Who Decides What and How? (2016)

From the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Does complexity rule out meaningful democracy?

When socialists speak of democracy we mean something very different from the concept the mainstream media provides. Instead of giving you permission to vote for some toff or careerist to serve and define your political interests (improbably) for five years we insist that any meaning democracy must entail the involvement of the community at every level in political/economic decision making.

When confronted by this definition of democracy our rulers and their media are incredulous and produce a torrent of reasons why this is impractical at best and political madness at worst. Most of the objections are ideological and do not deserve any serious consideration but there is one that has to be discussed: Does our technological culture depend almost entirely on the expertise of a minority of specialists whose knowledge cannot be easily understood by the ‘layman’ and is therefore inaccessible to democratic debate and decision? Are these ‘technocrats’ the only ones with the talent and ability to make decisions concerning, for instance, scientific research and technological application?

What happens today

Before we attempt to answer this let us consider how such decisions are made in the present economic system. Science and technology are usually financed in two ways within capitalism – either via the state (universities and the military) or through so called ‘private’ investment by big business. These two approaches are motivated essentially by the same desired end – to enhance the wealth and power of the capitalist class. Any benefit enjoyed by the wider community is merely a by-product of this economic dynamic. Over the years within many industries scandals have been exposed as a result of the contradiction between the economic imperatives of profit and the integrity of scientific research. Scientists are human and as such are subjected to the same cultural and political pressures as the rest of us. When science is subverted by economic and political interests then disaster is always a possibility.

Although the owners of the capital that is invested in these industries do take some notice of their tame ‘technocrats’ they listen much more attentively to their accountants. When couched in such phrases as ‘cost benefit’ in terms of the expected return on investment it sounds almost rational – if we are prepared to tolerate the obfuscation and inevitable dangers this entails. The point being, in terms of this debate, that it’s not primarily the ‘experts’ who make decisions about research and technological application but investment advisors (motivated solely by the need to enhance their clients’ investment portfolios).

Politicians share this perspective when deciding how their masters’ tax dollars are to be spent in terms of state investment in science and technology. In other words, in this respect, the technological experts have no political power at all. It would seem that this particular criticism of socialist democracy is specious since whenever the experts’ advice conflicts with economic expectations they are side-lined or ignored completely.

How it could be

Would socialism represent an improvement in the rational application of science and technology to production for need instead of profit?

The decision of the allocation of resources within socialism would have three stages: Dissemination of information, debate and vote.

The first part would rely on the expertise and talent of those involved within the relevant industries, in this case scientists and technologists. Because of the absence of political pressures they would be free to articulate candidly about the benefits and risks of developing certain productive technologies. There would have to be an element of trust in taking this advice but as in criminal trials this will be balanced by experts who take a different perspective.

A debate by the wider community would then take place using this information and evaluating possible contrasting opinions. Again, as in present day trials, the community will be asked which course to take based on their assessment of which evidence they find the most compelling. As is the case now mistakes will be made but at least they will be the result of honest error rather than Machiavellian political intrigue and corruption which is so ubiquitous today. Within this political culture scientists (and their spokesmen/women) will not exhibit the sometimes arrogant and elitist attitudes they do today – after all their future and that of their children will depend on the decisions made. Being a scientist will mean incorporating the ability to communicate about their work with others (as indeed some of the greatest scientists do presently).

Undoubtedly the level of education, both political and general, would be much higher within socialism – we do not concur with the elitist position that only a minority of the community will ever have the intelligence to make these important decisions. Again, if we live in some kind of elitist meritocracy (as the propaganda would have us believe) then the obvious political and scientific disasters that decorate capitalism’s history would imply the failure of this illusory bourgeois approach to ‘democracy’.

