existence in peace time of unemployment, of millions of men and women who cannot be "enticed by pay envelopes" because nobody will offer them the opportunity. If Pep were to make a few inquiries he would discover that this occurs, not because the workers are unwilling to produce useful articles, or because nobody is in need of useful articles, but because those who own and control the means of production and distribution cannot see the prospect of profit and therefore forbid the workers to work. In that situation Pep's imaginary carpenter "who prefers to make things for profit, especially his own," is in a very sad case—solely because of capitalism, which is a system of society in which production depends on the prospect of profit for the capitalist.

Edgar Hardcastle

Breakdown At The Hague Part 1 of 3 (2001)

From the January 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The international conference on global warming broke down with no agreement

Last month the International Conference on global warming held at The Hague broke down. Predictably, there was no agreement. Instead, it finished with a slanging match between some of the delegates over who was to blame. After all-night talks a bleary-eyed John Prescott suggested that the delegate from France, Dominique Voynet, had been unable to keep up with the detailed arguments, whilst she in return suggested that Prescott was an "unreconstructed male chauvinist". There seems to be a tradition of abuse at these events. In 1993, a similar conference in London broke up with the Norwegian delegate calling the British Minister for the Environment, John Gummer, a "drittsekk" ("shitbag"). No less depressing than the thought of a serious world problem out of control is the fact that it is in the hands of such politicians. The truth is that from the beginning, the Conference at The Hague, like all such conferences, was incompetent to deal with the problem.

Evidence mounts

For some time the quality of the science behind the idea of global warming, climatic change and the part played by human activity, has had its critics but the evidence is mounting. To quote the Economist of 18 November, "Now, however, the science has become clearer and most new evidence confirms that global warming should be taken seriously. The forthcoming report by the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world's top climate scientists (including prominent dissenters), concludes that man's actions have "contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 50 years."

This confirms many earlier warnings. For example, in 1984, a report from the National Science Foundation, Washington, Global Energy Futures and CO2, Induced Climate Change said "Accurate records of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere kept over the past 34 years show that concentrations have increased (8 percent) from 315 parts per million in 1958 to 340 parts per million in 1982." Since 1982, hundreds of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases have been further released into the atmosphere.

The anger of the Norwegian delegate at the 1993 London Conference was provoked by the British government having reneged on its promise to reduce carbon emissions. This was seen to result in extensive destruction of the soils, forests, and lakes of Scandinavia, caused by acid rain. Aquatic life in 17,000 lakes in south-west Sweden had been wiped out or seriously damaged. In the 1980s the British government had come under pressure to reduce the carbon emissions from its power stations by 30 percent. This would have included the fitting of flue gas desulphurisation equipment to power stations which were throwing up millions of tonnes of sulphur dioxide. It refused to go ahead because the 30 percent reduction would have cost £l billion. At the time, the British Government was struggling to get out of a deep slump in which there were almost 4 million unemployed. It was not in a position to add £1 billion pounds to its energy costs.

This underlines the basic cause of pollution and global warming and the reasons why International Conferences on the subject tend to break up in failure and recrimination or, subsequently, why governments find it difficult to carry out the commitments they have given.

Who's going to bear the burden?

On the face of it the problems of pollution, global warming and climate change may appear to be technical problems. But this is wrong. Although the Hague Conference was attended by hundreds of technical experts, the important arguments about what can or what cannot be done were about money and costs. The arguments were about the strategies of the various states who were at the Conference to defend their economic interests. A blatant example of this was reported in the Economist: " . . . the big oil producing countries are, in a flight of fancy, demanding compensation for the harm they will suffer from lost oil sales; they are trying to block the Kyoto process as a conspiracy to damage their economies".

Kyoto accords

The Kyoto accord of 1997 was an agreement amongst the developed nations to cut the release of greenhouse gases by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008/12. Since then, most countries have increased their pollutants and in America these have soared. The parties to the Kyoto accord also ". . . agreed that cutting emissions might be so expensive that the treaty should allow countries innovative, flexible approaches to reduce compliance costs".

In practice, being "innovative" and "flexible" has resulted in a series of complex proposals which appear to be more designed to confuse the issues and avoid commitments rather then fulfil them. For example, America, Australia, Canada and Japan, all of which are now increasing their greenhouse gases, have proposed they be allowed to plant vast amounts of trees in the developing world and count the carbon dioxide absorbed against their own emissions. This was seen as evasive and was described as "a con-trick". It was mainly this sort of recrimination that brought the conference at The Hague to an end when it was meant to monitor progress and up-date the targets set at Kyoto. One consequence is that the "Kyoto Accord" is in ruins.

Empty rhetoric

The various conferences on pollution have failed to make any significant progress and it could be said that they are mere forums for empty rhetoric, intended to put a public relations gloss on government actions which in reality are making the problems worse. It would be difficult to argue against this. However, the fact that these are international discussions does recognise one important thing. They accept that the problems are global, and that global consensus is required for action on a global scale. What dooms them to failure is the fact that they take place in a world that is divided into rival capitalist states which are in economic competition with each other. This makes global consensus impossible and rules out effective global action. The pressures to keep down costs and protect profits means that the technology for reducing pollution is either ignored or applied in a minimal token way.

Need for global framework

Even where the science may not be complete a precautionary principle should apply. It is reckless to gamble with an existing balance of natural systems on which all life depends. The basic cause of pollution is the capitalist system. The problem is out of control because the economic constraints of the system prevent the problems being solved. A sane society would simply consider the technical options available. Then, following democratic decisions on the actions to be taken would do what was necessary to achieve the solutions. This rational procedure is impossible in the mad world of capitalism. The plain fact is, before we can work within natural systems in a non-destructive way we must first create a society in which we can all co-operate with each other.

The problems of world pollution are technical, economic and political but the important question that emerges is this: how do we establish a society in which all people are able to co-operate to provide a good life for each other whilst looking after our shared home in space? The freedom to do this can only be achieved through the relationships of socialism. Every person has the ability to co-operate with others and every person has a vital interest in creating the new world in which co-operation can flourish. Leaving the problems to capitalist politicians and their conferences such as the fiasco at The Hague can only be a recipe for disaster.

With the end of the market system, people in socialism would enjoy great advantages in solving the problems of pollution and environmental degradation. There would be no difficulty in establishing a World Energy Organisation that would be able to assess the problems from a global point of view without the barriers of national divisions. It would be able to recommend technical solutions arising from all the natural advantages of the planet and its use as a single productive unit. Socialism would also be able to save on resources by eventually reducing production levels.

