‘Abenomics’: Japan Retests a Failed Experiment (2015)

From the February 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Japan’s prime minister is so confident in his economic policy that he has named it after himself. But will his ‘Abenomics’ cure what ails Japanese capitalism?

Increased stimulus or austerity? This has been the key choice for policymakers seeking to lift their national economies out of the crisis that has dragged on since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008. It’s the question of whether government should try to cushion the blow of a crisis or rather let it run its course.

But Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has put forward an economic strategy, dubbed ‘Abenomics’, that seems to adopt the belief that there is no need to choose. The basic idea is that, first, government should aggressively introduce fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate demand, and that, once the ball is moving, the government can back off and let the free market work its wonders.

More specifically, the prime minister says he has three ‘arrows’ in his quiver to slay economic recession and prod the economic growth that has eluded Japan and the rest of the world. Those three key policies are: monetary policy centred on quantitative easing, fiscal policy aimed at stimulating demand, and structural reforms to deregulate the economy.

For Abe and his government, the root of Japan’s economic problems is thought to lie in deflation. Following a simplistic Keynesian logic, Abe is convinced that the expectation of continued deflation has discouraged investment and led consumers to defer purchases. If Japan were in an inflationary period instead, the argument goes, this would stimulate economic activity and raise consumption.

The ‘first arrow’ of Abenomics in particular aims to reverse the deflationary trend. This has involved the Bank of Japan, under Abe’s yes-man Haruhiko Kuroda, implementing an ultra-loose monetary policy. Kuroda announced in April 2013 that the BOJ would double the ‘monetary base’, aiming to deliver 2 percent inflation within the next two years. This involves purchasing around 7 trillion yen worth of Japanese government bonds and other assets every month, rivalling the amount the Federal Reserve has been pouring into its own ‘quantitative easing’ policy. The BOJ has also left interest rates for commercial banks at around 0 percent in the hope that this will encourage lending.

Abe’s second arrow is fiscal stimulus; the building of more ‘bridges to nowhere’ and other lavish spending on infrastructure. In early 2013, just a few weeks into office, Prime Minister Abe introduced a 10.3 trillion yen stimulus package. And, in January of this year, he announced a supplementary budget of 3.12 trillion yen to fund further stimulus spending.

Given the Keynesian dimensions of the first two arrows, it’s not too surprising that a right-wing reactionary like Abe could win praise from a number of liberal economists, most notably Paul Krugman. In a May 2013 column for The New York Times titled ‘Japan the Model’, Krugman wondered why the ‘Western world’ was ‘overtaken by economic defeatism’, instead of taking a ‘sharp turn toward monetary and fiscal stimulus’ as Japan was doing. ‘A short-term boost to growth won’t cure all of Japan’s ills’, Krugman wrote, ‘but, if it can be achieved, it can be the first step toward a much brighter future’.

In short, for Krugman and other Keynesian economists, Abenomics has been seen as an alternative to the austerity policies that they believe are at the root of the current economic stagnation.

The long-awaited ‘third arrow’

But Abe has had quite a few fans among conservatives and free-marketeers as well. They are looking to the prime minister to follow through on his pledge to carry out structural reforms that will free capital from its chains. This is the aim of the ‘third arrow’ of Abenomics. The non-Keynesian fans of Abe have hoped (although their hope is fading) that the benefits resulting from the structural reforms would make up for the debt incurred from the lavish fiscal and monetary policies.

In June 2014, Abe finally unveiled some of the third-arrow policies he hopes to introduce, including cutting corporate income tax to below 30 percent, creating special economic zones with fewer regulations and lower tax rates, and lifting the ban on online sales of drugs. The list of specific proposals was fairly long, but the combined effect was underwhelming, at least in the eyes of the foreign business press, which had been looking forward to the third arrow with great expectation.

‘Misfire’ was the title of an article in the Economist that described Abe’s structural reforms as ‘timid’. In particular, the magazine’s editors were disappointed that Abe did not promise more measures to reform the labour market and the agricultural sector.

The prime minister’s ‘timidity’ is not surprising, however, since the potential third-arrow reforms concern issues of keen political importance to influential lobby groups within the ruling party itself as well as issues that could divide the public. The LDP is far from agreement on matters related to free trade and agriculture, and cutting taxes for corporations while raising the consumption tax is not likely to win over the public. If the political headwinds are strong enough, Abe could easily end up the target of his own third arrow.

Roundabout solutions

The idea (or hope, really) behind Abenomics is that each arrow hitting its bull’s-eye will have a combined ‘synergistic’ effect capable of lifting the crisis-laden economy out of its rut. The optimistic charts presented to explain how this might all happen tend to look something like the diagram of a Rube Goldberg machine; a chain reaction where the initial steps bring improvements that in turn generate other improvements.

For instance, a chart created by the investment bank Nomura Holdings plots out how the aggressive monetary policy will drive up stock prices; this in turn will boost corporate profitability, which will expand capital expenditures and increase wages; while the lower yen will drive up exports, thereby also boosting capital expenditures. And while this is going on, the fiscal stimulus is expected public investment, thus also raising consumption, wages, and capital expenditures. On top of this, the structural reforms are expected to boost all of the drivers of growth. All of this combining to allegedly raise the level of effective demand and break away from deflation.

It is incredibly convoluted, but then again capitalism itself is an incredibly convoluted system of social production; a system where hardly any problem lends itself to a straightforward solution. The reason in most cases is that all of the production decisions are made by the capitalists who own or manage the means of production; each of these actors making decisions on the basis of their own profit calculations. Any effort to influence how capitalists choose to behave can only be attempted in a roundabout way, since private ownership and the rights stemming from it are sacrosanct under capitalism.

Those capitalists are in charge of production; certainly not society as a whole, or even the government, despite its pretentions to leadership. What the government can do, in attempting to coordinate the private (and fundamentally selfish) activities of capitalists, is to introduce this or that incentive or regulation to encourage behaviour thought to benefit capitalism as a whole. The problem, though, is that capitalists will not budge, no matter how strongly cajoled, if they do not see the point (=profit) for themselves of such behaviour. This fundamental reality leaves a ‘leader’ like Abe with few options except to throw money at the problem in the form of fiscal and monetary stimulus in the hope that it will spur productive activities.

How different the situation would be in a socialist world, where no minority has a stranglehold on the means of production, which are instead held in common. There the questions related to production are transparent; no longer economic problems at all, actually, but mere ‘technical’ issues related to how to go about producing whatever the members of society have determined democratically to be necessary. No need for the domino or billiard-ball approach where every problem is only dealt with indirectly or at an angle.

Dominos still standing

So what has been the effect of Abenomics so far? Initially, the outlook was pretty rosy. Not surprisingly, the aggressive quantitative easing and 0 percent interest rate policy quickly sparked a stock exchange boom. By mid-November 2014 the Nikkei average had risen to 17,490 points, a 70 percent increase compared to the time Abe took office. The fall of the yen was equally dramatic, with the currency losing around 40 percent of its value against the dollar since Abe took office in December 2012. GDP growth also looked promising (at first), increasing in the first three quarters of 2013.

But the first flaw in the mechanistic logic of Abenomics became increasingly clear as the year 2014 progressed. The stock-market boom has done little to lift the real economy. In fact, the boom itself reflects the fact that most of the money pumped into the economy is ending up in speculative (rather than productive) activities. This reality is seen in the figures for Japan’s GDP which shrank in the second and third quarters of 2014 by 7.3 and 6 percent respectively.

Even the dramatic fall in the Japanese yen has not ended up lifting the country out of its trade deficit, as Japan recorded an excess of imports over exports of 893 billion yen in November, marking the its 29th consecutive month for trade to be in the red.