We maintain that no meaningful democracy is possible until the decisions concerning the production of the means of life are taken under the democratic control of the whole community. That this is a possibility will make the motivation for democratic activity so much more exciting – in contrast to the obvious impotent and cynical gatherings which parish, county, regional and national councils/governments now represent. Production for profit is the antithesis to democracy because it can only ever work in the interests of the parasitic minority. Democracy is still a concept that waits patiently in the wings of history’s theatre, ready for the consciousness that will finally bring it to centre stage.

Wez.

Another Victim of Capitalism (1997)

TV Review from the October 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among all the protracted TV coverage devoted to the death of Princess Diana. (BBC and ITV all day. every day) several important questions remain unanswered. Not just why she should have received countless hours of TV airtime devoted to her work with the poor and needy when millions across Britain— who have done just as much and rather more besides— never get mentioned and probably never will get mentioned.

And not necessarily the type of questions that have been concerning the media either—like whether Dodi Fayed’s bodyguard was drunk, what speed the car was going at when it crashed or whether MI6 are competent enough to kill renegade princesses. No, there are other questions, at least as relevant as any of these, that spring directly to the fore of the inquisitive mind.

One of the most obvious is this. Which person in modern human history has received the most attention from, and been the subject of more media predictions by astrologers, numerologists, spiritualists, soothsayers and other crystal ball gazers, than Princess Diana? And furthermore, why did not a single one of these professional fraudsters prophesy Diana’s fatal accident? And just as bizarrely, why has no-one apparently noticed this? The British media, increasingly including the TV media, feeds the working class a meaty daily diet of tricksters and charlatans who claim to have the future in their hands. And yet when further incontrovertible evidence emerges of their complete inability to do what they claim they can, we don’t hear a peep from their media pimps. How odd.

Shooting from the hip

More questions, and of greater import still. Who or what really killed Diana? Was it the press? Or, as Andrew Neil and others have seemingly implied, the public who actually watched the news and bought the papers? Frankly, neither of these explanations is truly plausible. The media could hardly be described as sole agents in her death as they were merely responding to the competitive impulses engendered by circulation wars and the market (as indeed were the paparazzi). But in that case, were not the buying and watching public themselves to blame?

This idea is even less plausible.There has not been a single UK national newspaper or TV channel which has not pursued Diana at some time or another to sell papers or attract viewers and advertising and thus make more profit. In that situation, where is the choice for those who want genuine news? Wherever people looked, there she was on the most ‘‘serious’’ of TV channels and newspapers commonly available.

Even if it can be argued that the bulk of the working class have tended to gravitate towards those sectors of the media offering the more sensationalist type of coverage of the royal family it is risible to claim that the newspapers were only providing what the "real culprits’’—the general public—wanted. Firstly, this totally ignores the effect the media has in determining what is on offer to the public and the undercurrent of bias and manipulation with which they steer the public towards certain ways of thinking and acting. Secondly, it is little more than pathetic to suggest that the media was just bowing to "popular demand" as if they—or any rational person—think that majority opinion at any one moment in time and on any issue in today’s society must be followed to the letter.

Given the spurious and hopelessly distorted levels of democracy currently in existence in countries like Britain, majority opinion at any time can be taken to be just that and no more because whatever majority opinion exists on a subject is refracted through a distorting prism called the economy where there is no democracy at all. The resulting picture is often mangled and disfigured beyond recognition as a result. It would be ludicrous to take an opinion and defend it on all grounds simply because it is currently that of a majority. The media have certainly not done so in the past so why use this excuse now?

Taking some examples, if the majority of people had been calling for Diana’s imprisonment or worse on grounds of treason would that have been okay and would the media have led the charge simply on the grounds of giving the public what it wanted? Extending this logic further, if the majority of the population was overtly racist would we all have had to start going round killing black people and would the media have campaigned for the setting up of concentration camps? Hitler had majority constitutional backing at one key point in Germany’s history—was that all right too? Of course not, and the media must know it. Democracy is a qualitative not just a crudely quantitative phenomenon.The bottom line is that if you know something is wrong you argue and fight against it, not pander to the worst sort of prejudices going. What the media have been doing is merely using the public to divert attention from their own alleged complicity in the whole affair.