End of competition

By concentrating its labour resources economically on the real needs of people socialism would be able to stop vast numbers of wasteful and destructive jobs that are only necessary in a profit system. With the end of economic competition, socialism would not be bound to use the least costly methods of production, many of which are destructive of the environment. Whilst a fall in capitalist production because of recession creates chaos and immense problems of misery and social dislocation, communities in socialism would eventually be able to bring about a fall in production without any such problems. A further article will examine these options more closely.

Pieter Lawrence

The Lessons of Madrid (2004)

Editorial from the April 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The explosions in Madrid have brought home the truth about the so-called War on Terror

The victims, workers of eleven different nations, had their lives blinked out of existence by the simple deadly efficiency of modern chemical explosives carefully applied to devastate the complex systems upon which modern humans rely for survival.  Their assassins had been able to move freely in their midst to unleash their chaos and carnage.

In his speech following the bombings, Tony Blair was forced to admit that such atrocities cannot be prevented.  In modern industrialised society, too many people are moving and crowding together to control.  Explosives are too small and concealable.  He went on, that alone in history, the likely perpetrators ─ Al Qaeda, or their sympathisers ─ are immune to reason and rationale and that they cannot be defeated except by main force.

The likes of the trotskyist Paul Foot see terrorism as “the weapon of the weak”.  To many leftists, weakness and being the underdog is ennobling.  Indeed, John Pilger and Tariq Ali, whilst professing to be in favour of  “Stopping the War” actually are fully in favour of it, only they favour the side that now uses bombs to kill crowds of Iraqi workers with the same sort of technology as murdered the Madrid workers.  They support the “Resistance”. They support it because America is big and powerful, so it must use the vicious weapons of the weak, to defeat the great power that is immune to reason and cannot be defeated except by main force.

Of course, weakness is not of itself ennobling, still less does it make its possessor deserving of support.  The perpetrators of many of the atrocities of modern terrorist war are not the starvelings from the slums, the children struggling beneath the occupying soldier's boot.  Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi Arabian capitalist ─ waging war on his homeland's government and its American backers.  His followers are college-educated professionals, usually from well-off families, the aspirant ruling classes of Middle Eastern states.

They would use the same weapons all ruling classes have historically used to climb to power ─ brute force, mayhem and murder.  That the resources they possess to do this with are small does not change that underlying intent

They seek to use their weapons to maximum effect: imposing costs, in terms of chaos, fear, disruption and increased security, on their foes - chiefly the American government and its allies - to the point at which they will find the cost too great to continue with their current policies.

Those governments themselves, of course, have a tremendous abundance of the sort of means of destruction which the terrorists deployed in Madrid.  They have themselves, with a year, used those resources for terrorist purposes - or for “Shock and Awe” as they termed it.  They too have slaughtered workers in pursuit of their ends.

Of course, the politicians that run those governments try to make out that they are different to the terrorists, they have values.  They did not target civilians deliberately though they did unleash destructive power in the full knowledge that “bystanders” would die.

The truth of Madrid is that there is no essential difference, that the victims of that bomb were as equally human as those dead Iraqis as the bombs that killed them were equally bombs.   As human as the deluded workers who form the potential supporters that the terrorists are trying to win to their cause.  They died amidst the pass and fell of warring powers, even if those powers are “asymmetric”.

While Blair would attempt to cover this truth with his call for everyone to take the side of the tiger against the fleas, socialists declare that the only way for the workers to defend themselves against the prospect of the permanent threat of obliteration is to wage war against the very causes of the conflict - the division of the world into property.

Our weapons though, are not those of destruction.  The workers are the force of creation, and can build a better world.  The truth and the message of Madrid is that the war on terror must be transformed into a battle between the free association of producers, versus the nihilistic battalions of destruction.

Proper Gander: Cheapness At a Price (2015)

The Proper Gander Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Supermarket Chain Aldi opened its first British store as long ago as 1990, but it took the recent economic downturn for it to grow into the booming profit-factory we know today. Like Poundland and Primark, Aldi found its strength in an economic climate where we’ve got less disposable income, and have turned to the shops which are flogging things at the lowest prices. Aldi now has 600 stores in Britain, with plans to double this number in the next five years. Meanwhile, comparatively upmarket Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons are closing branches and shelving plans to open more.

Suspicious of how this growth has been achieved, Channel 4’s documentary strand Dispatches went undercover in Aldi’s Supermarket Secrets. Two reporters wearing hidden cameras get jobs as new recruits to Aldi’s army, hoping to find out about its ‘dynamic business model’.

Despite the show’s title promising secrets, Aldi’s strategy is familiar. Punters are drawn in by cheap prices, which are possible through strict cost cutting elsewhere in the business. Obviously, it’s Aldi’s workforce which has to deal with the pressures to increase efficiency and productivity. The employee handbook lists their various time targets, such as scanning 1,200 items through the till each hour, or one every three seconds. A training video tells staff that ‘you dictate the speed of the transaction, not the customer’.

The pace that shelves are stacked is also set by targets, which employees try to meet by chucking loaves of bread into place and climbing on shelves because it’s quicker than fetching a ladder. The speed that workers have to work means that corners are cut and health and safety policies aren’t followed. Three quarters of Aldi’s staff said they had health and safety concerns in a union survey.

Workplace targets tend to be unrealistic in any business, as they are set by managers without enough experience or empathy with how things are on the ground. The higher up in an organisation someone is, the further they are removed from the practicalities they make decisions about. What senior managers can see clearer is the drive to make money.

Even though Aldi says that from 2016 it will pay better wages than any other retailer, staff have been expected to be at work fifteen minutes before their shift starts, which over a year translates as a week of unpaid labour. This is illegal, although, of course, it’s considered acceptable for workers not to be paid back the wealth they create  which is creamed off as profits. Aldi’s owners recently enjoyed profits of £260.3million in the UK, but this comes at a cost to its staff.

Mike Foster

Editorial: Neither God nor State (2015)

Editorial from the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paris, 13 November 2015. Yet another atrocity in the name of religion. A deliberate attempt to kill as many innocent people as possible, at a pop concert, an international football match, and at random in the streets. Of course there was a political motive behind it. It was as President Hollande said, an act of war.

The ‘Islamic State’, which governs parts of Syria and Iraq, to which the perpetrators owed allegiance and on whose behalf they carried out the atrocity, is at war with various ordinary capitalist states – Syria, Iraq, the United States, Russia, Britain and of course France as well as others.

