Against War When It Mattered (1984)

Classic reprint from the April 1984 issue of the World Socialist

July 1917, and the bloody butchery of world capitalism had been unleashed for nearly three years. Workers in their masses were being sacrificed as human offerings to the insatiable god of profit. The recruiting sergeants, in different countries and different languages, poured forth the propaganda of nationalistic hatred. 

And with them, supporting the recruitment for the trenches, were the bogus socialists. Yes, indeed, these so-called socialists, who wave the red flag in peace time and their national flags when the signal for war was given, had spoken loudly of "internationalism" before the war began. Easy to favour peace when there is no war, isn't it? But, because they were tied up in the ideology of capitalism and did not recognise it as a world system based upon a clear class division between capitalists and workers, the phoney socialists abandoned the interest of the working class in favour of the interest of capitalist nations. 

We publish below the Manifesto which was issued in 1917 to be considered by the proposed anti-war conference which was due to be held in Stockholm. It shows that, at the time when it mattered, we socialists held tight to our principles and upheld the case for world peace. 

Since 1917 socialists have been urged to support other wars. Indeed, some of those who were part of the minority of anti-war internationalists in July 1917 were subsequently to create the Russian state capitalist dictatorship which, in 1939, justified the Stalin-Hitler pact in the name of socialism. We have been asked to support "wars for democracy" and "wars of liberation" and even "civil wars for socialism". In every case the World Socialist Movement has refused to support the view that the workers' interest can be advanced in any way by means of capitalist war. It is not only in peace that we have spoken of peace, but in war too, even though the consequences for our members have not been easy or comfortable. 

So, in printing this, the first of our regular "classic reprints", we stand by what we stated in 1917. The parties referred to may now have different names; in different countries the militarist histories have taken different forms; but war in this century is of global proportions and has a single cause: the system of capitalism. And, as war has only one cause, so it has only one possible solution: world socialism.

_________________________

From Socialist Standard, July 1917

The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain

To the proposed International Congress

COMRADES,- 

Residing as we do under the control of the "democratic" British Government, we are not permitted to send Delegates to the Congress to state our views, present our case, and defend our policy, as we so strongly wished. All the more is this to be regretted as our organisation is the only one in the British Isles that takes its stand upon a definite and avowed Marxian basis and follows a policy logically deduced from that basis. 

We hold that the Working Class must march to its emancipation from wage-slavery and the domination of the Capitalist Class, by the conquest of political power. In the British Isles the means wherewith to accomplish this are already in the hands of the workers, as, despite certain anomalies in our franchise, the workers have the overwhelming majority of the votes at their disposal when an election takes place. Hence the great, immediate, and pressing work requiring to be done is the education of the Working Class to an understanding of Socialism -to a realisation of their slavery and the method of their emancipation. 

The Working Class are slaves to the Capitalist Class. While the Workers produce all existing wealth by applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, this wealth, and the instruments necessary for its production, along with the great storehouse of Nature's materials -the earth- are owned and controlled by the Master Class under a system of private ownership that necessitates the selling of the bulk of the products upon the markets. But while powers of production increase by leaps and bounds, the markets grow but slowly. Hence the struggles between the various groups of Capitalists for the control of these markets and the routes thereto so that they may dispose of the commodities the wage-slaves have produced. Practically all the wars of the last three centuries, from the struggle against the Dutch and Portuguese in India to the present colossal carnage which is devastating the whole world, have had their essential causes rooted in the demands of the various groups of Capitalists to control these markets and routes. 

The Workers' share of these conflicts has been to slaughter each other in their Masters' interests, to find a grave if killed, or be offered the degrading and comfortless shelter of the workhouse if disabled or maimed. The hardship, misery, want, and suffering following these wars fall always upon the Working Class. Thousands of cripples and tens of thousands of men with constitutions ruined by military service will feel the horrors of the struggle for existence with tenfold bitterness after the war. In the midst of the conflict the Pensions Minister, Mr. G.N. Barnes - a member of the ILP and of the "Labour Party", and "Labour" Member of Parliament for Blackfriars Division of Glasgow - has admitted that over 100,000 men have been discharged from the British Army as medically unfit for Service without allowance or pension of any kind. To soothe the ruffled feelings of these unfortunate victims of capitalist brutality this so-called representative of the Workers said: 

"It has been claimed that these men should be put on pension . . . . inasmuch as the doctors have passed them in . . . . I want to say that they will not get it while I am in the office."-Official Report, col. 254, March 6th, 1917. 

No matter which group of the Masters win the struggle, the Workers remain enslaved. The division of interests is not between the peoples of the world, but between the classes - the Master Class and the Working Class. Not, therefore, in their fellow Workers abroad, but in the Master Class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found. 

What interest have the Workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none. 

Every Socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow Workers. All those who on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-Socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist. 

Moreover, where the Working Class have the necessary means - the franchise - for their emancipation within their grasp it is clearly an anti-Socialist and treacherous act to urge them to use those means for the purpose of placing political power in the hands of the masters. The flimsy excuses so often used to cover up such acts of treachery to the Working Class merely add evidence to support the truth of this statement. 

Applying these tests of real understanding of Socialist principle and correct action to the organisations in this country claiming to be Socialist, we find all of them except the Socialist Party of Great Britain failing to stand that test. The Fabian Society, with Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Sidney Webb at its head, merely wishes for an extension of the Civil Service system under the control of a bureaucracy, and is opposed to the Workers being emancipated from their slavery .In addition to supporting the carrying on of the war, both the society and its individual members readily support the return of Liberal Capitalists to Parliament. 

The so-called Independent Labour Party is ready at all times to make political bargains with the Capitalists and to urge the Workers to place power in the hands of the masters. Thus Mr. Ramsay Macdonald at Leicester, Mr. Philip Snowden at Blackburn, Mr. F. Jowett at Bradford, Mr. James Parker at Halifax, Mr. G.H. Roberts at Norwich, Mr. G.N. Barnes at Glasgow, and Mr. Clynes at N.E. Manchester all owe their seats in Parliament to bargains made with the Liberals, in return for which they gave their support to Liberals in these and other constituencies. While protesting - in some forms - against the war, and now urging "Peace by negotiation", the ILP allowed its members like Mr. Parker and Mr. Clynes to assist in the recruiting campaign. 

In a letter sent to his constituency on 11th September, 1914, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald said: 

"I want the serious men of the trade unions, the brotherhoods and similar movements, to face their duty .To such it is enough to say ‘England has need of you' and to say it in the right way. 

"They will gather to her aid; they will protect her." Daily Chronicle, September 9th, 1914. 

In the Merthyr Pioneer for 27th November, 1914, the late Mr. Keir Hardie, another ILP Member of Parliament, said: 

"I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting. I know too well all there is at stake." 

How is all this different from assisting in carrying on the war? How clearly it shows the treachery of the ILP leaders and Members of Parliament! 

Moreover, the ILP has allowed its members to accept office in a Capitalist government without making any protest or repudiation. It is true that their 1917 Conference passed a resolution dissociating the organisation from Mr. Parker's action in taking a Government office, but not only is Mr. Parker allowed to remain a member of the ILP, but no protest at all is made when other members, as Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Roberts, accept office under similar conditions. While protesting against German Social-Democrats voting war credits in the Reichstag, ILP members have steadily voted for war credits here. 

The claim of the ILP to be a Socialist organisation is fully repudiated by the actions of its members, of which the above are but examples. 

The British Socialist Party has been just as ready - if with less success - to try and enter into arrangements with the Capitalist parties for seats and offices. At General Elections they have shown their impartiality by advising the Workers to vote for Capitalist candidates of the Tory brand in some constituencies - as South Hackney, Norfolk, etc. - and for Capitalist candidates of the Liberal type in other constituencies. The one MP who until recently was a member of the BSP -  Mr. W. Thorne owes his seat to the Liberals and Tories in West Ham combining to make him a present of that constituency. In the early days of the war he, with Mr. Hyndman, Mr. Hunter Watts, and others, took a prominent part in the recruiting campaign, calling upon the Workers of Great Britain to take up arms for the slaughter of their fellow Workers on the Continent, although Mr. Hyndman admitted that whichever side won the Workers would not benefit a single jot. Just lately Mr. W. Thorne has returned from a trip to Russia, taken, along with Mr. O'Grady and Mr. W. Saunders, on behalf of the British Capitalists, to persuade the Russian Workers to continue the war on the Eastern side. 