Which brings us back to what really did for the "people’s princess". Avoiding the trap of scapegoating, it was clearly the pressures and conflicts brought about by present-day society itself, not just isolated parts of it. At root we live in a money and status-obsessed society which elevated the wretched girl to the ridiculous and fantastical heights of being a royal princess, stuffed her mind full of some of the most ridiculous notions and "rules" imaginable until she became possibly the world’s most visible neurotic, and it was this same hierarchical and profit- hungry society which hunted her to death in the pursuit of the great god Mammon.

Socialists are unremittingly hostile to hierarchy and privilege (far more so of course than Diana herself— despite the claims of Trevor McDonald and his like) but that does not mean we have no sympathy at all for those outside the working class who are also sometimes victims of a mad. uncontrollable system. For let there be no mistake. Diana the Princess of Wales was not merely killed by “the media", the "paparazzi" or the amorphous "general public". Diana, in truth, was created by capitalism and then killed by it too. But what are the chances of a week's constant TV discussion of that?

Dave Perrin

What makes you angry? (1992)

From the July 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are you irritated? Annoyed? Angry? What causes this? Standing in a ten-year supermarket check-out queue? Your children scattering their toys and clothes all over the house? Gameshows on television? A social system where the many are economically exploited by. and for the benefit of, the few?

Everything’s relative. To be a victim of a capitalist’s pension fraud rates rather higher on the cosmic scale of things to get upset about than does burning the breakfast toast. Whilst the one event is an obvious effect of a social system based upon production for profit where the continuing accumulation of wealth overrides all other human considerations, capitalism can’t be held responsible for burnt toast. Unless it’s a result of having to rush in order to fulfil one’s obligations as a wage slave.

My local newspaper gives front-page prominence to the news that in the town where I live a clothing store run by the WRVS for the distribution of free second-hand clothing to the poor and needy is closing. One volunteer said that she never knew there was so much poverty until she started working for the scheme. Although 10,000 items of clothing had been distributed during the last twelve months, she was distressed that the powers- that-be knew nothing about the needs of people affected by the recession.

Still, it’s all relative. According to the 480-page, 43rd edition of Britain—an Official Handbook published by the governmental Central Office of Information, Britain is a prosperous society enjoying unprecedented wealth (Wolverhampton Express & Star, 9 January). Little mention is made in the handbook of the effects of recession or of rising unemployment. It’s unlikely that those members of the working class queueing up for free hand-me-downs, or buying from charity shops, are among the one in four who now own shares.

A few hundred British Telecom shares doesn’t put you in the capitalist class. Try giving up your paid wage slavery, assuming you have some, and living off the share dividends. You'll quickly discover that you’re still a member of the majority who are forced to sell their labour power in order to survive in a capitalist society. Even if you have “taken advantage” of the many privatisation share offers of recent years, statistics show that most people take a quick profit and run.

Debt

The number of people owning their own homes, says the Handbook, has risen almost four-fold compared to 40 years ago. If you have actually paid off your mortgage you are one of the fortunate minority. Most “home-owners’” houses and flats are still owned by building societies. As more and more families and individuals find themselves unable to maintain their mortgage repayments and have their homes re-possessed, the effects of living in a “private property” society become devastatingly clear.

Still, it’s all relative, isn't it? Compared to conditions in other parts of the worldwide capitalist system life in the geographical economic unit called Great Britain remains reasonably safe and civilised. Or does it? What odds on your being one of those members of the working class who lose their life in one of the 600 work-related fatalities every year? Or being seriously injured in one the 100,000 work- related major accidents every year? Money spent on health and safety in the work-place reduces profits—and profits are more important in a capitalist society than workers’ safety.

