Running fast to stay still (1968)

From the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the occasion of the Centenary of the Trades Union Congress we publish this special survey of the trade union movement in Britain.

A Socialist member of the executive of one of the unions in the printing and paper industry comments on the trade union scene: 

The attitude of the unions today seems to mystify most people. In fact even Socialists find it difficult to keep up with the contradictory poses taken up by different trade union leaders. Some seem to be in favour of a form of wage freeze. Many fight even the suggestion of voluntary wage-vetting by the TUC. It is less of a mystery when you realise that some unions would be quite satisfied if they could get even a small rise like 3 per cent every year, while other unions reckon they can get a little more because of their extra bargaining strength. Only a few are concerned with refusing to surrender the principle of free and unrestricted bargaining over the price of the labour-power of the workers they represent.

What has changed over the past hundred years? Certainly not the class struggle between worker and owner. The TUC in its Economic Review for 1968 points out that it is a myth that some kind of wealth levelling has been going on: they have discovered what we have been saying all along, that ten per cent of society still own 90 per cent of property and receive each year over 25 per cent of personal income after tax.

There is one change, however, that has taken place since the war, and that is a change in attitudes resulting from a period of relatively full employment. Most employers have been forced by their economic need for labour power to take up a more liberal attitude to the workers and the institutions that represent their interests. The state has been influenced, too, to give more prestige to union "leaders", and these gentlemen are consulted before the government takes any decision that might affect the economy. We all know that the government does not take much notice of what they say, but the process of consultation goes on, and the unions do have their representatives on many government bodies. But this prestige may only be temporary and may vanish should the economic winds blow any chillier. At the moment however Woodcock can still gain the ear of the Prime Minister and trade union leaders can be found taking lunch with the representatives of big business.

This has affected unions at all levels. The leaders themselves are flattered. The rank and file's reaction is very mixed. Union members are not Socialists. In fact many are not even politically interested. Most of them think that their economic interests are tied up with those of their employers. For when the firm they work for is doing well their employer is more willing to pay out; and of course when trade is poor the reverse is true. This attitude reflects itself nationally; most union members are patriotic. Then, most do not go to union meetings or use their votes so that it is anybody's guess who is going to end up as the professional representative of the workers.

There are three distinct levels in union life: the professional, the active rank and file member and the card holder. All three levels seem to be in a different world. The professional is the "realist", doing a job of work for which he is reasonably well-paid. The active rank and file members do union work for poor pay (if any at all) and so need some other stimulus like ambition, or political ideology. Amongst this group will be found the "communist", the trotskyist and all the other mixed-up leftwingers. All of these latter for one reason or another seem to think that capitalism can be made to work against its own economic laws; that capitalists can be made to pay out wages beyond the profitability of the company and still not withdraw their capital; that the commodity labour-power can be separated from the economic laws governing commodities generally. All of them dig their own graves for it is difficult enough to get workers to fight for moderate demands. After a while most workers will find local leaders whose leadership is a little less demanding. Sometimes gains are made locally but this happens just as often in industries where the union representatives are less eager to sing their own praises. In fact in most cases it is circumstances rather than people that dictate the course of events. But, when all is said and done, capitalism still remains in the saddle.

This perhaps gives some logic to such things as a Royal Garden party to celebrate a hundred years of economic struggle against the capitalist class during which the forces of the state were always ranged against the workers. When the TUC leaders sit down to dine with the Queen at the Guildhall we may well wonder if they will be celebrating one hundred years of trade union struggle or just indulging their own ego (anybody who has been at one of these trade union celebration dinners will suspect the latter).

What of the future? This is the real issue for we could spend pages listing the faults of the unions today. This would not serve much purpose as these faults are those of the working class generally - lack of interest, economic ignorance, call it what you will. A union is not a Socialist organisation but has to struggle within the society of which it is an institution - capitalism. As soon as union membership starts to take a class attitude to social problems then the days of capitalism will numbered. Meanwhile Socialists, who reject capitalism, follow the same pattern as the others, struggling for a small improvement in conditions they know can be lost overnight. But to stop struggling would only make the worker worse off than he now is.

Socialists work for an improvement in working class understanding, and a consequent improvement in the quality of trade union membership. If this happens and the unions become less nationalistic, then they have many useful international contacts that could be used for the further spread of Socialist knowledge. Working against the Socialist today are those with a vested interest who prefer the workers to want leaders, those in fact who make a damn good living out of the fact that workers depend on leaders.

So, what will the working class be celebrating this year? The passing of a hundred years? If, so, a hundred years of what? We can read of the aspirations for a better world of the early union members. The Brotherhood of Man was a term many used. Compare this with the nationalistic attitude of most unions and you are left wondering just what the working class has learned in a hundred years of organised class struggle. Or you see the great institutions the workers have built up by trial and error, and realise that people who can organise like this will have no difficulty in organising Socialism.

Obituaries: Arthur George, Jack Hurley, Tony Mulheron (1982)

Obituaries from the April 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Arthur George
We are sad to report the death of Comrade Arthur George at the age of 69, just as he completed 50 years of uninterrupted membership of the Socialist Party. Arthur and his wife Phyllis joined the Party in the early thirties and became deeply involved in a host of propaganda activities. He was responsible for a number of his Post Office colleagues at Mount Pleasant joining the Party prior to 1937.

At the outbreak of World War II he was one of the members who became Conscientious Objectors, and had to leave his employment at the Post Office and work on the land. Being based in Hertfordshire he was able to live at home, and this made it possible for Arthur and Phyllis not only to maintain their work for the Party, but to increase it. Because of unsettled wartime conditions, much of the central administration was done from members' homes, and it is no exaggeration to say that Arthur's home at Golders Green was virtually the wartime Head Office of the SPGB.

During this period he was Central Branch secretary, and was largely responsible for the formation of Discussion Groups, then an innovation in the Party. On returning to the Post Office after the war, he became involved in the work of his Trade Union and was branch secretary for many years. He was also General Secretary of the Party. Later, when funds were at a low ebb, he became Party Funds Organiser, a job he carried out with remarkable success.

Our sympathy goes to Phyllis and her family whose sense of loss is shared by the members of the Party. We mourn a valued, loyal comrade and friend whose contribution to our deliberations and work will be sorely missed, but for whom there will always be a warm place in our memory.

Camden Branch

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Jack Hurley

It is with regret that we learn of the death of Jack Hurley at the age of 92. Comrade Hurley joined the Party in November 1931 and was active in the old Walthamstow and Leyton Branches. In his later working years shift work did not allow him to participate in Party activity as much as would have wished. On retirement he transferred to Central Branch and moved to Poole. Nevertheless his continued interest in the Party was demonstrated by his regular attendance, with his wife Pat, at Conference up to 1980. We extend our condolences to Comrade Hurley's wife and family in their bereavement.