In the ranks of the BSP a division of opinion has developed, resulting, after a struggle between the two sections, in the secession of the defenders of the war - Hyndman, Hunter Watts, Lee, Irving, and the rest - and the formation by the secessionists, of the National Socialist Party .The absurdity of the title is balanced by the merit it has of showing how completely pro-Capitalist and anti-Socialist these individuals are. 

The BSP has now joined hands with the ILP in a so-called peace propaganda, but the confusion and double-dealing lying behind this movement is shown most glaringly by the fact that both these organisations remain affiliated to the Labour Party that has whole-heartedly supported the war from its inception.

One of the rewards given for this support was the appointment of Mr. J. Hodge, "Labour" Member for Gorton, as Labour Minister. Within a week of his appointment he tried to show his utility to the masters by threatening to use the powers of the Defence of the Realm Act against the Boilermakers of Birkenhead, who were protesting against the rotten conditions imposed upon them by the employers. 

The organisation calling itself the Socialist Labour Party has never understood how the Workers are enslaved, and for years has propagated what it calls Industrial Unionism as the method of emancipation. Its attempts to reconcile this position with its claim to be a political party has led to such confusion in its ranks that when the war broke out it was divided as to whether it should support or oppose it. 

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN alone takes up the Socialist position here. At the beginning of the war we pointed out the essential factors forming its cause which we have given above, and we have steadily and consistently pressed this view by all the means in our power, and maintained it upon all occasions without change or deviation. Thus we said in the first issue of our official organ to be published after Britain's entry into the war (Sept. 1914): 

"THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN . . . whilst placing on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home. 

"Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity . . ." 

While in the February 1915 issue we said: 

"We . . . declare again that there was nothing in the conditions of any country which justified Socialists voluntarily supporting either side in the war, and record our condemnation of such action as a betrayal of Socialist principles arising from lack of political knowledge and unsound political organisation." 

So, with our own hands clean and our every action in accord with the CLASS struggle and the solidarity of the interest of the Working Class the world over, we bring before the international proletariat our DEMAND FOR PEACE without any change of attitude or re-adjustment of policy. We stand for PEACE without reference to terms, since the fruits of Capitalist war are the Masters', and only the pains and penalties thereof the Workers'. 

The grim humour of the claim that Britain is fighting to "crush Prussian Militarism" is clearly shown by the fact that a Bill is being passed through the liberty-loving, democratic British Parliament establishing "Militarism" in a far worse form than either the present Prussian or the late Russian rulers ever attempted. Men who have crossed the seas because they refuse to accept military service are to be forced into the army of the "allied" country they may be in or brought back to serve in the army here! 

To the Socialists of other countries we extend our fraternal greetings. As soon as conditions will permit us to do so we shall endeavour to join forces with our Comrades for the purpose of establishing a Socialist International Congress where Socialist policies shall be decided, where misleaders and tricksters who use the name and fame of Socialism will be exposed and denounced, where the message of Socialism will be sent forth to the toilers of all countries in clear and unmistakable terms, where the gage of battle against the Capitalist Class will be thrown down to the clarion call: 

"WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS; YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN."

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

20^th June 1917                                                                    193 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1.

Action Replay: Counted Out (2014)

The Action Replay Column from the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

No other sport would tolerate the fatality rate of boxing. We begin with two notorious examples. In 1963 Davey Moore died after a fight, and Bob Dylan wrote a song ‘Who Killed Davey Moore?’, in which everyone involved, from opponent to manager to gambler to the crowd, denies their culpability. In 1982, Kim Deuk-koo went into a coma after the referee stopped his fight in the fourteenth round, and died four days later. Various changes were made to boxing afterwards: the maximum number of rounds was reduced to twelve, and far more extensive pre-fight medicals were introduced.

In October last year Franky Leal died in Mexico after being knocked out. Boxing writer Mike Gallego noted that Leal had been knocked out more than once before and should probably have stopped (or been made to stop) boxing: ‘But Leal soldiered on because that’s what fighters do. Especially poor fighters who spend their life as what can generously be described as a B-side fighter, or what sometimes more accurately can be called cannon fodder’ (uppercutting.kinja.com/boxing-is-a-goddamned-tragedy-1450455925).

Fights with less tragic endings can also result in controversy. In Manchester on 23 November, super-middleweight champion Carl Froch beat George Groves after the referee stopped the contest. Many of those watching claimed that Groves was well enough to continue, and that Froch himself could well have been stopped earlier in the bout when he was taking a lot of punishment.

Gallego, quoted above, went on to say, ‘Franky Leal is dead because boxing fans and the boxing industry are hypocrites’ (he included himself in this). The audience, whether live or on TV, certainly like to see boxers raining blows on each other, and will criticise referees who stop fights ‘too early’, as in the Froch-Groves case. Further, they often dismiss a boxer who retires from a fight as a ‘quitter’.

But it is the promoters, the managers and the broadcasters who do very nicely out of boxing, its violence and its suffering. Any number of ex-professional fighters end up with little to show financially and having to carry on fighting long after they should have retired. But you rarely see an impoverished or punch-drunk promoter.  

Paul Bennett

On the Platform (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

"A man who could have made his fortune in the halls" - "Manchester Guardian" reporting a Party speaker at Trafalgar Square.

The Socialist Party has always been renowned for its quite remarkable speakers. As a political Party wedded to the democratic idea, and "persuasion" of the soundness of its case, it was bound to produce a number of outstanding orators.

Side-by-side with its insistence on propagandist educational methods, went the refusal to countenance any sort of personality cult. The Party was what mattered; "leaders" were OUT. So here was the paradoxical position of, on the one hand, a number of quite exceptionally outstanding characters, while on the other personal grandeur had no place in the Party.

From 1904 onwards, until the great technical revolution, the "mass media" was the outdoor platform—or to use the Americanism, the "soap-box". In this, the Socialist Party was no different from the others claiming to be Socialist. The most notorious Labour politicians, in their day, were all soap-boxers. For years, many of them, George Lansbury (who was an ex-SDF paid propagandist), Jack Jones, Herbert Morrison, Tom Mann, John MacLean, John Burns and scores of others, continued their regular street-corner meetings. It was the usual thing for any energetic young ILPer or member of the BSP to mount the street-corner platform. The main activity was the "meeting".

Despite its frequently much smaller membership the Socialist Party could and did, meet the pseudo-Socialists here on level terms. When all the public parks had three or four meetings running, the SPGB took its chance with the others, and the best man won—the biggest audience. In the school of fierce competition and deadly debate were trained some of the most brilliant exponents ever to hold audiences in sway.

The chief fascination of the public meeting was controversy. This it was which attracted thousands to all the local meeting spots. To hear Adolph Kohn, Alex Anderson, Moses Baritz, Charlie Lestor, Groves, Turner and others reduce Labourites, Leninists, Anarchists, Liberals, and religionists to stuttering impotence was sheer mirth-provoking delight.

Since the Party definitely encouraged "heckling" and offered its platform to all opponents, victims were always forthcoming. It was the very success of the Party in demolishing opponents which instigated the decision by the Communist Party to forbid debates with the SPGB. No Party in this country suffered a more devastating attack from the SP than the CPGB.

They were easy meat. One recalls the packed meeting in St. George's Town Hall, Stepney. The entire East London CP there in force, our speaker Adolph Kohn. The local CP organiser requests a (loaded) question.

"Mr. Speaker, do you agree that all political parties are the expression of class interests?"

Kohn: "Yes!"

"Do you agree that separate political parties are the expression of the interests of sections of classes?"

Kohn: "Yes."

"In that case, Mr. Speaker, which section of the capitalist class does the Communist Party represent?"

Kohn: "The Undertakers."

Collapse of CP!

Or Kohn's classic reply to the Hyde Park heckler shouting:

"Tell us when this 'ere Revolution is going to happen then?"

Kohn: "Next Tuesday afternoon at 2.30. Leave your address and we'll send you a post-card." 

