Not another Labour Party (1968)

From the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some trade unionists, fed up with Labour's increasingly obvious anti-working class stand, have suggested that the unions should once again set up their own party. For, of course, this was how the Labour Party began. At the turn of the century union leaders, alarmed at the anti-union bias of the Courts, took up the suggestion of men like Keir Hardie for a party, independent of both the Liberals and the Tories, to represent Labour. It was not until 1918 that individuals could join the Labour Party. Before then the Party was little more than a trade union parliamentary pressure group (generally backing the Liberal government).

It has always been Labour's claim to be the political arm of the Trade Union Movement. This claim is wearing a bit thin now. But many unionists still accept that the unions needs some political arm. If the Labour Party no longer represents them, why not set up another party?

In May 1966 Danny McGarvey, the boilermakers' leader, said that the unions might have to put up their own men against some official Labour candidates. Last November, Joe Gormley, the Lancashire miners' leader, suggested that, in view of the Labour government's policies, the miners and others might have to consider forming a new party — "a trade union party". Of course Gormley, a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, did not really mean this. Only a few days later he was elected chairman of the NEC's organisation sub-committee (which deals with discipline). All the same he did start off some discussion. A few miners' lodges did break with Labour. Pottery Workers' Union secretary Alfred Dulson, whose union has already stopped financing Labour, said:

I am sure this is the way trade unionists have got to go. The Labour Party no longer represents the interests of trade unions (Financial Times, 13 November 1967).

But the Scottish miners' leader, Lawrence Daly, wrote in the Morning Star of 17 November:

Withdrawal of the political levy is a mistake which can bring joy only to the Conservative Party and the millionaire press. The suggestion that miners might have to consider forming a new trade union party is totally irresponsible.

Daly's love for Labour is only recent. Unlike McGarvey and Gormley he did not just talk about opposing Labour; he actually did so. After leaving the so-called Communist Party Daly and some supporters set up a "Fife Socialist League". In 1958 he defeated Labour (and Communist) candidates to become a county councillor and in the 1959 General Election he polled nearly 5,000 votes in West Fife against the sitting Labour man or, as he would have put it, the Labourite. One of the reasons he gave as to why miners should vote for him was that W. W. Hamilton. the Labour MP, had refused to support a miners' wage demand! But times change and Daly is himself now a Labourite.

Of course trade unionists and workers generally have nothing to gain from supporting Labour. And of course they need to take political action to solve their problems. The question is: what sort of political action? To suggest setting up another party along the lines of Labour is stupid. For the Labour Party, by its very nature, was doomed to failure from the start. It has failed to protect the interests of the working class—and has in fact done just the opposite—not through any lack of sincerity but because any party that takes on the task of governing under capitalism must face the fact that capitalism is a class system and that it runs on profits. Governments must protect this system so that inevitably they are brought into conflict with the working class. This was the whole  fallacy of Labourism. It held that a party of workers could run capitalism differently from a party of businessmen or landowners. But, as experience has shown, they cannot.

Labour MP's are not elected on a Socialist (many are too scared even to use the word in their vote-catching campaigns) but on a reform programme. Returned to power all they can do is, as Mr. Wilson never tires of telling us, to govern, to keep capitalism going. In the process even mild reform plans and links with workers' organisation go by the board.

What is needed is not another Labour Party but a Socialist party: a party that is quite opposed to capitalism: a party that takes its stand on the interests of workers elsewhere; a party that struggles for Socialism and nothing less. Such a party already exists in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Adam Buick

Material World: Indigenous Suicides (2015)

The Material World Column from the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Throughout the world indigenous peoples suffer from high rates of alcoholism and suicide. Relocation, epidemics, depopulation, and subjugation have put indigenous peoples everywhere at high risk of depression and anxiety. Every culture provides ways by which individuals may satisfy their needs for meaning, prestige, and status. Small-scale, hunter-gatherer societies provide several: excellence in hunting, storytelling, or as a healer. Whatever its size, complexity or environment, a central task of any culture is to provide its members with a sense of belonging and purpose. What happens, then, when a people's way of life is destroyed through disease, genocide, loss of territory, and repression of language and culture? It leads to self-destruction. James Anaya, former United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples said suicides among indigenous youth, across the globe, are common in situations where tribe members have seen the upheaval of their culture, which produces in the indigenous a lack of self-confidence and grounding about who they are. ‘They see taking their own lives as unfortunately and sadly an option,’ he said.

In the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death for American Indian and Alaska Native men ages 15 to 34, and is two and a half times higher than the national average for that age group. 75 percent of Native American men and one third of Native American women can be classified as alcoholics or alcohol abusers. These numbers are amazing, and do not even accurately reflect the far-reaching effects of alcohol abuse, such as physical problems, mental illness, community violence, unemployment, and domestic abuse. Indians die from alcohol-related causes at a rate four times higher than the rest of United States citizens. In fact, four of the top ten causes of death among Indians are alcohol related.

Australian Aboriginal people commit suicide at a far younger age than non-Aboriginal Australians, with reports of prepubescent children, some as young as eight committing suicide. Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men ages 25 to 29 have a suicide rate four times higher than the general population in that same age group in Australia.