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Tony Mulheron

Many members and sympathisers here and overseas will be saddened by the death of Tony Mulheron. He had been in ill-health for several years.

Tony joined the SPGB in 1935 and, except for a brief disagreement over the party's attitude to the Spanish Civil War, remained a member of the end of his life. A brilliant speaker and debater, his flamboyant style and wit made him a joy to listen to. Although he had only the minimum of formal education he acquired a thorough knowledge of Marxist theory, which he applied to wipe the floor with numerous left-wing opponents.

The old Workers' Open Forum in Glasgow was Tony's favourite stamping ground. This was run by a committee of working people who for many years organised regular political talks and debates and Tony was a frequent and popular lecturer there. Such was the impact he made on many minds over the years that even to this day members will be stopped in the streets of the city by complete strangers and asked about "Mulheron".

In a brief address at the cremation Comrade Donnelly reminded those present that even on such a sad occasion socialists have no time for religious superstition: to a materialist such as Tony was, the only heaven and hell are the ones people make for themselves on this earth. This is why Tony's life was devoted to spreading the case for socialism. Those of us who knew him, especially in Glasgow branch, will remember him with affection and admiration.

We offer our condolences to his wife, Mary, and the rest of his family.

Vic Vanni

Poor old capitalists (2012)

Book Review from the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pity the Billionaire. By Thomas Frank. Harvill Secker. £14.99.

If you have been paying attention to the Republican primaries, you have probably been shocked by the low level of political debate in the US. Personal attacks, vacuous appeals to religion and the use of ‘liberal’ as a swearword seem to be the common ground in speeches and debates. In the book under review, Thomas Frank looks at the politics and tactics of the ‘newest Right’, as he calls them.

The banking crisis and recession have led, not to calls for more government control of the economy, but for less regulation and the introduction of a genuine ‘free market’. Despite the Reagan and Bush regimes, it is claimed by many that ‘true conservatives’ have never really been in charge and the market has never had a proper chance to impose its discipline on the economy, as there has always been some state interference.

The Tea Party movement is the most obvious manifestation of these ideas. Interestingly, Frank argues that the Tea Party is essentially based on small-business owners who see government regulation as a matter of time-wasting interference in their activities, in contrast to the checks and balances that were (to some small degree) imposed on the big banks. The smaller capitalists tended to borrow money against their homes, so the collapse of house prices left them far less able to borrow and made them look on with envy at the bank bail-outs.

Along with this is an ideology of individual responsibility, the view that those who make it succeed by their own efforts and those who fail and suffer deserve to do so. Where once communities might have rallied round to help someone whose home was being repossessed, now many people are pleased to see a person losing a home that they should never have tried to buy in the first place.

Frank shows how the Democrats have made no serious attempt to respond to these illusions. And he makes a valid point that the real role of the state is far from what the conservatives imagine: ‘neither federal nor state governments have ever mounted a campaign to intern the free-market faithful or blacklist the hardworking proletarians in the Chicago futures pits. However, they have used force over the years to break up strikes, imprison labor organizers, keep minorities from voting, round up people of Japanese descent, and disrupt antiwar movements.’

Paul Bennett

In the kingdom of the blind (1995)

Book Review from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour's Utopias: Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy by Peter Beilharz (Routledge, 1993.)

If one tenth of the energy used during the last hundred years to pursue reformist dead-ends had been committed to the cause of genuine socialism our movement would today number tens of thousands. The frustration for socialists has not been simply that workers have failed to listen to us, but that all too often they have been diverted towards those who have proclaimed the cause of socialism whilst committing themselves to no more than the radical re-organisation of capitalism. Intentionally or otherwise, this is the main message of Beilharz's book: the utopians (in the philosophically idealist sense of that term) have not been those of us seeking a classless, propertyless, moneyless world where all can have free access to available resources, but the schemers and dreamers of a reformed and sanitised profit system.

The introductory chapter is disappointing in its theoretical vacuity, but there are illuminating chapters on the statist utopias envisaged by both Fabians and Bolsheviks. From Webb's London Programme to Trotsky's Literature and Revolution a vast array of extravagant hopes have been aroused for what were essentially state-capitalist visions of the future. For an account of these this book is of worth. As an account of the Socialist Party within the history of socialist thought Beilharz follows a long tradition of scholarly precedent in completely ignoring Britain's oldest existing and most politically impressive workers' party. The Lenin Award for Historical One-Eyed Blindness is presumably in the post.

Steve Coleman

Editorial: Do they take us for fools? (1996)

Editorial from the April 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politicians ask for our votes and promise to make things better but you know, from your own experience, that they can't. Every government running the present system will put profits before needs. This is a system of production for sale and profit, where goods and services are not produced mainly for need.

That's why so many of us, and those around us, are feeling discontented and deprived.

Problems abound: unemployment, mortgage repossessions and homelessness, destruction of the environment, cuts in the care services, escapism in a drug epidemic, families too poor to feed their kids properly . . . and a million other ghastly problems which are socially, not naturally caused.

All because the current social system puts profits before needs.

So what do we propose that a majority of men and women unite to put in place of this rotten system?

We call it Socialism, but don't be put off by the word. Look what it means:

• Common Ownership: no individuals or groups of individuals having property rights over the natural and industrial resources needed for production.
• Democratic control: everybody having an equal say in the way things are run including work, not just the limited and distorted political democracy we have today.
• Production for use: goods and services produced directly to meet people's needs, not for sale on a market or for profit.
• Free Access: all of us having access to what we require to satisfy our needs, not rationed as today by the size of our wage packet or giro cheque.

Of course, nothing will change unless a majority wants it to. Socialist change calls for understanding and democratic organisation. It means not being taken in by leaders, but following your own social interest.

All quiet on campus (1986)

From the April 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Good news if you missed the "Swinging Sixties": a revival is underway. However, while the music and fashions might be making a comeback, one of the most popular products of that period is not. The long haired, tee-shirt wearing, slogan chanting, banner waving student appears to be dead and buried.

Most undergraduates today are too  young to remember the Sixties, when a wave of student upheavals swept across America and Europe. In Berkeley, Berlin, Madrid and Paris, young men and women turned against the very institutions that had nurtured them. The student leader, Cohn-Bendit, mimicking Marx, wrote: "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of student revolt." In Britain, too, higher education became a battleground with anti-war demonstrations, marches, sit-downs, sit-ins, rent strikes, days of action and grant campaigns. Hornsey College of Art was occupied and declared a "Student's Republic". Inevitably, there were casualties as students clashed with the police. At the London School of Economics, a porter died of a heart attack when students occupied the building. Today the slogan, "Essex, Oxford, Kent, Unite. One Struggle One Fight" must sound rather strange to students.