Wages also have not risen much either, despite Abe’s appeals to corporate leaders. In August 2014, real wages (adjusted for inflation) fell by 2.6 percent year-on-year, the 14th straight month of declines. The bottom-line of profit has again proved to be a weightier concern to capitalists than the opinions of politicians or the public.

On top of all these setbacks to the plan, the Bank of Japan is even having difficulty reaching its 2 percent inflation target. This is particularly troublesome for Captain Abe and his obsessive crew, since deflation has been their White Whale that had to be slayed at all cost. Rather than admit defeat in this quest, the BOJ has decided to  increase the monetary stimulus by enlarging to 80 trillion yen the annual target for expanding the monetary base, as compared to the previous 60 to 70 trillion yen range.

In short, although the first two arrows may have hit the mark insofar as their immediate goals, few of the expected knock-on effects have materialized. This should not be too terribly surprising to anyone, especially to the members of the LDP, since for well over two decades Japanese governments have experimented with similar monetary and fiscal policies in the hope of economic recovery.

It goes without saying that the experiment failed (again and again). Slashing interest rates to zero was not the answer; nor did previous stimulus packages provide much incentive to the real economy. Japan introduced no fewer than 15 stimulus packages between 1992 and 2008, averaging around 2.3 percent of the country’s overall GDP.

What grew as a result of these efforts was not the economy but government debt; to the point where it is now 780 trillion yen, which is roughly 240 percent of Japan’s GDP, forcing the government to channel around 40 percent of its revenue to the servicing of this debt.

Abe himself seems to be well aware that ‘Abenomics’ will hit the wall sooner or later, if it hasn’t made contact already. His decision to call a snap general election in December, even though he had two years left in his current term, was widely recognized as stemming from his expectation that things are likely to get worse, economically. Better to call an election now, he reasoned, while the opposition is in disarray, than to wait another year or two.

The ploy worked, as the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito preserved their two-thirds parliamentary majority, while around half the population abstained from voting at all. But Abe may have been too clever by half; in making Abenomics the centrepiece of his campaign, he has laid further claim to his responsibility for the performance of the Japanese economy. The prime minister is free to remain in office another four years, but with his 'three arrows' looking more like damp squibs he may not last that long.

Michael Schauerte

Half Marx: Flanders Flounders (2012)

From the November 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whenever capitalism gets into an economic crisis there is a revival of interest in Marx, and not just amongst critics of capitalism. So it was to be expected that Marx’s ideas should be examined in BBC Economics Editor, Stephanie Flanders’ recent three-part programme for BBC2 and the Open University: ‘Masters of Money’.

She examine first the ideas of Keynes (who advocated government intervention to save capitalism), then the obscure and slightly batty Austrian School economist Friedrich August von Hayek (who wanted to free capitalism from all government interference, which not even his great admirer Thatcher dared to try). Marx’s turn came last, on 1 October.

Flanders got two things right. First, that Marx analysed capitalism as an economy that pitted two classes – profit-seeking capitalists and wage-dependent workers – against each other. Second, that Marx saw capitalism as an inherently unstable system under which economic crises and downturns were bound to occur from time to time.

But she got it wrong on two other, crucial points. First, her claim, repeated several times, that Marx had offered no alternative to capitalism. Second, she made Marx have an “underconsumptionist” (workers can’t buy back) theory of capitalist crises.

Marx’s alternative

It is true that Marx did not believe in drawing up recipes for the cookshops of the future, but he did describe the basis of the society he thought was going to replace capitalism: “an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common” (chapter 1 of Capital); “a co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production” (Critique of the Gotha Programme); “abolition of private property”, “the Communistic abolition of buying and selling”, “the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production” (Communist Manifesto); “abolition of the wages system” (Value, Price and Profit). In short, a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society based on the common ownership of the means of production.

It was probably inevitable that what happened in Russia and Eastern Europe would be seen as a failed attempt to replace capitalism, with disastrous results. So Flanders went to visit a former Stasi prison in East Berlin but, to be fair, she didn’t overdo this and at one point hinted that Marx might not have approved. Indeed he wouldn’t. He would surely have recognised this as a form of capitalism, based on the exploitation of wage-labour by a minority which controlled the state – state capitalism.

What Marx did not say

According to Flanders, Marx’s theory of crises was that they are caused when the total income of the workers falls too low so that they are unable to buy all the products that the capitalists want to sell to them. So capitalism is in a bind: capitalists seek to maximise profits and this can only be done at the expense of wages. But, if wages are reduced, so is the market for goods. On the other hand, if wages go up, the market does expand, but profits go down, reducing the capitalist’s incentive to invest in production.

The trouble is that this simplistic theory has been put forward by people who regard themselves as Marxists. They argue that the crisis of the 1970s was caused by workers pushing up wages and so squeezing profits and that this provoked a fightback by Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s on behalf of the capitalists. This, in turn resulted in the workers’ share in national income falling. For a while workers’ consumption was kept going by their going into debt, but when their credit ran out, the crisis caused by a fall in total workers’ income broke out. This is the view put forward, for instance, in Richard Wolff’s widely viewed video When Capitalism Hits the Fan.

Flanders accepted this as Marx’s view. But it wasn’t. This theory is based on the fallacy that capitalism is a system geared to meeting consumption and that the market is made up of paying demand for consumer goods only. In fact, the market is also made up of paying demand for producer goods (machinery, raw materials, intermediate goods and energy) so what the workers can’t buy the capitalists can. It is this business reinvestment of profits in expanding production that is the driving force of the capitalist economy, and it is variations in this – not in workers’ consumption – that causes capitalism’s instability.

Capitalism is a system geared to capital accumulation which falters, as now, when the prospects for profit fall, resulting in capitalists choosing not to spend their share of national income. This inevitably happens sooner or later in a boom when capitalists in one key sector of the economy in their pursuit of profits overproduce in relation to the demand for their products and this has a knock-on effect on the rest of the economy, leading to a more general economic downturn.

The end of capitalism

Flanders also talked of Marx arguing that economic crises would get worse and worse and would eventually lead to, as she put it, “the total collapse of capitalism”. It is true that in the Communist Manifesto, a political manifesto rather than a work of economics and written before Marx undertook his detailed study of capitalism, he did refer to “more extensive and more destructive crises” but never expressed the view nor expected that capitalism would collapse of its own accord through its inherent economic contradictions. He saw capitalism coming to an end, but through the political action of those he called its “gravediggers”, the exploited working class. In other words, capitalism had to be done to death. It still needs to be.

Adam Buick

The Sweet Life (1961)

Film Review from the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

La Dolce Vita, the Italian film now showing at the Columbia and the Curzon, is worth attention. The action is centred in Rome over seven days and nights (a sly dig at the story of creation?). The opening sequence sets the scene for the bitter, searing and uncompromising revelation of our diseased society. A helicopter is carrying an effigy of Christ low over Rome followed by another occupied by a newspaper reporter and photographer. Subsequently we learn that these two are attached to a scandal-mongering tabloid but we surmise that in the meanwhile that this is a stunt and that the occasion is one of the not infrequent religious holidays. Suddenly we see St. Peter's Square below. Thousands are gathered receiving benediction from the Pope. We are left in no doubt of the relationship of the events—two stunts both concerned only with a cynical exploitation of ignorance, fear and uncertainty.