Among the indigenous peoples in Brazil, the suicide rate was six times higher than the national average in 2013. In the Guaraní tribe, Brazil’s largest, the rate is estimated at more than twice as high as the indigenous rate over all, the study said. In fact it may be even higher. The Guaraní have long made their home in the fertile land of Brazil’s southwest, where swaths of vast forests and savannas have been transformed into farms and ranches. In the process, the tribe has been dispossessed and uprooted from its traditional way of life. Many in the tribe face extreme discrimination and live in abject poverty close to the farmers and ranchers who occupy land that was once theirs. ‘Living in this non-place, they commit suicide,’ said Professor Alcantara, an anthropologist at the University of São Paulo who has studied adolescent suicides among the Guaraní. Nearly 100 years ago, the Guaraní, who today live primarily in Brazil and Paraguay, were forced off their ancestral land when the Brazilian government granted farmers and ranchers the legal title to that land. Tribe members were placed in crowded reservations, and often separated from family members. Distress, poverty and violence against tribal leaders have led to despair among Guaraní teenagers, who feel they don’t have a future. Professor Alcantara said that over the past 10 years tribe members have come to live between two cultures — the culture of nearby cities, where they are discriminated against, and the culture of their own tribe. Young tribe members, in particular, feel that they don’t belong either to the city or to the tribe, she said.

Professor Colin Tatz of the Australian National University suggests that when you are engaged in a struggle, a struggle to survive, suicide rates are very low

Dr Norm Sheehan, from Swinburne University of Technology sees suicide as the direct result of colonialism:

‘Colonialism deprives the colonised of positive self-images and for me, that’s a crucial part of the Aboriginal experience. …cultural disconnection was a major cause of suicide especially amongst Aboriginal youth,’ Sheehan explained ‘… Aboriginal people were deprived of a true understanding of self because their biological make-up was seen as an impediment, something that had to be erased. That’s a crime against humanity. But Aboriginal people have had to live with that legacy and develop a concept of self in a zone like that, so understanding what culture is in that context is almost impossible.’

Psychiatrist Professor Martin Graham from the University of Queensland, believes ‘There is a deep sadness among Aboriginal peoples and that translates to a sense of anomie perhaps. A kind of deep sense of sadness and boredom and dispiritedness relating to loss of land, loss of culture, loss of languages in some cases and a sense that none of it can be changed.’

Historians and politicians should stop boasting about progress and civilisation of capitalism until they understand the brutality and falsehood it brought yet while we call for a new understanding, it’s more important to advocate social change to make real change.

ALJO

The origin of apartheid (1965)

From the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of world wide condemnation of the policies of the South African Government, the Nationalist Party, particularly since the end of the last world war, have gone from strength to strength, crowning success with their own bigoted brand of success. This consolidation of the political power of the Afrikaaner pays a perverted tribute to his fanaticism. The Afrikaaner has at last won the Boer War. The tribal complexity of the Afrikaaner, his aggressive unity, his hatred of the Uitlander, must be seen against the economic history of the Boers in South Africa.

From the very first days of landing on the shores of Africa in 1652, the mainly Dutch settlers were an oppressed colonial minority. After having established a strictly Calvinist peasant community at the Cape, they were forbidden by the Dutch Government to allow its use to any ship of a nationality other than Dutch, a restriction that brought them economic hardship. Also, the Dutch Government enforced enactments and imposed taxes that rarely took local conditions into account. With the weakening of the Dutch Government in 1795, the colonists took over the Cape and proclaimed their right to own slaves. This autonomy was short lived, for in 1806 the colony was seized by the British.

During the first years of the 19th century, the Bantu tribesmen began infiltrating into South Africa, and clashes took place between the Boers and the Bantu which led to the first Kaffir War of 1834 in which many Boers were massacred. Also, during this first year, the British Government forbade the Boers to own  the slaves, most of whom they had taken from Asia.

In an effort to once again regain their autonomy, between the years 1834 and 1840 the Boers trekked north and established the Republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. But still they had to carry on the wars with the Bantu, and now at the same time they had to fight the British who had declared their occupation of the interior "illegal". Eventually, the British came to the view that the cost of coercive forces was too high in relation to the return, and in 1852-53, they granted sovereignty to the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

The British Government immediately regretted their decision, for in 1853 gold and diamonds were discovered in the Boer Republics as well as great quantities of other minerals including coal, copper, manganese, chromite and asbestos. The friction between the British and the Boers was again renewed and culminated in the outbreak of the Boer War in which the Boers were "temporarily" defeated. 

This is the legacy of violence that history has bequeathed to the modern political situation in South Africa, a tri-partite enmity between Boer, Bantu and British. Its framework was that of economic rivalry and material struggle, the southward expansion of the bantu, the attempts of the Boers to maintain a mainly peasant community, the arrogant imperialism of British commerce. The social cohesion of the Boers, expressed in terms of religion, language and so-called race, became their mode of survival. This was the basis of Afrikaaner nationalism.

But Afrikaaner nationalism is no longer supported by a peasant economy struggling for survival. The Boers themselves are now integrated into capitalist farming, and distribute their products through both national and world markets. Increasingly, this capitalist form of agriculture uses mechanised techniques as well as the technology of a large canning industry. As well as this, Afrikaaners are increasingly involved in industrial capitalism. The further South Africa's economy develops, the more does Afrikaaner nationalism and apartheid become removed from the economic and historical background in which it was nurtured. Nevertheless, this body of prejudice is established as an ideological force in itself, impinging on the policies of the South African Government, even at a time when it can be shown—especially from the point of view of industry—that it is hindering development.

Apartheid or "separate development" is a bogus and hypocritical political contrivance. It caters for the emotionalism of nationalist nostalgia and is an electoral plank which covers the fears of most white workers. Most of the legislation brought in by the Nationalist Government in the name of "apartheid" is outrightly repressive and in defence of farming interests.

The battle that African workers wage in South Africa is beset by the most intimidating difficulties imaginable. They have no long-standing tradition of organisation. They suffer the "legal" hooliganism of police brutality, even to the extent of being shot down. There is a plentiful supply of cheap labour, making industrial pressure almost impossible, Even those who are employed live so near the borderline of starvation that strike action invokes the greatest hardship. The layout and siting of African townships is arranged to facilitate swift police or military reprisal. The machine gun or even air attack can be easily used without interference to the "white" population. Saracen armoured cars are frequently used to break up assemblies of African workers.