If you believe that the odds on your becoming one of the above statistics are too long to worry about, those on your being, or becoming, in serious debt are much shorter:

High interest rates, easy consumer credit and poverty have driven 2.5 million British households into debt. Research published by the independent Policy Studies Institute shows that 12 per cent of British households have problems with debt. The report rejects stereotypical views of people running up huge debts on credit. It concludes that poverty, rather than excessive consumer spending, forces many families into financial difficulties. Mr Berthoud. a senior research fellow at the PSI, said, “We don't find that buying lots of videos. televisions, cars and so on is very strongly implicated in debt; we do find that not having much money to live on, running out of money at the end of each week, what we call hardship, is implicated in debt”. Poorer people are no better off than they were in 1979. (The Independent, 27 February 1992).

It’s all relative. But need it be?

A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But let a palace arise beside the little house, and it shrinks from a little house to a hut. However high it may shoot up in the course of civilisation, if the neighbouring palace grows to an equal or even greater extent, the occupant of the relatively small house will feel more and more uncomfortable, dissatisfied and cramped within its four walls. (Wage Labour and Capital. Karl Marx).

Capitalism

The majority working class has no cause to feel satisfied with capitalism. The time has come for the working class to translate its dissatisfaction into positive political action.

“But what", you ask, “of socialism?" It is too facile to sneer at the idea of “civilising” capitalism. What do you imagine the trade unions are about? Or the welfare state? It is a plain fact, which we should all recognise, that there has been no comprehensive programme (Bolshevism apart) (sic) to replace capitalism as the dominant system in this country since the early 1830s when there was massive but brief support for Robert Owen’s niillenarian vision. Two lessons surely stand out from the past 13 brutal years. One is that it is better to have a “civilised” capitalism (sic) than the kind sponsored by Margaret Thatcher or John Major. The second is that, with the internationalisation of capital, there cannot be Keynesianism, let alone socialism, in one country. (Joe England, Tribune, 24 January).

This is the “solution” offered to the working class by all other political parties—reforming capitalism, civilising capitalism. It is not the solution presented to the working class by this particular party, the Socialist Party. All it takes to do away with all the ills of capitalism is a politically aware and motivated working class which wants and understands socialism.

There was a man I used to have business dealings with. I never met him, we used to converse over the telephone a lot. After the company employing him went bust I never heard from him again. I read in the newspaper that he had run a rubber pipe from his car exhaust and gassed himself. The inquest was told that he owed creditors lots of money, and letters from his bank were found beside him. I still feel sick when I think of the unimaginable, the pressures on an individual that forces him into doing that. It’s said that you can be poor and still be happy. The evidence to show that you can only be poor and miserable, or worse, in a capitalist society is all around us. What makes you angry?

Dave Coggan

Worked to Death (2016)

From the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

A look at cases of people being killed or injured because of their work, and at why such things happen.

Over the last two decades at least twenty thousand sugar-cane cutters in Central America have died of kidney failure, caused by dehydration, heat exposure and physical stress (New Internationalist, November 2015). This is not the usual kind of industrial ‘accident’, but it was clearly their work that was responsible for these people’s deaths.

A more common kind of workplace death is exemplified by the case of Cameron Minshull, a 16-year-old apprentice killed at a factory in Bury in 2013. Cameron, who earned just £3 an hour, was dragged into a lathe and died of head injuries. There was no safety regime at the company; young workers were untrained and unsupervised, and had to clean the lathes while they were still running. The firm’s owner was sentenced to eight months in prison, the company admitted corporate manslaughter and was fined, and the recruitment agency (which had been paid by the government for placing Cameron at the firm) was also fined. His mother said, ‘He should never have died for doing the right thing, for going to work to earn a living and to be trained to become an engineer.’

In 2014–5 a total of 142 workers were fatally injured in Great Britain; this was lower than the average for the last five years but slightly higher than the figure for 2013–4. In addition 102 ‘members of the public’ were killed in work-connected incidents in 2014–5 (excluding rail suicides).