That evening we see the same reporter in one of the more exclusive night-clubs of Rome smelling out sensation and scandal and noting the useless itineraries of the notables of "society". Eventually he finds himself alone in the company of a rich young heiress who takes him to her palace (the term is used literally) in her fabulous car. There they encounter two prostitutes. The rich young lady, sensing a common bond with one of these (for as we are made well aware, they are two opposite sides of the same coin) offers to take her home. The contrast between the affluence of the rich and the dismal quarters of the prostitute is driven home cruelly. The more so since the rich young thing, weary no doubt of the boredom of her parasitical existence decides to fornicate with the young man in the prostitutes' own bed, suffusing herself, as she imagines with the sensuous pleasures of promiscuity. Of the coarseness, the soliciting, the squalor, the pimps, the degradation, she knows—or wants to know—nothing.

Another episode is in an altogether different vein. A little boy and girl claim to have had a vision outside their home and to have spoken to "Our Lady". The credulity and hysteria which follow lay bare the blind belief and ignorance which go with religion. We see the maimed and crippled gather for succour. Others come out of curiosity, anxious not to miss any possible "modern" miracles. All this is exploited shamelessly by the methods of modern mass communication. The pent-up frenzy and the latent violence that is its accompaniment bursts forth at the end into the immolation and despoilment by the crowd of the tree where the vision is said to have appeared. Symbolic this of the brutality and violence underlying blind faith and belief so characteristic of our time.

Another episode takes us into the palace of a rich aristocrat where a party is taking place. The utter depravity and stupidity of these people are hammered home in scene after scene. Lechery, promiscuity, avidity, inanity are all ruthlessly exposed. We are never allowed for an instant to forget that these people are possessed of enormous wealth and resources. The great disparities of wealth ownership so characteristic of capitalist society are made clear for all to see. These people are portrayed for what they are—useless, parasitic, diseased.

The final orgiastic episode may be said to crown this unsparing condemnation of hypocritical capitalist morality with one code for the poor and one for the rich.

Max Judd 

Irish eyes (1982)

Book Review from the July 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Frank Faces of the Dead by Richard Montague, New Horizon

This short novel (190 pages) set around a street riot in Belfast which later develops into a bloody battle between the two IRAs (official and provisional) and the British army is essential reading for an understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland.

Written by a socialist, it succeeds well in introducing the socialist argument (through one of the characters, Nora Quinn, a nurse in a Belfast hospital) without turning the novel into a political tract. But even without this the basic story, bringing out the utter futility of violence, is itself an illustration of the socialist case.

Here, for instance, is how the "hero", Johnny Cairns of the Official IRA, recalls one of Nora's arguments, in the course of the battle:

Freedom . . . freedom . . . FREEDOM!
Before man can be anything, Johnny, Catholic, Protestant, English, Irish, black or white, freeman or slave, he must be LIVING—not dead!! In order to live he needs food, clothing, shelter, Johnny, and in order to live in freedom, he needs free and equal access to these things. Will your Luger create the conditions of abundance for freedom, Johnny? Is your gun the great revelation? The precursor of universal knowledge? Have you revolutionised the gun? Changed its historic role of enslaver to that of emancipator? Is it to be the voice of the people with the alchemistic power to make freedom, the fruit of knowledge, grow on the barren boughs of ignorance and acceptance?

And how Nora explains the historical background to a young recruit to the Provisional IRA:

Dermot, I don't want to go back into history; suffice it to say that the propertied class in Ireland, at the turn of the century, the established capitalists in the North and their fledgling class-brethren in the South, were politically divided. In the South, they wanted control over their own political affairs in order to legislate conditions in which they could nourish their developing capitalist economy—they needed to restrict competition with tariff walls and import quotas.In the North, on the other hand, capitalism was well established, developed against the British home market. So the Northern capitalists needed to maintain the link with Britain to sell their wares and the Southern capitalists needed protection from British capitalism.
The workers, North and South, because they mistakenly associated their interests with the fortunes of their masters, were lined up behind the capitalists in their respective areas. The Southern capitalists rallied the people there behind them by appeals to patriotism and the notion that if they had their own government they would be free. The Northern gentlemen achieved their end by exploiting historical fictions and blatantly promoting religious bigotry.

There's more too on the futility of leadership and the need for socialist knowledge, on the state capitalist nature of Russia and nationalisation.

Adam Buick

Richard Montague's dedication in the book.

Editorial: Patriots without countries (1982)

Editorial from the July 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the more disturbing and threatening features of the Falklands crisis has been the way in which it has been bolstered by a mass of patriotic nonsense. So intense has this been, that to stand out against it has been something of an act of courage—and this in a country whose government claimed to be fighting for human liberty. So receptive have British workers been to the nonsense that at one stage it might have been feared that they would swallow any deception provided it came from "their" side. It was reminiscent of the lurid deceptions about atrocities committed by German troops at the beginning of World War One—of babies tossed onto Prussian bayonets, of buckets-full of eyes torn from Belgian heads.

Patriotism is not supportable with fact and reason but by deception and prejudice. That is why it is so quickly inflates into mob frenzy, bullying and repression. In the case of the Falklands, workers were told that the British forces were sent out to protect the 1,800 Islanders. In the light of history of the ruthless, instant repression and murder of millions of people by the governments of capitalism, when it suited their interests to do so, this sudden concern for the fate of the Falklanders is a sick joke. It needs very little thought to dismiss it as a cruel deception which will cost many working class lives and much suffering.

The Falklands struggle is actually a dispute over the possession and exploitation of mineral resources, trading routes, the political pressures in states under severe economic stress and the wider, long term strategic aims of the Argentine ruling class, which present a threat to an established power. Whatever the outcome of this struggle the lives of the mass of people in Argentina and Britain will not change. In other words their interests are not involved; their suffering and their deaths are contributions to the fortunes of their respective ruling class. This goes too for the people of the Falklands. The war is not worth a moment's effort on the part of the working class, not the spilling of a single drop of their blood.

Workers have no interest in the Falklands because, in spite of the mouthings of politicians and media hacks, they have no country to fight for or to protect. Their "way of life" is the daily grind of exploitation, of producing surplus value to enrich their masters. Whatever Galtieri may say, Argentina is owned by its ruling class and not by the ordinary people who do all the work and some of whom have been sent to fight for the Falklands. However emotional Thatcher may wax, the fact is that Great Britain is owned by its capitalist class and not by the workers who, just as they run British capitalism, have manned the Task Force sent to recapture the Falklands.

All over the world, in every capitalist state, there are masses of people who depend for their living on the sale of their labour power. Internationally, these people have a common interest which is opposed to that of their ruling classes. The workers of Argentina have interests opposed to those of the class represented by Galtieri and the same goes in the case of the workers in Britain and the class represented by Thatcher and Foot.

This has been true for as long as there has been a society of two classes—for as long as capitalism has existed. In both world wars, for example, the workers who were fighting and killing each other were doing so in ignorance of their international common interests. Instead of firing at each other, they should have been extending the hand of fraternal greeting and unity.

For this to happen, it will first be necessary for the working class to come to an understanding of their social position under capitalism. They will need to understand that the roots of capitalism's problems lie in the nature of that society and that those problems can be ended only by the abolition of capitalism. That understanding will arm workers throughout the world with the consciousness to move society, through democratic political revolution, into a fundamentally different phase.

This phase is called socialism. The end of capitalism must lead to its replacement by a social system based on the communal ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. This society will be without classes and therefore will have a unity of human interests. People everywhere will co-operate in the production of goods and services and everyone will have free access to that wealth.

The unity of socialism will unleash, for the first time in history, the full powers of the human race. In one way or another, private property society has been a brake on these powers and at no time has this been more apparent than under capitalism, which has dramatically developed productive powers and then either held back or tragically misused them. One ready example of this misuse has been the fiendishly clever weaponry in use in the South Atlantic.