Ironically, the electoral support that maintains nationalist political power is what can only be regarded by tradition as an unholy alliance between voters of both Afrikaaner and British origin. It is political support that arises from the irrational fear of three and a quarter million Europeans in a country which also includes nearly fourteen million Bantu, Asiatics and Coloureds. Just as they were in the past, economic struggles in South Africa continue to be confused by and expressed in terms of "race" and "culture".

The tortured situation in South Africa is a direct product of its tortured past, but men should learn from their history, not continue to be burdened by it.

Pieter Lawrence 

Have labour power, will travel (1997)

From the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Inside a feudal, pre-industrial society it could be said of the majority of those who worked that they would live, work, marry, procreate and die within walking distance of the place in which they were born. Modern capitalism has changed all that.

The needs of the market have torn asunder all the old social ties of community. Families are spread all over the world as workers desperate for employment seek to sell their labour power wherever possible. They enter into competition with resident workers and thus the seeds of suspicion and hatred are sewn.

The driving force of capitalism is competition. Capitalist against capitalist for a bigger share of the product of labour. Worker against worker in the search for a job. It is into this desperate struggle for a job that various politicians spread the poison of nationalism and racism.

This poison is world-wide. In France at the recent election, one-in-ten voted for the openly racist, anti-immigration National Front. Every European country has its adherents of the same political poison. In the United States of America various America-first groups scream abuse at Mexican and Central American immigrants.

In Africa tens of thousands of refugees cross borders escaping the growing tribalism that mirrors the ethnic cleansing of eastern Europe. Everywhere you look modern capitalism presents the same awful tragedy of lives ruined by the obnoxious hatreds of xenophobia.

Inhuman nature

So widespread is this nationalistic nonsense that many defenders of capitalism can claim that it is an innate human trait. These people talk glibly about "human nature" when dealing with such horrors as Zaire or Serbia.

Socialists do not share that view. Far from being innately murderous and competitive human existence itself was only possible because of a history of co-operation and tolerance. In order to survive in a hostile environment human beings had to be the uniquely social animal.

We do not deny the existence of such horrors as Hiroshima or Buchenwald, but we know that these are the products of a property-based society that alienates and destroys all decency in its drive for more and more profit.

The product of a Glasgow slum does not travel to a remote island in the South Atlantic to maim the slum product of Buenos Aires because of some genetic urge. Behind all these atrocities lies the capitalist imperatives of markets and sources of raw materials.

A world to win

It is but one of the many paradoxes of capitalism that it has shrunk the world only to divide society into smaller and smaller fragments. That it has progressed at breakneck speed in the fields of travel and communication yet it has divided and alienated us from our true humanity.

Technically we can travel half-way round the world in a day, communicate instantly with almost anyone on the planet; and yet find ourselves artificially divided on the basis of differences of custom, language, diet, culture and skin colour. Capitalism is a frightening, hate-filled system that turns everyone's hand against everyone else.

Inside socialism, where the whole Earth is the common property of the whole world's population, we will all be able to travel our planet to work wherever we desire, safe in the knowledge that our brothers and sisters will welcome us on whichever shore we land.

That os the aim of the World Socialist Movement. Shouldn't it be yours?

Richard Donnelly

The Housing Shortage (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a recent letter to The Guardian (17th January 1975) one of the supposed guardians of working-class living standards, Bob Bean, Labour MP for Rochester and Chatham wrote, probably in all innocence, that "Given the right economic atmosphere the construction industry as it now stands has not the capacity to meet the nation's demands."

Bob Bean should look at the housing performance of the three political parties who have striven for opportunities to manipulate the status-quo over the past ten generations of working class history. That history reveals that while there is any kind of "economic atmosphere the workers can whistle for their houses! The construction industry is a shambles because capitalism's need to make a profit out of our most fundamental needs. Only eight years ago Bean's own party said, in an election manifesto: "We intend to achieve a target of 500,000 houses per annum by 1969/70". Promises, promises. With all deference to the plight of the homeless, it has to be said that there is no shortage of housing. The shortage is the old one; shortage of money. The "housing problem" is concentrated exclusively upon the working class who do all the useful work in our society—including those who build the houses.

Homelessness is a degrading, dehumanizing situation that would not arise in a sane society. It is also totally unnecessary in the sense that if the workers decided, once and for all, to put an end to the system that gives birth to such iniquities, it could be done quickly and finally.

There is no good reason why sufficient homes should not be built. The "catch 22" in capitalism is that if a million homes were built they could not be sold. We know they could be built. The materials exist, the only thing the homeless are short of is many million bits of mass-produced paper. Why should we let capitalists' confetti stand between us and the houses we need? Our need is now, not another fifteen generations on.

Capitalism's performance can only be described as pathetic. The current edition of Housing and Construction Statistics states that it takes almost twenty-one months to complete a dwelling for local authorities and over fourteen months to completion in the private sector—truly the summit of 150 years of capitalist achievement and progress!

As more belt-tightening, work-sharing and unemployment loom larger on the working-class horizon it is a matter of the greatest urgency that we work together to get rid of the whole sordid business and start building a society with all our needs, housing, food, clothing, education, health services and transport, freely available.

The Socialist Party exists as a focal point for those who reject the blinkered existence that their early lives and training were designed to make them accept. If you agree with our Object and Declaration of Principles, come and join the struggle. We will be glad of your help.

