Art racket (1985)

From the May 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1974 the Tate Gallery exhibited some works by the Italian experimental artist, Piero Manzoni (1933-63). They included sealed tins of the artist's excrement and balloons containing his breath. In December 1970, an American artist, Tom Wesselmann, in an exhibition at the now extinct Mayfair Gallery. London, showed a work entitled Bedroom Titbox. This remarkable assemblage took the form of a still-life comprising an assortment of artificial objects decorously arranged in a glazed box. through a hole in the roof of which protruded—or rather, was suspended—an ample live breast. The remainder of the presumably impecunious young lady whose task it was to reveal this highly personal portion of her anatomy lay otherwise concealed across the top of the contraption. This she was apparently obliged to do from ten o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the afternoon on Saturdays, presumably with breaks. (Had a little wasp, out of understandable curiosity, crept into our box. doubtless an animated scene would have ensued. In the current climate of crazy opportunism in the art world this could profitably have been passed off as a particularly fine example of performance art, all the more effective for its spontaneous vitality.)

It is interesting to note that Manzoni's aim. at least, was to satirise the art-market's main preoccupation—to crank up and exploit the reputations of a handful of the more sensational avant-garde in the interests of their wealthy, if artistically cretinous patrons. In this context, it has been observed that the contents of Pablo Picasso's waste-paper basket were worth a fortune to the speculative scavenger. This is almost certainly true: your average Bond Street gallery-owner would have had them mounted, framed and flogged off to the nearest Texan oil millionaire before you could say "Marcel Duchamp”. (Ironically enough, Manzoni's own fortunes improved markedly as a result of his satirical tomfoolery—a fact which no doubt caused him much anguish.)

Where, then does all this leave serious art? It would be absurd to assert that, since works of art can be so profitable, they have necessarily to be intrinsically worthless. A glass of unpolluted water is of the essence despite our having to pay for it. And where art is not side-tracked, as it all too often is under capitalism, it can constitute, at its most expert and sensitive, a repository of aesthetic truths which owe nothing to the conditional requirements of the sale-room. Take, for example, the French painter. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906). If. today, you should happen to stumble across a few square inches of canvas and succeed in verifying that the brush-strokes on it are from the hand of this artist, then your financial worries are over. Cézanne, however, was a genius who, if we except a small group of his more discerning peers, went unrecognised in his own lifetime. However, he could afford to ignore the art-market: his father, a wealthy banker of Aix-en-Provence, had bequeathed him a lifetime's competence. Cézanne was thus able to paint as he wished without regard to prevailing fashion or wheeler-dealing. He was. if we are to believe what evidence is available to us, a misanthropic and impatient man. His work, not always easy to understand, is expressive of certain qualities which are better seen than discussed—tonality: colour and form; contour; composition; paint-handling; space, both on the surface and behind it; even a prophetic recognition of certain optical phenomena: all these qualities come together in Cézanne's canvases to form an uncanny unity which nevertheless is entirely and essentially material. The capitalists neither understood the work nor could they sell it. Cézanne, derided and ostracised, became “a prophet . . . not without honour, save in his own country . . .". Despite this ostracism. however, since his death his slightest works have become blue-chip items whose current wildly inflated values would have given the irascible old man a stroke.

So, on the one hand art-dealers are only too eager to parade their greedy philistinism by promoting "art" which they know to have been devised in order to lampoon the system, but which they also know will sell because of the signature (there are dupes aplenty with money to bum). On the other hand the hitherto unsaleable works of the serious, genuinely pioneering artist of independent means must eventually fall prey to one of those same dealers.

The artist must, then, unless lucky enough to be financially independent, be placed at the mercy of the capitalists, who of necessity are only interested in what yields a profit. Profits accrue from the fashionable (the denim jeans ramp—on the wane now, apparently—is a useful analogy here) so should you hope to "succeed" as a painter you had better be trendy. Once you've made it, however, you will find yourself the recipient of VIP treatment at the hands of some West End gallery owner: you will join his stable and, as long as his customers go on buying your—or, rather, his—work, he will henceforth exercise a virtual monopoly on everything you produce. What, you may ask, has all this to do with art? Why, it might just as well be a couple of cans of beer— which, as it happens, is exactly what Jasper Johns, the American painter, asserted it was with his Painted Bronze 1960, a cast of two beer cans, which was knocked down for ninety thousand dollars at Sotheby-Parke Burnet, New York, in October 1973.

The wayward idiocies of the hunt for the fashionable in art is obvious enough. What may not be quite so self-evident is the crooked nature of what passes for "honest dealing" in the sale-rooms and auction-marts, and in the studios of the forgers and fakers. The fact is that under capitalism objects of art have taken on many of the characteristics of real-estate, or gold. The finest and rarest art-works tend to retain, or even increase, their real cash value, and consequently are eagerly snapped up in the auction-rooms, to be offset against tax or as a hedge against inflation. In such a climate, and particularly in circumstances—technical and pictorial—in which forgery is relatively simple (the work of Vincent Van Gogh, for example) the temptation to cash in on the evidently insatiable demand is irresistible. What is interesting, however, is that the forgeries thus marketed are as often as not the most sorry apologies for the real thing, mere pastiches which, had dealer or purchaser taken the trouble to compare with the genuine article (in. say, the Tate Gallery, or the Courtauld Institute) would have been instantly recognisable for what they were. In fact, the late Tom Keating, mass producer of what he termed his "Sexton Blakes", professed astonishment that his faking of the work of Samuel Palmer (180S-81) escaped detection for so long. Keating understood perfectly that, where the grasping activities of the fine-art market are concerned, money always takes priority over aesthetics: if fools are prepared to throw their money away on freshly minted Turners or sticky Constables, who are the fakers or the dealers to complain? (Keating himself, it has to be stated, insisted that he never passed anything off as other than from his own brush.)

Nothing has been written so far about the auction ring, in which a group of dealers agree among themselves to force down the bidding, thereby denying the owner the true market price of the property. The work is later put up at another auction and permitted to achieve its proper price. Later on, in some quiet bar-parlour comes the share-out. Even the auctioneer is sometimes party to this skulduggery.

Clearly, then, art racketeering is a fertile field of study, only the surface of which has been touched on here. Art has anyway become merely a form of share certification, its original, pre-capitalist, significances having vanished to be replaced by speculation and greed. Since the days of the Post-Impressionists at the end of the nineteenth century art has ceased to be popularly understood and appreciated and has drifted into an almost irredeemable insularity. Indeed, we have seen that it can be outlandishly esoteric. Its more tangible and acceptable products end up in the entrance foyers and board-rooms of city banks and business houses, or on the walls of the jet-setters and wealthy socialites of Mayfair and Belgravia — where, that is, it isn't stored speculatively in the vaults of the big dealers. So, what the public at large have come to perceive as an almost totally incomprehensible enigma is at the same time a source of increasingly rich pickings in the sale-rooms. But, who knows? One day perhaps. Carl Andre can have his pile of bricks in the Tate and the homeless can have their pile of bricks in the form of a house, and neither will cost, or command, a penny or a cent in a world in which capitalism—and consequently the criminal meanness and stupidity which stem from it—will have vanished for ever.

Richard Cooper

Fighting the wrong class war (1979)

From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been the proud boast of the Labour Party that they are better at governing because of their "special relationship” with the trade unions. This means, in effect, that they claim to run capitalism better than the Tories by keeping the greedy working class in its place. Now, as the Callaghan government staggers to the end of its term, we witness one of the most remarkable wave of strikes that anyone remembers. Railwaymen, lorry drivers, dustmen, hospital porters, school caretakers, are all getting in on the act — and at the time of writing the miners haven't even come on the stage yet.