During the Second World War, events were relatively favourable to the Party. One platform alone stood in all its solitary glory in Hyde Park on September 3rd 1939—the Socialist Party. The scene, and the impression it made, were described in an article in the magazine Clubman in 1955. 

And from that day on, week in, week out, the Socialist Party doggedly held its ground, against all the threats of assault and violence; against charges of "being in the pay of Hitler". "stabbing our boys in the back", etc. etc. As the war dragged on, the audience grew.  "I'm fighting for the likes of a little yellow-bellied bastard like you," yells a fat uniformed Sergeant-Major on leave. "Then you have my permission to stop now," smiles Turner sweetly. Collapse of heckler.

Events dictated that eventually workers would leave other Parties and join the SP. Among them those who had been prominent in the CP. Week after week, fanatical Communists would shriek:

"YES! but have you been in Russia?!"

Speaker: "No! I haven't been in Australia either."

Heckler: "There you are then!"

Came the day when the same taunt was hurled at a new speaker who replied:

"YES! I lived in Moscow for many years as an official of the YCL."
Same Communist heckler: "What bloody difference does that make then?" 

Who can forget the Conway Hall in London? The occasion, a debate between the SPGB and Mrs. (now Lady) Barbara Wootton. Packed to the doors—the record of that debate on "Federal Union" in pamphlet form speaks for itself. Or Shoreditch Town Hall packed, hanging on the chandeliers; Cliff Groves playing with Sir Waldron Smithers, who told Groves he would pray for him. Groves objected to him preying on him.

The Hammersmith Town Hall packed; SPGB versus the Peace Pledge Union. George Plume, Secretary of the PPU:

"It's all very well the SPGB saying that Pacifists are impotent. I'm the only pacifist in this country who got a month's solitary for striking a sergeant over the head with a chamber-pot."

Or the post-war election campaigns where the opponents trembled at the thought of a Party speaker.

Traffic and television have changed all this. Politics has been plonked right inside the sitting room. A new generation has grown up in ignorance of the old heroic days, Phone-ins, quizzes, TV and radio have replaced the simple, direct, elemental, personal approach.

Who are we to deplore change—we are revolutionaries! Change is our business! Eventually we, too, will win our way to the media. One of the reasons for the high quality of our propaganda is the wise insistence that nobody shall publicly without satisfying the members that he knows—the speakers' test. A fault of our modern propaganda is the inability to answer questions concisely—like Kohn, with one word. The wit was devastating.

Despite traffic and television, public speaking will always be the Party's most valuable activity. Every member who masters it acquires a new dimension. The man (or woman) who knows, who speaks clearly and simply, will always attract and  convince.

On our 70th Anniversary we salute the orators of the past, resolving to carry on their work until its aim is achieved.

Horatio 

Radical critique (1996)

Book Review from the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Is Situationism? A Reader edited by Stewart Home (AK Press, 1996, £9.95)

This is an occasionally interesting though somewhat repetitive collection of writings about the strand of revolutionary opinion which emerged out of Lettrist and other avant-garde artistic groups, principally in France in the 1950s. With their radical critique of bourgeois consumer society the situationists influenced to a greater or lesser degree both the May events in France of 198 and then, nearly a decade later, the punk rock movement.

Famously, in 1966, a group of situationist-inspired students at Strasbourg University were elected to positions of responsibility in the moribund Students' Union and immediately set up a Society For The Rehabilitation of Karl Marx. They also published various radical tracts including Khayati's On The Poverty of Student Life using unions funds, for which they attracted public outrage and eventually the attention of the police. At their trial the judge summed up situationist philosophy as well as anyone had hitherto ever done, stating "these cynics do not hesitate to commend theft, the destruction of scholarship, the abolition of work, total subversion, and a world-wide proletarian revolution with 'unlicensed pleasure' as its only goal".

Though lacking a coherent revolutionary strategy, the situationists stood out clearly against the market economy, commodity production and wage labour, advocating the creation of a socialist society of common ownership where production would be undertaken solely to satisfy needs and desires. This book doesn't explore this concept as well as it might do, however, and nothing is as well-rounded as Mark Shipway's presentation of the subject in the book Non-Market Socialism edited by Rubel and Crump. Probably the best chapter in this collection of writings is "The End of Music" by Dave and Stuart Wise, dealing with Malcolm McLaren's Sex Pistols, the rise and fall of punk rock and its relationship with situationist politics—the other writings range from the quirky (Jim Martin on Wilhelm Reich and situationism) to the near pretentious (Jean Barrot's text being the most obvious example). This said, there are far worse books around that you could add to a collection on radical politics.

DAP

Cooking the Books: It Wasn’t Socialism (2012)

The Cooking the Books Column from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Commenting on multi-millionaire and Tory backwoodsman Adrian Beecroft’s description of LibDem Cabinet Minister Vince Cable as a “socialist” for criticising his proposal to make it easier for employers to sack workers, Owen Jones asked “How did ‘socialist’ turn into an insult?” (I newspaper, 25 May).

It’s a question we ourselves have often asked. Our answer has been that it’s because the word became associated with the Labour Party and the state capitalist dictatorship in the old USSR.

Although we consistently opposed both, we were unable to keep to the fore the original meaning of ‘socialism’ as a co-operative commonwealth based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, with production for use, not the market or profit, and the end of having to work for wages.  Both Labour and the Russian dictatorship failed and people were encouraged to see this as the failure of socialism.

The early Labour Party’s claim was that, by a series of nationalisations and social reforms, a Labour government would be able to gradually improve workers’ living standards and progress towards socialism (which some of them understood in the same, original sense as us). It didn’t work out that way. In office, Labour had to govern capitalism on capitalism’s terms, as a profit-making system. This inevitably brought them into conflict with workers and to introduce wage restraint and restrictions on union activity.

The post-war Labour government did nationalise coal, the railways, gas, water and electricity but mainly in order to ensure that the rest of private industry got these provided in a more efficient (and subsidised) way. It also introduced a nation-wide social insurance system and health service, once again mainly to benefit employers by providing them with a relatively healthy and more productive workforce.

Although working conditions in the industries that were nationalised did improve, the basic conflict of interest between workers and employers that is built-in to capitalism continued, and so, therefore, did strikes. An economic crisis (and the need to finance a war in Korea) forced the post-war Labour government itself to begin the whittling away of some of the social reforms it had introduced. The same happened with the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s.

Instead of Labour gradually transforming capitalism, it was capitalism that gradually transformed Labour, from a party that talked of socialism even if only as a vague and long-term aspiration into an alternative management team for British Capitalism plc.

Jones noted that the word ‘socialism’“hasn’t made an appearance in a Labour manifesto since 1987.”But he doesn’t want to return to the original meaning but only to what the Labour Party used to mean by it years ago. “If socialists really were running the show in Britain”, he wrote, the banks “would be taken under genuine democratic control, forcing them to operate in the interests of society as a whole”; the rich would be forced to pay more tax; the railways and energy companies would be taken into “social ownership”and run by workers and consumers; more social housing would be built, and a “living wage”introduced.

This is Old Labour stuff –the dream of a democratically-run wages and profits system (which, ironically, Vince Cable shared when he was a Labour councillor in Glasgow in the 1970s before following the Gang of Four into the SDP and then the Liberals).

There was nothing wrong with the sentiment behind this of wanting to provide workers with a decent and improving standard of living. It’s just that, given capitalism, this is not possible. Capitalism simply cannot be made to work in the interest of workers.

Pathfinders: Please Don’t Feed the Drones (2014)

The Pathfinders Column from the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The announcement in December that Amazon planned to start delivering goods by helicopter microdrones prompted a flurry of media excitement prematurely extinguished by the two-faced hagiographic orgy following Nelson Mandela’s demise shortly afterwards. But still the story buzzed round the pubs and offices like whirring rotor blades. What if someone nicks your delivery after the drone has dropped it off? What if someone shoots it down with an air rifle or radio pulse? What if there’s a mid-air collision? What happens to all the plastic delivery boxes afterwards? And what of civil aviation control systems? Will all these drones flock in droves to Trafalgar Square looking for someone to feed them?