If the Sixties were characterised by "student unrest", the late seventies and eighties have seen a general decline in protest. This is not surprising given the bleak climate of cuts, competition, and record levels of unemployment. Much student energy today is taken up with grades, jobs and overdrafts, which leads to a number of problems. In an article called "When Finals are the Final Straw". (New Society, 30 June 1983), the writer states:

. . . all the counsellors I spoke to agreed that the economic climate is greatly increasing the stress on students. Their grants are worth less than ever, and many have overdrafts. Academic staff, facing redundancy themselves cannot always give them support they need. And they risk not finding a job after they've finally achieved that degree.

Two recent government papers have angered students into organising limited demonstrations at Southampton, Portsmouth and Oxford. Firstly, the Green Paper, Higher Education into the 1990s, described by P. Flather (New Statesman, 11 October 1985 "The Sack of Academe") as "perhaps the greatest peace time threat to higher education". This paper will not surprise socialists as it sets out in plain terms the purpose of education under capitalism - to meet the needs of the economy. Vocationalism is the new "in" word. Subjects in the arts and social sciences which do not directly contribute to the economy are to be severely cut and the cuts presently hitting higher education are to be extended. Libraries are closed in the evening, research is shelved and universities are losing one in seven of their staff. Secondly, the White Paper on Social Security proposes proposes to exclude students from claiming Supplementary and Unemployment Benefits in the short vacations and intends to withdraw the right of students to claim Housing Benefit if living in halls of residence. The National Union of Students believe that the combined cuts will cost individual students up to £1,100 a year.

There have been mixed fortunes for those organisations involved in student politics. Left Wing groups have been on the decline for several years now; their heyday was in the late Sixties when students were "in struggle" - demonstrating against the Vietnam war and campaigning against bad housing, social services cuts, rent increases, the wage freeze, unemployment and racist government policies.

This provided groups like the International Socialists (now the SWP) and the Workers' Revolutionary Party with the opportunity to recruit concerned students. The activity of these groups is at best silly and at worst undemocratic and anti-socialist. The fact that marching up and down and chanting reformist slogans is considered "exciting", says a great deal about college life. Far more serious is the undemocratic behaviour of groups like the SWP who, acting as a self-appointed vanguard, decide which views can and cannot be heard by other students. When the SWP organised a mass picket to prevent Patrick Harrington entering North London Poly, not only were they suppressing free speech in the name of "socialism", but they were also giving the dwindling NF valuable publicity. Similarly, in January, the SWP broke up a meeting at Southampton University because it was being addressed by the Right Wing MP, Harvey Proctor. Fascist ideas need to be exposed and defeated, along with all anti-working class ideas, but this is not achieved by disconnecting the microphone.

If the new economic climate in higher education has led to the general decline of the Left, the Right have fared much better. Indeed, the balance of intellectual and academic thought has shifted as professors, departments and students have realigned themselves with the new Right. In the past, Keynes dominated university economics; today, free market economics is taught in the departments of York, Bath, Exeter, Liverpool, Southampton and the LSE and the so-called "Libertarians" have become increasingly active on campus. They even have their very own guru. Professor Roger Scruton, a sort of intellectual Rambo whose task in life is to remove Left Wing academics from their privileged position. He sets about this task in his recently published book, Thinkers of the New Left. Conservative student organisations are also flourishing. The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) which is dominated by a libertarian faction, made the headlines last April when its members were involved in acts of hooliganism during their conference at Loughborough University. Then then Chairman of the Conservative Party, John Gummer, set up an investigation into the FCS, but the intended crackdown never came. David Rose, writing in the Guardian, (15 November 1985) comments:

The grip of the hard Right on the Federation of Conservative Students was strengthened last night by the internal party inquiry originally supposed to curb it.

This change of style among Conservative  students was commented on by the Tory MP, Michael Brown, in the Guardian (31 May 1985):

Traditionally, in the 1960s, the FCS was no more than a mouthpiece for the Party to disseminate party literature for that small band of short back and sides, sports jacket and tie brigade.

The tactics and new found enthusiasm of the Right mirrors the Left. Some members of the FCS wear provocative tee-shirts which read, "Hang Nelson Mandela". Opponents' meetings are boycotted or disrupted. Slogans are chanted, such as "The Right united will never be defeated!" The ideas of the libertarians include extreme market economics, leading some members to advocate the legalisation of heroin and paedophilia, loans for the unemployed and students, and no doubt the right of prisoners to buy their own cells. They are generally pro-South Africa and anti-Soviet. At the annual societies' fair at Cambridge, a poster of the Cambridge University Right read, "Apartheid OK, Apartheid UK". The FCS also supports Ulster Unionism and is firmly opposed to the recent Anglo-Irish Agreement; indeed, some of its members are said to hold Loyalist and Protestant views which make Ian Paisley look positively middle-of-the-road.

Students, like all other members of the working class, need to organise themselves within their own organisations to protect their position within capitalism. Although the protestors of the sixties have grown old and, for the most part, disillusioned, the problems are still with us in one form or another. The only effective protest against them is the struggle to abolish capitalism itself.

Brian Rubin

Cooking the Books: Ed, Ralph and Karl (2013)

The Cooking the Books column from the November 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

One result of the nasty attack by the Daily Mail (1 October) on Ed Miliband’s father, Ralph, has been a revival of discussion about Marx and Marxism. They described him a ‘lifelong, unreconstructed Marxist who craved a workers’ revolution’ Absurdly, they also claimed that

‘his son’s own Marxist values can be seen all too clearly in his plans for state seizures of private land held by builders and for fixing energy prices by government diktat.’

But there is nothing Marxist or socialist about taxing land values or price controls. The first was a 19th century radical Liberal demand aimed at weakening the landed aristocracy which then still stood in the way of complete capitalist class control of the state, and all sorts of governments have resorted to price controls.

But to what extent could Ralph Miliband be described as a ‘Marxist’? He certainly considered himself to be one and was well versed in Marx’s writings. He was the author of two books which influenced leftwing thinking in Britain, Parliamentary Socialism (1961) and The State in Capitalist Society (1969). In the first he dealt with what he regarded as the Labour Party’s obsession with trying to move beyond capitalism step by step by constitutional, parliamentary means and explained how and why this failed. The second described how the top positions in the state in Britain were occupied by people from the same social background – families rich enough to send their children to the top ‘public’ schools – who controlled it via an Old Boy network whichever party had a majority in parliament.