What has happened has been that a government has imposed wage restraint which, with greater or less reluctance, the workers, led by their stooge union bosses, have swallowed for a year or two. But. like trying to restrain the tide, it really can't be done. Wages are the price of the workers’ energies and skills and when, thanks to government-primed inflation, all other prices shoot up. then wages/prices will assuredly follow (though of course less assuredly in places like Warsaw or Cairo where the prices go up and the workers themselves go down — under a hail of bullets). And if the tide has been dammed for a period, then it breaks forth with even greater violence when the dam bursts. It is ironic that just at the time when the government of Labourite twisters needs the help of their fellow twisters of the TUC, the latter have to let them down by ending the so-called social contract. They realise that their sheeplike followers are rather displeased at their lowered standard of living and might well start biting their shepherds.

Unfortunately, the term "sheeplike” is all too apt. A lot of members of the working class have the ludicrous idea that whereas they themselves ought to have a “decent” wage and might even have to strike to get it, other workers and other unions are greedy and aggressive and in general are letting ‘‘our" grand old country go to the dogs in a welter of strife.

STIFF WITH COMPLAINTS

Meanwhile, the class solidarity of the workers, even at a time like this, is shown to be rather a sick joke. The letter columns of the papers have been stiff with complaints from workers who make it clear that other workers have got a damned cheek to try to grab higher wages. So the lorry drivers think they have a tough job and are entitled to a basic of £65, do they? Well, what about us ambulance drivers? Our basic is nearer £45 than £65. Ambulance drivers don’t know how well off they are. How would they like to manage on the wages that we hospital cleaners get? And it is worth spending a moment here to look at some of the figures detailed in an article in the Guardian of Jan 17 headed: How Do They Get By On £40 a Week? The short answer is that Mrs Penny Hibbins (her parents knew what they were about when they christened her), a domestic worker at a hospital in Devon, a divorcee with four young kids, has £5 left after rent, rates and what they call food.

Does the mind boggle? Well, let it boggle a bit more. "Indeed, Mrs Hibbins agrees that she is one of those doing comparatively well”! We hear all the time that things are nothing like as bad as they used to be. Times change all right. But the more they change, the more they stay the same. And another point is worth stressing here. In the old days, the Labour Party used to say it was all the fault of greedy private capitalists. Let‘s nationalise things and the benevolent state will make all wage slaves happy.

In the bad old day the Labour Party would rant and rave against mean bosses. Now that they are in power, they rant and rave against "rogue elephants” — bosses who have the unpatriotic cheek to pay their workers too much! Callaghan threatened to punish Ford's for the crime of paying their strikers more than the 5 per cent which he had decreed was good enough for slaves of the conveyor belt. Absolute cruelty to bosses. They honestly didn’t want to pay their workers more than the 5 per cent. If the workers could get by without eating, they would be quite prepared to pay them nothing at all — and even Callaghan couldn't ask for greater patriotism than that. Ford’s only paid the 17 per cent (or whatever) because their awful workers went on strike. It’s sheer injustice to punish the bosses for paying over the odds.

And of course the nationalised concerns, National Health Service, miners. British Rail, will all have to breach the ludicrous 5 per cent with an inflation rate of twice that much. So will Callaghan impose sanctions on himself for breaking his own rules? (No Tory MP or media pundit caught him out on that one. How lucky to have opponents who are as thick as yourself).

Mention of British Rail makes it clear that the workers who think that all the problems are caused by other workers wanting too much are not just housewives in the supermarkets or teachers writing in the press. The class war in British Rail is of the kind to make old Karl tear his beard off. Abolition of the wages system? Someone must be joking. The guards on some trains were given the job of issuing the tickets. So they wanted a bonus for it. So BR said well, we’re saving on ticket offices so we’ll give them a bit of the loot. But these were NUR men. This was, of course, noticed by the ASLEF men, a smaller union but, being composed of people like the drivers, rather important. And, come what may, no engine driver can stand idly by while guards and porters get wages which creep nearer to their own princely salaries. So all drivers out; all workers who had to crawl to work in traffic jams in the blizzards (trust god to add a freeze-up to all your other miseries) cursed the selfish drivers.

Did anyone see any sign of any body of workers, or union leaders, or newspapers (and for this purpose let’s call the Morning Star a newspaper) suggesting that the workers should take a little time off from worrying how much more the other workers are getting and asking why it is that they are all exploited for the benefit of the capitalist class and their toadies like Callaghan? In the first place, only by such things as strikes and the threat of strikes can workers defend their living standards under capitalism. If the workers were docile, the capitalists (including the State) would see to it that Mrs Hibbins had even less than her fiver.

Papers like the Guardian publish learned articles by useless academics working out that after a strike, the workers usually take years to catch up with the wages they lost in the struggle. These fools don't begin to notice that without strikes their standards would be more like the life in Russia, where strikes are criminal and workers are ground down accordingly. But what is true is that all this strife and struggle is just one endless treadmill. And the truth is that workers can actually decide to get off the treadmill.

Let Gentleman Jim have the last word. Looking at the chaos all around he bleats: "What kind of society do we want in this country?" What kind of question is that from our "socialist" Premier? It almost makes you think he's not a socialist, doesn't it? If "we" means the electorate, then we must want the society we vote for; where we are exploited while Callaghan and his ilk live in places like his magnificent farm in Sussex.

L. E. Weidberg

Vietnam and the anti-war movement (1966)

From the September 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vietnam will one day take its place beside Hiroshima and Auschwitz as an example of a time when the sickness of capitalism exploded into a kind of psychotic nightmare. It is no mere piece of sensationalism, either, to compare Vietnam with Hiroshima and Auschwitz, for there is a direct parallel between the causes, method, and results of all three events. Their causes can be traced to capitalist society. The method in each case amounts to genocide: the slaughter of as great a number of a population in as short a time as possible. The results thus far have been to create a world that looks like something out of a nightmare. For how else are we to regard a country that invests a quarter of a million dollars in the death of every “communist’  guerrilla, when close to one- third of its population lives in poverty?* How else are we to describe a system where announcements of the latest Viet Cong body count come over the radio and TV networks in the U.S. almost as regularly as the weather report?

But if we call this behaviour insane, it is not therefore purposeless. The United States is turning Vietnam into a virtual death camp for a purpose—a purpose which results directly from the way in which modern capitalist society is organised. And it is only when we understand this purpose and this society that we can see the insanity of the Vietnam war and its cause for what it is.

Capitalism generates wars because it is organised in such a way that its wealth can only be produced and distributed by a process of competition. The industries of capitalism are the private property of a small class of persons, and wealth is produced primarily for sale with a view to profit. A capitalist enterprise requires markets, trade routes, supplies of wage labour, raw materials, places to invest capital, and the power of a state to protect these interests. The foreign policy of a capitalist state attempts to acquire these needs in its relations with other countries. The rub is that there are several capitalist states in the world competing intensively for the same needs, and the size of the planet is limited. They must necessarily come into conflict with one another; and if the conflict cannot be settled or negotiated to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, they go to war.

In competing for their essential business needs, capitalist countries seek control over territories in which they can sell goods, and from which they can extract profit and raw materials. The United States, for example, has over $10,000 million worth of direct capital investments in South and Central America, which return enormous rates of profit, varying from 15 to 50 per cent a year. In addition, Latin America supplies the United States with oil, iron ore, copper, tin, nitrates, coffee, cocoa, beef, and bananas at cheap costs, and Latin America is a lucrative market for U.S. commodities. France, Britain, Germany, and Russia all have similar relations with territories in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. If another power were to seek control over Latin America (as did Russia in 1962, for example) or if the United States were to seek control of the European Common Market, antagonisms would erupt between these nations which could easily lead to war.

It is this kind of economic control which the United States has tried to secure in Asia ever since the arrival of Commodore Perry in Japan in 1853; the U.S. interest in the South-east portion rapidly accelerated with the withdrawal of the French after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In supporting the South Vietnamese dictators Ngo Dinh and Marshal Ky, the United States has only followed the pattern of control that it has followed for decades in Latin America, with its support of various civilian dictators and military juntas.