Socialism will be established by an international people who have seen through the divisive cynicism of patriotism. They will opt for common ownership and free access because they will be conscious that private property society produced poverty, war, famine, disease and a host of other equally desperate social ills. They will want to free human resources and abilities to produce the abundance of wealth of which we are capable. Socialism will achieve all of this; in stark contrast to patriotism, it will be the highest stage of human social organisation.

Star Trek: First Contact (1997)

From the July 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

It's official: the future is socialist. We have it on no less authority than Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. In this film spin-off from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation the crew of the Enterprise boldly go back in time to the twenty-first century to save the planet Earth from an invasion by the dreaded Borg (cyborg, half-organic—half-machine), who not only threaten to take over the world but also the future. Of course the outcome should come as no surprise. But there is one scene on the Enterprise where Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) explains to a bewildered woman from the twenty-first century that in the future (Star Trek's present) money has been abolished.

This is no accident of the script. The creator of Star Trek, the late Gene Roddenberry, framed the series so that, whatever the external threat, the crew of the Enterprise remained classless. No money, no wages, no class struggle. In one episode of the first series the crew rescued a few people travelling through space in a cryogenic stasis. Asleep for hundreds of years, their first thought on re-awakening was that their stocks and shares should now be worth a fortune. Captain Kirk and other crew members implied that stocks and shares no longer existed. And this was the problem Roddenberry had: there was only so much he could get away with (he had already the audacity to get a black female in the crew, at a time when it was rare for black men to get on the TV screen). It was not long into the first series that Roddenberry lost day-to-day control to other interests. Sponsors, the TV networks, actors. In particular, William Shatner (as Captain Kirk) was mainly responsible for introducing a militaristic and hierarchical element into the structure of the Enterprise crew—this was during the Vietnam War—and to this day the other actors of the first series admit to hating his guts.

Roddenberry oversaw the re-birth of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but soon lost control completely to its current producer Rick Berman. The latest TV Star Trek series, Star Trek: Voyager has virtually nothing to do with Roddenberry's original ideas, and Berman has explicitly introduced an element of class struggle into the structure of the crew (perhaps to make up for the uninteresting new storyline). As producer of Star Trek: First Contact, the inclusion of a reference to a moneyless society is a nod in Roddenberry's direction. Besides that this is probably the best so far of the Trek films: check it out on video.

Lew Higgins

Good work in Manchester (1906)

From the December 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrade,

Just a brief record of work done on behalf of the S.P.G.B. in Manchester and district during the past few weeks. On Sunday, September 23rd, H. W. Hobart was lecturing at Salford for the S.D.F. and to him we put one or two questions at the close of his address. Not being satisfied with his replies and at the invitation of the chairman the platform was occupied for 10 minutes and the futility of the reforms advocated by the lecturer was shewn.

The Friday following we came upon the S.W. manchester S.D.F. holding forth at Russel Street, and a question or two bearing upon the lecturer's statement that the S.D.F. had always stuck to their principles, led to somewhat of a scene, the whole of the usual stock of compliments being literally showered upon us, but at the request of the crowd, the major portion of whom disagreed with this style of dealing with questions - the platform was once again occupied, the futility of reform agitation exposed, and instances given where the S.D.F. had departed from its principles by allowing men of the type of Thorne to support Liberal candidates and to hide their Socialism as Labour candidates, etc. Receiving an invitation to appear next week and to have our statements publicly exposed as untruths, we appeared at the appointed time and produced samples of Will Thorne's election literature, Mr. G. Belt's programme, likewise his leaflet admitting his endeavour to compromise with the Liberal Party etc., etc. After a vain endeavour on the lecturer's part (Mr. A. H. Watson), to quibble and a tardy admission that the organisation may have made mistakes, the chairman stated that he would not at any future meeting take any further questions from us or allow us to oppose. (# questions were asked and answered and the platform occupied for 10 minutes). A challenge to a public representative debate was likewise ignored, During the remainder of the fine weather meetings have been held on every available evening at various spots, and on two successive Sunday mornings at the corner of Tib St, and Piccadilly we received opposition from S.D.F. speakers. The first was a German member of the S.D.F. whose name I do not remember, the other, J. McGlasson. However, we have not yet stated that we shall not take any more questions or allow opposition, but to one and all we say that we welcome your questions, further. By all means come and discuss with us.

What the average worker cannot see is the reason why the S.D.F. fear debate. To both opponents our words were as follow, "We are prepared to meet in free and open debate, any representative your organisation may choose, whether he be your University educated man or a member of the middle class with all the educational advantages accruing from that position, our organisation will oppose to him a workman, and the workers can decide which organisation is worthy of the support of the working class." Why did McGlasson shake his head so sorrowfully when he publicly received this invitation to his organisation to debate? Did he think of the days gone by when the S.D.F. members boasted that they were prepared to meet all comers? One thing we do know and that is the crowd wanted to enquire for itself and the manifestoes sold well that morning.

Since coming to Manchester we have, up to the time of writing, disposed of over 750 copies of THE STANDARD, 200 copies of the Manifesto, and 52 copies of "Handcraft to Capitalism" and more are on order for.

The Revolutionists.

On Religion (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

Throughout human history, various religions have evolved as questions have arisen about the nature of human existence. Standing in awe of nature, early humankind wondered at the apparently superior powers of permanence and survival of other animals and of the natural environment as a whole. Now, thousands of years later, there are numerous different world religions, each with their own rituals, laws and customs.

The major religions such as Christianity or Islam have spread to dominate large parts of the globe, and are united by their belief in a "God". Religion, like everything else, has been subject to evolutionary change, and the fortunes of each religion have depended largely on the growth in the military power of the regimes they were associated with. In more recent times, however, the great increase in our ability to produce wealth and to develop natural resources has removed the powerlessness in the face of nature which had been the background to the original emergence of religious thought.

In the course of time, a whole pantheon of deities, each with its separate responsibilities, had become collectivised, fused by human minds into one almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent "power", whether it was called Allah, Jehovah, or whatever. This supposed divine being still holds the respect of millions of people. Throughout the world, "sacred" texts written centuries ago are studied and interpreted on the assumption that they were passed down by this supreme power which is supposed to have created the world; why he should have created it we are left to guess. Each religion offers its own fantastic, imaginative stories about the same supposed "act" of creation. Favour, special attention and blessings are solicited from the supreme being under various names.

The history of religion itself shows how all of these theories and different suppositions have been nothing but the creative imaginings fashioned by human inventiveness. Each religion has had its own morality, as an attempt to map out an ethical code of human conduct. Such precepts have been enforced by the threat of the most terrible perils if they were transgressed.

The religion which came to dominate large parts of the world, particularly with the advent of early capitalism, was of course Christianity. Its background can be traced in part to the way in which Moses is supposed to have given the emergent property laws of ancient Egypt a holy stamp by declaring that he had received them from "God" at the top of a mountain. The growing class society was formulating class morality to fulfil the need of the social order for obedient "righteousness". As it emerged from its Judaistic antecedents, Christianity proved to be a doctrine of mental subservience, coupled with force and coercion for those who needed convincing of its sublime "truths".

THE RISE AND FALL OF CHRISTIAN DOMINANCE

In the present period, we see Christianity and religion in general in many parts of the world dwindling from its former stranglehold over people's minds. The times when its officials could order death and maiming to unbelievers are over, at least in Europe and many other parts of the world. The churches do still have influence, but many of today's believers are caught in mental dilemmas over which moral viewpoint to adopt over social issues such as genetic engineering, female clergy, euthanasia and nuclear weapons, in addition to the routine theological niceties of the after-life, the holy trinity and so on. These modern social contradictions are showing up theology for the nonsense it is: such are the problems of being a believer within modern capitalism. The crew of mystics identified as parsons, priests, deacons, reverends, very reverends and popes continually scour through texts to come forward with nice little anecdotes in an effort to solve these dilemmas; they serve up instances from centuries ago, when a certain prophet, angel or disciple acted "correctly".