Both books were used by the Trotskyist groups which mushroomed in the 1970s to argue that there was ‘no parliamentary road’ and that violent revolution was therefore the only way. Actually, this was not Ralph Miliband’s own position as he held the more reasonable view that the road to socialism could and should involve both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action.

But what did he mean by socialism? The Daily Mail wrote:

‘Ralph’s Marxism was uncompromising. ‘We want this party to state that it stands unequivocally behind the social ownership and control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.’ He declared to the 1955 Labour Party conference as the delegate from Hampstead.’

Here he was defending the Labour Party’s ultimate aim (on paper) as set out in its then Clause Four. But there was nothing Marxist about Clause Four. It had been drafted by the Fabian Sidney Webb and committed the Labour Party to achieving, by gradual and constitutional means, the sort of state capitalism that the Fabians favoured.

We have always pointed out that the common ownership of ‘the means of exchange’ does not make sense. If there is common ownership of the means of production and distribution then there is no ‘exchange’ and so no ‘means of exchange’ (banks, etc.). The concept of ‘common ownership’ of banks only makes sense if common ownership is equated with state ownership. Which is what Ralph Miliband did.

This was confirmed by his attitude to Russia. He didn’t regard it as socialist, but he did regard it as non-capitalist on the grounds that it was based on state ownership rather than private ownership. For him, all that was required for it to become socialist was for its political structure to be made democratic. So, his ‘socialism’ was full-scale state capitalism plus political democracy, a combination that has proved to be illusory.

But state ownership is just another form of class ownership. That was Marx’s view too. Which makes Ralph Miliband an odd sort of Marxist, but at least he understood more about Marx than his son.

Hopping on moving cars (1995)

Book Review from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dialectical Investigations by Bertell Ollman (Routledge, 1993)

Bertell Ollman, an American Marxist theorist, whose earlier works on Marx's theory of alienation, and the relationship between social and sexual liberation (as well as his invention of the fascinating board game "Class Struggle") have marked him out as one of the finest radical scholars in North America, has written a book which makes the concept of dialectical thinking both accessible and inspiring. Consider this opening to chapter 1 on "The Meaning of Dialectics" as an illustration of both of these charcteristics:

"Have you ever tried to hop on a car while it was still moving? How different was it from entering a car that was stationary? Would you have been able to get into the moving car if you were blindfolded? Would you have been able to do it if you were not only blindfolded but didn't know in which direction it was moving or even how fast it was moving?"

Society is just such a vehicle, says Ollman, and there is no point in trying to understand or change it without a method of thinking about where we are and where we're going.

Much of the book is academically challenging and points here and there could be challenged, but first read the book. Chapter 9 on "How To Study Class Consciousness" is a worthwhile essay in itself. 

Incidentally, Ollman's use of dialectical thought is not a mere paper commitment. Some time ago the present writer attended a conference in Chicago at which the fad amongst left-wing theorists was the oxymoronic "market socialism". The few of us who challenged this political absurdity (now the official credo of Blair's Tory Reserve Team, of course) were dismissed as anachronistically "unreconstructed" Marxists. Speaking on a panel with Ollman it was good to see the latter make a far better job than the present writer of explaining with striking dialectical force the utter incompatibility between socialist freedom and the continuation of any form of the money relationship. Anyone put off for life from the term "dialectics" after reading some of those atrociously devious defences of the indefensible by old-time Leninist dialecticians (practitioners of what one old comrade called "diabolical materialism") should read Ollman and restore their confidence in the historical highway code.

Steve Coleman

Letter from Europe: France's presidential election (1981)

From the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is said that history repeats itself the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. Well, history will repeat itself for a second time on 10 May when Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Francois Mitterrand face each other in the second round of the French presidential elections, just as they did seven years ago.

If the first time wasn't a tragedy—it was more of an irrelevance really—the second time is certainly a farce, played out at the expense of the French working class. Both Giscard and Mitterrand stand for the same thing - the continuation of capitalism. The early stages of the campaign were enlivened by the intervention of a professional comic, Michel Colucci (Coluche), whose mocking of the professional politicians struck a chord in public opinion. But even he turned out to be as bad as the others when, after failing to get the 500 signatures needed for his candidature, he urged people to vote for Mitterrand, the candidate of La Gauche (The Left). As indeed - and of course - did the Trotskyists.

Giscard, the outgoing President, was born with several silver spoons in his mouth, even though he is not a "real" aristocrat (his father, a jumped up businessman who made a fortune out of exploiting the natives in the French colonies, bought the name d'Estaing in the 1920s). He, to use the confusing language of conventional politics, is the candidate of La Droite (The Right). To be their standard-bearer in the second round, he had to beat his former prime minister, Jacques Chirac, and ambitious and slimy politician who controls the Gaullist party. The rivalry between Giscard and Chirac was a purely personal one, their parties being nothing more than rival gangs of place-hunters (the French President has considerable powers of patronage).

De Gaulle, when he came back to power in 1958, wanted to encourage the emergence of a two-party system in place of the changing, multi-party system which had been a feature of the notorious political instability that France had known. His first Prime Minister, Michel Debre (also, incidentally, a candidate in the first round of these elections but polling a derisory percentage of the votes) thus devised the two-round election system in which, if no one gets an absolute majority in the first round, two candidates (normally the top two) go through to a second round run-off held a week or so later. When the President came to be elected by universal suffrage in 1962 the same system was applied.

This has more or less had the desired effect: there are now two broad political families competing for power, La Droite et La Gauche, the Majority and the Opposition, the Ins and the Outs, Tweedledum and Tweedledee as in other capitalist parliamentary democracies like Britain, America and West Germany. But—and De Gaulle and Debre had probably not bargained for this—it has also led, in the first round of elections, to intense rivalry within these families. On the Right, between Giscard's place-men (the UDF party) and the followers of Chirac (the RPR party). On the Left, between the so-called Socialist Party (led by Mitterrand) and the so-called Communist Party (PCF).

In 1974 Mitterrand was the only candidate of the Left and was supported by the PCF, even in the first round. Then, in the Autumn of 1977, the PCF suddenly changed its line - the first PC change of line not decided in Moscow, by the way - and broke its alliance with the PS. Ever since, the rivalry between these two parties has become more and more virulent, although the PC is supporting Mitterrand on 10 May and is demanding to have ministers in the government he may form.

The leaders of the PCF evidently calculated, some time in 1977, that if they continued the alliance, they risked losing support to the PS as the larger and stronger partner. This they were not prepared to tolerate as it represented a threat to their livelihood as full-time party bureaucrats. Nothing quite like the PCF exists in Britain: a highly centralised and disciplined party machine controlled from the top downwards by a small group of self-appointed leaders. In September 1977 these leaders shouted "left turn" and the whole machine, from the MPs and Senators to the local branch secretaries and dues collectors, obediently started to mouth militant phrases and to attack the PS as reformist.