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) makes much of the fact that, since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974, fatal injuries to employees have fallen by 86 percent and reported non-fatal injuries by 77 percent. On the other hand, deaths from asbestos-related diseases increased by a factor of ten between 1974 and 2012, largely because of exposure to asbestos prior to 1980. So it is not purely a matter of being killed or injured while at work; deaths and injuries arising from work must also be considered (as the example of the cane-cutters shows).

Agriculture (including forestry and fishing) is the most dangerous industry sector in Greta Britain, according to the HSE. Only one worker in a hundred is in agriculture, but one fatal injury in five occurs there. The number of fatal injuries has been reduced since 1974, but much less than in other industries. In 2013–4, there were 27 workplace deaths among agricultural workers, the most frequent of which involved being struck by a moving vehicle; in addition, four members of the public were fatally injured. Furthermore, about ninety deaths a year among those who work or worked in agriculture are attributed to occupational carcinogens. Non-fatal incidents are common too, with 292 major injuries to agricultural employees in 2013–4 (this figure excludes the self-employed, who make up about half the agricultural workforce, and it is generally accepted that there is a high level of underreporting of non-fatal injuries).

In construction, there were 35 fatal injuries in 2014–5, almost half of them caused by falls from heights. The fatality rate per employee was 3.5 times the average across all industries, though far less than that in agriculture. And in any year, around 69,000 construction workers suffer from an illness they believe was caused or made worse by their work (around 40 percent of these are new conditions started during that year).

In the US, workplace deaths are much higher, with 4,679 fatal work injuries in 2014, the highest figure since 2008. Deaths in the oil and gas industries have risen dramatically, but construction remains the most dangerous industry, with one worker death in five occurring there. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) emphasizes that, since its creation in 1971, workplace deaths have been reduced from 38 a day to twelve, but this is still an astonishingly high figure (over thirty times that in the UK, with a population only five times the size).

In April 2013 the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed, killing well over a thousand people who worked in garment factories in the building, making clothes for international brands such as Gap and Benetton. At least 500 Indian workers have died in Qatar while building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup. Sadly, similar examples could be listed almost without end.

In 2014–5 there were 258 cases of prosecution related to health and safety in the construction industry, 243 of which resulted in a guilty verdict for at least one offence; nearly £4m was levied in fines. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act of 2007 expanded previous legislation and made it possible to convict a company if it could be shown that senior management had committed a gross breach of duty of care. But by April last year there had been just eleven convictions for corporate manslaughter in the five years since the Act came into law. In the US, the OSHA has in over forty years achieved just twelve criminal convictions of errant companies.

The HSE notes that in 2014–5, the equivalent of 1.7 million working days were lost in construction because of workplace injuries and work-related illnesses. The ‘total economic cost to society’ (i.e. to the capitalist class) in 2013–4 was £0.9bn; across all industries the cost was estimated at £14.3bn. This is a crucial point, that workplace deaths and injuries give rise to costs for the specific employer and the wider employing class, in terms of health care and lost profits. Safety regulations exist partly to ensure that such costs do not get out of hand. And enforcement is often more about appearing to have done something than about actually performing rigorous inspections.

It is clear that much work is potentially dangerous, such as anything involving chemicals, machinery or working above ground. But that does not by itself explain why there are so many injuries, fatal and otherwise. While ‘accidents’ cost money, regulations and enforcement are expensive too. All impinge on profits, which are the main reason for production under capitalism. Companies will say that they take health and safety seriously, but they have to take profit most seriously of all. We cannot say that there would be no workplace deaths or injuries in a Socialist society, but we can be sure that the safety and well-being of those who produce the goods and services will be paramount. There will be no shortcuts, no cheap and nasty solutions, no forcing people to work in unsafe situations. Producing in the interest of the whole community will include making production as safe as is humanly possible – something that capitalism simply cannot deliver. 

Paul Bennett

Cold comfort (1969)

Book Review from the April 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver Jonathan Cape, 35s.