Capitalism generates more than one type of war: for example a war between an imperialist power and a rebellious subject territory, and a war between developed capitalist countries for sources of profit, markets, and territories. The armed conflicts between France and Algerian rebels, and the United States and Dominican rebels, are examples of the former type. World Wars I and II were both examples of the latter. The war between United States troops and Viet Cong guerrillas was at first primarily an example of the former type, but with the forced entrance of the more industrial North Vietnam and threatened hostilities with China, the war has been steadily escalating into the latter as well. The reasons the United States is in Vietnam are all directly contingent on its requirements as a capitalist power. United States capitalism does not wish to give up control of this potentially lucrative area; and the United States fears threatened rebellions in Latin America should the Viet Cong rebellion set a successful example.

The working class, of course, has not one shred of interest to justify their participation in any of capitalism’s wars. They will not invest capital in Vietnam when and if it is cleared of Viet Cong. They will make no profit by employing the Vietnamese at low wages, selling commodities in a Southeast Asian consumer market, and extracting cheap raw materials from the area. They stand to lose no property if Latin American countries rebel. The only task they will be called upon for is to leave their mangled bodies in the jungle slaughterhouse. And the interesting thing about the Vietnam War, to the socialist, is that so many American workers are beginning to realise it. Perhaps not since 1898 has the war propaganda of the United States been so completely cynical or so completely transparent to so many people. The mental contortions required to believe it would tax the citizens of 1984: a war to protect the “freedom  of the U.S. which supports an avowed Hitlerite dictator (Ky), bars the Viet Cong from representation in elections, and spreads its happy gospel of democracy among Vietnamese villagers with napalm, rice poison B-52s. and razor-blade bombs. It is no wonder that so many draft-age Americans take to the picket line. The wonder is that there are not more.

The Philadelphia based Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, in fact, reports a growing list of those who prefer prison sentences to military service. The courage of many of those in the American peace movement cannot fail to impress the socialist. But however stirring its appeal, the movement has an equally disheartening and perhaps tragic weakness that is slowly emasculating it. Most of its participants do not understand that capitalism generates wars. It is capitalism which must be attacked, not the foreign policy of the United States, which is simply asserting its vital interests as a capitalist power. Even more depressing, perhaps, is the conduct of many of those who claim to represent the “socialist" base in the movement: Students For A Democratic Society; Young Socialists Advance; Socialist Workers Party; the Du Bois Clubs, and the American “new left". A genuine socialist would point out that the war is part of a whole related pattern of social problems generated by capitalism; and because it is part of a related pattern, the war cannot be attacked in isolation from the rest of the pattern or from its roots in the needs of capitalist society; the only way this problem, and others like it, can be permanently solved is to establish a system of society in which the means of production are owned and democratically controlled by the whole people, and goods are produced for use and not for competitive exchange and profit.

The solutions of the “new left”, however, are the old, reformist, and futile solutions which have failed to stop any war since 1914: “negotiation", “disarmament". Support a League of Nations or a United Nations Repeal Conscription. Or, at their most imaginative, withdraw the troops, fight anti-communism, and institute a type of Soviet-style state-capitalism in the United States. Solutions which involve joining the other side, of course, are not even seriously intended to be peaceful.

The American peace movement, in short, is contradicting itself into impotence by opposing a war and then supporting the system of society which has generated it. It is not a socialist movement, and because of this fact it is already beginning to wither into crowds of confused and frightened students and quarreling splinter-groups. Whether it ever becomes anything more will depend upon whether it ever develops a socialist consciousness. For until it does, the body counts will only grow higher, and the nightmare of capitalism will continue—business as usual.

Stan Blake (World Socialist Party of U.S.A.) 

* For verification of this figure, see Gabriel Kolko, Wealth & Power in America (Praeger, 1962) p. 101.

The Future of the Family (1975)

From the February 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the reasons given by the Women’s Liberation movement for the continuation of capitalism is the odd notion that the system is held up by the family. If we could break up the “nuclear” family capitalism would collapse! A corollary to this idea is that life in communes would be much better for everyone.

It is not our purpose to give a detailed history of the family but we cannot look at the possible future pattern of family life without some comment on its past. The changes in the form of the family have in general corresponded to the main stages in human development. Group marriage was appropriate to early tribal society but with the gradual introduction of more marriage restrictions gave way to the pairing family of the lower-stage barbarians. Women still made an important contribution to the collective economy and were respected members of the community.

Men had been the hunters—not a suitable role for the childbearing sex. Later, as hunting gave way to stockbreeding, that too was a male responsibility. When the plough welded together cultivation and stockbreeding women were deprived of their monopoly over the cereal crops and their social status. The rise of private ownership meant the breakdown of the clan structure. The patriarch had to be sure that his herd or flock his wealth, passed to his sons. Hence monogamy—at least for women.

These broad changes have encompassed a wide range of marriage customs. Human progress has not proceeded at a uniform rate, practices observed being tempered by local tradition and social level. The strict seclusion of Greek wives in antiquity did not apply to poor countrywomen. In the more recent past, while marriages were arranged for the wealthy, a jump over the broomstick could suffice for railway navvies. The wives of rising merchants and industrialists might be little more than ornaments in their husbands homes; but for the working class long grueling hours spent in factories, or down mines, left little time or energy for aught but the simplest meal and sleep.

For centuries women were economically productive in the home. Now water comes from a tap. We can switch on heat and light and buy oven-ready food and factory-made clothes. Work, health, education, and recreation are all provided for outside the home. The functions left to the modern family are home care, sex and child rearing. Much of the dissatisfaction with the family stems from the limitations placed on women by their involvement with housework and child care. Part of the reason for this kind of objection is the money and status valuation which is applied to all work. Rearrange the family as you will, while capitalism lasts you will be bound by the restrictions imposed by economic necessity.

Even an immediate change to Socialism will leave the family much the same as it is now. The idea that we would all pack up and leave our present partners is laughable. In any case the Socialist revolution will make it possible to sort out the mess left by capitalism. It will not wave a magic wand to perfection. One certainty about those early years is that they will be busy.

However there will come a time when the world community is long accustomed to the common ownership and democratic control of the earth and its resources. About the kind of family group appropriate to those halcyon days we can only guess! Let us do just that.

We cannot see any reason why all aspects of present- day marriage must be thrown out. Because we personally reject some concepts does not mean that everyone else will share our ideas. The writer views with horror the suggestions by Bebel and others that the private kitchen will disappear and that there will be “public restaurants and central kitchens to which everybody may come to take their meals”. This may be your choice!

The lack of restrictions at an earlier stage of human development did not necessarily imply “an injudicious pell-mell intercourse”. (They were probably too busy looking for food!) Likewise freedom from legal and financial ties is unlikely to herald the end of long-term relationships. Individual men and women who feel a mutual attraction (love?) will live together and for so long as they both wish. We do not suggest that all such relationships will be for life or necessarily exclusive. However, personal relationships do entail responsibilities.

Families, or other groups, will not be filed away as separate units. People being integrated into the community, belonging to the community does not have to mean living cheek-by-jowl in an undifferentiated mass! Rather, a mixture of private and communal life in accordance with individual choice.

Whatever else about our behaviour may be the result of social conditioning, the childbearing role of the female sex is entirely due to natural causes. This role may not appeal to all women but even today, surprising as it may be to some, mothers actually enjoy caring for their babies. It is the combination of problems involved, coping with children alone, in bad housing conditions, with money worries, or simply trying to keep up with some impossible child care standards, which now erodes the pleasure from motherhood. Children thrive in a variety of conditions but they do need a fair amount of individual attention. Though parents will not regard their offspring as possessions born to them. They will certainly not have to do so in isolation nor need it be the sole occupation of women (or men).