"Seek and ye shall find", they advise, but many workers seek for a lifetime to puzzle out the ridiculous riddles, and the priests become desperate in their efforts to stem the growing tide of dissatisfaction, disbelief and uncertainty surrounding the ability of "God" to provide the answers.

On the questions that need answering most urgently, concerning war or starvation, religion has little to offer. Religions and their followers by and large take no serious account of the workings of capitalism. According to their theological outpourings down the ages, the cause of these problems is the "evil, wickedness and sin" contained within the human soul. They ask us to love our neighbour and "turn the other cheek": a hopeless cause in a social system dominated by the vicious drive for profit How can people change without understanding and changing the society which forms us and which we form? Amongst the violence of a place like Northern Ireland, we witness the spectacle of growing numbers of smiling evangelists, eager to make fresh converts by stressing compassion rather than hell-fire, in an attempt to enhance the appeal of their doctrines.

"GOOD" VERSUS "EVIL"

Religion teaches the farcical notion that there exist "forces" of good and evil, and that these derive from before the world was "created". In this tug of war between "God" and "Satan", the prizes are the souls of mortals, the stage is the universe, and the whole of humanity is supposedly torn endlessly between these two moral absolutes. Humankind is seen as a helpless pawn at the command and mercy of these two embattled supernatural beings. Today the churches have to try harder to convince us of the validity of their confusing servile dogma, as it is in direct opposition to the continuing rapid growth in scientific and historical knowledge. Computers, space travel and modern surgical techniques throw the dark and superstitious mysteries of religion into perspective as being dangerously irrational. The philosophical gap between rational and irrational thought grows ever wider, as scientific enquiry and historical research spreads its searchlight deeper into the very heart of religion itself.

One of the most pernicious aspects of religion is that workers should regard their lives as a trial or test to keep the faith, in order to be welcomed "up above"; the material world is also supposed to represent an inferior existence compared with the immortal, spiritual (and non-existent) life hereafter.

THE END OF IDEALISM

If humans are to reach an understanding of the nature of their existence, which is an integral part of all existence, they must abandon the religious outlook. If workers are to solve these riddles, we must grasp how the riddle arises, and how and why we are kept fuelled with organized ignorance. To overcome that ignorance we must utilize that part of material reality which is capable of gathering and examining the reflections it receives: the human brain. As a physiological organ which is tangible, fixed and related to the senses via the central nervous system, it can process the palpable impressions it receives.

The process of thinking is a function of the brain. It digests the sensory experiences it receives from the rest of the environment and, with its ability to think abstractly, it can perform the tasks of reasoning, memory and imagination. It can store and retain previous experiences. It can conceive of all kinds of things which do not correspond to any form in objective reality. For example, by mental application of the colour green to small humans, it conceives of "little green men". It could do this even before sensory experiences furnished the brain with the imaginative notion that their place of origin might be the planet Mars. It can conceive of tooth-fairies, fire-breathing dragons, Santa Claus, infinity, and, through a mistaken conception it can contrive an explanation for the origin of its own existence, together with that of everything else, as being the mysterious work of a "God". But nothing has or ever will be brought into existence simply by the cerebral act of believing and imagining. If all the believers in the world gathered together to pray for one of their Gods' tears to fall on them in pity, you can be sure they would remain frustrated.

Idealism teaches the myth that material phenomena derive ultimately from an "ideal existence" consisting of divine will, morality, justice, law or whatever. But such a world of ideals is itself the product of human thought How else can we explain how the "heaven" or paradise put forward by each religion has so closely reflected the society from which it has emerged? Christians continue to debate incessantly about the precise relationship between the "two worlds" which they suppose to exist (the spiritual and the secular), whereas in fact the "ideal existence" is only a product of the consciousness of human beings, a master which we have erected in order to bow down to. As such, it is simply another part of the one material universe we inhabit Like all other ideas, religious ideas have arisen within the material world which is constantly evolving, and giving rise to fresh ideas. From matter and motion there emerge problems and contradictions; these will be resolved not by retreating into irrational or religious thought but by dealing in terms of cause and effect.

The cause of the social contradictions we suffer from lies in the social network of material relations, which governs the production and distribution of wealth. Within capitalism, the present form of this network, production is carried out for profit, and the chaos which ensues produces a social system wholly unsuited to providing for our needs and collective desires. For these to be met we must develop a conscious understanding of the present social system, in order to organise for its replacement by socialism.

RELIGION AND NORTHERN IRELAND

In Northern Ireland, religion is a weapon used to further the ambitions of contesting sections of the capitalist class, and to conceal the real reason for social conflict, which is the class struggle. There are many examples of religious intolerance; the effects of the "divine message" have been far from "good", "holy" or "pure". It has become the means to identify a person's possible support for the Unionist or Republican cause.

The political options of being governed from London or Dublin are of no benefit to the working class of Northern Ireland, both protestant and catholic; their interests as a class are never discussed. The political representatives of the capitalist class in Northern Ireland depend for their livelihood on the continued existence of prejudice, both of the religious sort and of the other vote-catcher, patriotism. These attitudes regrettably form the basis of the political outlook of many workers in Northern Ireland.

Whenever these capitalistic prejudices are seen to be under threat, many workers are sure to respond, not with religious "compassion" and "love", or with patriotic "goodwill", but with violence. This is so much the case, that political spokesmen of the hostile factions daily parade their confidence in threats of violence and disorder. These mouthpieces are fearless because they know that if "necessary", some workers will make sacrifices to offer themselves as martyrs to preserve the respective reputations of their political gangs. There is no shortage in Northern Ireland of religious demagogues peddling their various "truths" and persuasions, all of them only too anxious to lead workers to the "land of milk and honey". Similarly, it is their fashion to extol the sanctity of property, along with the "wonderfulness, serenity and beauty" of servility, in that order. Hand in hand, the political orators and the preachers perform their necessary role for the capitalist class, one which attempts to indoctrinate workers in Northern Ireland by the distortion, omission and suppression of thoughts regarding their real emancipation.

They grow financially rich on the money offered from workers' pay-cheques, derived from holy and sacred wage-slavery. They conspicuously ignore the supposed virtues of their professed mentor, such as humility and denial, which are reserved exclusively for the flock. They grow rich egoistically on the miseries and helpless sense of powerlessness which many workers often feel. Socialism to them is a "godless creed". With its prospect of real emancipation, happiness and social equality, it is a victim of their malicious and irrational fictions.

When confronted by capitalism's array of problems and insecurities, and by our defeated desires and discontentment with the lives we are forced to lead, workers often turn down the cul-de-sac of religion for release, to ask from our knees that the "Supreme Boss" may assist and help us. When we are forced to sell ourselves to a class who squeeze us for profits, while being told to swallow large helpings of the ideological filth which lends support to our oppression, we feel a painful lack of real conscious control or of any substantial influence over our role in society. In prayers and rituals, the producers of the world beg of this "Cosmic Good Guy" that the realities of their class position be lessened to enable them to live their lives without the numerous problems they must daily face.