There are more ways than one of exploiting the Negroes’ downgraded social standing. A Negro, for example, can cash in on it himself by writing the sort of book that will be assured of big sales by a raptuous reception from Left-wing reviewers. Such a book need not say very much and what it does say can be confused. Provided it has a leavening of swear words, sex, and anger, the self-appointed 'intellectuals of the Left will rush to give it their uncritical, patronising approval.

Eldridge Cleaver is the Black Panthers' Minister of Information (their Prime Minister is Stokely Carmichael). He has been imprisoned for possession of drugs and for rape. He was a candidate in the last presidential election. With such credentials, almost any book from his was foredoomed to be hailed as a masterpiece. Thus Richard Boston, in his review in The Times, wrote of “complex arguments . . . put‘ forward with extraordinary clarity and intelligence.”

In fact, Soul on Ice is the same weary old stew of violence, sex. and four-letter words. On racism it has nothing more perceptive than a rant. Politically it is pathetic. Cleaver writes about “the rebellion of the oppressed peoples of the world” and although everyone knows who he is getting at, socialists perceive his lack of understanding that there is only one oppressed people, suffering in varying degrees. They are more simply known as the working class; they exist all over the world and their skins are of all colours. They have one interest — to get their masters, who are also of all colours, off their backs.

Now think about these two sentences:

If the capitalists are in power, they enforce laws designed to protect their system, their way of life . . .  If Communists are in power, they enforce laws designed to protect their system, their way of life.

It is almost impossible to know where to begin unravelling the confusion and naïveté of these examples of extraordinary clarity and intelligence. Does Cleaver think the ’Communist’ states are basically any different from those like America and Britain? Does he think that Communism will be a social system where one class has power and imposes laws to protect its interests? What is meant by “If the capitalists are in power”? Are they, or aren’t they?

Racism is one of the fouler fruits of workers' ignorance and frustration. The Negroes in America have suffered terribly under it and a man like Cleaver — he was born in Little Rock — must have made a tremendous effort even to become literate. That is the achievement, if we are looking for one, of Soul on Ice. But now, as the American Negroes begin to kick back, is no time to lose our balance.

Unquestioning admiration for a black man is as bad as unreasoning hatred for him. Soul on Ice must stand or fall on its merits and not on the colour of the hand that wrote it. And it falls.

Ivan

Knowledge is Power (1980)

From the February 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

The greatest weapon available to the working class in its fight against the system which oppresses us is knowledge. The wealthy and powerful capitalist class can destroy us with bombs, lock us up and ignore our poverty, but the one thing that they will never be able to beat or ignore is a politically conscious working class. To reach consciousness of our class position and what we can do about it requires knowledge. That is why every new member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain must show that he or she understands and wants the revolutionary objective to which our party is committed. It is not an objective based upon emotional appeal, but upon a rational comprehension of the nature of society. The chief task of the SPGB is to develop and spread knowledge about the world around us.

It is for this reason that Islington branch has decided to run an education programme which will cover some of the basic areas of socialist knowledge. The programme is primarily intended for members and sympathisers in the Islington-Haringey-Camden area, but we shall, of course, welcome interested people from any part of London. The classes will be in history, anthropology and economics and will provide introductory information, while at the same time providing an opportunity for critical discussion.

They will be held every Sunday evening at 8pm SHARP at the Latin American Bookshop, 29 Islington Park Street, which is adjacent to the Hope and Anchor pub in Upper Street and 2 minutes walk from Highbury and Islington tube station. We list below details of the education programme:

ECONOMICS Lecturer: E. Hardy. Dates: Feb. 3, Feb. 24. Mar. 16, Apr. 6, Apr. 27, May 18, June 8. (Subjects for each class to be announced at the first class).