Deliberately targeting civilians is against the Geneva Convention but not, apparently, against sharia law nor (if you are on the winning side) against realpolitik, as Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki show. Once a war starts in the end anything goes because, if a state loses, then even the life of its rulers is at stake, let alone their position as rulers or the economic interests of its capitalists.

We are dealing, then, with a war atrocity, and wars arise from capitalism. They occur when, in the competition between states for sources of raw material, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic points and areas to protect and acquire these, the rulers of a capitalist state feel that their ‘vital interests’ are at stake and that they have more to lose by not going to war.

In the Middle East what’s at stake is who controls its oil resources and the routes by which the oil reaches the rest of the world. The US and its allies (‘the West’) have been determined to control this and largely do, but this control has always been challenged by local elites. During the Cold War period these used secular nationalism to win mass support, but in 1979 Iran set a new trend, which has since become dominant, by exploiting religion instead. So, anti-Western feeling there, expressing the interests of local elites, now takes the form of militant Islam.

In 2002 President George W Bush denounced Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an ‘axis of evil’. The US State Department quickly added Cuba, Libya and Syria. These all became targets for ‘regime change’. The first to undergo this was Iraq, then Libya, with disastrous results in both cases. Syria was to be the third. This attempt has had an even worse result. Playing the Sunni Muslim card, financed and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has created a monster that has taken the already extreme version of Islam imposed in Saudi Arabia to an even further extreme, wanting to go back to the 8th century and employing the barbarous methods of that time to get there.

The reaction in France to the atrocity has been to treat it as an attack on the ‘French nation’ whereas it was more accurately an attack on the French state. The result has been a reinforcement of French nationalism and of the false ‘sacred union’ between workers and the ruling class. Yet atrocities committed in the name of the nationalism of so-called ‘nation-states’ are less than those of religion only because these have not been around for so long.

The anarchist Bakunin raised the slogan ‘Neither God, nor Master’.  Adapting it as our response to the Paris atrocity: Neither God, nor State, but Humanity.

Sidelights on Capitalist Rule (1952)

Editorial from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the themes of Mr. Harold Nicolson's biography of the late King George V is that he showed a good grasp of problems of government and, indeed, the examples quoted do seem to indicate that he often displayed more insight and level-headedness than some of the leading politicians. But what is the major problem of the governments of capitalism? It is of course to keep the working class as far as possible satisfied with the system under which they are exploited, and if they can't be kept satisfied, at least to keep them quiet. One example selected by a Manchester Guardian reviewer is George V's handling of the political crisis which brought down MacDonald's Labour Government in 1931 and led to the formation of a “national” three party government with MacDonald as Prime Minister.

During the crisis the King interviewed the leader of the Liberals Sir Herbert Samuel and according to Mr. Nicolson's account this is what was said:-

Sir Herbert "told the King that, in view of the fact that the necessary economies would prove most unpalatable to the working-class, it would be to the general interest if they could be imposed by a Labour Government. The best solution would be if Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, either with his present or with a reconstituted Labour Cabinet, could propose the economies required. If he failed to secure the support of a sufficient number of his colleagues, then the best alternative would be a National Government composed of members of the three parties."

Further information was given by Sir Oliver Wigram in his record of a later discussion with the King. He says that the King found:-

“Sir Herbert Samuel the clearest-minded of the three and said he had put the case for a National Government much clearer than either of the others. It was after the King's interview with Sir Herbert Samuel that His Majesty became convinced of the necessity for the National Government.”

When MacDonald went to see the King to tell him that “all was up” with the Labour Government, the King impressed on him “that he was the only man to lead the country through this crisis and he hoped he would reconsider the situation.”

It would certainly seem that Sir Herbert Samuel (now Viscount Samuel) had a very shrewd idea of the part a Labour Government can play in keeping capitalism on an even keel.

*     *     *

The fact that we should have had to wait until now to know what arguments Samuel was using to try to keep a Labour Government in office in 1931 gives point to the recent controversy about the practice of Ministers maintaining secrecy on the discussions that go on inside the Cabinet.

In letters and articles in the Press various views have been expressed on the issue that arose between Mr. Bevan and Mr. Attlee on this question but it was left to Mr. W. Harvey Moore, Q.C., to suggest in a letter to The Times (16/8/52) that "secrecy is an evil, and knowledge and criticism of the actions of politicians is essential in a true democracy . . . The ordinary man who has to suffer for the mistakes of those who govern him is entitled to know 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'"

Mr. Moore mentions the countries beyond the "Iron Curtain" where any disclosure of facts that may be discreditable to members of the Government is regarded as treasonable and he thinks any tendency in that direction should be avoided in this country.

But as we live in a capitalist world where war and the threat of war are always with us he has to make an exception of strategic secrets that may be useful to a potential enemy.

*     *     *

On the same day (16th August 1952) the Manchester Guardian had two editorials, one on the British workers and the other on the workers in Czechoslovakia, and what a difference of outlook they displayed. The first criticised the British trade unions that are pressing for higher wages and threatening a ban on overtime to meet dismissals. The Guardian's argument here is that if British prices are not kept down British exports will be riven out of world markets by the competition of countries with cheaper products.

In the second article the Guardian related that the Communists who govern in Czechoslovakia are complaining in like manner of the workers there. The Czechoslovak Prime Minister complains of irresponsibility and indolence on the part of the trade unions and describes as traitors the workers who resist having to work more than eight hours a day. On the hours question the Guardian writer makes the jibe that the Communists regard it as a righteous desire if workers in the West want shorter hours, but regard it as criminal if workers in the "Peoples' Democracies" have the same desire. The jibe strikes home, but it also hits the Manchester Guardian, whose sour condemnation of British workers contrasts markedly with its evident satisfaction that the Czechoslovak Communist is in trouble with its own workers.

It is particularly interesting to notice that in Britain the workers who threaten to strike for higher wages when the Government says they shouldn't are suspected of being "communist" inspired, while the Czechoslovak workers who do the same are accused by their Communist Prime Minister of being "traitors and diversionists" in the pay of Western capitalists or "captives of bourgeois ideologies." Thus the Government of the two halves of the capitalist world play exactly the same game, of seeking to divide the workers on National lines. The workers answer ought to be that of uniting internationally so that the working class of all countries could stand together against its exploiters and work together for the removal of capitalism and establishment of Socialism. But that would displease equally the Manchester Guardian and the Czechoslovak Government.

Fox-hunting, Privilege and Power (2005)

From the January 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is not really about hunting. This is about the last hunting horn blowing the last call for the feudal system and the House of Lords...