The PC places the responsibility for the break-up of the "Union of the Left" on the PS which, it claims, has turned to the "right". But to an independent outside observer it is clear that it is the PC that changed. The PS certainly is reformist and only wants to be an alternative government of capitalism - as the PC says - but this was just as much the case during the period 1972-77 when the PC was its ally. Not that the PC is not itself reformist, even if it wants to go further along the road towards a bureaucratic state capitalism than  does the PS.

Although there exist in France these two rival political families it is not quite accurate to describe them as the Ins and Outs, since the Outs have never yet been in power under the Fifth Republic De Gaulle established (the last time "La Gauche" governed was in 1956 - but that was under the discredited Fourth Republic, and, indeed, helped to discredit it). That is why reformist illusions about what Mitterrand can and will do to solve social problems are so widespread.

To someone who remembers the run-up to the 1964 elections in Britain, this is all deja vu, but not many French workers are that familiar with the British political scene in the 1960s! Mitterrand is behaving like Harold Wilson did then, denouncing the incompetence and tiredness of the "outgoing President", promising to plan production and to divert profits away from the wasteful pleasures of the rich to productive investment and technological innovation. Whether the political gang who have governed France since 1958 (for even longer than Wilson's "Thirteen Years of Tory Misrule") will be voted out in this election remains to be seen. Whatever happens, it will be a close-run thing like the last time when Giscard won merely by 50.8 per cent to Mitterrand's 49.2 per cent.

Not that it will make any material difference to the wage and salary earners of France. If Mitterrand wind, he will govern capitalism just as Giscard did. At the beginning he may (like Harold Wilson) introduce a few reforms but will sooner or later have recourse to the excuse about being "blown off course" and settle down to governing capitalism in the only way it can be: as a profit-making system in the interest of those who live off the profits drawn from their ownership of the means of production.

Adam Buick

Why the Communists Have Failed - Parrot Disease (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A malady stalks through Britain—ruthless self-criticism! The serried ranks of the Communist Party have been decimated. From the humblest local official to the most renowned national protagonist, none are safe from its insidious attack. All the tried and trusty slogans, such as "Work or Wages," "Fight like Hell," and "Hands off China," threaten to vanish into obscurity before the parrot-like repetition of this sinister phrase.

Even ten years ago it seemed inevitable that something dreadful would happen to the British recipients of Russian money; and here, at long last, it has. The Slavonic vice of introspection has followed in the wake of the rouble, and displaced the good old Teutonic virtue of which they used to boast—Solidarity!

Ten years ago when carping critics—such as are to be found in the S.P.G.B.—tried to point out to the romantic worshippers of Lenin the obstacles and dangers in the way of any attempt to adopt his policy in this country, they were waived aside as beneath contempt. Was not the German revolution already in progress and would not Britain inevitably follow suit? But now!

Dangers to Right of them, danger to Left of them, dangers all around them, dangers inside them! Such is the state of affairs revealed by "ruthless self-criticism." Pick up almost any copy of the Daily Worker and then ask yourself how any member of the Politbureau manages to get a night's sleep. Take this, for example, from the issue of May 3rd; "Since the 10th Plenum, particularly, the Party leadership has made the grave error of not conducting a relentless struggle against the right elements in the Party who—and this is significant—have been strongest in the mining areas, particularly in South Wales." In other words, even some of their own members evidently realise the absurdity of telling workers to "Fight like hell" on empty bellies.

Further, "The Party's mistake in supporting Cook has materially contributed to the unsatisfactory state of the mining campaign. Cook's whole line, which had the full support of the Party, was to work within the apparatus of the M.F.G.B.; to work wholly from within the narrow circle of the trade union bureaucracy, while he deceived the Party with the illusion that he was preparing for an open break with the bureaucracy."

"He headed the fight at a certain period only to betray it more effectively." We of the S.P.G.B. never credited Cook with so much brains as to be able to think that out, nor have we come across evidence that he was ever more than a weak, emotional "hero" who found the forces of capitalism too strong for him. We did, however, point out at the time the childish futility of this nationalisation - cum - rationalisation campaign (supported by the Communist Party), and the sheer folly of trusting the miners' case to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.

The Communist Party, however, self-styled "leaders off the masses in the daily struggle" discovers its error four years after the event and straightaway puts on sackcloth and ashes. That is "the new line"! A veritable clothes-line upon which the Party's dirty linen is to be publicly hung out to dry. Well may they tell us now that "the Leadership that the Party achieved in the 1926 struggle has been dissipated through lack of understanding of the objective character of the coal situation," and that in the principal industrial areas "the May Day demonstrations cannot be described as other than a complete failure." (Daily Worker, May 17th.)

Mr. J.T. Murphy (see issue of May 19th) has discovered the "necessity of study"!

This, from one of those who told us ten years ago that the time for propaganda even, let alone study, had gone by, and that "now ia the time for action"! "Theoretical study," he says, "is an essential part of practical work, and those who try to set them one against the other have not yet learnt the first lesson of Bolshevism."

Evidently, the state of the Communist Party in this respect leaves much to be desired, for he proceeds: "It is too often assumed the changing of the Executive of the party settled the question of the Right danger. No greater mistake could be made than to encourage this idea. That was only a beginning . . . the transformation of the whole Party into a real Bolshevik Party is a much bigger job, involving not only a complete change in methods of work, but a deep and thorough understanding by the Party of the reasons for the changes and the methods that have to be employed." In short, after telling us for ten years that all we had to do was to fall in and follow them, they confess to not having been a "real Bolshevik Party" at all, and have just awakened to the necessity of having something firm upon which to place their intellectual feet.

Twenty-six years ago the founders of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, drawn from the obscure rank and file of the working class (bricklayers, compositors, cabinet-makers, day labourers and out-of-works) with never an "intellectual," so-called, among them, framed a set of principles. These had been derived from the scientific examination of working class experience. They have always been open for inspection and outside critics have been freely challenged to do their worst. They form the basis of the party's existence.

We do not claim to be infallible. There are mistakes that any Socialist may make, being but human; but there are mistakes which no Socialist does make because he understands the position of the working class. Under this latter heading we place the "mistakes" of the Communist Party. Nothing but blindness to the plain lessons of the workers' history and the everyday facts of the workers' loves can account for them. No eloquent orators nor brilliant dictators can replace the need for learning those lessons and facing those facts—and the leaders of the C.P. in this country are anything but brilliant.

having stifled criticism where possible—as in Russia—and ignored it elsewhere, the would-be dictators have gone from blunder to blunder, piling up disappointments upon one another for their easy followers, until at length even they feel the need for some explanation for the never-ending series of defeats. Democratic criticism is as incompatible with dictatorship as oil is with water. hence the dictators must criticise themselves! Their followers can be trusted to swallow the dope.