Nigel Best

The Everything Shortage (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Working class poverty remains a running sore incapable of remedy while capitalism lasts. After a century of patchwork tinkering this problem is still with us. Confident declarations by capitalist politicians and enacting of palliative reform legislation has not altered the situation.

Twenty-five years ago the 1950 Labour Government Manifesto claimed that "destitution has been banished". Do social reformers really believe that this is possible? Apparently so. Even though social surveys carried out during the 'fifties and 'sixties' revealed that in fact poverty had not been legislated away, Harold Wilson was peddling the same line in 1970. When asked if he would set up a Royal Commission on poverty in Great Britain he replied that he would not:

This Government has taken substantial steps towards the abolition of poverty by increasing the levels of benefit and by other measures, and we are currently promoting further legislation to this end. (Hansard 17th February, col. 209).

There are now 43 different kinds of aid available to the poor. Has this altered the problem? The 1974 Poverty Report carried out by the Institute of Community Studies was published recently. Commenting on it the London Evening Standard (13th March) says

Surveys of Camden and Bethnal Green households included in a national report on poverty show  . . . that in general the very poor in Great Britain are getting poorer all the time.

Mrs. Lucy Syson of the Institute claims that 19 per cent of the households in Camden were below the poverty line. The figure for Bethnal Green was a staggering 30 per cent. These figures are only marginally better than those produced in the 1880s by Charles Booth. He estimated that of the population of Islington and St. Pancras (part of present-day Camden) more than 30 per cent lived in poverty. In Bethnal Green the percentage of poverty was 44.6.

This is the much lauded social 'progress' of the past one hundred years. Is it not high time this poverty producing system was done away with once and for all?

Gwynn Thomas

Stressed Out (2015)

From the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

General practitioners are highly-qualified, do obviously important work and are paid well above the average wage. So you might expect them to be very contented and motivated workers, satisfied with their lot and well-respected by their patients and by society at large. But in fact GPs are leaving their posts in droves, taking early retirement or whatever. Medical students are increasingly unwilling to go into general practice, preferring specialisms of one kind or another, though some will end up as GPs anyway if they do not make the grade in a more specialised area. The number of unfilled GP posts has quadrupled in the last three years, and one doctor said he felt that ‘general practice is on the verge of being irreparably broken’ (BBC Online, 2 March).

The reason behind this situation is, in a word, stress. GPs work long hours, are subject to various pressures, and experience decreasing amounts of job satisfaction. A survey from 2013 found that around nine thousand GPs were expecting to quit the profession in the next five years: ‘A total of 86% of GPs reported considerable or high pressure from rising workload, 81% from paperwork and 78% from having too little time to do their job justice’ (gponline.com, 16 September 2013). Earlier this year, the British Medical Association published guidance aimed at ‘finding ways of freeing up GPs’ time for patient consultations by halting inappropriate, excessive and unresourced work’ (bma.org.uk, 14 January). Doctors in all jobs are subject to similar pressures, with relatively high rates of depression and anxiety.

In fact this is just part of the ever-mounting stress problems affecting health service workers, nurses as well as doctors. In London in 2014, almost 1500 nurses took time off because of stress, with an average of 38 days (Observer, 18 January), and perhaps as much as 30 percent of all NHS sick leave is caused by stress. Jobs are frozen or even cut, while an ageing population and poorer health in general in the recession mean an increase in patients, and all these lead to overwork by the staff who remain. In some disciplines, this may involve lengthy spells of solo working. One senior A&E nurse described the pressure placed on staff as worse than what she faced on the front line in the Iraq War. In September last year, a nurse in Walsall killed himself after months of working 14-hour days, six days a week.

The health industry is of course not the only one where workers experience high levels of stress, though the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) lists it as one of those with the highest prevalence (the others are given as education, social care, public administration and defence). The charity Mind reported in December that, more generally, 87 percent of emergency services staff and volunteers surveyed had experienced stress, low mood and poor mental health at some point in their work; but they are less likely than other workers to take time off for poor mental health. A report last year for the Prison Officers’ Association found, unsurprisingly, that many were subject to verbal and physical abuse from prisoners. But in addition, many felt impelled to go into work when unwell and were unable to ‘switch off’ outside work hours. Over a third had been diagnosed with a stress-related illness while working in the prison service. A similar report for the University and College Union found that 87 percent of respondents in further education felt their job was stressful, and 64 percent stated that their general level of stress was high or very high.

In 2013–14, there were 487,000 cases of work-related stress in Britain, resulting in over eleven million working days lost. To be more precise, these figures are for ‘work-related stress, depression or anxiety’, defined by the HSE as ‘a harmful reaction people have to undue pressures and demands placed on them at work’. Sometimes a distinction is drawn between pressure (when you feel you can cope with the demands placed on you) and stress (when you feel unable to do so). The HSE sees stress as a problem for employers as well as workers, since it can lead to increased absences and staff turnover, and to more mistakes by staff. So it gives out various kinds of advice, for instance that line managers (who may be stressed themselves) should be aware of issues of workload and harassment, handle sensitively people returning to work and generally provide appropriate support. Companies have a general duty of care to their workers, and under the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 employers have a duty to minimise the risk of stress-related illness or injury to employees, though of course that does not imply that such minimising will take place.

Inevitably the EU has set up a body to deal with these matters, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. This is currently running a campaign ‘Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress’, launched in April last year and due to culminate in a summit this November. It is intended to provide ‘the support, guidance and tools needed to effectively manage work-related stress and psychosocial risks’. Employers and workers need to work together to combat stress, supposedly, and the whole enterprise is based on the assumption that things will go well as long as reasonable people are well-informed and co-operate and show genuine concern. There is little or no awareness of the power that employers exercise and of the subordinate position of workers, not that we would expect it from such a body.