Men and women will co-operate to fulfil the needs of Socialist society. Necessary work is likely to occupy fewer hours than it does for most people now. Work freed from the indignity of employment will not be seen as separate from leisure, or education, but as part of our total existence. All tasks necessary to human wellbeing will have equal status. There will just be jobs which need to be done whether inside or outside the home.

To make quite clear the social position that women will occupy, we must point out that every human being will have the equal right of free access to the abundant social produce. What possible motive would there be for any group to hold another in subjection?

Sadly, the exact form the family of the future will take must for the moment be left to the realms of conjecture. It is not the family as such which prevents the abolition of capitalism but a lack of Socialist understanding among its members. When an immense majority of working-class men and women are armed with that understanding, they will not hesitate to take the conscious political action necessary to end capitalism.

This is our immediate task. Posterity will then take care of itself.

Pat Deutz

History Lesson (1977)

Theatre Review from the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

“State of Revolution” by Robert Bolt, at the Lyttelton Theatre.

“But, Comrade Lenin”, says Anatoly Lunacharsky, “that would not be Socialism—but a blind peasant revolt!”

In those few revealing words is summated the rest of the play, and the inevitable tragedy (and death) of Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov=“Nikolai Lenin”. This play is a masterpiece, sticking consistently to facts and dramatically portraying the heroism of the Russian people against both Czarist and Bolshevik tyranny.

“We take the peasants’ corn, and when driving his pigs away, hand him a pamphlet, Which he cannot read”, says Lenin. There is the explanation, in a nutshell. The millions of peasants were not Socialists, and would not become Socialists before they were wage-workers.

Robert Bolt, whether aware of the Socialist Standard's estimate in 1917 of the Russian events or not, has amply confirmed what we said then: “There will be no Socialism in Russia.” His piece makes a magnificent history lesson.

For the only dramatic critic the play will have who actually heard Lenin, Trotsky and the rest in the Kremlin, the simulated Politbureau meetings without a table were somewhat comical.

Horatio

Major is Right! (1997)

From the March 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spin doctors are a modern input into the political industry - and politics is now a vast and profitable industry offering a market to various commercial pimps and an assortment of professional liars.

The function of the spin doctor is to bamboozle the public. His or her main devices arc lies, falsification and concealment, together with truth, where it suits. In fact all the things that comprise the armoury of what is known, by those with a need to inform or hoodwink people, as ‘public relations’.

But spin doctors are the smart asses of public relations. Their function is to project a word or phrase, a ‘sound bite’, that absolves people of the need to think about a situation. Thus, ‘feel-good factor' becomes a lying short-cut through economic reality and ‘If it isn’t broken don't fix it’ becomes John Major’s way of telling us that everything is fine, there are no major social problems and therefore no need to spend time or money on repairs!

To support the argument that ‘it isn’t broken', Major and his fellow Tories tell us that the unemployment figures are coming down. In round figures, there are only about two million people now whose poverty is grossly aggravated by unemployment.

Opponents of the Tories quite rightly point out that these figures are unreliable, that since 1979 Conservative governments have manipulated the way unemployment statistics arc obtained more than twenty times in order to conceal the real numbers of unemployed. Additionally, the government now retains ministerial control over the Office of Central Statistics which facilitates the packaging of statistical information in a manner most useful to the government. There is too, the new ‘enterprise culture' in which selling hamburgers to one another has become a national industry. Millions of people are engaged in morale-breaking low-paid work, often part-time work, and many of those engaged in this low-paid work have to receive state support in order to live. Now, too, thousands of people working for the DHSS have to degrade themselves administering the infamous Job Seeker’s Allowance under the terms of which they are obliged to make life even more intolerable for the most impoverished section of society in order to drive them off the unemployment register.

In a Party political broadcast on behalf of the Tory Party, broadcast on the 13th February of this year, we were told that BMW management, along with many other European and Far Eastern industrial bigwigs favoured Britain for investment. The reason? Labour was cheaper in Britain and workers had fewer legal rights than they had in other EU countries. Older readers will remember the time establishment politicians used to tell us how lucky we were not to be working for a bowl of rice, unlike our fellow workers - whom the politicians called ‘our competitors’ - in other countries.

Last November, under the heading Living in the real world, this journal dealt with the appalling social problems in the United Kingdom - and, indeed, throughout the rest of the world. Billions, millions and hundreds of thousands, these are the terms that article used to tell readers the terrible statistics of destitution, death from hunger, poverty, homelessness and, of course the casualties of capitalism’s ongoing violence.

The statistics quoted in the Socialist Standard article were garnered from public sources and it is reasonable to suppose that the Prime Minister was aware of them when he was telling us that everything in the United Kingdom's garden was fine, that nothing required fixing. Undoubtedly, too, the news that the British Red Cross was distributing food parcels at Christmas to the poor in Britain for the first time in fifty years had come to his attention.

This might well indicate that Major is simply a complete idiot; that when he stands at the dispatch box in parliament cat-calling at Blair and his cohorts on the opposite side of the House and telling us about the changes Tory policy is making and that there’s a ‘feel-good factor’ just around the corner, he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Unfortunately, we can very safely predict that if, as expected, Labour wins the next general election, it will be Blair who will be standing at the dispatch box defending the indefensible and claiming that Labour’s policies are working well for the nation. With equal certitude we can predict that a future Labour government - like the previous eight Labour governments this century - will fail utterly to remove even one of the basic problems that capitalism throws up.

Governments come, here and elsewhere: Conservative, labour. Liberal, ‘Socialist’, ‘Communist’, et al. And governments go, governments of every hue right across the globe and right across the political spectrum. But never, ever, has a government solved a single basic problem of capitalism!

That very obvious fact, that capitalism can not be made to function without the awful social problems which have attended it since it became the dominant form of social organisation, is the justification for our existence. To express our view with a ‘sound bite’, we might say that with capitalism what you see is what you get! Ironically, John Major is right when he claims that it isn't broken! Capitalism in the United Kingdom today is functioning in its normal manner, the way it has always functioned: poverty, unemployment, waste, destruction of the environment, homelessness, alienation, crime, violence and its foul military priorities, these are not problems of capitalism; if they were simply problems they could be solved. These are aspects of capitalism, natural and inevitable social responses to its nature; its uncontrollability, its anarchy of production and the competitive lust of its owning class for profit.

Capitalism was once the cruel medicine of social improvement but its benefits quickly evaporated and today it is a prison for the working class. It is a prison precisely because it holds sway over the thinking of the great mass of people through its educational system, its religious ideologies and its vital control of the media.

But it is an open prison which we can leave as soon as a majority has decided that it is a no-hope society politically and economically engineered to ensure the interests of a relatively small class of profit takers at terrible cost to humanity at large.

Richard Montague

Rebellious teenagers (1966)

From the June 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A lawyer's bonanza in the shape of a Public Enquiry into the behaviour of sonic police officers . . . a murder trial . . . a Government Minister upsetting the apple-cart by making an unusually intelligent observation in connection with the Brown Plan. Pope Paul using Orange air-space . . .  all this against a background of the usual wars, threats of war and diplomatic hooliganism was fun for the press.

But its all old-hat as far as the public is concerned: the lawyers, the murders, the indiscretions of Ministers, the military butchery simply new names for old stories. A. day or two in the headlines and then the news gatherers must bestir themselves again in the jungles of capitalism to bring more news to a populace made news conscious by their constant nearness to “news" situations.

Hence, an enterprising newsman “discovers" bored teenagers congregating around the grounds of the Belfast City Hall on Sunday night. His newspaper complete with picture and news caption serves up the story and such is the excitement of life in these adventurous Sixties, the story catches on. More press comments, letters to the editor and. eager as the editors, statements from churchmen.

Controversy! Statements. quotes and the usual line up of "for" and "against", clergymen, especially, cast their nets in the murky waters of youthful boredom wisely offering "recreational facilities" instead of theological trinkets. On the Sunday evening following, then the bored teenagers are joined by more bored teenagers, bored policemen, boring churchmen and many who were bored teenagers between the two Big Wars.