Some po-faced commentators were quick to identify the story as a piece of misdirection from a company already under fire for its working practices, including poor pay, punishing targets and round the clock surveillance, but this was merely journalistic contrariness.  Amazon can scarcely be worried given that such bad publicity is old and dog-eared news (see for instance ‘UK workforce attacks Amazon’, Guardian, 14 April 2001). Besides, shock revelations about Foxconn workers jumping in desperation off factory rooftops in China have not raised an eyebrow among Apple’s loyal devotees in the west, and Nike and Primark shoppers don’t pause for guilty reflection either, so why should Amazon lose sleep?

The risk that these drones would be hacked went from likelihood to certainty after news that another drone had suffered a similar fate (‘Parrot drones 'vulnerable to flying hack attack'’, BBC Online, 4 December). We therefore await with baited breath a near future when Black Friday Christmas online shopping extravaganzas are followed by a mass exodus of all UK deliveries to a single offshore pirate tanker registered in Liberia, or else combined into a festive Stuka dive-bombing raid on Westminster.

And what will these little Santas in their micro-sleighs be carrying to your back door in years to come? The answer is ‘wearables’. Not socks or pants, you understand, or at least not in the form you know them, but electronic wearables that ‘do’ things. Several companies are engaged in a high-street battle to corner the smart watch market, but this must surely be a minor skirmish compared to the battle for the smart bra, the smart wig and the mood sweater. The bra will tell you what mood you’re in, the mood sweater will tell everyone else (by lighting up in different colours), and the wig will allegedly let you see in the dark with bat-vision and control computers telepathically. With your Google glasses to complete the look you will be at the electronic leading edge of every fancy dress competition going. Just don’t go out in the rain.

Sound ridiculous? Well, it is. But that’s the future for you. Or at least it’s the future as projected by company sales executives on fire with the possibilities of technology to give an already overstuffed population more of what it’s already got.

There are worrying developments in amongst all this that you have to watch out for. Computer viruses are getting cleverer, and now passing themselves off as free virus-checkers. Spammers are overcoming their bad English and sending phishing emails, supposedly from your bank, that are starting to look convincing. Now the game is ‘ransomware’, a stroke of genius whereby the spammers don’t have to be sly, they can just barge right in, lock up your whole computer and then charge you a fortune in untraceable bitcoins before vanishing into the night – without bothering to release your data. Cue a new term and possibly criminal charge of – ‘dataknapping’. Remember, you read it here first.

But despite the concerns, is the future in capitalism any scarier because of this technology than it would otherwise be? Futurologists like Alvin and Heidi Toffler have made careers since the 1960s out of claiming so. Their influential notion of ‘future-shock’ has just been revisited by Douglas Rushkoff of Cyberia (1994) fame in his latest book Present Shock (2013), the idea being that the future is no longer the future but is smacking us in the face like a wet herring in today’s present. Interesting though these ideas are, socialists tend to take such things with a spoon of salt. For one thing, futurologists like the Tofflers and Ray Kurszweil (long-time predictor of the history-shattering Singularity) tend to overlook class relations as a social dynamic and motor of change. Even Rushkoff, politically more clued-up than them, is in danger of being dazzled by his own hype, coining terms like ‘fractalnoia’ (the construction of arbitrary patterns out of masses of data, leading to conspiracy theories) and ‘digiphrenia’ (the ability to be in multiple places and cyber personalities at once) as if these were fundamentally new human behavioural phenomena. In fact, everyone operates multiple personalities, at home, at work, on the phone, at job interviews, in the pub, and humans are forever building baroque theories out of bare bone facts. The underlying tendencies have always been there, so there’s no reason to get too excited about new manifestations of them.

Socialists are futurologists too, because socialism is a theory of the future, but we live in the present and our feet are on the ground, where workers actually live. The offices may buzz today with the latest talk of drone deliveries as if it was science-fiction come to life, but tomorrow people will be ordering by drone without a second thought. Workers don’t trip over the future and suffer some existential crisis, they simply lengthen their stride. Indeed, the main proof against the futurologist notion of future-shock is the futurologists warning us about it. Forewarned, we forestall any sense of surprise.

Besides, if you look around you and then compare it to any cinema film from the 1960s and 70s, when futurologists were first writing about brave new worlds of the year 2000, what do you see? You see pretty much the same clothes and hair, the same houses, buses, cars and trains. You see the same food, the same language, the same social mannerisms. About the only difference is that the TV cops back then didn’t have computers on their desks and they had to call the station from call-boxes. Oh, and they all smoked like chimneys.

That’s not to say the world hasn’t changed, or that technology has not been instrumental in the changes, but the real differences lie underneath the gadgets, in social attitudes. Far from being paralysed by the blinding speed of change, we are learning to change ideas at blinding speed. Social relationships have been revolutionised, at least in some ways, offering an instant intimacy and membership of identity groups at the touch of a button, thus promoting a new sense of commonality and debate among the young just when old curmudgeons are throwing earth on the grave of supposedly deceased ‘community spirit’. From the once-a-day stuffy announcements of old BBC six o’clock headlines, news now travels at light speed via a million channels, challenging the ability of conventional ‘stop press’ media to keep up, or of governments to keep down, and political movements and trends form literally overnight, challenging regimes from Syria to Ukraine. The future isn’t a shock. What is a shock is the discovery that we can make our own future, and that it doesn’t have to be what our masters tell us it should be. That’s encouraging to anyone who wants progress, and especially to socialists, who can easily feel marginalised and ignored in all the hubbub. The world might not be listening to us today, but give it 24 hours and all bets are off.

The Struggle in U.S.A. (1919)

From the September 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Movement of the Blind.

America badly needs a Socialist party. The deep ignorance of the workers here is reflected in the profound ignorance of the organised labour movement. The American Federation of Labour continues on its capitalist road, exchanging thorough support of the war for the enslaving policy of our masters' peace. The Industrial Workers of the World has been paralysed by anti-Syndicalist laws and persecution of its leaders—mostly now in Federal prisons. The Workers' International Industrial Union—the child of the Socialist Labor Party—does not grow, and is always busy with internal fights, especially with its parent, the S.L.P. It refuses to endorse the S.L.P. as more than half its membership belongs to the rotten Socialist Party of America.

"My Country, 'tis of Thee."

The war found the S.P. leaders pro-Ally and anxious for the popular side, many getting Government jobs and increased publicity. These leaders seceded or were finally expelled, and they formed the Social Democratic League similar to the Hyndman clique in England. To-day the S.D.L. is little heard of and is represented in print by Allan Benson's paper, "Reconstruction." Rose Pastor Stokes returned to the S.P. fold, while her millionaire husband still continues with the jingoes.

A. M. Simons, when not busy misleading Europe, writes lies for the capitalist Press with Chas. E. Russell, William English Walling, Allan Benson and John Spargo. They flourish in the pages of that worst of all papers, the "Appeal to Reason," now known as the "New Appeal," of Girard, Kansas.

The leading writer of that journal is Upton Sinclair, who is trying to explain away  his jingoism in his monthly magazine, "The New Justice," of Los Angeles.

Debs and Debsism.

Eugene V. Debs was enthusiastic for the S.P. anti-war stand at the St. Louis Convention in 1916, but began to wobble when America entered the war. In the pages of the "Social Builder," a social reform Magazine of St. Louis, Debs argued that the anti-war stand should be modified, especially in view of the approaching election. All the capitalist papers reprinted his statements to show that the S.P. was becoming "sane."

When Debs saw that his new attitude was losing him support he wobbled back to his former position, though at his recent trial he reminded the court that he did not agree with the St. Louis platform. Debs sought to hold his democratic following, and received 10 years at Cleveland Federal Court for speaking against the war at Canton, Ohio. He is now in Atlanta prison.

Kate Richards O'Hare, a reformer and leader of the S.P., is also in prison, though her danger to the ruling class is infinitesimal. Victor Berger, one of the most anti-Socialist leaders of the S.P., has also been given 20 years, though he supported the Mexican War and militarism. He was widely known as a pro-German. While Berger wrote the pro-German articles for the "Milwaukee Leader," Simons did the pro-Ally work on the same periodical.

The Lawyer Leaders.
Even after many of the openly pro-war gentry had left the party the great bulk of the leadership and many members refused to take the working-class position on the war. The mass of S.P. membership can be estimated by their continual support of the official clique and by their sticking to such a rotten organisation. Morris Hillquit, the "brains of the S.P.," one of the many lawyers on the National Executive, offered to organise an army of Socialists to help to explain democracy to the Germans overseas. He also admitted that if he had been a member of Congress he would have voted for the war.