In August 1997 the Socialist Standard wrote (half) jokingly, of the imminent demise of the quaint rural past-time of hunting landowners. Half, that is, because the joke contained some truth on the matter of the contretemps over the banning of fox hunting which will come (finally) into force next month.

Much fuss has been made about banning this blood-sport, its supporters twisting and turning, saying one minute it’s a cultural past-time, the next it’s an economic necessity of farming life. Either way, it’s by-the-by. What is interesting is the raw process of power involved in this debate.

Under any normal circumstances, such a Bill – like the banning of dangerous dogs (under the Tories), or the banning of raves (also under the Tories), or any other sundry such measures that restrict the mythic beast of personal choice – would have been nodded through parliament after a swift and enjoyable debate. With foxhunting, however, the inner secrets of the British constitution were revealed in all their ugly goriness as the New Labour hounds tore into the privileges of the owners of vast tracts of land who wanted the right to literally be a law unto themselves.

Under ordinary conditions, most legislation and acts of government are passed by the passive (at least) co-operation of the responsible bodies. For example, in the direct democratic aspects of the constitution of California, if the Lieutenant General does not oppose an initiative going to referendum it is much easier to have the vote – as in the recent one on stem-cell research held there in November. It could still be forced through, but unless the issue is strongly desired, most people wouldn’t bother to fight against the grain.

At least in California, though, the electorate have a chance of voting for new officials. With the House of Lords, the British legislature has the remnants of the descendants of cronies and toadies of monarchs past mixed with the cronies and toadies of top-politicos today. The toadies of kings past also have the advantage of owning the country – a kind of fringe benefit – and the latter-day toadies like to hang out with these wealthy landowners. The incentive for resisting encroachments onto their eminent domains is clear.

Posture politics

Add to the mix the quest of the increasingly marginalised Tory party to find a solid political base from which to challenge a government that tries to pretend to represent the whole nation, and you have a recipe for government attempts to compromise with the uncompromisable, reconcile the irreconcilable, and the spectacle of hard-done-by landowners taking to the streets under the banner of the “Countryside Alliance”.  And, after themselves banning raves and pitbulls, of the Tory party now crying out about restricting personal cultural liberties and who weep about the unnecessary slaughter of dogs.

That is a recipe for the most debased, ridiculous, irrelevant and futile posture politics stirred up by has-been politicos on the make, squabbling over the crumbs of power. That hundreds of hours of parliamentary time apparently needed to be spent over banning foxhunting, as compared to the single vote needed to launch a murderous war, shows where the priorities of these disinterested Lords and their Commons co-conspirators really lie.

The whole history of the House of Lords has been one of the rich and powerful trying to retain a voice and a vote to protect their vested interests against democracy. It had nothing to do with organically evolved institutions, rationally devised systems of checks and balances, and everything to do with shabby compromises and naked self-interests of the landed elite demanding their place in the legislature. Every twist of their fight with the Commons has come from their naked self-defence of their property – most famously with the Irish and other Lords conspiring to defeat Gladstone’s Home-Rule Bills in the late nineteenth century.

The first Parliament Act of 1911 came when the Lords tried to block a Liberal budget. They are only supposed to be able to delay legislation for two years under that Act (and now after the Act under the Attlee government, only one year). However, in a busy parliament, any delay means disrupting the whole schedule for other bills, and so can mean wreckage of any plans it wouldn’t be worth putting up a fight over.

After the Attlee government, the Lords agreed not to vote on anything contained in a government election manifesto, a concession to democratic legitimacy in order to be able to keep their undue place in the halls of the legislature. When New Labour removed (most of) the hereditary peers, they declared themselves no longer bound by this agreement, and began to make life difficult for the government. Hence why it has taken eight years to pass this Act.

The Countryside Alliance now is set to challenge the legitimacy of the Parliament Act 1945 – the power that finally allowed the Government to force the Act through despite Lords opposition – on the grounds that it wasn’t passed properly (the Lords never voted on it). Sixty years late, they discover this idea.  If they can’t win under the rules, they try and change the rules.

The government has pledged to continue with its reform of the Lords, removing the last vestiges of hereditary peerage, but keeping the likes of Lord Sainsbury – a man who gave millions of pounds to the Labour Party, with nothing in return save a peerage and a ministerial post.

In Scotland, where the new Parliament is not bound by an un-elected second chamber, a bill banning hunting was passed with ease, and, strangely, the world hasn’t come to an end. A stark illustration of the power exerted by the Lords in the British Parliament.

Hereditary property rights

The landed rich cannot begin to conceive that their will cannot run untrammelled. Representatives of the hunts have talked of landowners exerting their property rights, and withdrawing co-operation from national infrastructure. Withdrawing co-operation with the army (so much for their vaunted patriotism); withdrawing access to land holding electricity pylons railways and waterways. Some have even called for civil disobedience. They have claimed the police will not be able to enforce the Act (something the police deny), which is again betraying their usual stance that law and order must be respected (and also forgetting that the police could just turn up to their houses and serve warrants on them).

We have already seen their civil disobedience – abandoning cars in the street, storming parliament, fighting with the police in ways that could only impress hardened direct actionist anarchists (indeed, London Class War in the Autumn 2004 edition of their paper have called upon the pro-hunters to, erm, bring it on). Yet, they escape with only a slapped wrist compared with anarchists who get heavily fined and locked up.

The BBC have contacted various utility companies to find out what the ramifications for the withdrawal of co-operation would be. The answer is, whilst it could make life difficult, if withdrawal of co-operation were to conflict with operational needs of the electricity, rail or waterways, then there is legislation for them to force access. The landowners could be shocked, again, to find themselves at the wrong end of a copper’s truncheon.

They retain their faith in the holy rights of property, of the power of property holds to exert influence in society. They forget that the power of property rests upon the political power to enforce it, and now the law is for once against them, they don’t like it. Much as they don’t like the right to roam, for ordinary people to walk across their vast open spaces that they have a piece of paper saying they own.

The sad thing in all of this – apart from the genuinely moving look of surprise and hurt that hunt supporters have when they discover the police can be a bit nasty – is that many of them feel genuinely, passionately moved by this ban. Some have been heard to say in interviews that this is the first political issue they have ever felt strongly or passionately about. So, never mind thousands dying in war, millions dying of preventable diseases, the AIDS pandemic, millions dying every year of starvation, privation, squalor, poverty, meanness and misery in every town bred by poverty. The right to hunt foxes is what exercises them.