If we listen in on Grandfather we'll find his boredom momentarily relieved by the mystery of it all. He will tell yon the modern teenager has everything—not like him when he was a youth! In his time they had to nuke their own amusement! “But now, why they spend millions on fancy suits, record players, even motor bikes and 'old bangers' and still . . . And they've no respect for anything and look what the Government's paying for their fancy education."

Of course there's no denying Grandpop's claims: the “modern" teenager gets more of what passes for education in capitalism than did his predecessors. He also has more money to spend and his "recreational" needs are, to use his own terms, “fabulously" well catered for. Yet he is shiftless, respectless and very often bored.

His "behaviour patterns" engage the attention of "experts" whose interests range from those of the churches, the police, the social worker and the multiple tailoring and recording industries He is examined and analysed as a social phenomenon, he is blessed. blamed, cajoled, threatened and exhorted. Generally he is unmoved, bored.

Bored with what? The simple "truths" of his father; with his "education", his religion, with politics, with work, the Law Authority. He is bored with the society that created him.

As far as the average working-class youngster is concerned he gets from society the measure of "education" that the “educationalists" of capitalism consider necessary to fit him most ably for the task of producing wealth for those who own the factories, distributive outlets, etc. In the past, where his father was concerned, the task was a relatively simple one: a little reading, writing and simple arithmetic were all that was required then of the average worker to fit him for the bench, warehouse or the office. Today, however, partly as the result of the last “Great" war, when productive techniques underwent vast technological change, and partly as the result of the workers improved bargaining position in the “trade war" succeeding the slaughter, the role of the worker in most industries has become more involved and complex. Hence the need for better trained school leavers.

But, while the capitalist state is prepared to invest heavily in apprenticeship school years it is not prepared to lose sight of its investment ratio. Some methods of selection, Eleven-plus or teacher selection, is used to determine the investment value of the pupil. The competitive bias is ever present, lauded as a virtue and prompted by teacher and parent with the promise, the threat, the misery.

The "failures" usually are left to their rejection and degradation; the "success" “rewarded" with increased struggle. By and large the average "successful" pupil, in the tender years of childhood, is confronted with a working week of greater effort and longer hours than his, or her, father.

The old street community games are seldom played now. Modern “working class" housing developments bear no evidence of goal posts or "wickets" painted on gable walls. Such games as Rally-O. Releavc-O (to give them their local names) and so on, are but by-gone relics of an age when the working class were at least allowed the luxury of childhood.

Of course, today, commercial interests cater to the youngsters "recreational" needs: the transistor radio, the record player and all the other paraphernalia of the “with it" youth—the symbols of affluence, of property consciousness. The prelude to the world of “things" where people have separate identities only on the work sheet or the Income Tax return.

Despite the purpose of the present school training system however (indeed, contrary to its purpose) the average working class youngster gets a better insight into the world he lives in than did his father. Again, the improved methods of communication, radio, television, etc., contracts time and space and exposes the world he lives in to his gaze.

The contradictions of the world have their effects on the forced-growth children: the poverty amidst plenty, the organised waste, the homes of the master class and the "dwellings" of the workers, the friend-enemy switches of “their” country and much more besides. And the “explanations", the facile chatter of the politicians, the bewilderment of clergymen, the double-talk of statesmen, judges, businessmen, trade-union leaden, etc.

This may be the stuff of eventual political understanding or,  as it tragically most often is, a fertile breeding ground for cynicism, hostility and boredom.

And the promise for the future? As with one voice from all the upholders of capitalism: More work, more production. more competition, more failures, more cynicism, more boredom, more “things”.

Unhappy teenagers: a frankenstein of capitalism, necessary to its buying, selling, competition, trade, machinations and yet containing in its make-up a rejection of capitalism's "more" values—cynical of the very foundations of society—capitalist society.

Well, indeed, may the powers of capitalism be disturbed. For the present the rebellious teenager can be dealt with by the muscles of authority, the police club, the judge and the jailor. If, however, the teenager found direction and purpose for his admirable qualities of discontent and rebellion he could become an unmanageable danger to capitalism and contribute much to its destruction.

Reprinted from the World Socialist Party of Ireland's journal—'Comment'.

Conservation with a deaf eye surgeon (1982)

A Short Story from the May 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s a long time since I’ve hail my eyes tested, the main reason being that I have no confidence in my ability to hold out against the standard opticians' con trick of no new lenses without new frames. In the end, however, I make the discovery that one eye is practically sightless, and being even more terrified of going blind than of being conned, I nerve myself and make an appointment.

The appointment is for 4.45: I’m kept waiting until almost 5.30. (Sublimate my anger by reminding myself that I might be going blind, or even have a brain tumour, and so can’t create a scene.)

The eye tester finally puts in an appearance. He is very old. After perfunctorily apologising for the delay, he informs me that he is not “a mere optician, you know”, but a real, bona-fide, fully-trained eye surgeon. Polite to a fault, 1 murmur that I will not hold it against him. The eye surgeon caps a hand to his car and barks “What?” I say that I am very pleased to hear it.

The actual eye testing is over in about five seconds flat. (I wonder how much they get paid for it. but remind myself that at least I don't appear to be going blind or have a brain tumour.) Before taking me out to meet the mere optician and be conned into buying new frames for my new lenses, the eye surgeon leans forward to peer at the party badge which I wear on my lapel. “What’s that?” he barks. “Socialist Workers’ Party?” (He is obviously short-sighted as well as deaf.) I correct him, in a loud bawl: “Socialist Party of Great Britain.” He peers closer to get at the small print. “World for the Workers, eh? So who are the workers?”

"You”. I shout, “and me”.

The eye surgeon doesn’t like this; he does not wish to be lumped with the rest of us as a mere worker. He informs me that he is a member of one of the higher professions. Still polite, I inquire of him (in the obligatory shout) whether he does not have to sell his labour power in order to survive? He catches but the one word: labour. Ten minutes later, when he has finished, I yell at him again. “Do you possess a private income that you can live on?” This question infuriates him even more. No. he does not possess a private income. He has had to work for his living. Why, there were times at the start of this career when he was working up to eighty hours a week.

I ask him, in that case, why he does not consider himself to be a worker? The answer, apparently, is that he is “an intellectual”. He tells me that I am talking to a “very intellectual type”. When he was in the army he was given a special test which proved that the higher echelons of the medical profession were amongst the world's intellectual elite. I refuse to be sidetracked. I ask him what point he is trying to make. For a moment, such is his intellectual power, he is at a loss; but after a few seconds comes back gamely with the contention that what he calls “the brains” of society must always be rewarded at a higher rate than what he calls “the rest”. I remind him that what we were discussing was whether or not he was a worker.

Mysteriously, at this juncture, he starts talking about Russia.

I give up on the class question. We talk about Russia, instead. Having disposed of the myth that Russia is in any way a “socialist country”, I go on to explain what socialism is all about. I yell at him about how common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution will mean the end of class exploitation. I bawl at him about how every human being will have free access to the social wealth. He suddenly cottons on: we are talking about a society without money. This is plainly an absurdity! “My dear young lady . . . how can you have a world without money?" We haven’t even got enough top medical men now (His words: his claim) so how on earth do I suppose we should have them in a society where they were not only not going to be paid more than other people, but weren’t even going to be paid at all?

I ask him whether, in such a society, he himself would still choose to be an eye surgeon? Or had he only become an eye surgeon for the money? Indignantly, he repudiates the suggestion: there are such things, my dear young lady, as ethics. So what makes him imagine, I shout, that in socialism we wouldn't have enough doctors? The answer comes back pat: it’s nothing to do with money, after all, it’s the simple lack of brain power. There isn’t enough brain power in the world to supply us with all the doctors we need. Doctors, he repeats, are “highly intellectual types”.