Algernon Lee and six other S.P. aldermen voted $80,000 in New York for a "Victory" arch on which the American "victory" at Murmansk in Russia was inscribed. Louis Boudin—another lawyer, and, author of "Theoretical System of Karl Marx"—rallied in support of the League of Nations, and refused to adopt any views on the Russian situation as he would not condemn Plechanoff and his other friends thousands of miles away.

Such a Happy Family!
When Kerensky got control in Russia the S.P. rallied for that capitalist Government, and when Ebert rose to power in Germany they duly celebrated the German "Revolution." Their support of much A. F. of L. officialdom, the sickening reform programme, the lack of party discipline, the general ignorance of Socialism caused a growing revolt in certain centres in the States. More than 50 per cent. of the membership is composed of foreign language federations. These have always been  hotbeds of reform propaganda and general ignorance. The Finnish, Jewish and German federations supported every reactionary policy. Until the Bolshevik uprising in Russia the various Russian federations in the S.P. were small, but they sprang up like mushrooms after the coup of 1917. The Russians wobbled from the defense of Plechanoff to that of Kerensky, and through their ignorance rallied to the policy of S.P. reformism.

The great bulk of Jews in the party read "Forward," the national daily edited by Abe Cahan—the supporter of war and defender of reaction in the party.

Many prominent members of the Socialist Labor Party have climbed back onto the S.P. waggon—Frank Bohn, Louis Fraina, Solon De Leon, Karl Dannenburg, Seidel, Dr. Julius Hammer—and some of them began the contest for leadership in the S.P. They preached Industral Unionism of a kind, and men like Fraina saw in the rising Bolshevik wave in the party a chance to build up a large following.

All Aboard for Bolshevism.
One point should be well noted. The elements here who took front rank in their support of Bolshevism were the very ones who were against revolutionary methods and who ridiculed Socialist education. Their feelings ran high when Allied intervention in Russia welded working-class sentiment against the capitalist international. And the anti-political ideas preached for years were good material for "abolish the State immediately" propaganda. Soviets were formed here but were mere parodies of the Russian example. Some, like in Philadelphia, advocated the armed rising of a minority, whilst most of them degenerated into veterans' reform associations.

The Left Wing and its Feathers.
The Left Wing of the S.P. comprises every variety of fool and freak, just like the Right Wing. There is, however, some good material in the Left Wing, but it is powerless while it remains together with such an army of ignorance. The test question is not whether you understand Socialism and are in favour of it, but whether you are a Bolshevik. And Bolshevism here covers almost every conceivable idea except the scientific principles of Socialism—Mass Action on the streets against machine guns, Minority Rule, To Hell with Democracy, Action not Study, such are some of the ideas of the Left Wing.

The S.P. have suspended seven language federations—Russian, Lithuanian, Lettish, Polish, South Slavic, Ukrainian, and Estonian—on account of their affiliations with the Left Wing party within the party. The State of Massachusetts and many locals in New York were expelled for the same reason, making nearly half the membership. The State of Michigan was expelled for adopting a "no reform" constitution. Michigan was not affiliated with the Left Wing organisation as they objected to the Mass Action, Industrial Unionist, and other confused ideas preached in the Left Wing manifesto and the Left Wing official organ, the "Revolutionary Age." The support of Michigan only existed where study classes had been organised by Michigan's proletarian university, a Marxian study class-promoting body organised by a number of Detroit workers.

The Left Wing is in Pieces
The Socialist Propaganda League was formed in 1916 to preach Industrial Unionism and Mass Action within the S.P. Fraina and S. J. Rutgers (now in Russia), and Bucharin the Bolshevik Commissar, were prominent members. They published the "New International" at Boston, and they eventually merged into the Left Wing group and gave up their paper for the "Revolutionary Age"—a parrot-like edition of Lenin's and Trotsky's speeches. It falsifies Marx and dupes its ignorant following.

All Left Wing branches, locals, and States were invited to send representatives to the Left Wing Convention at New York on June 21st. The Convention was dominated by Jim Larkin, the supporter of Labourism, John Reed, the war correspondent lately returned from Russia, and Louis Fraina, the political gymnast of the S.P., S.L.P., and Socialist Propaganda League. The whole business was a miserable farce, being a sordid struggle for control. The Michigan delegates presented an ultimatum demanding the immediate formation of a Communist party on the basis of a platform adopted by Michigan at its special Convention on June 15th. The Russian federations—the backbone of the Left Wing—also objected to the policy of the Left Wing leaders in trying to capture the rotten S.P. at their coming National Convention on August 30th; the Russians, therefore, wanted to form a Communist party immediately. Thus Michigan found itself withdrawing from the Conference in Company with 30,000 Russian members who would easily dominate Michigan's 6,000. At the time of writing Michigan has been pledged by its delegates to work with the Russian Federations and they have formed the Communist Party. In doing so Michigan has adopted a programme of Mass Action, Industrial Unionism, and "Abolition of the State at Once," but many well-informed members in Detroit are determined to undo this underhand work of the delegates.

Adolph Kohn

Party News: Marx supports the Socialist Party - it's official (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx was responsible for a recent donation of £500 to the Socialist Party. The explanation for this posthumous and politically sound generosity is as follows.

The great-grandfather of one of our Branch members was a personal friend of Marx, and the family has had in its possession for some time a letter which Marx wrote to him. It was recently auctioned, and fetched a staggering £13,000 (yes, thirteen thousand pounds), which was shared amongst the family. This enabled our member to make the donation.

Keen students of the law of value will wish to know that the family did not have to pay capital gains tax on this sale. This is because the letter had always been in their possession, and in any case the "value" of the letter had reduced since its contents had already been published. Had they not been, the original letter would have fetched much more.

So if you hear noises coming from the direction of Highgate Cemetery, it won't be another group of émigrés trying to blow up Marx's gravestone. It will be the author of the labour theory of value guffawing at the thought of the delayed productivity of his own labour and the good use to which it is now being put.

K. Graham

Holiday postscript (1981)

From the February 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Long before Christianity a festive break during the dark, cold winter months helped people to get through the most trying time of the year. To replace celebration of the winter solstice, early Christians decided to celebrate the birth of Christ on 25 December; historically incorrect, but necessary to combat the appeal of the heathen jollifications.

Whatever the excuse, the holiday is over. We have had our parties—probably eaten and drunk a bit too much, certainly spent more money than we meant or could afford and, thankfully, waved goodbye to relatives and friends whom we genuinely welcomed at the start of the holidays. Listening to the radio on New Year's Day, one particular thought came uppermost. Money—"vast profits" to quote the narrator in Woman's Hour—are made, particularly during the season of "Peace and Goodwill"—from belligerence. 

The Daily Telegraph, in a number of pre-Christmas items, mentioned that in spite of—or perhaps because of—unemployment and the "difficult times" people seemed determined to enjoy the holiday; toy shops were doing a good trade, and by far the most successfully selling lines were guns, soldiers and war games.

Supermarketing of 21 November reviewed the snacks market, which has grown from 85 million in 1970 to an estimated 450 million in 1980. 70 per cent of all snacks are eaten by children, although the purchasing is split 50/50 between parents and children. With such vast sums at stake, it is vital for manufacturers to "get their sums right" when launching new products, and it seems Smith's have done it again with their "Battle Bags". Their research team went out with over two dozen concepts like space, sport and war, but Frank Richardson, their marketing manager, said:

We have always believed that there is no long term mileage to be gained by associating our products with current crazes . . . We were therefore seeking a subject which . . . would have long-term appeal. War won hands down and so we decided to introduce Battle Tanks and Fighter Planes under the overall umbrella of the Battle Bags name.