HUMAN EMANCIPATION

Religion provides no answers, just a sedative, solace and false hope. It is the perfume to mask the stinking realities of modern capitalism. It is a jumbled confusion, lacking any concrete provable basis, beneficial to the parasites and useless to the working class. For those wishing to develop a practical approach towards comprehending the nature of existence and of social change, this is provided by the materialist outlook advocated by socialists. Socialists stand in opposition to idealism and to all religious thought together with all other notions of workers being unequal, below, or secondary to any class or any "God". Socialism will see the establishment of a confident society with the realization of humans as the supreme beings in consciously shaping our own lives. 

Brian Hawkes (Ireland)

Our General Election Campaign (2015)

From the February 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party will be standing ten candidates in the coming general election, more than we have ever put up before. Half a million leaflets will be distributed in total in the chosen constituencies, which are:

Brighton Kemptown: Jacqueline Shodeke

Brighton Pavilion: Howard Pilott

Canterbury: Robert Cox

Easington: Steve Colborn

Folkestone & Hythe: Andy Thomas

Islington North: Bill Martin

Oxford East: Kevin Parkin

Oxford West & Abingdon: Mike Foster

Swansea West: Brian Johnson

Vauxhall: Danny Lambert

If you wish to help out in the campaign email us at spgb@worldsocialism.org or phone 02076223811 or text (only) 07732831192. We will put you in touch with the local branch election committee.

If you wish to help financially please make any cheque out to “The Socialist Party of Great Britain” and send to 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Alternatively, you can use paypal (go to our website http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/ and scroll down to the bottom).  Electoral law compels us to check and record any donations of over £50 but not for those of £50 or less.

Under the Iron Heel. (1922)

From the May 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the Big War, on one occasion when a crowd was dispersed in Turin for demanding bread, by the simple expedient of dropping bombs on them from airplanes, the present writer gave it as his opinion that this method would be resorted to in future disputes between the oppressors and the oppressed, and that this occasion marked its introduction as a permanent feature under capitalism. Events since then have fully born out that statement.

Wherever we turn—India, Egypt, Africa, in fact, any place where "rebellion" is in progress—there you will find this latest instrument of slaughter freely used. So far, this method has not been employed in this country, but it is not too much to say that if the capitalist class take it into their heads that this method is the best and most effective for producing "order," its introduction will not be long delayed. A few mass meetings of the out-of-works and strikers, and the unemployment problem would be solved!

Its use on the Rand, where hundreds of Trade Unionists were in the midst of a trade dispute which had developed into a test of violence, is sufficiently recent to be remembered.

However justifiably workers may have acted in taking any particular line, the point to be remembered is that the master class is determined to smash up such efforts, and will not scruple to use any means to effect that end.

The writer has been asked his opinion regarding the scenes depicted in the novel by Upton Sinclair, "King Coal," as to whether they were, or were not, exaggerated. Readers of that book will remember that Mr. Sinclair describes the system supposed to be in operation in the mining districts of the Western States, where hired thugs, spies, and other evils are employed by the capitalists against the workers. I gave it as my opinion that these evils were in way exaggerated, and the recent reports from the States conform the correctness of that opinion.

The mine owners in West Virginia seem determined to stamp out the movement for organising the workers into the United Mine Workers' Union. More than 45,000 miners are already enrolled in this Union, and the organisers were determined to get another 45,000 non-unionists in. These are mostly located in the Logan and Mingo counties, where, it seems, the mine owners are in complete command of the county administration, with the sheriffs also in their pay. As most of the houses tenanted by the miners are owned by the companies, naturally the first thing the latter did was to threaten with eviction every man joining the Union.

This they did, utilising for the purpose detectives of the Baldwin-Felt Agency, who are notorious gunmen. Fights were the result, with the loss of life on both sides. On one occasion, during a march of Union men, they were met by troops and mine guards, which resulted in a battle in the mountains lasting for days.

Whenever things are not lively enough for the gunmen, they proceed to "shoot up" a town or two in order to strike terror into the hearts of the miners and their families. The State Attorney-General himself admits that the mine owners hold the entire machinery of administration in their grip, so that the miners in their quest for "justice" find themselves "up against it" at every turn. The latest reports show that efforts are being made to have the United Mine Workers declared an illegal association! ("Manchester Guardian," 28/10/21.)

Another account, taken from the "Toiler" (New York), says: -

The mines, stores, churches, schools, hospitals, homes, Press, and the entire governmental machinery are owned outright by the coal barons. The salaries of deputy sheriffs are paid by the operators, and the State Constabulary is picked from lists prepared by them. All the mining area is under the domination of the Baldwin-Felt Detective Agency's gunmen and murderers. These armed guards watch the pay rolls, collect rents, evict workers, run miners out of town, and serve as general thugs and hangmen for the capitalists. The workers are robbed going and coming . . . any defiance of this system of slavery, any sign of workers' resistance, is met with club, bayonet, and machine gun . . . Finally, Harding was appealed to for a conference. In reply to this appeal came Federal troops, aeroplanes, gas bombs, and machine-guns to crush the workers." (Quoted from the Worker, Brisbane, 2/2/22.)

Very similar to this was the way in which the workers were treated during the recent strike in the San Joaquin oilfields of California. After striking against the reduction of a dollar a day and the abolition of the Arbitration Board, they found themselves against a very formidable and well-organised resistance. The strikers themselves formed a body of pickets, whose business it was to see that no strike breakers were brought into the district, and at the same time to prevent any disorder taking place, so that a straight fight on principle could be waged. This, however, was futile. Guards were rushed in and the Press made the most of the affair—in the interests of the bosses, of course. Like the West Virginia coal owners, the oil companies had their hired thugs and spies, who conducted their operations clandestinely. Appeals to the Government were useless, and the strikers soon found themselves down and out, with the result that the strike collapsed and the men decided to return to work without having secured any advantage. When they offered to return, however, they were informed that they were not needed. It was then discovered that a very elaborate system of blacklisting had been prepared during their absence. Each company apparently possessed full particulars of every applicant for work, and on every occasion he was turned away. This soon had the effect of creating a large body of moneyless, jobless men. To make matters worse, the strikers soon discovered that the names on the black list had been circulated by the companies among the traders of the town, so that it was an impossibility to obtain credit. As in most disputes, the Press endeavoured to show that the trouble was due to the agitation set up by the Bolsheviks, Socialists, and what not. Raids made on the homes of individuals resulted in the finding of quantities of seditious literature, which, as is usual in such case, had been carefully concealed beforehand by the "finders." These facts I have taken from "The Golden Age," Brooklyn, N.Y. (15/2/22).

Altogether, what has been reported lately from the various industrial centres of America leads me to believe that what Sinclair was rather under-estimated, if anything.

One needn't be surprised, of course, at any of these things. They are not confined to America. The same class is in possession everywhere, and everywhere its methods are the same. It follows that there is only one cure—Socialism.

Tom Sala

Getting down to fundamentals (2002)

From the May 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is a spectre stalking the world – the spectre of ignorance.

We are used to hearing horror stories about Creationism, and the religious attack on science, from Mid-West America and the Islamic states. But who would have thought such lunacy would penetrate to here? It has. We've had TM (Transcendental Meditation) schools for years which teach kids to meditate and fly. They're just nuts. But systematic idiocy is on the rise. In a recent article in the Observer (17 March), it was reported that a school in the NE of England has refused to teach Darwinism, and is instead putting Creationist ideas. This is not an isolated incident; it is part of the current attack on knowledge, science and rationality.

There are two questions for us to answer: Why is Creationism still rearing its ugly head, after religion had been marginalised by previous generations and church attendance has fallen? And where do all these loony ideas come from anyway?