HISTORY Lecturer: S. Coleman. Dates and subjects: Feb. 17. THE MARXIST PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, Mar. 9. THE EMERGENCE OF CAPITALISM, Mar. 30. THE INDUSTRIAL AND AGRARIAN REVOLUTIONS, Apr. 20. THE ASCENDANCY OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS, 1789-1871, May 11. THE POLITICAL ORGANISATION OF THE WORKING CLASS, 1848-1904, June 1. THE HISTORICAL PLACE OF THE SPGB, June 22. IS THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION INEVITABLE?

ANTHROPOLOGY An Introduction to the Study of Pre-History. Lecturer: H. Walters. Dates and subjects: Feb. 10. General background and relevance of related sciences. The birth of the Earth, the organic period and the beginning of organic matter. Mar. 2. The succession of life through geological time. History of the primates and the emergence of the hominid line. Mar. 23. The evolution of mankind and the emergence of homo sapiens. Apr. 13. Darwin, Wallace and the theory of natural selection and the misrepresentations thereof (Social Darwinism). May 4. From hunter to farmer and the neolithic revolution. May 25. The natural division of labour and the subordination of women. Mankind the toolmaker. June 15. An appraisal: Is Human Nature a Barrier to Socialism?

All classes are free and will be open to any member of the public. It is intended to tape record all of the lectures; members wishing to obtain tapes should contact Cde. H. Walters. Further information is obtainable by visiting or writing to Islington branch.

ISLINGTON BRANCH

Comparisons with the nineteen-thirties (1977)

From the February 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the most frightening things about the present depression to large numbers of people is the destruction of their belief that “bad times” would never come back. After the long post-war period without unemployment on the pre-war mass scale, it was widely assumed that chronic depression belonged to a past era which had ended. When the crisis took hold, the spectre of 1929 was raised by journalists and commentators; and as its effects intensified, the feeling spread of an old film with a cast of millions being shown again. Are the nineteen-thirties being re-enacted? There are differences as well as similarities. Some of the factors in the pre-war situation were apparent opposites to those at work today, showing that they are neither causes nor remedies of the depression. A comparison is of interest.

The 1929 crisis originated in agriculture, and was marked by the collapse of a speculative fever in the United States. In Britain it was preceded by a short boom period in new industries such as electricity, chemicals and motor-cars. It took place when — as a result of government restriction of the note-issue — the pound sterling had risen, i.e. was dearer abroad: this, and a close-down on lending in America following the Wall Street crash, killed purchases of British exports in the USA. Prices fell throughout the period 1929-33 when the depression was most acute. The British Index of Retail Prices of Food went down from 160 in 1927 to 154 in 1929, 131 in 1931, and 120 in 1933.

The present depression was preceded by minor crises which increased in severity from the nineteen- fifties onwards. Its strongest industrial features were the break in the motor-car boom and the slump in house-building; but it has been accompanied by continuing price rises now running at an annual rate of 15-20 per cent. This has been the result of inflation promoted by Labour and Conservative governments alike since the war, and one aspect of the crisis is the long run of that economic policy. Previously in the 19th and 20th centuries the operation of any policy was interrupted after a few years by a prolonged depression or a war.

The inflation policy was started by the post-war Labour government, and until now no economic or political catastrophe has baulked it. In the early nineteen-sixties party leaders were clearly unsure how to continue it, or if it could continue. Thus, immediately the 1964 Labour Government was elected Wilson and Callaghan announced measures to deal with an economic “Dunkirk” which was upon Britain, while the Tory leader Douglas- Home denied that a crisis existed (reversing the position a year earlier, when Home claimed there was a crisis and Wilson disputed it).

The world’s finance ministries in 1929 were firmly against using government expenditure to try to remedy the fall in demand. Later, groups of MPs of different parties argued for State interference and planning — Torv MPs (including Macmillan) from the depressed north-eastern areas, as well as Labourites and Lloyd George, the Liberal. Against this, the recovery in Germany took place with the ruling Nazi party declaring opposition in principle to State management; the Nazis in fact de-nationalized many undertakings. In the Economic Journal R. F. Kahn contended that “the creation of money” could do nothing but good when there were idle resources and unused productive capacity, and this was taken up by Lord Beaverbrook in his papers: the remedy for the depression, said the Daily Express, was inflation.