The programme which started off this train of thought dealt with the huge success of computer games. Addicts and psychologists who were interviewed stated that the main appeal was that, to play successfully, one really had to stretch one's mind/ Concentration and involvement is such that they often found themselves shaking with nervous tension after a game. Apparently the most successful game is Space Wars, and it is ironic that the inventors of this, as well as the other games, are Japanese, who still commemorate in most dramatic fashion the horrific happenings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However, let us end on a optimistic note. These computer games were originally invented to train space pilots in manipulation and navigation of their craft. The representative of one of the manufacturers foresaw games being produced which could be used to plan agriculture and the best use of resources, especially in under-developed countries. Used in this way, they would not only stimulate the mind, but help a socialist society to organise best use of the world's resources for the good of the world's community.

Eva Goodman

Where Mandela Failed (2014)

From the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

No one can accuse Nelson Mandela of not having the courage of his convictions. Twenty-seven years in prison for campaigning to replace the repulsive apartheid regime with a non-racial political democracy is sufficient proof that he had. Yet, although this was eventually achieved, it did not improve the economic lot of the vast majority of black South Africans, another of his aims.

At his trial for treason in 1964 along with other leaders of the ANC, Mandela declared that he was a ‘socialist’. This simply meant that he shared the views of other ‘national liberation’ leaders of the time such as Nkrumah and Arafat who were grateful for the support of the state capitalist regime in Russia and admired its economic system. After the collapse of Russian state capitalism Mandela’s ‘socialism’, as that of the ANC, was reduced to a commitment to government intervention to try to improve people’s standard of living, the classic reformist position.

As the first President of post-apartheid South Africa from 1994 to 1999, Mandela tried to implement this but came up against capitalism and its economic laws and vested interests. He found himself the head of a government that had to operate within the confines of capitalism, but no government can make capitalism work in the interest of the majority. He was therefore forced to govern on its terms. Which are that priority has to be given to profit-making and that anything that goes against this, such as taxing profits to pay for social reforms, risks provoking an economic slowdown and yet more unemployment and misery.

Mandela had to let the big mining corporations operate as usual. They too had in fact been opposed to apartheid as it was impeding the normal operation of capitalism in South Africa. They wanted, and got, a non-racial capitalism. Capitalist firms don’t care about the background of their workers, only that they produce profits for them. In South Africa they didn’t like being legally forced to employ an underperforming white worker at higher pay when more competent and cheaper non-whites were available.

It wasn’t just the mining corporations that benefitted from the end of apartheid. So did non-white business and professional people who, as the ‘black bourgeoisie, were integrated into the ruling class and its benefits and privileges. Far be it from us to underestimate the psychological and practical benefits of the abolition of separate facilities for ‘Blanke’ and ‘Nie Blanke’ for those who were its victims, but the fact remains that the end of apartheid has not benefitted the mass of South Africans economically. But that’s because it was replaced by a non-racial capitalism and capitalism in whatever form was never going to work to help them.

So, in this sense Mandela failed. He did not, however, succumb to the corruption of a Nkrumah or an Arafat (not to mention the present South African president Zuma). But that proves the point. Not even a saint can make capitalism work other than as a profit-making system in which profits have to take priority over people. Reformist governments fail, not because their members are corrupt or sell-outs or incompetent or not determined enough but because they have set themselves the impossible task of trying to make capitalism work in the interests of the majority. As Mandela found out, no doubt to his disappointment.

Adam Buick

Editorial: The real thing (1987)

Editorial from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

America was first sighted through a fog by a discerning Viking, who refused to let his crew go ashore and turned his prow out to sea. A thousand years and billions of hamburgers on, who is to say he didn't set a fine example? For the nation that gave us chewing gum, Nixon, muzak and Hiroshima has been relentlessly creating the world in its image to ensure that we all have a nice day, like it or not.

In a society at war with itself and its perceived enemies, everyone must try to outdo their neighbour and since no one is to be trusted completely, human traits like modesty, honesty and generosity are luxuries for display by losers only. Success is its own justification. The axioms underlying all that frenetic activity are miserably negative: fear and insecurity are the best generators of wealth; earning a living is life enhancing; people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale, god's attitude to wrong is the same since Adam; the rest of the world needs faster food and better insurance. And since what everybody must want is more—of anything-the gospel of market forces infest every waking minute: somebody, somewhere, will sell you exactly what you don't need to fill the void in your life or anaesthetise that pain. The precise cost of human and supernatural endeavour, from cancer care to eternal salvation in the loving arms of Jesus, is measured and weighed to guarantee a healthy bottom line. It's one small step back for man, but a giant leap for market penetration.

As not even force is permitted to subvert the power of money, those who claim to represent the free world have to learn to speak with permanently forked tongues, to elevate hypocrisy to the level of science. Meaningless abstractions—right, wrong, justice, truth—straighten the necessary twists of foreign policy, so that the dictatorships are allies when it suits, notional democracy is demanded when it doesn't, and former enemies are welcome if it pays. From the Indian Wars to El Salvador, America has been on the side of "right". What it arrogantly calls "the developing world" has a free choice: the attentions of the CIA or Kentucky Fried Chicken and the cherished principles of free trade—here's a dime, we keep a dollar. And if at times it begins to look as if life itself is a communist conspiracy, rest assured they have the antidote for sale on the never-never.

But have all these dreams and images which pour into Western living rooms clouded our judgement, leaving us unable to distinguish between reality and appearance? Is American life experienced only at the extremes? Well, what we can say for sure is that only six out of ten is able to read about capitalism's daily traumas; that the world's great art is appreciated only in the nation's bank vaults; that babies are now born singing the Stars and Strips and clutching pocket calculators; that just 9,000 rapes and 70,000 serious assaults occurred in the country's classrooms last year, an improvement on casualty figures for an average year of the Vietnam war. And although one child under 16 is shot on Detroit's streets every day, only 34 died last year. People with no food on their table, but a lot of forks and knives have to cut something.

The philosophy of do-it-yourself even extends to civilian defence. Guardian Angels patrol the subways and sidewalks, photographed and fingerprinted and carrying solid canes or fondling heavy metal wrenches. Nobody's going to snatch their wallets! New weapons supermarkets have sprung up, offering fetching arrays of ice picks, drills and ball pens with whip handles. Some devices were banned by the courts; others accepted. CD in some areas has become obligatory, like jury service, and they seem to know exactly where to look, who to follow and how hard to strike without killing the prey. CD freaks can become national heroes overnight.

Those with faith in an American change of heart over what is called arms control should remember that cosmetics are a national obsession. The Pentagon still believes that a general nuclear war can be limited, could be won, and therefore may be protracted. Its present arms procurement programme favours weapons which open up new areas of major military competition to make us all sleep soundly in our beds. If, then, we are due for more summitry and paper waving, it has to do with economics and places in history, with the competitive weakness of the national economy and the challenge of European and Japanese capitalism. Merely temporary restraints on a policy that must be written in stone.

Across the world the great majority of wage and salary earners strive to overcome anxiety, boredom and dreariness, most of them too busy earning a living to live much themselves. An alternative to caddying their time away is not on the agenda and just watching the players has become a major recreation. In America, the pace may be faster, the sense of unease stronger, the casualties heavier, and the deceptions and obscenities on a grander scale; but the malaise has the same roots in an essentially inhuman economic system. Republican and Democrat politicians are about to go to great pains, and spend millions of dollars, to persuade voters that their lives can be different if they exchange a President with a neck that flaps in the wind while the hair keeps its shape, for one with a smooth gullet and standard coiffure.

Down the pit (1982)

Illustration by George Meddemmen.

From the April 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

For many people the symbol of the worker is a coal miner. The man who goes down the pit takes with him the image of the beleaguered proletariat, and comes back up plastered with dust and defiance looking even more so. It's hard, dirty and dangerous work: it fosters resentment, producing the "them" and "us" attitude between the employers and employees. Its history goes back centuries, to the days when men, women and children dug the coal with bare hands in 20-hour shifts, living and dying like troglodytes—all for a pittance.

This powerful image produces intensely felt solidarity among miners who often live in isolated communities and express their consciousness in traditional ways: chapel, singing, club drinking, brass banding, rugby, football and strikes. As the pay of miners has gone up the wages league table, the source of miners' resentment is popularly felt to have disappeared: for the days of child labour are long gone and the stunted, semi-crippled men with "buttons down the back" (permanent scabs from continual banging of vertebrae on low overhead beams) described by Orwell in the 1930s, have gone too.