Understanding of the world is progress, not just in a technical sense – chemistry, satellites, computers – but also in a historical, thus class, sense. Just as the fundamental change from Catholicism to Protestantism was essential for the rise of capitalism as an ideology – for example, the Calvinist idea that God shows his favour on Earth by making merchants rich – so atheism is fundamental to us, the excluded majority, and our claim that the world is ours to run, without gods and masters, as we see fit. After all, to say that there is no heaven in the bye-and-bye translates as a positive call for revolution in the here and now. The post-modern assault on reason, which allows these wacky religious notions to be presented as just someone else's “narrative”, of equal worth to the scientific worldview, is an attack on us as a class. It is “divide-and-rule” for the mind. Whereas pope, ayatollah and archbishop presided over class rule in days gone by, now all that is required is to deny the scientific worldview any superiority.

Permanent revolution of ideas

How is this possible? It is a function of the human brain to generalise, to take two or more concepts together and come up with a broader concept. For example, feet. Each foot has different characteristics, as you find out when you go to buy shoes. But in order to mass-produce shoes, feet are generalised into sizes, and we are left to find the best fit we can. To a shoe manufacturer, there aren't 12 billion feet in the world but only categories of feet, in sizes, and width fittings if you're lucky. As long as you keep your feet on the ground, this is OK. A size 9 boot only has meaning if it fits a real foot – falling orders will soon tell a shoe manufacturer if they over-generalise and make square shoes. But without this constant reference to reality, generalisations get out of hand. A fundamentalist shoe manufacturer may decide that feet are made by God, in His Image, in perfect sizes, and real feet are only imperfect versions of the original Foot. The idea rules the reality, and the loony shoemaker produces ideal shoes and forces people to wear them, since they are getting closer to God by forcing their feet to deform and fit the shoes.

This is how religion works. You generalise from real conditions, keep the generalisation and bin the reality. The generalisations are now an ideal world, to which reality must conform. As our knowledge of the real world changes, the generalisations become outdated. At first, this seems to mark them as eternal truths, a divinely simple and regular account of a disordered and chaotic world. As time goes on, those people who live in the new, more complex world express their lives in new generalisations, and a new system confronts the old. Thus with Protestantism; thus with the Copernican worldview; and thus with evolution.

The scientific worldview attempts to overcome this; it is, at least in principle, the permanent revolution of ideas. The generalisation process is continually subjected to experimental testing: does the theory match up with the real world? You can generalise as much as you like, as long as you can verify or falsify the idea, i.e. that you test it with relation to the real world.

Institutional ignorance

The post-modern retreat from reality denies this faculty of judgment; it says that there is no way to compare ideas against each other. Each person comes up with their own way of generalising the world; their “narrative”. So someone who thinks that the Earth is flat and the moon is a melon suspended a dozen feet over their head has just as much claim to a correct account of reality as, say, an astrophysicist. Just think of Phoebe in Friends (if you watch that) and her insistence on believing in idiotic stuff like her mother's soul being in a cat, and allowing her idiocy to be unchallenged, by emotional manipulation.

This is damn clever stuff. We run society from top to bottom, so we are required to deal with scientific matters whether it be using a computer, understanding food labels, estimating the amount of paint to cover a wall, or whatever. At the same time, however, the logic of our existence as real, capable men and women who need no gods and masters to rule us is denied. Secretaries, checkout workers, or teachers we may be during the week, but we can still have our minds raped on Sunday. They do this to our children in school. The very existence of religious studies in schools depends on official ignorance. And New Labour is officially very ignorant indeed. Blair and Brown are ardent Christians, and in general this government is much more religious than previous ones. No more “White Heat of Technology”; now the black veil of incomprehension.

What is to be done? The Socialist Party stands for socialism and nothing but. However, we require a democracy for our current revolutionary strategy, and Creationism, plus post-modernism in general, is an attack on democracy in the sense of an attack on the ability to make life decisions based on one's real existence. There is no democracy amongst the brainwashed, nor amongst those whose brains have never been filled.

As students, parents, teachers – as human beings – we must fight this cancer of the mind, putting forward our positive understanding of the world against institutionalised ignorance. This is not an anti-religious crusade, it is the campaign to see the world through our eyes rather than someone else's. Religion is a class issue. We must understand our world as it is, make our own generalisations about it, come to our own conclusions. Then we must put our ideas against existing ones, and make the world in our image. Socialist propaganda is our ideas; revolution is our struggle to make those ideas a reality. Ditch god, flying saucers, yogic flying, Earth Mother Gaia, spiritualism, ouija boards, tantric head-shaving, bead-wearing, and all that other crap and join us for a world made by us, for us.

Simon Wigley

Backwaters of History - 10 (1954)

From the August 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Barcelona 1937

Just before three o'clock on the afternoon of May 3rd, 1937, three lorries were threading their way through the streets of Barcelona, heading for the huge Plaza Plaza Cataluña in the centre of the city. They emerged into the Plaza, pulled up outside the Telephone Building and a body of police guards climbed out. Their leader, Rodriguez Salas, Commissioner of Public Order, went into the building, accompanied by a few guards. As he climbed to the first floor of the ten-storey building shots were fired from the windows of the upper storeys. Reinforcements of police were rushed up and a cordon was thrown round the building; thousands of people gathered in the Plaza whilst excitement ran through the streets to all corners of the city. The tension that had gripped Barcelona during the past few weeks now broke out into street fighting.

Far away, around Madrid and in other parts of Spain, Spanish Government forces were fighting desperately against the armies of the rebel General Franco. The Government forces were re-inforced by the International Brigades whilst  Franco was assisted by arms and troops  from Germany and Italy. But the fighting in Barcelona was not the outcome of a Fascist rising; that had occurred and had been subdued a year before.

Barcelona is the principal town in the Spanish province of  Catalonia. It has a long history of revolt, insurrection and rebellion. In 1931 a Catalan Republic was proclaimed, the Spanish Republican Government issuing a decree whereby the Catalan Government was given a free hand in the organisation of the four provinces forming Catalonia, which thus became autonomous in respect of its own domestic affairs.

The Fascist insurrection which had broken out against the Republican Government of Spain in July, 1936, had met with success in some districts but had collapsed within forty-eight hours in Barcelona. Army officers had marched out the troops from the Atarazanas Barracks in Barcelona and deployed them in the streets and in the Plaza de España and the Plaza Cataluña. They occupied the Telephone Building and the Hotel Colon opposite.

In the Calle Cortes and the Via Layetana the troops were resisted by small detachments of police and civil guards. In a very short time the whole of the population of Barcelona, men, women and children, joined in the fight. Barricades went up, buildings were seized, roofs and strategic positions occupied, machine-gun nests were established and the battle spread all over the city. As soon as the troops realised that they were being used by their officers to effect a coup-de-main, they broke ranks and fraternised with the people. From that moment the Fascist cause was lost in Barcelona, for a year or two at least.

The first shots were fired at five o'clock on the morning of Sunday, July 19th, and by Monday evening, except for some desultory sniping from the roofs, the battle was over.

A general strike all over Spain had been called in a radio announcement by Largo Caballero, President of the Union General de Trabajadores (General Workers' Union led by Labourites and Communists). When the fighting was over in Barcelona the strike still held. All shops, cafes, workshops, factories, etc., were closed, and dead bodies lay out in the streets amongst the battle-scarred buildings.

The various trade unions and political parties set about re-organising and recruiting their militias, at the same time taking over the control of the city and surrounding district. Public eating-houses were opened, supplies were arranged, transport requisitioned and a system of passes and permits out into operation. Most goods were obtainable except cigarettes; looting was nil. Each of the trade unions and political parties took a prominent building for its headquarters and the red and black flag of the Confederation Nacional de Trabajo (Anarchist Trade Union) and the red flag of the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista (party of united Marxists) flew from factories, printing establishments, municipal offices, hotels and the buildings of other industrial undertakings. The proprietors of cafes, hotels and industries, were given an opportunity to work at some suitable task, side by side with their erstwhile employees, on a co-operative basis. If they declined they were dismissed.