The countryside should not be a preserve of a tiny minority, shouldn’t be a source of division or overweening power. Disputes should be settled democratically, without tiny rich groups having more say than others. All of this just serves to show how the nexus of power and privilege that is part and parcel of capitalism prevents those sensible sentiments being carried out. The attempts of the rich and the powerful to maintain their power over making the rules and laws of society is an affront that serves to illustrate how shallow democracy under capitalism really is.

A telling strength of the remaining power of aristocratic privilege, is that at the dawn of 2005, we have still had to devote some 1500 words to discussing people in silly costumes hunting foxes at great expense and waste.

Pik Smeet

The People By Campanella. (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The people is a beast of muddy brain
That knows not its own force, and therefore stands
Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands
Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein;
One kick would be enough to break the chain;
But the beast fears, and what the child demands,
It does; nor its own terror understands,
Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.
Most wonderful: With its own hand it ties
And gags itself—gives itself death and war.
For pence doled out by kings from its own store.
Its own are all things between earth and heaven;
But this it knows not; and if one arise
To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.

(Translated by J. A. Symonds.)

The Fall of Riazanov (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The process of eliminating all of the better-known men and women who were prominent in the Bolshevik party at the time of the seizure of power has gone so far that practically all of them now share Trotsky's fate as exiles, or are in prison or relegated to obscurity. The latest person to be got rid of is D. Riazanov, the authority on the literature of Marxism, who formed, under the auspices of the Soviet Government, the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow.

Riazanov has been removed from his post as Director of the Institute, expelled from the Russian Communist Party, and lodged in jail on the grounds of alleged "betrayal of the Party" and "rendering assistance to the Menscheviks and foreign interventionists."

It would be idle to discuss whether these or any of the charges levelled by the Russian ruling caste against its opponents are well-founded, for the simple reason that those charged are not in a position to defend themselves. The authorities are in a position to secure whatever verdict they like and to publish alleged "confessions" in the names of the prisoners. After more one of the past trials the prisoners in private conversation repudiated their "confessions."

What is interesting about Riazanov's case is that his deposition is accompanied by the claim that his reputation as an authority on Marxism was totally undeserved. He is now alleged never to have understood the Marxian system—this in spite of the fact that only last year, when he reached the of sixty, great honours were shown officially, including the award of the Order of the Red Flag.

The real reason for the denial of Riazanov's soundness as a Marxian can possibly be looked for in the urgent need to mislead the Russian workers into the belief that the Russian system of "State capitalism" is in reality "Socialism."

We have before drawn attention to the theories now being propounded in Communist economic text-books, according to which the Russian workers are not exploited, in spite of the existence of a growing class of investors in that country. Marx showed that you cannot have a rent, interest and profit system without the exploitation of the workers. Marxism has consequently been unpalatable to Russia's rulers. Anyone who cannot or will not swallow the bowdlerised Marxism of the Communist Party dictators necessarily becomes a danger to their interests.

Perhaps Riazanov has been guilty of knowing too much about Marxian theories, and of not knowing how to dance to a different tune.

R. E.

Trendies, get stuffed! (1980)

From the March 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is time the working class declared war on the trendies. Radicals, liberals, cult musicians, progressive poets, campaigning journalists, revolutionary feminists, long-haired vicars, nose-picking punk heroes, populist academics, counter-culture creeps, Leninist demonstrators, ecologist friends of the earth, health food nutcases, real beer bores, fringe theatre goers and people who talk in loud voices about Trotskyism in Hampstead pubs. These denimed crusaders constitute one of the biggest diversions the working class has been confronted with since Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of the Church at Wittenberg.

Trendies want capitalism to ban the bomb, clean up the atmosphere, give equality to women, rock against racism and legalise dope. Those who disagree with their ideals—for so long as they try to enact them by marching up and down Oxford Street listening to the echo of their slogans they will remain idealists—are labelled 'reactionaries'.

Socialism is a materialist proposition, based on the incentive of human self-interest. It is dependent upon logic, not 'good vibrations'; reason, not rabble-rousing. We want a society in which men and women will fully control their own lives because they will own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth. The socialist case has developed out of a scientific analysis of the capitalist system which oppresses us. The system cannot be reformed in the interests of the working class. It must be abolished.

Trendies couldn't care less about abolishing the system. Those in the SWP and IMG are more concerned with supporting the latest fashionable reform than organising for revolution. Their political aims are determined by the very narrow confines of the system which only some of them have vaguely perceived.

Some trendies stay trendy all their lives. Peter Hain, the personification of a long yawn, is attempting to keep it up until he gets his pension. Reg Birch, the mad Maoist who recently retired from the TUC, did keep it up until he got his pension. From adolescence to senility, with nothing in between, they follow every movement, every demonstration, every cult that is thrown up in the name of the modern secular religion, Progress. What Progress is and where it leads to nobody knows. Others grow weary of their trendiness. At thirty they cut their hair, buy a suit and get a job in an office. By the time they reach sixty they tell their trendy grandchildren how they too once went through a rebellious period. "You'll grow out of it". And one day the workers will grow out of it. We'll grow out of the ideology which tells us that hope is the passing affliction of the young and uneducated. The working class will then grow up to socialist political majority.

Steve Coleman

Canadian University Left finds us too Working Class! (1974)

From the February 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter has been sent by our companion party, the Socialist Party of Canada, to three radio stations and the Victoria University Union paper (who have assigned a reporter to investigate the matter).

Dear Sir,

Universities are commonly considered to be centres of the highest liberal thinking, readily exposing their students to the widest range of philosophy and political thought.

The existing realities should cause quite a jolt to such an illusion.

On December 4th, 1973 the Socialist Party of Canada was informed that the journals Fulcrum, Western Socialist, and Socialist Standard were henceforth banned from the University of Victoria Bookstore. Reason? "They are not intellectual enough." It might be interesting to note just what is "intellectual enough" at the University of Victoria. Numerous Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, "Communists" and N.D.P.ist works find their way onto the bookstore's shelves. Threaded through some of these leftist ideas are scattered ideas of Marx smothered, unfortunately,  under an avalanche of counterfeit Marxism. meanwhile the genuine Marxism of the Socialist Party of Canada and its Companion Parties in other countries is "not intellectual enough."

Fortunately the high intellectual plateau of Victoria University's Bookstore is yet to be achieved in other places for Fulcrum, Western Socialist, and Socialist Standard are considered intellectual enough to grace the shelves of University libraries throughout the world as well as being regarded as valuable sources by researchers and historians.