The road to Hell

What's it really like down a mine? I was recently offered a place in a party visiting Silverdale Deep in Staffordshire. A chance to compare the image with reality was too good to miss. People are encouraged to go down the pit, it's a public relations exercise for the employers—and for the employees, it turned out.

In the pit canteen we were met by two men, symbols of "them and us". Them was a mining engineer in charge down at the face for that shift; he was smooth, knowledgeable and authoritative about mining output per man/shift, the efficiency of Silverdale compared to other pits and all the technicalities of coal getting. Us was the coal face shop steward for that shift; he was a craggy, old Potteries boy, brimful with frightening tales of disaster at the pit, who insisted that we all swig our pint mugs of tea and cram as much bread and marge as we could into ourselves, to survive the trip.

We were kitted out with hard hats and head lights, connected to belt-hung wet-cell batteries: then we strode with trepidation to the pit head. The cage plunged a thousand sickening feet in a few seconds and then stopped so swiftly that I thought my skull would burst.

Stepping out of the cage my image of a coal mine collapsed. For the brightly illuminated main gallery was not black, but white. Lime is plastered everywhere near the foot of the shaft, in an effort to lay the dust that peppers you in blasts of warm and cold air. We trudged out of the whiteness and into the blackness for 500 yards, with Them in front, and Us behind. Then we came to a downward-sloping conveyor belt. Us took over here. He demonstrated how to pitch yourself safely onto the man-ride at ten-yard intervals. We did, and rode another thousand feet down into the pit. Them caught the visitors at the end of the man-ride, but Us disdained his help and stepped off deftly. We walked another 500 yards along a maze of narrowing tunnels, in a strangely smelling stream, towards a distant noise that grew to a roar.

Into Hell

"It's an Anderson-Boyes mark ten coal-cutter", screamed Them in my ear, as Us spat tobacco juice into the dust cloud around the beast. Half an hour we spent at the face and that was the only  conversation possible. But we looked and wondered. A traction motor the size of a rhinoceros, attached to a circular saw as big as an elephant, lumbered along a railway bed and knocked lumps of coal the size of settees off the face, through jets of water and arc lamps, down a gallery not much wider or higher than a Nissen hut.

It was too much to take in all at once, so I staggered to the end of the face for a rest and to leak away the tea, suddenly realising why the stream had smelt so. "Yer might at least piss away from us!", bawled a voice. Peering into the gloom I saw a line of boots sticking out of the catacombs. Part of the shift were on a tea break and were munching at the contents of their snap tins. "First time down, eh, kid?" he yelled, "bleedin' awful, ennit? Goo on back in there, or you'll miss the best bit!"

At the face the machine was stopped briefly, as Them, Us and others crawled over it, making adjustments and panting through their masks. They finished resetting and, at a curt nod from Them, Us carefully positioned all visitors on a raised catwalk. Them walked down the face pulling a series of hydraulic levers. Then the entire coal-cutter, rails, catwalk, pillars and roof slid forward two yards—followed by an earthquake, as the now unsupported world behind us came tumbling down and the coal-cutter took out lumps like motor cars in a new pass along the face.

Capitalist pigs

As we left, a man yelled, "tell 'em up there what it's like down 'ere!" We tramped in stunned silence to the manride and gratefully flopped onto it. The rollers massage your body as you rumble upwards and I was nearly asleep when something tapped my foot. It was Us; he'd crawled up to talk. "Of course", he shouted, "This ain't a proper way to run a pit. They do it right in Russia. They've 'ad their revolution. Done away with the capitalists. That's what we oughter do!" For a moment I was dumbstruck. It was like something out of a really bad novel. The "old bolshevik" trying to convert the "middle class intelligentsia", two and a half thousand feet underground! For that was how he saw himself and me. The I remembered that I was a socialist and launched the counter-argument at him in the only language the noise permitted. "No! Russia's no bloody good! Neither is violent insurrection, it only gets workers killed. Nationalisation is a fraud! What's the difference between a private capitalist pig and a state capitalist pig?" We argued all the way up to the pit head, until, stepping out of the cage into the fresh air, all the visitors started to cough up black phlegm.

After a change of clothes, a wash and a gargle, we trooped into the pit canteen, to drink an incredible amount of tea and have a de-briefing. Pneumoconiosis and silicosis were on all the visitors' minds, as we contemplated what two hours down the pit had done to our lungs. "We only get the odd pneumo", said Us, "it's like trench feet, a matter of morale. If the men could get the pay and conditions they want and the management would only cooperate, it would disappear altogether". At this Them demurred: "If the men would only wear their masks all the time, there would be no more silicosis", he said. Someone pointed out that the only time Them had worn his mask was when adjusting the coal-cutter, and even then he had to take it off to shout orders. A lady visitor went to the heart of the matter when she said "This isn't work that anyone should do for mere money". "Too right", said Us. "The mines should belong to the miners, the ships to the sailors, the trains to the engine drivers. All industry should be run for the public good". At this Them got quite heated and made a speech about the need for profitability in the private and public sectors. It was obvious that the two of them had been doing this for years, because Us rescued the de-briefing with a tale of humorous disaster. Then we went home, I coughed up coal dust for a fortnight.

The world for the workers

Well reader, where do you stand? Which side are you on? Are you for Them or for Us? What's a fair wage for a man's working lifetime down the pit? Can you quantify discomfort for the face worker? Should it be more or less than that of the deep-sea trawlerman? One thing is certain—this side of capitalism there is no solution. But, on the other side, beyond the garbled dream of the shop steward, there is, for the taking, a socialist world. A society without "them and us", without  public or private ownership, without buying and selling, wages and jobs; where everyone, including miners, will have free access to the wealth created. Only the harmony of that society could adequately compensate for such toil—if it were necessary. To be sure, the solidarity of the miners has never risen to the level of socialist class consciousness, but how much of a push would it need to make it do so? Just a few thousand socialists explaining the difference between "the mine for the miners" and "the world for the workers".

B K McNeeney

Capitalism or Socialism? (1998)

From the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is the only party whose sole object is the replacement of the present social, economic and political system (capitalism) with a fundamentally different system (socialism). Socialists are men and women who understand and work for such a change in society.

Capitalism has existed for only the last four or five centuries. During that time it has spread from parts of Europe to every corner of the world. There are still pockets of previous forms of society-feudalism, tribalism, even slavery-but they are steadily being squeezed out by the incursions of capitalism. The roots of socialism may be traced to ideas first formulated in ancient civilisations, but as the abolition of class and private property society it has remained an ideal and not an activity. Indeed, it is only in the last hundred years or so that the material conditions for the establishment of socialism as a world society have been developed, making it a practical alternative to capitalism.

One of the basic features of capitalism is that the means of wealth production and distribution (land, factories, offices, transport, etc) are owned by individuals, private or public corporations or the state. The various forms of ownership have evolved and become more complex within capitalism. False claims have been made that, because certain industries have been "nationalised" or whole countries governed by regimes with the label socialist or communist, therefore socialism has been introduced. This is not the case; such reforms of capitalism change only its surface features, not its basic substance.

With capitalism goods and services are produced for sale in a market with a view to profit. Where it is not feasible to form a market or seek a profit, goods and services may be provided "freely" at the point of consumption. While some capitalist production is to meet human needs at a price, capitalist advertising creates wants that the market can then satisfy. With socialism production will be directly to meet human need, each person or group determining their own reasonable needs in a social context. There will be no buying or selling and no calculated exchange, but plenty of giving and taking.

Capitalism requires that access to goods and services be by "effective" or "economic" demand-generally, no cash, no carry. Exceptionally the state or local authority provides "benefits" in cash or kind, and charitable organisations give other handouts. Socialist society will mean free access, although some collective action may need to be taken in the few cases where access that is too free could result in harm to the individual or the community.

The profit system requires a class of owners of the means of wealth production and a much larger class of non-owners. The one class represents "capital" and the other "labour". Of course this is the system in its crudest manifestation: in practice it has evolved very sophisticated forms of exploitation and presentation. Society is said to be composed of three or more classes, such as upper, middle and working. Workers may be given a "stake" in capitalism through ownership of small packets of shares. Socialism rejects the idea and the practice of opposed classes consisting of owners and non-owners. All persons will stand equally in relation to the means of wealth production in socialism.