Someone suffering from stress, whether work-related or not, may have a range of psychological, emotional and behavioural signs, from lapses of memory and mood swings to insomnia and loss of libido. Behind all these symptoms and causes of stress, from overwork to depression, is the basic factor of people lacking control over their working lives. They have little or no choice in how many hours they work, how much they are expected to get through in their working time, what sort of breaks they can take, the kind of work they are required to do and so on. Changes to their schedule or reorganisation of workplace structures and how they relate to managers and colleagues are generally imposed on them with little or no consultation. All that is the consequence of being a wage worker under capitalism, of being employed by a system that is interested in profit and cost rather than the health and well-being of workers. 

Paul Bennett

We are not amused (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the First World War, while millions were sacrificed to the great god of profit, there was a popular song advising workers to 'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and Smile! Smile! Smile!' Presumably the assumption was that it's better to be slaughtered with a smile on your face than without. These days the radio disc jockeys persistently urge us to keep a smile on our face whatever happens. Famine, war, unemployment, insecurity, the maxim of the entertainers is, 'You've got to look on the bright side'.

We might conclude that these people are natural optimists. A more down to earth assessment is that they must be bloody mad to expect us to smile in the face of the horror of capitalism. In fact, neither is the case. The entertainments industry, just like all others under capitalism, exists simply to make profits by selling commodities on the market. They sell the alleged talent of the comedians, the film stars, the rock singers, the clowns, the strippers. When any of these fail to pull in a paying audience they are no longer put on display.

Most workers enjoy being entertained. Some like TV situation comedies, others the old music hall comics; some like Coronation Street, others prefer modern drama in trendy pubs; some like looking at modern art, others are keener on staring at undressed tarts; some kid themselves that they're cultured, others watch Bruce Forsyth. These are all mass consumption arts and they all speak with one voice, saying, "Don't participate, observe; don't think, be thought for; don't do, accept." It would be a crude assessment to say that all entertainment is simply a process of conditioning. But to say that to be entertained can be a passive act is both a truism and a statement of significance. It means that you are accepting someone else's values and, as those values are only put before a mass audience by courtesy of a class whose interest is hostile to yours, those values will be hostile to yours.

Let's take an example of the average TV comedy programme. What does it ask us to laugh about? Those who do not conform to the social norms are portrayed as idiots. Women must be either sexy—cue for jokes about large breasts—or sexless—cue for jokes about small breasts. Pakistanis are to be made fun of because they don't all have accents like Angela Rippon. Drunks are jolly old chaps who never have broken homes. Homosexuals are all limp-wristed men in drag. And as for the Irish—well, they're a right old laugh. Caricatures, smears and insults are what the establishment expect us to find amusing. Why don't we have jokes about bosses exploiting workers, about police beating people up, about members of the Royal Family having it away with unsuccessful rock singers, about vicars molesting little children? Would the privileged class be laughing so loud if that were the case? In the mid-1960s satire programmes came on the scene. It did not take long for the 'authorities' to decide that the joke had gone too far; better confine themselves to laughing at the workers.

Most of what they call comedy is simply unfunny. A TV critic once described the 'comedy' double-act Little and Large as having a little amount of talent and a large amount of nerve. 'Funny' routines are repeated over and over again. Taped laughter is played to inform us when a joke has occurred. One critic went so far as to suggest that TV comedy shows are all written by computers. But they're written by real people, sitting day after day in little rooms making up witless stories and laughing at their own humour.

Entertainment is not for the happiness of the majority, but for the profit of the minority. As we smile in complacency, they grow rich. So next time you laugh yourself silly over a man slipping on a banana skin or a fat lady wobbling her bum or an Irishman smoking an exploding cigar, think twice; the joke is on you.

Steve Coleman

Beware of Bernards (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Today nothing is heard of George Bernard Shaw as a political "thinker", though his plays are still performed. When he was alive, people of the New Statesman type sought copies of the plays to read the long prefaces in which he expounded his ideas. These were supposed to be "socialist"; Shaw was a publicist for the Fabian Society and an admirer of Russia.

One of the things he advocated was that people should take an examination before they were allowed to vote. In Everybody's Political What's What (1944) he wrote:

And until popular choice is constitutionally guided and limited, political ignorance and idolatry will produce not only Hitleresque dictatorships but stampedes led by liars or lunatics like Titus Oates and Lord George Gordon. The choice should therefore be limited to panels of persons who have passed such tests as we can devise of their wisdom, comprehension, knowledge and energy. For legislative purposes adult suffrage is out of the question, as only a small percentage of any population has either the requisite faculty or knowledge.

The journalist Bernard Levin has just revived Shaw's argument. In The Times of 18th October, under the heading "It's the fools, not the Don't Knows who scare the daylights out of me", he drew attention to an opinion poll which found "that 8 per cent o the presumably representative sample believe that the Conservative Party's present policy includes the introduction of a wealth tax, two per cent believe that the Tories propose to abolish the House of Lords, and four per cent believe that Mrs. Thatcher, if elected, intends to nationalize the banks". Estimating that the percentages cover about three million of the electorate, Levin concluded:

That, if I may say so, is too many fools for comfort. And it is the incidence of folly, thus revealed, which worries me. If there are three million people as stupid as that in the country, only think of the havoc they could cause . . . 

The flaw in this plausible-sounding harangue is the phrase "present policy". Levin says the notion that the Tory Party proposes the reforms named is "ridiculous" and indicates "a wall of ignorance so thick and high that trying to surmount or demolish it would be a waste of time". Oh, really? The Tories have been responsible for more nationalization than the Labour Party; there is no reason at all for supposing they would not nationalize the banks — or introduce some form of wealth tax — if it was in the interests of important sections of the capitalist class. The possibility Levin has evidently not considered is that many voters know this in broad terms, and don't think it worth while to pick carefully over exchangeable party policies whose implementation is going to make no difference to them. 