During the struggle against the Fascist rebels and immediately after, thousands of workers flocked to join the "left" political parties without any definite understanding of the political principles involved. The enthusiasm of was immense. The Olympic Games teams, due to perform in Barcelona at that time, paraded through the city. The Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Anarchist organisation) became the most popular party. The differences between many of the organisations that existed became indistinct and there was much federating and amalgamating. All the major organisations had their own armed militia and a Militias Committee was set up with representatives from each. A Supplies Committee was formed in a similar way. As these committees commanded the only armed force remaining in Barcelona, they assumed most of the governmental power.

The official Catalonian Government was composed of Liberal Nationalists, moderate Labourites and Communists. Public services such as education and the administration of justice were left in the hands of this government whilst the committees made decisions on other matters, but in order to re-assure foreign governments, the committee's decrees were sent to the government to be officially stamped.

This dual form of control caused complications and it was eventually decided to solve the problems by reconstructing the official government so that it included representatives of all the workers' parties and the trade unions. Both the anarchists, who were anti-parliamentarian, and the P.O.U.M., which was opposed to the united front, entered this new government. On July 31st, the new government was formed with Luis Companys, a Liberal, as president. Almost immediately conflict broke out between the various political groupings. The Anarchists and the P.O.U.M. wanted to keep military power in the hands of their own organisations, whilst the Labour and Communist parties claimed that all armed forces should be under governmental control.

The Communists were anxious for support from Russia which the Russian Government was prepared to give providing such support did not conflict with its foreign policy of seeking friendly relations with Britain and France. Labourites and Communists, urged by the fear of foreign intervention in the civil war, argued that the war against Franco must take precedence over all other considerations. They called for the disbanding of the workers' armed patrols and the surrender of all arms to the government.

Towards the end of April 1937, the situation became tense. Parties accused one another of being "Fascist spies" or "Fifth Columnists." In an endeavour to discredit one group or another and to alienate support from opponents, acts of sabotage were perpetrated which endangered the success of the war against Franco. On April 25th, Roldan Cortada, leader of a Labour Youth Movement, was murdered by persons unknown near Molins de Llobregat, a suburb of Barcelona. Two days later the anarchist mayor of Puigcerda, Antonio Martin was shot and killed. Each faction looked accusingly at the others. On May 1st, all May Day demonstrations were banned for fear of disturbances. Then came the incident at the Telephone Building on May 3rd.

The Telefonica building had been in the hands of the Anarchists since they first occupied it in the early days of the Fascist uprising and they had a sentimental attachment to it. The government claimed that the Anarchists were tapping the telephone the telephone lines but the manner of government police occupation of the Telefonica on May 3rd was undoubtedly provocative.

Shooting broke out in all parts of Barcelona; practically all workers ceased work; trade union offices and political party headquarters were sandbagged; barricades were erected and machine guns placed. Luis Companys issued an order to disarm the workers' patrols but the police could not finish what they had started. The news and the trouble spread to other towns in Catalonia.

"The details of the street fighting which lasted from May 3rd. to May 7th, and cost some 950 dead, some 3,000 wounded and millions of pesetas' worth of ammunition in the worst street fighting in Europe since the Paris Commune, are still open to dispute. The general line is not."

(Civil War in Spain, by Frank Jellinek, page 545.)

The Anarchist leaders protested that they were not responsible for the fighting and, together with leaders of all other parties, appealed over the radio for a cease fire with orations that "drew tears but not obedience." (Jellinek). The Anarchist trade unions issued an order to return to work, but fighting continued. Leadership in the fighting passed into the hands of the youthful enthusiasts of the smaller extremist organisations on both sides.

The Spanish Republican Government, which had moved to Valenica from Madrid, now sent General Pozas, with 4,000 police, to take over the military governorship of Catalonia. Armed police and soldiers withdrawn from the front at Jarama, arrived in warships at Barcelona harbour. The British warship, Despatch, headed full steam for the city. The fighting subsided but an occasional incident it to flare up in odd places. The Valencian police finally suppressed all resistance ruthlessly. The rising faded out and Catalonian independence went with it. Franco finally conquered Barcelona, to which the Spanish Government had withdrawn, on January 26th., 1939, after months of heroic defence and terrific slaughter by air bombardment and naval blockade.

No capitalist government, whatever its composition, be it Liberal, Labour, Communist, Anarchist, or any mixture of them, can allow the armed forces of the state to pass out of its control. An armed working class is a menace to the system. In class society the dominant class must have at its disposal the power to maintain "law and oder" amongst the class that it dominates, even when it is divided within itself.

Bibliography:
"Civil War in Spain," by Frank Jellinek
'The Truth about Barcelona," by Fenner Brockway
"The Truth about the Barcelona Events", by Lamda
"Murder in Spain," by Roberto (Article in International Review, June, 1937)
"Spain", International Press Correspondence Special Edition, May, 1938

W. Waters

Must the Workers Control Parliament? (1928)

From the September 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the July issue of the Commune, Mr. Guy Aldred devotes some space to a criticism of the Socialist policy of gaining control of Parliament. He takes a number of passages from the report on the debate with Mr. Maxton (published in the June "S.S.") and appends his comments. He quotes correctly enough the statement that the "armed forces are provided for annually by Parliament," and then devotes a paragraph to "proving" that "Parliament does not provide the armed forces by annual voting." By the substitution of the word "provide" in place of "provide for," he is able to disprove something which we did not say. It is true that Parliament does not vote each year an Act to sanction the existence of an armed force. What it does have to do each year is to pass the Army (Annual) Act without which the maintenance of discipline would become impossible, and it has to vote each year the monies needed for the upkeep of those armed forces. If Parliament did not pass the Army Act and vote supplies, the armed forces would cease to exist.

He admits the correctness of the statement that "those who control Parliament control the armed forces," but adds the comment that the Capitalists "are the controllers of Parliament because they are the owners of surplus-value." This is simply not true. Capitalist candidates are placed in control of Parliament (as Mr. Aldred admits) by working-class votes, and the Capitalist class do not exercise, and have no means of exercising compulsion on the workers to make them vote for Capitalism. Unfortunately, the workers vote for Capitalist candidates from choice.

Mr. Aldred's statement that "every person who is elected to Parliament and participates in its work is an agent of Capitalism" requires some explanation.

What does he mean by "participates in its work"? Socialist candidates will be elected to Parliament to use it for the purpose of instituting Socialism.

Mr. Aldred denies that it is necessary for the workers to obtain control of the political machinery in order to establish Socialism, but beyond an unsupported assertion that it is contrary to the "common sense of the working-class experience" and to the materialist conception of history, he avoids giving any reason why control of the political machinery will not serve the purpose of a Socialist Party. As the working-class have never attempted to use Parliament for the purpose of establishing Socialism, it would be interesting to know of what experience Mr. Aldred is thinking.

After roundly condemning the Socialist Party (among other things, Mr. Aldred makes the lying statement that we advocate "the Nationalisation" of the I.L.P., under which the wage-labourer remains a wage-labourer") he goes onto offer to support our candidates at election provided they pledge themselves "to challenge the oath of allegiance." So Mr. Aldred can swallow the "Nationalisation of the I.L.P.," provided the pill is sugared with a meaningless pledge to challenge the oath of allegiance. Mr. Aldred's place would appear to be in the I.L.P.

Edgar Hardcastle