Allied to the two-class division into owners and non-owners in capitalism is the two-class division into employers and employees. Again there are subtleties: employers may be individuals, corporations or the state; employees may be in employment, seeking it or retired from it. The self-employed are a marginal group. With socialism there will be no employment; work will be done on the basis of its product being needed, not because an employer can make a profit by "supplying" it.

The key market in capitalism is the labour market, where workers are forced to earn their living by selling their labour power to an employer. With socialism markets, like money, will be unnecessary and disappear.

Capitalism requires much work to be done that serves no useful purpose and is necessary only to keep the profit system going. Activities such as banking, insurance, selling, preparing for and making war, are only a few of many examples. Estimates of the proportion of current work that is necessary only to capitalism vary from 50 to 90 percent. With socialism no useless or harmful work need be done, although no doubt some people will choose to do things that others will see as without purpose. Artistic and creative endeavours may be expected to flourish, no longer confined and distorted by the profit motive.

Co-operation not competition

Capitalism requires individuals to compete with each other in various ways. It fosters a culture of winners and losers. Businesses compete with each other for the biggest possible share of the market-winners sometimes capture the whole of a market. Workers have to compete for jobs, the losers being the unemployed. Capitalist sport asserts that winning isn't the main thing-it's the only thing. By contrast socialism emphasises co-operation. While some forms of enjoyable and developmental competition may well continue (such as games and tests of skill and knowledge) no "losers" will be deprived of decent living conditions or be excluded from benefits that society can provide.

Today society tends to be divided into a few leaders and many followers. The shepherds need the sheep and the sheep need the shepherd. Whether in the workplace, the political arena, the media, or elsewhere, the powerless majority defer to the powerful minority. In socialist society people will no doubt continue to vary in their abilities, strengths and characters-differences will be valued but not exaggerated. It may be useful for some individuals to take highly specialised roles, but they won't become permanent or powerful leaders.

Capitalist organisations are mostly hierarchical, consisting of a few people at the top who give orders and the many lower down or at the bottom who take them. Communication is usually top down. Socialist organisations will be mostly lateral, meaning that all participants will work according to a democratically agreed plan. Communication will be free-flowing, not one-way.

Politics today involves the mass of the electorate choosing at periodic intervals professional politicians as representatives who will govern them for the next few years. With socialism delegates will play an important part. Wide-ranging issues affecting large numbers of people will be fully discussed and decisions democratically taken. Local issues will require less formality and decisions can be based on trust. People will not be governed; things will be administered.

The capitalist world is divided into nation states, some independent, others overtly combined into blocs for some purposes. Enmity is built into the capitalist structure. There are trade wars, preparation for hot wars, and actual hot wars. While some supporters of capitalism pay lip-service to the idea of a world community (and some services, such as weather forecasting, are already organised on a world-wide basis) it is only with socialism that there will be a meaningful world community, with different but non-conflicting cultures.

Education today is aimed at different ability groups. But, more significantly, it is separated into a superior kind for the elite and a basic kind for the mass. Elite education means higher staff-student ratios, better equipment and facilities, but above all the instilling of a belief that a class-divided society is the natural order of things. Mass education is starved of resources and aims to turn out productive but docile wage-slaves and consumers. By contrast, education in socialism will have no narrow class-dividing purpose. It will aim to develop the talents and interests of all. Initially socialist education will help to solve world problems of ignorance, poverty, environmental degradation, and so on. We can only speculate on how later education will enable the further development and progress of the human race.

Today crime is a big problem. But most of it is to do with private property. To keep the buying and selling system going, people are encouraged to want more and more things. But they are often not able to get the necessary money legally. So it's not surprising that some of them break the law by stealing. Since doing this on a large scale would seriously endanger the profit system, there has to be a complex apparatus of police, law courts, prisons and the rest. The abolition of private property would not necessarily mean the abolition of all we could call crime, but certainly a large part of it. Even if the occasional murder still takes place, the person committing it will merit treatment and support rather than the punitive measures usually imposed today.

One consequence of capitalism that has become increasingly prominent in recent years is the many ways in which the pursuit of profit has resulted in damage to the environment. Some of the main forms of damage are air and water pollution, acid rain, deforestation, and global warming. Socialists welcome the attention that "greens" have drawn to the problem, but disagree with those among them who believe that the problems can be solved within capitalism or who want to go back to a pre-industrial era. In a socialist world high priority will be given to repairing the damage that the profit system has caused to the environment. Production solely for use and access according to need will be in the context of using the world's natural and other resources in careful and sustainable ways.

The World Socialist Movement brings together men and women who have a committed, closely argued and well researched case against capitalism and some idea of at least the fundamentals of the system that will replace it. None of us knows exactly what the future will bring. But we do know that we can help to shape that future by putting the achievement of socialism, rather than reforms of capitalism, at the top of the agenda.

Stan Parker

CAPITALISM

• The most developed form of class society
• Private (including state) ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution
• Production for profit
• Access by economic demand (payment, with some handouts)
• Basically two classes: those who own and don't own the means of wealth production
• Employment (employers, employees, unemployed and retired)
• Markets (buying and selling) for most things, including labour
• Activities necessary to support the profit system (banking, insurance, salespeople, etc)
• Emphasis on competition
• Leaders and followers
• Mostly hierarchical organisation (giving and taking orders)
• Periodic elections to choose professional politicians
• Government of persons
• Nation states, wars, armed forces
• Education for elites and for masses
• Crime (mostly property), a legal system to uphold private property rights
• Environmental problems (pollution, depletion of natural resources, etc) caused by profit seeking

SOCIALISM

• A form of society without classes and class property
• Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution
• Production to meet human need
• Free access, each determining their own needs (in social context)
• No classes: all persons stand equally in relation to the means of wealth production
• Work (all those fit enough volunteer services as preferred and needed)
• No buying, selling or exchange (only giving and taking)
• No wasteful activities necessary only to support capitalism (banking, insurance, salespeople, etc)
• Emphasis on co-operation
• Participants
• Mostly lateral organisation
• Elections as required to choose delegates
• Administration of things
• No nation states, wars, armed forces
• Education for all
• No property crime, any residual crime (e.g. murder) dealt with humanely
• No environmental problems caused by profit seeking

Editorial: 2014 - Year of Xenophobia? (2014)

Editorial from the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

From one point of view the prospects for 2014 don’t look good. The elections to the European Parliament in May threaten to become a festival of xenophobia as the main parties try to outbid UKIP by being as, if not more, anti-foreigner than them. August will see the ceremonies to mark the outbreak of the First World War. These, too, threaten to become a celebration of nationalism, with prominent historians already arguing that it was a justifiable war which Britain deserved to win.

This means that this year, in addition to our usual activity of putting across the case for socialism, we will have to step up the socialist case against nationalism and war.

The phrase ‘Nation-State’ itself assumes that the states into which the world is divided are the political expression of pre-existing ‘nations’. In fact, it’s the other way round. It is the ‘nation’ that is the creation of the state. States inculcate into their subjects the idea that they form a community with a common interest and that the state represents that interest. The result is that people come to refer to themselves and other subjects of the same state as ‘we’ and ‘us’.

Socialists do not speak of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in relation to so-called ‘Nation-States’ in which they happen to have been born or live. We know that, in every state, there are two classes with opposed interests: the class of those who own and control the means of production and the rest, the vast majority, who do not and, to live, have to sell their mental and physical energies to those who do for a wage or a salary.

Wars are not fought between ‘nations’ but between states, and states represent the interest of their ruling, owning class. Wars arise out of the conflict of economics between states, representing the owning class within them, over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic areas to protect these. The slaughter of the First World War  was no exception.

Nationalism is used by states to win support – and cannon fodder – for wars. But it can prove counter-productive if it escapes from state control, as it risks doing over the question of Europe. The interest of the dominant section of the capitalist class in Britain is that Britain should stay in the EU so as to have free access to the European ‘single market’, but a large segment of public opinion is opposed to this on nationalist grounds which UKIP is exploiting.

Throughout the year, then, we will be insisting that wage and salary workers in one state have the same basic interest as their counterparts in other states. We are all members of the world working class and have a common interest in working together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the globe will have become the common heritage of all the people of the world and used for the benefit of all.