But what of Levin's own "present policy"? It is what Shaw talked about as an example of his "socialism" i.e. the utopia of a planned and rational capitalism. Shaw's Fabian argument was that an accumulation of reforms would build it; instead of having to establish this "socialism" we should be overtaken by it. Many of the proposals made in Everybody's Political What's What and Shaw's 1928 work The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism are now accepted by Conservatives as what they always were, modern capitalist practice. And Levin is in the curious position of putting forward an argument he would have denounced in 1944 because it came from the (so-called) socialist Bernard Shaw. Would he call worker's "fools" and "stupid" for being unable to distinguish between the two?

What both these pundits assert is that is is "dangerous" to have a part of the electorate who have not learned capitalist doctrines by heart. One answer is that state education under Tories and Labour alike has produced a large section of workers—recently estimated as 15 per cent of school leavers—who are not well enough equipped with literacy to study the party conference reports in The Times; and this belongs to the social system which Levin defends. But to whom or what is it dangerous? The value of the voting system to the capitalist class is that it gives them the explicit support of the working class. Workers are asked at intervals to choose a programme for running capitalism and stand by their choice for a period. If they are apathetic or erratic in doing that, it means that the nature of the support is not readily ascertainable. A compliant electorate is one which thinks it really does matter if Thatcher nationalizes the banks.

Socialists certainly do not recommend workers to be negligent towards political matters. First, they should reject the suggestion of Shaw and Levin, which in effect urges some workers to treat others as inferior. Second, they should cease to concern themselves with who runs capitalism, and see that the measures Levin is so anxious to have correctly identified—and all other programmes of reform—will not alter their own position. Third, they must understand the vote as the weapon for their emancipation. Shaw specified "wisdom, comprehension, knowledge and energy" as the conditions for its use. "Wisdom" is a value-judgement, the attribute of whoever agrees with the speaker. The other three are possessed in abundance by the working class. They need only to be allied with class-consciousness, and the "foolish", "stupid" electorate will demonstrate that it knows what it wants—Socialism.

Pat Deutz

Five Minutes On Socialism - Conclusion (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our last three talks we have discussed some of the problems of the present day world together with the attitudes and methods adopted as attempts to combat the evils of our own making. We have, in the course of 15 minutes discussion, sought to point the remedy to the common ailments that afflict mankind at the present time. We have, of necessity, only been able to point at salient problems well know to all and to state very briefly the Socialist answer. In this concluding talk we would like to discuss Nationalism, of which there are many examples arising around us at the present time.

It will be evident that at the present stage of capitalist organization, the efforts of the world's governments are towards greater protective power in the face of outside rivalry. Thus, legislation is saddling the economy of these countries into greater burdens of armament production. It is just another of the inconsistencies of capitalism that we have groups of countries combining for military strength and at the same time confronting each other, within the same group, on the commodity market; that there exists within these countries, movements, open and otherwise, striving to loosen the power of their respective governments in favour of some other set-up more in keeping with their own group interests. (Capitalism contains, of course, within its body of class interest, various antagonisms such as group interests present.)

Socialists recognise that in the world there are two classes—Workers and Capitalists—the between them lies the Class Struggle and that the liberation of the world's toilers is not a question of changing forms of government from Totalitarian to something "more democratic" or even modifying the democracy of Capitalism where it exists in some measure. Socialists are not concerned with making Capitalism continue more palatably but with the eradication of the world wide common system of exploitation.

Thus, Socialists are not interested in Nationalistic "Liberation" movements of factions or the larger groupings of powers. Socialists strive for the elimination of capitalism and its replacement by a nation-less world devoid of frontiers, caste systems, religious barriers and strangle-hold of the monetary system over the production and distribution of goods.

The S.P.G.B., being a Socialist organization in Britain, draws attention to the nationalistic movements in the British Isles—all of whom suggest various modifications of capitalism. (In Wales there are two groups, one advocating Dominion Status, the other Republicanism). The workers of the Irish Republic are learning the hard lesson; that working class problems are not solved by Republicanism, which is simply a devolution of British Capitalism. In Wales the status of "Plaid Cymru" has been rather inflated since their increased poll at the recent General Election. This has induced many members of the Tory and Labour Party to join its ranks.

Our message to the Welsh worker is the same as that to the world working class: "Study the case for Socialism and, if convinced, join the "Liberation Movement," which really counts—the Struggle for Socialism."

W. Brain

Five Minutes on Socialism - No.3 (1955)

From the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British people have once again voted a Tory Government into office—not that it matters which of the parties succeeded since none of them have the desire to end Capitalism.

Though in the main the problems were the same as at every other election and the suggested reforms identical, perhaps the question of peace and war has reached out to more people than ever before. What them is the attitude of various political parties and religious organizations, who support the present system, to this vital issue? And what do Socialists think?

The various parties have, despite minor differences of "techniques" staked their faith in the manufacture and use of armaments (including the "bomb") as being necessary to maintain peace. The only possible way of refusing a mandate to these parties was to withhold the vote—Socialists did this.

The Churches' attitude has always been interesting. Cardinal Bourne, R/C Archbishop of Westminster, once stated: "War cannot be a sin since God himself has actually commanded war on many occasions and aided his people to victory." Quite recently the Archbishop of York said that the best way to peace was by the hydrogen bomb, a statement which the Bishop of Swansea deplored though not stating his own attitude towards other forms of warfare.