Dictatorships are supposed by their admirers to secure unity; but the superficial unity secured by suppression, as practised by the C.P., merely cloaks the ceaseless passing of the dictators from left to right in the endeavour to preserve the balance of their power.

Instead of a consistent policy arising logically from a set of principles intelligible to all the members of the Party, the dictators have as many policies or "lines: as there are days in the week and use them to play off their supporters against each other. Divided, either by material interests or sheer ignorance, these latter are an easy prey. Each change of policy appears either to one section or another to be the long-looked-for resurrection of the Party, the evidence of new-life. By the time this section has spent its force and enthusiasm it is time for another change. And so the game goes on.

In economically backward countries—such as Russia—where the peasantry form such a large proportion of the population, this political fluctuation has some kind of meaning; it is rooted in, and, therefore, explained by the conditions. In this country, where the overwhelming mass of the population are wage-slaves with a common interest in abolishing capitalism, would-be dictators are merely ridiculous.

The remedy in Russia is economic development which proceeds, now with the assistance of the Bolsheviks, and now in spite of them. In Britain the remedy lies in Socialist education. The economic conditions are ripe for Socialism. What the workers lack is knowledge of the fact!

Eric Boden

Their politics and ours (1996)

Editorial from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism depends on the uncritical acceptance of dishonest politics in order to gain your consent to the legalised robbery of wage-slavery. Caught in the trap of dishonest politics we can only expect the circus of opportunist politicians to bury our ambitions and aspirations under a glut of misery and deprivation with their empty talk of a "stakeholder economy" or a "share-owning democracy". Which in truth means that the fat cats share out the wealth we create whilst we are left to  make the dismal comparison between existence and survival.

Fear comes from insecurity, both emotional and physical; and the insecurity is the inescapable lot of the wage-slave. The constant threat of unemployment, repossession, homelessness, and related problems, are persistent reminders of the instability of the profit system. For the global search for profitable markets totally disregards the victims and the environmental consequences of a quick buck economy.

Le's get one thing clear. This state of affairs will continue unless we are prepared to withdraw our support for the profit system of global exploitation and everything connected with it. This entails putting no trust in leaders, whatever their political colours. It means recognising that capitalism can only benefit the minority owners of wealth, and that the working class majority are expected to scramble over the scraps.

It will mean taking over political control for ourselves and using it to replace the profit system with a system based on need, not greed. It will mean establishing a society of free access globally, with production for use—so resources are conserved and recycled—not wasted in the pursuit of short-term expediencies. It will mean placing all the social and natural resources under the democratic control of society as a whole.

The Principles of The Socialist Party (1926)

From the November 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few weeks ago a member of this organisation attended a meeting of the I.L.P., with the object of selling some literature. While engaged in this nefarious project, he was accosted by the secretary of the branch holding the meeting, to whom he had previously sold a copy of our pamphlet on "Socialism."

"Ah," exclaimed the independent labourer. "I've been reading your pamphlet and I take it that it represents the official views of your party."

Our comrade admitted that this was the case.

"Well," continued the humble follower of Ramsay Mac., "It appears that between us lies the cloven hoof. We are a constitutional body, whereas you have no hope, except in violence."

The Socialist thereupon produced a copy of the pamphlet, and asked for proof of the statement. (You may have noticed that this is a nasty dogmatic habit which Socialists have.) His critic hesitated, and then admitted that he was unable to lay his finger on any particular statement, but that he had gathered the general impression by reading between the lines. The next move, however, was decisive.

Turning the inside of the cover, the hardened revolutionist pointed out that the sixth clause of our Declaration, and asked what impression that conveyed. The answer was that it was a clear statement of the Socialist position.

Incidents like the above illustrate the value of the Declaration for the critic referred to went on to express the wish that the Labour Party had a similar pronouncement, and actually let fall the damning admission that if it had it would lose a large percentage of its members!

The Declaration forms the basis of membership of the Party. Only those who accept and conform in political practice thereto become and remain members. Thus is the Socialist character of the Party preserved, and a weapon provided with which to flay any rash opponent who endeavours to misrepresent its object or policy.

Let us then turn our attention to its clauses seriatim in the hope that the reader may appreciate their accuracy, and throw in his lot with us in the task of spreading the knowledge they express.

Heading the Declaration is a definition of Socialism, the object of the Party: —A system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of wealth production, etc. This raises in the mind of the reader the question, is it possible to change the basis of society in the manner proposed and, if possible, is it necessary?

In spite of the wide-spread acceptance of the theory of evolution, many people still retain a belief in "eternal truth" where social institutions are concerned. "What is, always has been, and always will be," is their creed in reference to the relationship between rich and poor. Yet a study of history reveals the fact that here, as elsewhere, constant change obtains.

This failure to see the facts arises largely from the interested propaganda of the present ruling-class, but is also due to the circumstance that the workers have not yet consciously grasped the basic importance of the instruments of labour and their evolution.

If one could transplant an African savage to the heart of London, he would be, not merely bewildered, but terrified at the population and the mechanical contrivances by which he was surrounded. Similarly, a Cockney in the heart of the bush, experiences dismay at the desolation and crudity of savage in the existence. Yet it is a matter of history that these two states of human life have been bridged in the course of centuries.

Two thousand years ago, our ancestors struggled for life in barbaric obscurity. Their means of obtaining food, shelter and clothing were of the most primitive description when contrasted with those in use at present yet even they represented thousands of years of painful experience and development.

This development can be divided into several fairly well-defined stages. Thus the discovery of fire, the invention of smelting and pottery-making, the domestication of animals and plants, the invention of the plough and the substitution of slavery for cannibalism, mark epochs in social growth. The changes in the mode of life resulted in the expansion and internal development of the social groups which, until the dawn of history, were small and narrowly exclusive in their customs and outlook.

Up till them kinship, rather than property, was the basis of the group and its institutions were communal in character. A crude instinctive equality couple with hostility to strangers marked the relationship between the kinsfolk. Yet the very conception of kinship was itself the product of ages of experiment in trying to control the sexual aspect of human life. So long as sexual relations were promiscuous, descent could not be definitely determined.  Among such primitive beings as the Australian blacks, however, intercourse is restricted to the members of certain groups, and the narrowing of the group up to the point where the clan (or gens) emerges, forms the general tendency of social development in pre-historic races. (The reader cannot do better than consult Morgan's "Ancient Society," and Engel's "Origin of the Family," for details on this point.)