I resist the temptation to argue the point (he'll only start telling me again about the special test that “proved” it). Instead, I inform him that there is in the world a great deal of human potential which under a capitalist system is never allowed to be fulfilled; and that, moreover, in socialism a vast range of so-called “intellectual" activities necessary for the running of capitalism would be rendered obsolete, thus releasing large numbers of men and women to undertake far more socially beneficial tasks than they do at present.

To this-stumped, presumably, for any rational follow-up-the eye surgeon triumphantly informs me that 1 have not taken human nature into account. I ask him, in a bellow, what he conceives human nature to be. It seems that he conceives it as being something rather nasty. He does not personally feel the urge to rape and kill and cheat and pillage, but apparently most of the rest of us do. I start bawling into his ear about how most of us, under capitalism, live in conditions of chronic insecurity and stress, but before I can get very far he produces his trump card: what about natural wickedness? I have forgotten natural wickedness!

We have a long shout into each other’s faces about whether natural wickedness exists or whether it does not, during the course of which he suddenly makes the astonishing discovery that I must be an atheist. I accept the charge, and off we go again, on a different tack. He is very sorry for me that 1 do not share his belief in god; I am very sorry for him that he is so self-deluding. I tell him that his belief in god is nothing but ignorance and superstition and that he is like a child believing in fairies; whereupon he informs me that many medical men, “amongst the highest intellects in the land”, share his belief: at which I lost all credibility by resorting to the language of the gutter and snarling that there has never been any divine law which states that medical men shall not be capable of making arrant ********* of themselves. The eye surgeon, fortunately, does not hear this. He is too busy losing all credibility himself by relating a long, rambling tale of how, during a time of personal tragedy, he only survived by reason of his faith; thus proving irrefutably that his faith is based on scientific truth and god exists.

At this point, I collapse beneath the weight of accumulated illogicalities. Neither my throat nor my temper is up to continuing the struggle. These self- confessed intellectuals can wear a person out.

I pick up my prescription and say stupidly that we’ll resume the discussion in the afterlife. The eye surgeon pats me on the head and tells me that “in spite of everything" he is glad to have met me. I tell him that I am glad to have met him, too.

I tell his assistant, the mere optician, that I want my new lenses put into my old frames. I just wish I’d told the eye surgeon himself . . . 

Jean Ure 

The 'Human Nature' Bogey (1975)

From the January 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists, after long argument advocating Socialism, often find that their contestants make the “Human Nature” bogey their last-ditch stand. “That’s all very well,” they say, “but for Socialism to work you would have to change human nature and that is impossible.”

In fact, for Socialism to work, there is no need to change human nature at all; only human behaviour need change, and history is one long record of change in human behaviour.

What are the charges brought to the door of human nature?

One is that human beings are innately cruel: but just what is the evidence for this? Let us at once agree that history shows men and women behaving with almost incredible cruelty. In ancient Rome, a popular entertainment was seeing men torture each other to death or being torn to pieces by wild animals in the arena. Remember the gentle Roman matron who pointed out to her society friends, “Oh, look; that poor lion hasn’t got a Christian!”

More recently, people’s entertainment has been little less savage and “inhumane”. As recently as the late 1800s, the public hanging of criminals provided weekend entertainment for thousands. In the words of Dickens, “thousand upon thousand of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth and callousness that a man had cause to feel ashamed of his human shape.” Hangings, burnings, beheadings, disembowelling and tortures were once among the entertainments of the citizens of London, as of townsfolk throughout the “civilized” world.

Many maintain that some people are inborn criminals and that whatever their early environment their innate dishonesty will out. However, the general types of behaviour that prevail today are the results of the social environment, including its heritage from the past, that is, Capitalism. Because of want or insecurity, or both, men steal and cheat and are capable of the most selfish, brutal and vicious acts. But many break the law simply because of need and the fact that most of the laws of the land relate to private property which would not exist under Socialism.

Harvard psychologists studied the correlations between happiness and criminality and concluded that the old Dutch proverb, “Happy people are never wicked”, had some basis in fact. They found that the majority of criminals came from unhappy homes. A ten-year study on frustration carried out at Yale University brought out that much hostility to others is brought about by our own happiness.

Another charge made against human nature is that it is basically hostile, aggressive and militant. Writers try to give, as the cause of war, man’s innate urge to fight and kill. Capitalists have the gall to put forward this explanation whilst using every method of persuasion, by the mass media of communication, to get men and women to join the armed forces, and when, as in war, advertisement is not sufficient, use conscription to coerce the “natural killers” into the forces on pain of imprisonment.

Again, an oft-repeated accusation against human nature is that man is basically lazy. And yet, where- ever there is a human need it is in man’s nature to meet it. “Creative” work is widely and readily tackled. Many a man, after a day of unrewarding (except for his daily bread) labour comes home and happily gets stuck into “do-it-yourself” carpentry etc. for the benefit of his wife and family. Under capitalism many people hate their jobs, not because they "dislike hard work”, but because they have to suffer boring, arduous toil. Satisfying work is as necessary to the healthy human as leisure. People want to achieve something and earn the approbation of their fellow man. Should there be eleven months’ holiday in a year and only one month of work, we should all be waiting impatiently for our month of work to come round.

At present many people hate their jobs: they are “square pegs in round holes” because of financial, status and snob values. Under Socialism, where security and comfort would be assured for all whatever their job, men would be able to choose freely their own occupation — something they would enjoy because they would be good at it — something rewarding and eliciting the appreciation of their fellows.

On the other hand, football-pool winners of enormous sums of money sometimes opt to carry on with their jobs. In such cases all the pleasures and privileges of the rich are not enough to destroy the urge to “do something useful”. Doctors often encounter, in their surgeries, the dodgers who try to avoid their work (even at the loss of income it costs them) and ask for certificates to draw National Insurance payments. But also, there are many workers who, after an all-too-short period of rest from their toil because of illness, ask for a clearance certificate to go back to work again, because they say they feel bored and useless staying at home.

At this point it is interesting to note the contents of a report put out by the Standing Conference of Voluntary Social Work Organisations in Staffordshire and published in the Evening Sentinel of 8th September 1973. It revealed that “10% of the population of the country are engaged in some form of voluntary work. Each volunteer devotes two hours a week in the service of those needing help in varying form and degree. The result is that an impressive 1,224,000 man-hours are devoted to the service each year.”

So much for laziness, even under capitalism!

Thus, it is foolish to think that man is innately lazy. To say otherwise is absurd as the picture of an explorer landing on a desert island where the trees were laden with delicious fruits, with the population lying under the trees starving, and when he asked why they didn’t climb the trees, replied “We’re too lazy.”

Some say that true human nature shows itself to be vicious and sordid in such places as prisons and concentration camps. But this is a false criterion by which to condemn human nature, because such circumstances are not natural and could not exist under Socialism. Of course sordid behaviour can result under conditions of distress. Suffering is not always ennobling as some would have us believe. But likewise, surroundings of hardship often do reveal the innate co-operativeness of people, even under capitalism. Men have given their lives to save others. This too is "human nature".

The writer has seen blood donors giving blood, not even knowing the recipient, for no more a selfish reason than the thought of being useful. (Ironically, some of the donors were "docked pay" by their employer — who later could well have been the recipient of a donation himself — for the time away from his factory spent at the blood bank.)

Surely, given a sane order of society, all goods and services could be supplied for the same gain as for blood donor — for use and the consequent approval. If selfishness is seeking happiness, then of course man is selfish. All he needs to learn is that the most effective and expedient way of being selfish for a gregarious animal such as man, is through Socialism.

R. B. Gill

What Marx really meant . . . (1983)

From the July 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over the years there have been many wide ranging interpretations of Marx’s writings by journalists and academics, most of them littered with distortions and references to nationalist uprisings and guerrilla warfare as "Marxist inspired”. Then there are the cynical statements of those on the political left who seek to use supposedly Marxist theories to justify their own essentially elitist idea of leading the working class to power through violent insurrection, or who attempt to equate the state capitalist dictatorships of Russia and its satellites with the concept of socialism put forward in the writings of Marx and Engels.