A monastic group—the Society of Brothers, some time ago wrote to the SOCIALIST STANDARD agreeing that "the position of the Pacifist is unreal and futile in face of the forces of Capitalism." They were even generous enough to agree with Socialists that the cause of war was capitalist competition between nations.

Anti-militarism does not, of course, denote an acceptance of Socialism. Pacifists, Church Groups and Peace Committees may sigh, strive and agitate, but whilst they ignore the nature of the system that nurtures war then they are dreamers—a thing they accuse Socialists of being.

The Soviet Union, through Litvinoff, stated at the Geneva Conference: " . . . under Capitalism it is impossible to remove the causes of war," which sounds strange compared with Russia's present cry of "peaceful Co-existence."

Whilst it is plain that leaders, both religious and political, work consciously or otherwise for the preservation of Capitalism, it is true that many people are sincere in their desire for peace and concord. The tragedy is that peace is impossible whilst Capitalism remains. War whether of the industrial field or the battlefield is the very skin of the Capitalist body. Emotionalism or any expediency evolved by any political party cannot do the task which is to be the historic role of Socialism.

Socialists have a definite attitude to war. In 1914 the S.P.G.B. issued a Manifesto to the warring powers: a message that we repeated in 1939 ending with the words: "Having no quarrel with the workers of any country we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will . . . and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism."

To this end, Socialists urge the workers to educate themselves as the first step to their emancipation.

W. Brain

Plain Words (1980)

From the September 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Consumer Group recently brought out a pamphlet, Gobbledygook, which is an attack on the almost unintelligible jargon used in official documents. Now socialists are also interested in eradicating gobbledygook, and here are some examples. 

The National Interest

This should be interpreted as The Capitalist Interest, since the interest of capitalist and worker must always be opposed. The capitalist must always try to keep the cost of production (which includes wages) as low as possible, while the worker must strive to protect his wages and working conditions. The phrase is often used by politicians as a last resort when they can't think of a logical argument to use (which is very often the case) - "Of course the government is not opposed to strikes in principle, but this strike is against the national interest . . . "

We Will Have To Pull Our Belts In

Old chestnut usually employed when one government has just been elected in place of another. Generally along the lines that since the last bunch have made such a hash of things, the new bunch will have to apply some firm but unpopular measures to sort out the mess, which usually means another assault on the living-standards of the working-class. If this phrase had been copyrighted it would have accrued a fortune for whoever penned it since it has been used by practically every politician. Often used in conjunction with "The National Interest".

We Are Paying Ourselves Too Much

Delicate play on words here. It really means: We are paying you too much (you being the working class). Especially directed at those workers who have the audacity to ask for more wages as a buffer against rising prices. Does not include royal families, company directors, members of the Stock Exchange and so on, who are grossly underpaid.

Marxist Guerrilla

Much beloved by the media this one. If any serious attempt at accuracy was made then the phrase should read "Leninist Guerrilla". The people in question tend to be minority groups seeking political ends by violent means, a tactic advocated by Lenin and not by Marx. The media, deliberately or through political ignorance, apply the term to any political group who carry out a coup d'etat (usually described as a "Marxist Revolution").

You've Never Had It So Good

Historical curio quoted by Harold MacMillan at a time when workers drank five star brandy and smoked Corrona-Corronas, ran expensive cars and holidayed in the Bahamas. Not used nowadays since even gullible workers find it hard to swallow.

Viability

Trendy new word used by smart-alec politicos. Although having different literal meaning has tended to become synonymous with "profitability", for example: "Unfortunately, viability has not been achieved by this plant therefore we have no alternative . . . "

British Disease

No, not a dose of the clap. Not even the common cold. In fact this has nothing to do with disease at all. Refers to a popular prejudice that British workers are lazy and like nothing better than shirking work, and drinking tea all day. Personified in obnoxious and unfunny cartoon strips, also provides much material for would-be comedians who make a living feeding the prejudices of their audiences with stories about workers on strike. Strangely, the working class still manage to churn out enough surplus value to ensure that members of the capitalist class can scratch up the ready for jamborees like Ascot, Henley and Cowes. After the exhausting business of guzzling the Dom Perignon, and splashing hundreds of pounds on the horses of their choice, they can of they wish, sleep for as long as they like without fear of public condemnation.

Finally, we include one phrase which the politicians and the media do not use but which, although not gobbledygook, does warrant a mention because of its profound implications.

Abolish The Wages System

Penned by Karl Marx, this phrase neatly sums up Marx's concept of Scientific Socialism - a world-wide society without buying, selling or exchange in any form, where all wealth would be produced and democratically controlled by and in the interests of society as a whole. Nowadays this phrase is used exclusively by the SPGB and its companion parties abroad in an effort to combat the gobbledygook of the mass media and pseudo socialists.

Tone.

Five Minutes on Socialism - No.2 (1955)

From the July 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our last talk in the April issue we discussed, briefly, the economic and philosophic basis of Socialism and also the erroneous statement that Socialism exists in Russia, China and other countries applying totalitarian techniques.

China's industrial background is one of foreign exploitation by British, French, Japanese and others. This resulted in two-fold opposition—from the workers and from the educate propertied class who were envious of the foreign exploiters.

The Communists fermenting this situation, expounded the role of patriotism and National Independence as being a working class issue. The result of this teaching (which still continues) can be seen in the recent struggle for internal power among the leaders resulting in the purging of some few weeks ago. If Russia's experience is any example, the spate should increase. The final results may well provide a future struggle between China and Russia. In the long run the situation will become clearer as the Chinese workers realise that they suffer as much exploitation from their own ruling class as they did from the "foreign devil." Socialists here again differ from all other parties when they say that the quarrels between various Capitalists groups are of no concern of the workers of their respective countries.