The driving force behind this change was the gradual division of labour, first as between the sexes, secondly as between members of the same sex and tribe. As mankind forsook their primitive homes, the forests, and spread over the plains and along the rivers, hunting and fishing, a more regular social discipline became necessary than had hitherto obtained. Men became the breadwinners, women the homemakers. With the adoption of a pastoral mode of life, and the use of metals for the protection of the flocks and the herds against wild beasts, special crafts, such as that of the smith, arose. Finally, with the beginning of agriculture, the establishment of slavery completed the foundation of the complex hierarchy of occupations on which arose the first class-society, the City-Empires of ancient history.

From that point onward, kinship commenced to wane as a social bond. It survived in a class-form (i.e., aristocracy), based upon property in land. For the mass of the population it had ceased to count. Only the rich had ancestors and were men of family. Patricians, plebs and slaves gave way to nobles, burghers and serfs until with the increase of trade and the response of industrial development, modern society, founded upon wage-labour, arose.

It is not the writer's immediate purpose to describe how each successive change took place; the point to be emphasised is that a variety of social forms have preceded that which exists to-day, that society is no solid crystal, the structure of which only fools would challenge.

The Socialist has all human experience at the back of his statement that a change in the economic basis of society, and consequently in the whole edifice of human life is possible. The necessity for such a change at present remains to be demonstrated in further articles.

Eric Boden

Link to Part 2

"Cement.": A Bolshevik Novel (1929)

Book Review from the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Cement," by Feodor V. Gladkov (Martin-Lawrence. 7s. 6d. and 3s. 6d.)

This is the much-heralded novel of Bolshevik Russia, translated into English by A.S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh. It has run through many editions in France and Germany and is widely read in Russia itself.

The author takes as his background Russia in 1920-21, and his chief character is a Red Army soldier returned from the Front to find the local cement factory ruined and the workers idling their time away and the children almost starving.

His wife has no longer any time for him, being occupied in Party and Soviet work, besides having turned to other men in his absence. A good deal of the work is occupied with the efforts of the returned Red soldiers to get the Communist bureaucrats to get the factory restarted. This part of the book brings out the shortcomings of a Communist Dictatorship of Intellectuals who dominate with merciless discipline the mass of the workers and their wives, etc.

The more or less vague practice of "free love" running through the story seems unreal and far-fetched under the circumstances of the time, and the fetish of the Red women that they are free to choose new mates at random is poorly worked out by the author.

The sex life of the hero and his wife is continually brought to our attention, but the book finishes without any definite attitude between them.

For a glimpse of Russia at the opening of the era of the New Economic Policy, the book is interesting, but a real novel of life in Russia under Bolshevism is not yet written, or perhaps we should say translated, into English.

A. Kohn

Objections Overruled (1982)

From the March 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the most frequent objections to socialism is "That's all very well in theory, but you can't change human nature".

What exactly is meant by this? That human beings naturally do not want to share, co-operate, to be happy themselves and contribute to the happiness of others? That they must by their very nature snatch and grab, kick each other in the teeth, hate and maim and kill? If human nature is indeed like this, then it has to be said that there is an extraordinary number of freaks about—freaks who by some strange altruistic perversion actually stop at the scene of accidents to offer their help, rally around their neighbours in times of trouble, assist old ladies across roads, take lost children to the police station. It is the way society is based and organised which causes the distortions labelled as "human nature" by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and declaring socialism to be unworkable; or by those brainwashed to believe that the present system is the only system.

Under capitalism, one hundredth of the population own over eighty per cent of shares, while for the remainder it's a case of he who kicks hardest and fights the dirtiest wins most of whatever little is left. The wonder of it is not that perversions of human behaviour exist but that they are not a great deal more widespread. It is surprising, under such a system,  that people still do react pleasantly, decently and caringly towards their fellow human beings. Most men will not rape every woman they see on the streets after midnight, most blacks will not mug old ladies, most gangs of unemployed youths will not smash windows and bash in your head with a brick.

Human beings are not inherently vicious and violent. They become so only under certain conditions-stress, for example. The stress of chronic insecurity and appalling living conditions, of lack of opportunity and self-fulfillment. Where the world's wealth is owned by the few and denied to the many, then an attitude of grab-what-you-can and devil-take-the-hindmost is inculcated. Pleasure, for most people, comes essentially from sharing, be it sharing a good meal, or watching a good football match, or listening to a good concert. Human beings are naturally gregarious, and gregariousness does not square with the sort of antisocial behaviour represented as "human nature".

It now appears quite "natural" for the capitalists to tolerate the spectacle of workers suffering hideous industrial diseases, from pnemonoconiosis to cancer, in order that they might continue to rake in their profits. What could be more hideously inhuman than the manufacture of nuclear weapons? Such weapons would be indefensible even if they protected "us" against "them" (currently the Russians, whose "human nature" is apparently so debased that they are only awaiting their opportunity to massacre us).

In fact, it is not "the Russians" but the Russian ruling class, and it is not to protect "us" but to protect the interests of one ruling class against the depredations of another. Three thousand "top people" are to be rushed out of London to hide themselves in deep shelters "somewhere in Oxfordshire" as soon as a nuclear war threatens. These "top people" are the very ones who have howled loudest for the continuation of nuclear, and indeed of all other kinds, of armaments. They are to be preserved: we, the working class, are the one who are to be sacrificed.

Maybe among the select few who currently organise our lives for us "human nature" has indeed become permanently distorted. No one who heard the recent BBC interview with Master Jacob Rees-Mogg, the precocious schoolboy son of the former editor of The Times, can be in much doubt that the capitalist class are making a pretty thorough job of perverting the "nature" of their progeny. This is a child who, at the tender age of twelve is already dabbling in the Stock Market, has "rather good stockbrokers" and a helpful assistant bank manager, whose main professed interest is in the making of profit (which profit he prudently invests in antique silver) and whose first question on being invited to do a radio interview was "How much will I get paid for it?"

For us, the working class, who do not have the opportunity to share the Rees-Mogg's fascination with exploiting the labour of his fellow human beings, socialism will suit our natures very well. When there is a sufficiency for all, and all have equal access to it, we shall be quite content to take what we need, just as we shall contribute what we can according to our individual and social abilities. Being human beings, and possessing human natures, we shall doubtless still quarrel and still lose our tempers; but this will not be inflamed by the chronic insecurities, the constant fear of loss of livelihood, of degradation and poverty, which are endemic under the capitalist system. Socialism will have no "masters", backed by their accumulations of wealth, to incite us into rising against our fellow workers, to destroy each other with the nuclear bombs and missiles which we have made on their behalf to do their battles for them.