Admittedly, when the University of Victoria has two resident ministers with subsidized housing and a history instructor is reported to have told her class that Martin Luther was right when he said indulgences did not have to be paid to get out of purgatory but wrong when he said there was no purgatory, the University is placed in an intellectual light that is out of the reach of the Socialist Party of Canada.

One can imagine the reaction if the Socialist Party of Canada were to demand a subsidized resident Socialist and that courses in its ideas be taught. Socialists are not so naive to think capitalism's institutions could be out to such a useful purpose, but it is too much when their journals are not even available for those who would wish to buy them.

Perhaps their ideas make Socialists more sensitive to infringements on freedom of speech but whether exposed to Socialist ideas or not most people probably agree that the future of mankind should be hammered out on the anvil of free discussion and debate rather than expressed by tyrants or suppressed by censors.

Jim Lambie,

General Secretary 

Revolution in Russia (1949)

From the January 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Henry Ford is reputed to have said, "History is bunk." If he was referring to the stuff that we were taught, under the heading of history, in elementary schools a generation ago, we can agree with him. But that is not what WE call history. History, for us, is not the kind of incident portrayed by film actors like George Arliss, Linda Darnell and Charles Laughton; it is not an account of the bedroom antics of princes and prostitutes. It is the study of the social life of people; how they produce their means of living; how they think and behave; the institutions they throw up, the changes they bring about; their struggles, their failures and their successes.

From a study of such things we can learn much. By learning of mistakes made in past struggles we can avoid making them in our own. If we trace the course of past events, and know how to interpret them, we shall be less likely to be misled by political quacks in our own day.

When we recognise these things, we can appreciate the importance of a study of history. But, when we learn of the activities of people in the past, we need a key to enable us to understand why they so acted. Such a key is provided by the "Materialist Conception of History," the theory propounded by Karl Marx a hundred years ago.

By the use of this key we can understand many of those things that Ford has referred to as "bunk." We can learn of the Crusades of the 12th century as being something more than just wars of Christendom against the "Oriental infidels." We can study the social effects of such inventions as gunpowder, the mariner's compass and the internal combustion engine, We can get at a real understanding of the great French Revolution, the American Civil War, and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Russian Revolution is interpreted differently by different people. The Communist see it as a working class revolution revolution resulting in the establishment of Socialism. Socialists, who apply the "M.C. of H." when they study any historical event, have an entirely different interpretation of the events in Russia during and since 1917.  The Socialist view of this outstanding historical period is presented in a new pamphlet published by our companion party, The Socialist Party of Canada, entitled "The Russian Revolution. Its Origin and Outcome."

The opening chapter of the pamphlet outlines the fundamentals of the present world system. It provides the foundation for the rest of the pamphlet.

Chapter 2 analyses the set-up in Russia prior to, and at the time of the rise of, Bolshevism. It deals with the state of Russian agriculture and industry in those days and with the origin and coming to power of the Bolshevik Party. It shows that, "The Bolshevik revolution  . . . was not, and could not have been, a proletarian revolution. The best that can be said for it is that it was intended to be a proletarian revolution."

The third chapter, entitled "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," states that "Russia in November, 1917, fell into the lap of a handful of revolutionaries with a programme far beyond the limitations of the material at their disposal." It goes on to show that the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia is really the dictatorship of the Communist Party.

The next two chapters, "The Paper Revolution" and "Socialism in One Country," shows that "The Bolsheviks learned rapidly that the revolution could emerge only from somewhere other than their own muddled heads." They deal also with the rise of Stalin and quote from him to show the mis-application of Marxism in Russia.

Chapter 6 carefully analyses the Russian Constitution adopted in 1937 and " . . . hailed by Communists and 'fellow travellers' everywhere as the most democratic constitution in the world." The pamphlet then passes to an examination of the contortions and convulsions of the various national parties of the Communist International, " . . . the organisation set up by Moscow to guide the destinies of the workers of the world."

"Poverty and Riches in Russia" is the title of chapter 8, a chapter of facts and figures. Tables of production costs, wage variations, cost of food, etc., give a vivid picture of conditions amongst Russian workers today. These figures, in the main, are drawn from Russian sources, which adds considerably to their usefulness. The concluding chapter poses and answers the question, "Could events have taken a different turn in Russia?" It also shows the general tendency of the workers' struggles in the future.

"The dictatorship has now been in existence for more than thirty years. It has remained throughout fearful of a free and unhampered reaction to its record. It has proved a failure as an agent of working class emancipation." (P.15.)

The confusion about Russia that exists in the minds of many workers is, perhaps. excusable. It is difficult to interpret events whilst they are are happening, even when they have but recently happened. Especially so when there is so much biased propaganda on the subject. For those who wish to see the Russian Revolution in its proper perspective, this pamphlet is invaluable. In the future, when the events described have sunk into a more distant past, and can be viewed more impartially, " . . . the Bolshevik Dictatorship will . . . take its place amongst the tyrannies of history." 

This pamphlet, coupled with "Russia Since 1917" published by ourselves (1s.), forms a valuable work on the developments in Russia during the past thirty or more years. The two pamphlets together, contain more useful information—reliable information—than is to be found in books at twenty times the price.

It is obtainable from all S.P.G.B. branches and from Head Office. "The Russian Revolution. Its Origin and Outcome," published by the Socialist Party of Canada, October, 1948, 52 pages, price 6d., post free 7d.

W. Waters.

The Last Word: The right to eat landowners (1997)

From the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The good old English sport of sending hungry hunting hounds to chase aristocrats through the woods, catch them and rip them to pieces, has been slow to take off as a popular pastime. Despite claims that these predatory parasites are a foul rural presence, serving only to infect the countryside with their conceited greed and indolence, it has been hard to find dogs with sufficient brutality to enjoy the so-called sport. Those who favour such hunts claim that it is nothing more than a healthy rural tradition, misunderstood by town-dwellers, and that ripping duchesses and viscounts to shreds is the most humane way to rid nature of those who have only survived historically by plundering and murdering others. The Royal Society for the Protection of Useless Aristocrats has been long split on the issue, with one section accepting that such blood sport is "just a bit of harmless fun", while others prefer the idea of culling — or permanent quarantine in the House of Lords. 

This laboured account would be funnier were it not for the harsh reality that rich, privileged, barbaric bullies, most of whom are brutalised at birth by hereditary right and public-school conditioning, do indeed defend their right to chase around the countryside with packs of hounds in order to savage and tear apart defenceless animals. Their callous defence is mounted in the name of sport. And because it is traditional for these parasitical killers to dress up in the costumes of their class and indulge their pleasure in watching deer, foxes and other animals being ripped apart, they respond with well-rehearsed cries of arrogant immunity to humane behaviour when their ritualised sadism is opposed. 