The task of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to cut through the confusion surrounding the meaning of these writings, something especially important in this centenary year of Marx’s death. Let us consider the legacy of Marx to the SPGB and its associated parties worldwide, by selecting some excerpts from the original works which reflect our claim to be the sole propagators of socialism as understood by Marx. This is not to say that we rigidly adhere to Marx’s every utterance — the socialist case stands up on its own merits. Marx's writings are merely a part of the historical process of workers beginning to understand the mechanics of the political system under which we have lived, as a class for 200 years. Karl Marx was no more than one person endowed with an ability to analyse and express this information in a logical and comprehensible way. The questions for those who have studied the economic and social basis of the system of exploitation which we know as capitalism are these:

What did Marx mean by socialism? What does this proposed society entail? How is it to be brought about? To answer the last question first: socialism must be brought about through a conscious, democratic decision — not superior intellectual theorising by leaders. Ordinary working people themselves must use the existing political institutions to take power from the capitalist class, as illustrated in the SPGB's Declaration of Principles which states "That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself”.

This concern for the peaceful use of democratic institutions to gain power is shown in the following extract from a speech made by Marx at the Hague Congress of the International in 1872:

We know that heed must be paid to the institutions, customs and traditions of the various countries, and we do not deny that there are countries, such as America and England . . . where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means

Although Marx goes on to say that force would still be necessary in most continental countries, a century of social and economic development has made possible the peaceful capture of political power in the majority of the world’s countries. This view is reinforced by an article written in 1852 for the New York Daily Tribune in which Marx asserts that

The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the continent. Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class.

While still waiting for this to result in our political supremacy as a class, it is nevertheless clear that Marx's prime concern was for the democratic capture of political power by a conscious majority: that the main task is for workers themselves to grasp that it is they alone who must decide to take the initiative to sweep away the old society of exploitation and degradation and to bring in a new order based on — based on what?

Let us return to Marx’s own writings for an answer. He writes in Capital of “. . . cooperation and the possession in common of the land and the means of production” (Vol. I. p. 79. Allen & Unwin edn ). That this common ownership as advocated by the SPGB is at the very core of Marx’s own conception of socialist society is further illustrated by an extract from his Critique of the Gotha Programme which speaks of a mode of wealth production wherein "... the material conditions of production [are] the cooperative property of the workers themselves” and by the reference, earlier in the same work, to ". . . the cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of production”.

These ideas obviously have nothing to do with nationalist movements, since it is quite evident that the person who exhorted the working people of all countries to unite realised that it would be ludicrous to propose the existence of a “socialist country" in isolation. That workers must organise and must unite internationally is clear when one considers that, say, steel workers in Britain have more in common with fellow steel workers in France or Germany than with any members of the British capitalist class.

When we read in the Communist Manifesto of ". . . the Communistic abolition of buying and selling”, and. further, in one of Marx's classic economic expositions Value, Price and Profit, of ". . . the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system”, we can fully appreciate the relationship between people which Marx is proposing. It is a society without classes (that is to say, without sections of the population standing in differing relationship to the means of producing wealth), and without money, since exchange will be superfluous when property is held in common.

To summarise, the real message behind all the volumes of detailed and painstaking scientific enquiry is no more than this — study the evidence, consider the alternative and take action by and for yourselves to bring it about. One of Marx’s better known conclusions is that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point is to change it”. It is a message which is as appropriate now as it was in 1845

Paul G Robinson

Reformism: the road to nowhere (1994)

From the August 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are opposed to reformism, the attempt to reform capitalism to make it a better - or, at least, less objectionable - social system. We have never advocated a single reform, and have resolutely refused to become sidetracked into supporting individual reformist policies. For the Socialist Party to aim for reforms would be to attract members more interested in the reforms than in Socialism, and would mean the effective renunciation of the Socialist goal. Our sole aim is the establishment of a Socialist society.

Two reasons may be put forward for following a reformist programme. One is that the effects of capitalism can be mitigated, that working-class suffering can be alleviated. If politics is "the art of the possible", it is supposedly better to pursue short-term aims which can do some good, rather than to adopt a long-term goal which can be achieved only in the dim and distant future. In fact, some have claimed, that widespread reforms can undermine the oppressive nature of capitalism so that it becomes a free and fair social system, or can even gradually usher in Socialism. The second reason given is that reforms are a way for a political party to gain support and publicity; a successful campaign for a reform will attract new members who can then be won over for Socialism. On this approach, reforms are seen as helping to make Socialists, irrespective of whether they help to solve working-class problems. However, neither argument stands up to scrutiny.

Those who believe that reforms can make capitalism a bit more palatable will point to examples such as the health service, the provision of universal schooling, or housing legislation. Workers have benefited from these, they will say, so reforms can clearly do some good. In responding to this argument, we need to examine these and similar cases to see if they really show what their enthusiasts claim. The example of housing, for instance, in fact shows the inability of reformist policies to solve the problem: housing legislation dates from 1868, but even today there are in England alone 1.5 million homes described officially as "unfit for human habitation", thousands are homeless, and a thousand homes a week are re-possessed by building societies.

Problems not solved

The whole paraphernalia of the post-war welfare state, including the health service, was introduced for the benefit of the capitalist class, not for that of the workers. Politicians and others at the time were quite open about this, and made no secret of their reasons. For instance, Tory industrialist Samuel Courtauld stated in 1943 that social security "will not undermine the morale of the nation's workers: it will ultimately lead to higher efficiency among them and a lowering of production costs" (emphasis added). Likewise, the driving-force behind education reforms has always been responding to the needs and interests of capitalism, not the demands of reformers. William Forster, architect of the 1870 Elementary Education Act, argued that "upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial prosperity". So these much-trumpeted reforms were aimed at benefiting the capitalists, and (insofar as they were not detrimental, as they were in some cases) only incidentally advantageous to workers.

Besides revealing the real reasons why reforms are introduced, these examples are instructive in other ways. Firstly, they show that the consequences of reforms are often very different from what their supporters intended. Some housing legislation, for instance, has led to a reduction in the supply of rented accommodation, rather than the intended limits on rents. Secondly, they demonstrate that it is not enough to fight for reforms - it is also necessary to fight to maintain them once they have been introduced. The welfare state, in particular, is currently in retreat, with attacks on pensions and the health service. The ludicrous notion of "care" has led to many mental patients being booted out of hospitals; they often receive no care, and frequently join the growing ranks of the homeless. Many social security payments are likely to be even more rationed over the coming years, so that only the "most needy" qualify.

Reforms, then, cannot cure working- class problems. For one thing, they are not designed to do this. For another, they have to operate within the confines of capitalism and its profit-based economic system. No reform can overturn capitalism's need for profits and its boom-slump economy. The argument that reforms can lead to the introduction of Socialism by stealth is equally nonsensical. Socialism is built on a completely different basis from the present system, and cannot be achieved by gradually changing ever more bits of capitalism.

Dishonest and dangerous

But what of the other case for reforms, that they can help build support for an organisation? The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that it is fundamentally dishonest for any organisation to try to gain support on the basis of policies which it does not itself advocate. It would be utterly hypocritical if a party standing for Socialism were to try to win members by supporting higher pensions or more state subsidies for rural bus services. Why should workers believe a party which seeks support for a goal it does not itself espouse? Any who indulge in such deceit deserve nothing but contempt.

In any case, consider what would happen if a party with the declared aim of Socialism gained large numbers of members who were in favour of reforms rather than Socialism. These new members would inevitably affect the party’s policies and strategy, so that the reforms would cease to be a mere recruiting ploy, and would instead become its central purpose. Reformist members would mean reformist policies, and inevitably so. There might be an exception if a party were organised undemocratically, with policy the prerogative of some inner circle or central committee from which ordinary members were excluded - but such a party could not be Socialist anyway.