Under capitalism, while there exists the potential for a sufficiency—indeed, for an abundance—the system will not allow the potential ever to be fulfilled. Indeed, if there is the least danger of such a thing happening, then steps are very quickly taken to put a stop to it: sooner burn good food than let the starving get their hands on it. In socialism, where production will be for need rather than for profit, there will be no "market forces" operating to justify such obscenities. There will no longer be some of us condemned to go hungry while others glut, nor some who must remain homeless while others occupy palaces. Socialism, in short, is concerned solely to change the nature of our social organisation, not the "nature"of the human beings who make up that organisation.

Jean Ure

Pathfinders: Digging up the Dirt (2013)

The Pathfinders Column from the November 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

New excavations are suggesting that some complex settled societies sprang up thousands of years before agriculture, in a complete reversal of orthodox thinking about the Neolithic revolution. A dig at Wadi Faynan in south Jordan has unearthed what looks like an amphitheatre dated 11,500 years old, some three thousand years before settled farming, while another dig at Göbekli Tepe in southern Anatolia has revealed the world’s first temple, dated 11,000 years old (New Scientist, 5 October).

According to orthodoxy prehistoric hunter-gatherer (HG) communities, being nomadic due to the need to range for scarce food, were incapable of population expansion, of developing surpluses or ‘wealth’, and of creating sophisticated urban cultures, social stratification, writing and organised religion. This is why the Neolithic or agricultural revolution is called a revolution. An HG community with a theatre is understood to be about as likely as a fossilised rabbit found in a dinosaur’s stomach.

If temples and amphitheatres came first and agriculture came after, could it be that social and not material forces were the driving factor of change – ideology before subsistence? Perhaps HG groups invited a lot of people to ritual raves and then found they needed to develop better ways of producing food on-site. Instead of temples being a product of urban life, perhaps temples gradually grew villages and towns around themselves like particles attracting mass.

But the materialist view, upon which the case for socialism is built, doesn’t insist that settled civilisation depended on agriculture, it only says that settled civilisation depended on a reliable food supply. In most cases that would have meant agriculture, but if it could be provided some other way, eg. by natural abundance or spaceships dropping food parcels, then so be it. Apparently these sites were stocked up food-wise, but pre-agriculture this could hardly have been the norm. A neo-Hegelian counter-attack against materialism, whereby culture determines material conditions, doesn’t seem on the cards quite yet.

Another major boulder was dropped in the anthropological pond recently by Steven Pinker’s recent book The Better Angels of our Nature (reviewed on page 20, short interview on page 13).

Pinker’s theory can also be seen as ammunition against socialism, for two reasons. First, if capitalism is able to deliver peaceful non-violence, even in theory, a major plank of the socialist case against it is removed, since that case argues that capitalism is intrinsically violent and divisive. Secondly, it upends fondly-held ideas about so-called primitive communism in which Mesolithic hunter-gatherer bands existed in a state of noble grace until mean old property-based society came along to turn free love into Fight Club.

Does Pinker intend his argument to be used this way, as neo-Hobbesian propaganda? Probably he won’t lose sleep if it is, given his own unexamined assumptions about what socialism really is (ie. Stalin, tanks and purges). But the evidence is what it is. If it is damaging to the socialist case, that’s a problem for us.

In the first place, accepting for argument’s sake that the murder rate has declined through history (and guessing about prehistory), we would have to congratulate capitalism on a job well done. Or partly well done. Credit where it’s due. But could it achieve zero-crime and zero-violence in the future? Perhaps, with hyper-surveillance and the utter subjugation of workers, mind and body. It’s hard to see how it could achieve zero-war unless one ruling class were able to destroy all the other ruling classes in a global war and then dominate the smoking ruins that were left. That capitalism has made progress in reducing violence does not mean that it will continue to do so, or that socialism could not do better.

In the second place, it is not supposed that primitive communism was a Garden of Eden, merely that it was unlikely to have been a warzone. Marx and Engels speculated that, in the absence of property relations before agriculture, there would be no material incentive for class society, war, female oppression and all the other features of today’s ‘civilised’ world. And indeed, there’s no sign of prehistoric warfare, weaponry, fortifications and the like, despite the fact that the available evidence is more than enough to reveal such signs if they were there. Such signs tend to be unambiguous and hard to miss. Incidences of conflict prior to 10,000 years ago constitute a ‘tiny handful’ and ‘are very much the exception’. Conversely, the 11,500 year old Abu Hureya settlement near the Euphrates, for example, shows continuous occupation for 4,000 years with no sign of violence whatever (John Horgan, Scientific American blog, 29 June 2010).

Suppose, again for argument’s sake, one were to leap the credibility gap and grant Pinker the best possible case, that violence has been endemic in all human societies, no matter how far back you go, no matter what the material conditions. Even then, would this prove that aggression was written into the genes, as Pinker and others are wont to conclude? No, it wouldn’t. It would only prove that material conditions were not the only factor behind violence. Marx’s argument about materialism was not that it was the sole factor in determining social conditions, but that it was the decisive factor among several. In prehistoric societies there could have been other factors at play.

A recent study of ‘lethal aggression events’ among mobile forager bands seems to bear this out (‘New study of foragers undermines claim that war has deep evolutionary roots’, Scientific American, 18 July). Of the 21 groups observed, three had no lethal events whatsoever, a problematical result for Pinker and other natural violence advocates. Of 148 documented events only two were due to fights over resources, most of the others being ‘miscellaneous personal disputes’ such as insults, jealousy and theft – interestingly suggesting that property concepts cause trouble even in HG bands. Significantly, the most common cause of violence was revenge for previous attacks, showing that violence once established breeds more violence. Almost all the events involving multiple attackers and multiple victims, which the observers categorise as ‘war’, stemmed from just one group.

Not content with arguing for natural human aggression, some enthusiasts want to trace it all the way back to our ape forebears. Notable here is Richard Wrangham with his ‘demonic ape’ thesis. But the evidence for innate ape violence is just as flimsy and opposition to it strong. ‘Chimpicide’ seems to be a cultural artefact, neither universal nor innate. The relatively peaceful bonobo pygmy chimp also stymies such claims. Meanwhile studies of the oldest known human ancestor, the 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus ramidus, have caused a ‘tectonic shift’ in anthropological circles recently, according to one researcher: ‘We now know, especially in light of Ardipithecus, that hominids have always been a far less aggressive clade than are chimpanzees or even bonobos’ (Horgan, 2010).

Why Pinker, Wrangham and others are so keen to show that violence is innate can only be guessed at. Were it true, capitalism could be acquitted of all war crimes and socialist revolution represented as  pointless. At stake is the essential Hobbesian question, can we be free or must we always be ruled? Socialists say that we can and should be free, and we work to create a future in which humans make themselves anew and are not bound by supposed primitive behavioural urges, whether these are angelic or demonic.