I happened to be wandering through Hyde Park last month when this distasteful rabble of blood-sport enthusiasts gathered to demonstrate their right to be human vultures. A stench of hypocrisy pervaded the polluted city air as they cried for Freedom—not for their fellow humans, but for their cruel "right" to indulge in a sport of supreme inequality. The freedom of the armed hunters and horse-backed chinless wonders with their packs of hounds to pick on animals which stand no chance in opposition to them is not simply about sick behaviour. More than that, it illuminates the very descent into "the law of the jungle" which such people define as freedom. It is the same freedom which allows the very land on which we live, and the earth from which we are fed, to be owned and controlled by a minority of parasitical grabbers who believe that it would be the height of effrontery to invade their freedom by letting the earth belong to the people who inhabit it.

These depraved beings, who rejoice in their right to inflict pain on animals, are in the same class and historic tradition as those who proclaim the inviolable right to cast the peasant off their land and into destitution and starvation. The same haters of freedom who smashed down the communal utopia of the Diggers when those early communists sought to hold the land in common as a store of wealth for all; the same bullies who until a century ago enjoyed the propertied right to flog peasants and rape their daughters, and still today treat those who work on the land as if they are indebted to the landowners who steal the fruits of their labour. Looking at this savage minority of ruthless parasites, bleating their message of outrage against those reformists (destined to parliamentary defeat) who dared question their freedom to kill for pleasure, it was hard not to wish on them the fate of a frightened cornered fox, surrounded by a pack of dogs trained for the kill. 

But that is not the socialist way. Why should we lower ourselves to their brutal customs? As Shelley reminded us: "We are many, they are few." They are not worth the bullets which it would take to shoot them. Nor are they important enough to lead us from our hostility to the cause of violence, however guilty the victim has been conditioned to become. No the aristocrats need not fear our blood sports; the victory of our consciousness of human solidarity over theirs of class oppression will be reward enough for us. 

But look what these parasites are doing to the land. They spray it with chemical pesticides, killing off whole species of birds, butterflies and plant life in their quest for profits. They have fed cattle upon cheap and lousy diets, creating the BSE crisis and whole varieties of food adulteration which makes us and our children all the potential victims of their profit-lust. They have dumped millions of tons of soil into the rivers which pollute the water which we are charged to drink. They have pursued, in the name of efficient "factory farming", the most obscene practices of cruelty to animals which are tortured for the sake of making a few more pounds for their avaricious owners. They have contracted out farm management to City firms which seek to push down agricultural wages, casualise skilled farm work, thrown wage-slave-farm-workers onto the scrap-heap of the unemployed, and destroy whole rural areas in the name of agribusiness. 

The landowners, who protest for their freedom to enjoy themselves in exhibitions of collective brutality, remain free to rape and vandalise the countryside. As Graham Harvey, the agriculture adviser to The Archers (of all things) has written in his incisive new book, The Killing of the Countryside, "they [the landowners] favour a countryside devoted entirely to industrial-scale food production, with the products traded on world commodity markets in exactly the same way as coffee and copper . . . Since this 'progressive' view of farming is supported by big business and the City, it is the one most likely to prevail. If so, the current losses of birds and flowers from our landscape will turn out to be merely the first casualties in a long process of attrition." 

The beneficiaries of this rural plunder are the very few. One percent of the population owns half the land in Britain and two percent owns three-quarters of it. A mere 600 landowners own half the land in Scotland. These capitalist-farmers are subsidised by huge grants to support their manipulation of the market. They receive millions of pounds and euros in return for taking land out of cultivation so as to keep profits up. 

A horsy woman of uncertain age, with a voice like Ann Widdecombe and a designer-label outfit, approached me as I strolled through the Hyde Park demonstration and asked me if I would sign her petition to save traditional country sports. I asked her whether she had ever tried to emphasise with a sensate being chased by howling dogs and threatened with being ripped apart. "Oh, you're obviously a socialist do-gooder," she spat, as she drifted towards the next recruit. Which, as a contrast to a capitalist do-harmer, is not the worst thing in the world to be.

                                                                                                                                        Steve Coleman

Radical history (1984)

Book Review from the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles Poulsen, The English Rebels (Journeyman, 1984)

This book is a commemoration of popular radical movements and a celebration of the spirit and ideals underlying those movements. It begins with the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and plots history through the Lollards, Jack Cade, Kett's Rebellion, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Naval Mutinies of 1797, the Luddites, the Trade Unions, the Reform Bill, Chartism and the Emancipation of Women. It is intended as a popular history, redressing the balance from a consideration of the antics of Kings and Queens to an analysis of movements arising out of the discontent of ordinary people.

This is a useful history although it is remarkably brief. What is does emphasise is the role of violent insurrection as part of the fabric of British historical development. Poulsen says of British history that

it is one of a long, almost a continual series of risings, rebellions, revolts, riots and direct actions that have wrung from the nation's rulers the sequence of reforms and changes that have resulted in today's society. (p.45)

To this might be added the history of violent reaction from governments in response to the radical movements, even though many of these were reformist in nature and held allegiance to long and/or parliament.

Given that six hundred years of history are dealt with in some two hundred pages it is little wonder that much of what is discussed is almost shorthand. At times this reads more like a dictionary of radical ideas. Tom Paine is dispatched in four pages and Robert Owen only merits three passing references. As for William Morris, he does not appear. As much of the work is descriptive we are left asking questions of the text. Poulsen says of the demands of the Peasants' Revolt that "this is not the place to subject these demands to close political analysis" (p.24). This is a stance that is maintained throughout the work but it is a political analysis that is essentially required. It is not sufficient to describe a history of idealism. Radical ideas must be subjected to analysis in order to understand why they should have arisen and to what extent they are feasible. We need also to understand the implications of those ideas. Any history of radical thinking ought not to be restricted simply to an examination of English radical thought. Marx and Engels are mentioned fleetingly but it is important to understand the part they played in contributing to the radical argument. What tends to happen is that Poulsen's shorthand confuses where it should elucidate, as when he cross refers "what the Bible calls 'love', the trade unions 'solidarity', the socialist 'fraternity'" (p.198). This does not explain what each of these concepts demands or the essential differences understood by these concepts. It is also simplistic to conclude that "socialism" means "fraternity" and again this emphasises the need for a greater analysis within the book. In his epilogue Poulsen argues that radicalism is an ongoing process in which we are all engaged but this theme is not developed sufficiently within the book and the reader is left making what connections he can. Poulsen argues that there is still a need for a "new" society and says:

this desired society has been known by many names over many centuries: the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the New Jerusalem, the Rule of the Saints, the Digger Republic, the Co-operative Commonwealth, and so on. These early concepts, often associated with religious movements, remained unattainable ideals. It is no longer so. (pp.198-199)