How often have Socialists heard arguments along the following lines: "Yes, I agree with much of what you say, and when the Socialist Party gets large enough to make an impact, or when such-and-such a reform has been achieved. I’ll certainly consider joining. But in the meantime I think it’s better to work for reforms, despite all their inadequacies." The trouble with this argument is that it will always lie "the meantime". There will never come a day when the job of the reformers is done, for capitalism constantly throws up new problems which require addressing. And Socialist ideas will never make progress if those who agree with them opt for reformist activity. Rather than waste their time and effort in advocating reforms, workers should consider the case for revolution and its message of Socialism now.

Paul Bennett

Farewell, Free Marketeers (1989)

From the December 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

To defend Marx against criticism is not to be taken as implying endorsement of everything he said and wrote. The man himself continually updated and corrected his theories. Who are we to foist omniscience upon him? But there are those who behave as if his was the final word upon capitalism, and past history, and the future. One can imagine his scathing reaction to any such flattery. His ruthless abandonment of the beginning and the end of the Communist Manifesto, of the reformism in his earlier proposals in favour of the abolition of the wages system, and of his tidy schema of social evolution so as to accommodate the Asiatic mode of production, these and other changes of direction demonstrate that humility which is the beginning of wisdom.

Feeble Grip on Logic

Marx may well have been the pathologically quarrelsome old sponger that Arthur Koestier claimed. He may have loved his mother and been kind to little dogs. We can leave those concerns to the propagandists of the status quo: the Von Mises and Hayeks and Friedmans and Poppers and Nozicks of this world, who all share a feeble grip on the Logic of Aristotle.

Von Mises charges the critics of capitalism with being merely intellectuals who are jealous of the businessmen's wealth. This used to be called the fallacy of argumentum ad hominen. It was illustrated by the case of a Counsel who returned a hopeless brief to his junior with the advice: No case. Abuse the plaintiffs attorney! And this is the final word of a man who pleads for his economics to be regarded as a science.

His pupil Hayek is an equal master of logic:

It is money which in existing society opens an astounding range of choice to the poor man.

and

Some voluntary (sic) labour service on military lines might well be the best form for the state to provide the certainty of an opportunity for work and a minimum income for all.

He later repeats the argument in favour of forced labour, where unions resist wage cuts after a war, and all this in a polemic against an unbelievably muddled notion of socialism, called The Road to Serfdom.

Metaphysical Predictions

Hayek's colleague Karl Popper provides the explanation of how the system will benefit us all. It is because of the unintended consequences of all our individual actions which in some mysterious way combine to do good. Popper insists that all theories which cannot be falsified by experience are metaphysical. A. J. Ayer pointed out that this would make a statement “there are white swans” a metaphysical proposition as what experience could show it to be false?

It is equally difficult to see how Popper's own theory could be falsified. Perhaps Ayer saved Popper from the consequences of his own foolishness. He could not save him from the silly argument that all wide-ranging, long-term predictions are metaphysical. Popper should go and tell that to the insurance companies. It was, of course, the rationale for an attack on Marx's view of the future, which was not scientific prediction, he says, but metaphysical prophecy. I predict, you prophesy, he reads tea-cups.

Popper began by pleading for “piecemeal social engineering" as an alternative to wholesale social change. We can sympathise with his emotions when we consider that the book which gave him notoriety, The Open Society and Its Enemies, was written during the Second World War, with the horrors of Stalinism and Hitlerism on everybody's mind, and Popper himself a refugee. With the growing disenchantment of the establishment with any kind of social engineering after the failure of the Heath government, however, he adopted a more Panglossian view, and decided against change, piecemeal or otherwise.

Joining the Game in the Middle

Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia, argues for maintaining the status quo but with minimum interference by the state. He lays great store by the right of private property, but he joins the game in the middle and does not seem to be aware that the game was started by a great act of violent dispossession backed by the state. His position is therefore one of ignorance or lack of scruple.

Friedman is another who argues that we only act from selfish motives but that the unintended consequences of our actions are that everybody benefits, that Adam Smith's “invisible hand” sees that we are all alright. Many people in 19th century Britain and 20th century wherever might be puzzled by this claim. In any case, Friedman casts doubt on his fidelity to this belief when he says that it does not apply to academics. They act, apparently, just to secure the approval of their fellows. Whether this unselfishness deprives us all of benefits, he doesn't say.

Booed off the Stage

It was the collapse of credibility in the Keynesian and Fabian consensus that brought these propagandists of the Free-Market to the front of the stage in the 1970s. They had been waiting a long time, ever since the 1930s. The Great Crash had destroyed the plausibility of the argument: the US until 1929 was about as free an economy as was ever likely to arise in a real world, and it produced catastrophe, needing a long time to forget. The reaction was state-intervention everywhere. The most complete Keynesian of them all was probably Adolph Hitler.

With the intellectual trashing of these interventionists by the increasing economic crises —stop-go, stagflation— as the Second World War receded, the scene was set once more for the Free Market to be offered up as the solution to all our ills. And what better place to try it out than Britain? As Galbraith pointed out, there was no excuse if it failed. A sober, almost phlegmatic population, almost designed for the “we can take it" role.

The innings has been a short one, a mere decade. This might well turn out to be the excuse the next time round. It recalls the Irish nonagenarian keening over the death of her seventy-five year old son: "I didn't have time to raise him. I didn't have time to raise him."

Any time now the roof of the world economy could fall in, though only a fool would put a date to it. The otherwise prescient City tipster Bob Beckman sold his house in Regents Park in 1983 anticipating the crash and missed the greatest rise in property values in history. The Free-Market act is going to dance off the stage to the boos of its erstwhile supporters. But what is next on the bill? Are memories so short?

Ken Smith

Quare Phenomena (1958)

TV Review from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another month come and gone, and the writing of these notes an almost frightening reminder of how many hours of the best years of one's life have been spent in glassiness before the screen, a woodbine-smoking Lady of Shalott gazing in one's Magic Mirror.

Not every month, however, yields two plays of such quality as The Quare Fellow and The Greatest Man on Earth. The Brendan Behan piece came over well in its television version, in spite of the condensations of both text and space. A tremendous indictment of prison-keeping, this, all the more because it never explicitly indicts at all: only shows the stupidity and barbarity and humbug, and what it does to everyone concerned.

The Greatest Man on Earth was fun to make you think. In case anyone didn't see it, its situation (developed from a James Thurber story) was simply the dilemma of American heads of state when a suddenly-sprung national hero turns out to be also hoodlum, illiterate, sex-fiend and general loudmouth. The pace and the amusement never let up, but it seemed as if a point were being made all the time and someone was slyly telling us that this wasn't so far-fetched, either.

What else? Well, there is the news that someone has been appointed to supervise the children's programmes: a beam of hope for the anti-cowboy zealots. Much less hope, however, of any falling-back in the main, most depressing trend in children's television. This is not gunplay and rough-stuff (except possibly the reiteration of the appalling Popeye cartoons, with their interminable beatings-up), but the steady intrusion of juvenile editions of quizzes, panel games, and the rest of YV "light entertainment."

It is about a hundred years since children began seriously to be educated as future wage-workers and soldiers. The last few years have seen a new addition to the prospects: educating them as future consumers as well. Here it is on the telly, the view presumably being to produce a younger generation which no longer wants to be sheriffs and engine-drivers, but wants to watch "Dotto" instead.

There has also been the shattering allegation that quiz contestants are primed beforehand. Nobody so far has made much of a reply, and one wonders why they should. There is a good deal to be said for it. The questions themselves (What is a Zulu? Which way is south?) are insulting enough; why add humiliation by revealing that the subjects in a good many cases don't know the answers?

Robert Barltrop