It is held by some that Socialism means "share with your neighbour" and knowing his neighbour, very often the worker is not so keen. "Anyway," says the worker, "religion teaches this I want to apply it." Socialism does not say this. Socialism means the Social ownership of the means of wealth. It is claimed that we owe the production of wealth to outstanding men of ability and that the creation of a "common denominator" of living will result in a lack of initiative. Such people should enquire into how Capitalism has rewarded its inventors, etc. Hargreaves, inventor of the "Spinning Jenny," suffered from dishonest manufacturers and died in want. John Kay, inventor of the "Flying Shuttle," starved to death. And one could go in this fashion.

Socialism is now possible but under Capitalism ownership remains the prerogative of a minority class. When production and inventiveness are no longer shackled to the profit system but serve the advancement of all, then, and only then, will initiative be given real encouragement.

W. Brain

Five Minutes On Socialism - No.1 (1955)

From the April 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

To look at the world pattern of today is, to many, merely to look at not so much a picture but a crazy jumble of jig-saws pieces which do not fit altogether or resolve themselves into a comprehensive whole. The expert and the man in the street are equally mystified as to the method to be adopted to sort out the mess. Though the expert continues to manufacture devices and the man in the street may strive to follow his advice, nothing seems to work out for the better of everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Risking the charge of being presumptuous, the Socialist puts forward the statement that, understanding the nature of society, Socialists alone can create harmony from chaos, plenty from want and a full life for all rather than the futile husk of existence that the vast majority of the world's people undergo at the present time.

At the moment insecurity and possible annihilation seems to be the lot of the over and underprivileged alike and so it is that the Socialist message is for all who accept the classless, nationless, and exploitationless world that alone will bring mankind a greater measure of happiness than it has ever known before.

Like all movements that have and continue to affect society and the individual, Socialism contains a philosophy. Its philosophy is materialistic and though it may share its materialistic thought in some measure with other groupings, that are not otherwise Socialist, it cannot be associated with them in any other way.

Socialism, apart from its philosophic content is an economic theory and it is from an analysis of the methods by which men have conducted themselves in order to maintain their physical existence that Socialists have evolved the theory of historical materialism.

It can be said that the whole of the industrialized and civilized world carries on the business of living (and dying) in keeping with the economic basis of Capitalism; this, despite the fact that in some cases the national machinery of government proclaims to have eradicated Capitalism as in Russia or that it is in process of doing so as in China or in other cases where the nations' "leaders" claim that a mixture of Capitalism and Socialism is at work as in Britain.

Socialists in Britain and elsewhere in the world refute the idea that Socialism prevails in Russia or anywhere else, together with the inane assumption that Socialism can exist alongside Capitalism in any country. These two views are, among others, some of the things which distinguish Socialism from its imitators. We shall continue to discuss some of the features of the so-called Socialist economy of Russia and China in our next five minute talk.

W. Brain

Cooking the Books: Marx and the SNP (2015)

The Cooking the Books Column from the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘The “SNP are Marxists”, says Conservative MP’ was a headline in the Independent (11 May). The MP in question was Owen Paterson, who sits for Shropshire North, a buffoon who even Cameron had to sack from his Cabinet for incompetence.

A minimum definition of a ‘Marxist’ would be someone who agreed with Marx’s theories of economics, history and social change, and also with his aim of a society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. There might, perhaps, be some individual SNP members who share Marx’s materialist approach to society and history. After all, Marx himself acknowledged that the so-called ‘Scottish Historical School’ had foreshadowed to some extent his own ‘materialist conception of history’.  In The German Ideology, he and Engels wrote that, in contrast to German history-writers: ‘The French and English … have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry’. Since the writers in English they had in mind (Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, John Millar) were all from Scotland calling them ‘English’ was the sort of faux pas that gets Scottish Nationalists hot under the collar.

But no one in the SNP stands for a society of common ownership and democratic control, as Marx did. The SNP’s aim, rather, is the establishment of a separate capitalist state in Scotland. As such it represents the interests of smaller capitalists producing for the home market there, as opposed to the larger capitalists producing for export who want to remain part of the UK.

It is true that in his day Marx did support the separation of Ireland from the UK, though not as an end in itself but as a means to the end of furthering political democracy in the rest of the UK by weakening the power of the landed aristocracy. He didn’t take the same position with regard to Scotland. He was well aware that the Scottish landed aristocracy was just as ruthless as their English counterparts and devoted a section of Capital (at the end of Chapter 27 on ‘The Expropriation of the Agricultural Population from the Land’) to movingly describing the fate of the Gaelic clansmen at the hands of their chiefs, who had transformed themselves into absolute owners of the one-time clan land, clearing them off it as part of the process of ‘the primitive accumulation of capital’.

Not that the SNP itself claims to be socialist. The most it claims is to be ‘social-democratic’ like the Labour Party used to be. As such it proposes to tax the rich in a bid to bring about a less unequal society. It is maybe this that has led Paterson to think they are ‘Marxists’. But Marx did not stand for a redistribution of wealth away from the rich as this would still leave private ownership as the basis of society. He stood for the common ownership of wealth. Which is something quite different.

Nor is there any such thing as a ‘Marxist tax policy’ or a ‘Marxist economic policy’ (whatever some left-wing supporters of Scottish separatism, and not just Paterson, imagine). This would imply that Marx favoured putting forward policies for capitalist governments to pursue; in other words, of advising them how to run capitalism. But Marx was not into that. Insofar as Marx could be said to have had an ‘economic policy’ it was to end the capitalist economy altogether. It’s an aim we share but the SNP does not.