We are not told what conditions have changed to enable the now attainability of these aims. Poulsen's history ends with the emancipation of women but if he really wishes to argue that the common ownership proposed by John Wycliffe can now be achieved he ought to have extended his analysis to a consideration of the debate as it now exists. In this he is guilty of ignoring the work of the Socialist Party of Great Britain which actually does argue the case for the establishment of common ownership as a practical possibility rather than as a moral ideal. At the same time Poulsen's own commitment to radicalism and revolutionary change can be questioned when he argues that at present the prominent radical change required is "the right to work, to practice one's skill or profession, to support oneself and one's dependents by one's labour and thereby make a contribution to the national well-being" (p.198). The perpetuation of capitalism is at odds with a society that can work in the interests of the majority. It is capitalism, for all the reforms that have been achieved, that alienates the working class from the means of production. Poulsen may argue that the "ideal society . . . can only be achieved after a radical reorganisation of our present economic economic and social relations" (p.199) but this is not explained. What form will that reorganisation take and how will it be achieved?

Poulsen's book is a valuable, though brief, introduction to some of the major radical ideas that have developed within society. At the same time it is a reminder of the need for a radical alternative to overcome prevailing ideologies as when he says of the suppression of trade unions that "the defence of freedom became a catchword to perpetuate poverty and exploitation" (p.157). The freedoms that are enjoyed are those of the capitalist class while poverty and exploitation are the lot of the majority. Poulsen ends with a moral imperative of the need for change rather than suffer nuclear annihilation. If he holds to this perspective then he ought to have analysed how the ideals of Ball, Kett and Winstanley have been developed and the contribution that they have made to the ongoing debate. Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. They are not simply an historic anomaly but a continuum which requires an understanding of the conditions that have given rise to those ideas and an appreciation of how they have matured in response. The history of radicalism is not a series of snapshots but a continuous refinement. The work of the Socialist Party of Great Britain has helped to transform the notion of an ideal into a practical and feasible alternative in which the needs of all society's members are the pre-requisite modus operandi of society.

Philip Bentley 

Sting in the Tail: Pecking Order (1992)

The Sting in the Tail Column from the December 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pecking Order

The scene is the African veldt: hungry vultures circle over a carcass but they are robbed of their meal by some other predators.

Nature in the raw? No, this is capitalism in the raw because those predators were not wild animals; they were humans. The Guardian (29 October) explains:

. . . the eco-sensitive in Johannesburg have been leaving carcasses on the veldt in a bid to save the vultures from famine. They have put an electric fence round one of these "vulture restaurants" in Bophuthatswana to stop the starving people in the homeland getting at the food.

There is a way to end such human degradation and it doesn't involve Bob Geldof, Telethons, or sending a fiver to Oxfam.

Silly Billy

Comedian Billy Connolly has consigned "socialism to the scrapheap. He told Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show (ITV 4 October) that "Socialism is wrong. It must be if all those people in Eastern Europe have rejected it".

Obviously Connolly has been under the impression that what existed in the state-capitalist dictatorships was socialism! No doubt he got this idea from the "communists" he knew in his days as a folk-singer.

One of Connolly's past concert tours was entitled "Rebel Without A Clue": we couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Sensible Sinead

It is not often that you get pop singers talking much sense about politics so it is a real pleasure to record what Sinead O'Connor had to say about money.

My biggest aim is to persuade the world to get rid of money, the root of all evil. If everyone agreed to do it at the same time, it could happen. Won't most people be better off pursuing happiness rather than material assets.

The Sun (23 October)

The more current that idea becomes the easier it is for socialists to spread the ideas of socialism. The only logical alternative to capitalism's money madness is socialism where all production will be solely for need.

Told Ya So!

How John Major must sigh for the heady days when he replaced that nasty old Mrs. Thatcher at number 10.

Remember how his popularity had the stricken Tories soaring in the opinion polls? Everyone, we were told, liked this smiling, unassuming, decent chap.

Alas two years on and his name is mud. From singing his praises the press cannot rubbish him enough (the Sun even calls him a turnip) and he is rated the most unpopular Prime Minister ever.

But this column saw it coming! In January 1991 at the height of Major's love-in with the voters Scorpion pointed out that all leaders of governments must make decisions about the running of capitalism, decisions which will inevitably alienate many voters and

This is why every Prime Minister (Tory and Labour) and the voters have, for a while, a honeymoon followed by a cooling off and eventual divorce. This is what happened to Mrs Thatcher and sooner or later John Major's turn will come.

Marks & Spencer

Work hard - your firm will prosper and you will prosper. That is the accepted wisdom that we are constantly being fed by the media. Well, what do you make of this item?

Marks & Spencer, the Rolls-Royce of Britain's high street stores, is purring through the recession with profits up almost 20 per cent. The St Michael label returned profits of £257 million on higher sales of £2.24 billion with the winning combination of selling expensive food and not quite so expensive clothes.
The losers in the battle against recession were 300 staff made redundant at M & S headquarters last year.

The Times (29 October)

Left Wing Stunts

"Major and Lamont must go" is the Socialist Workers Party's latest stunt. Their declared aim is to "kick the Tories out" but the sacking of Major and Lamont will not achieve this as they would merely be replaced by other Tory luminaries. In any case, mid-term leadership changes ALWAYS restore Tory fortunes - witness the last one.

The SWP's real aim is to get a Labour government in. Their argument is that of course Labour will fail; many workers will see this and turn to the SWP.

Both of these aims are hopelessly doomed. A change of leader would, as history shows, leave the Tories more firmly in the saddle while Labour's inevitable failure would, as history also shows, simply pave the way for yet another Tory government.

Our recent readers survey revealed that some readers think we devote too much space to leftwing parties: sorry, but the above surely demonstrates the genuine need to expose their hare-brained and misleading antics.

Hypocrisy

As Robin Cook, and other Labour Party frontbenchers, try to expose the government's sale of arms to Iraq during a so-called ban. It is worthwhile recalling Labour's position when they formed the government.

While the government attaches the highest importance to making progress in the field of arms control and disarmament, we must also take what practical steps we can to ensure that this country does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable commercial market.

Denis Healey in the House of Commons (25 January 1966)