The Express and the Mail also campaigned for import controls — taxing all imported goods, but giving preference to those produced in the British Empire. In 1932 a 10 per cent duty was imposed on all imports except wheat and meat, and the Ottawa Agreements establishing Empire Preference were signed. Though Labour and Liberal MPs opposed Protection, both parties supported a campaign to “Boycott Japanese Goods”. This was presented as a moral stand in view of Japan having invaded Manchuria and left the League of Nations, but a flood of cheap Japanese goods into Britain was held to be putting British workers on the dole: at the 1935 Jubilee and George VI’s Coronation, girls stood in Japanese stockings and waved Union Jacks made in Japan while they watched the parades.

The popular cries on all sides were remarkably similar to those of today. “The right to work” was demanded in marches and demonstrations on behalf of the unemployed. This “right”, incidentally, was a constitutional one in Nazi Germany, and is part of the Russian constitution also. C. W. Guillebaud’s 1939 book The Economic Recovery of Germany, 1933-38, described the position:

Rather than permit this [prolonged unemployment] the State will itself provide alternative employment in some form—if not 'regular’ then ‘substitute’ employment. As a corollary to this recognition of the right to work the State imposes the duty to work, and this is a very far-reaching obligation.

The “training centres” for unemployed young men set up half-heartedly — as now — by the Government in Britain were opposed by the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement, but in letters to The Times supporting the centres there was a lot of praise for the German labour camps for the unemployed.

As now and always, the working class was blamed for everything and it was commonly said that the unemployed were layabouts living too well on the dole. The magazine Good Housekeeping referred to “profiteers, dole-drawers, music-hall artists — in fact the only people who have money today”. (Quoted in The Long Week-End by Graves and Hodge). The National Confederation of Employers’ Associations claimed in 1931 that unemployment pay was sapping the nation’s strength by preventing "unemployment acting as a corrective factor in the adjustment of wage levels”. There was pressure also to stop married women being either employed or registered as unemployed, under the Anomalies Regulations of 1932. This can be compared with the discovery by “a top doctor”, headlined in the News of the World on 2nd January 1977, that married women going to work are in dire peril of bad health and infertility.

The birth-rate was low in the nineteen-thirties. In 1933 it touched he lowest point of any peace-time year before or since, and it was predicted that by 1961 the population of Britain would be under 40 millions. Family allowances were proposed to try to turn the tide. The question was debated in Parliament in 1937 with reference to the “danger to the maintenance of the British Empire” from under-population: Malthus was stood on his head. There was no shortage of particular scapegoats for the plight of the time, immigrants and Jews. The British Union of Fascists, like the National Front today, traded in this kind of ignorance, and it is a melancholy reflection that the fascist-fighting Communist Party recruited numbers of Jews who were unaware then of what happened in the Communists’ beloved Russia.

 

The CP and other ’‘militant” groups based much of their propaganda in the ‘thirties on the belief that the capitalist system would collapse, and this fallacy has risen again in the same guise of a serious theory. It was contended that radicals of all varieties should rally together; the Communists sucked up to the Labour Party they had recently been ready to attack physically, and sought an alliance with the ILP. Another still-persistent belief was that the crisis itself was a manoeuvre by powerful agents of reaction; the Labour Daily Herald said it was “a bankers’ ramp”. Radical factions formed and re-formed, with titles remarkably like those of today; and there was a fear among trade-union and labour leaders of subversion by “revolutionary” movements.

Throughout the depression, it was all right for some. The first knighthoods of trade-union leaders were given in 1935: Sir Arthur Pugh and Sir Walter Citrine, for services to capitalism. The violent contrasts between the lives of rich and poor furnished material for damning (but reform-minded) reports similar to the Inner City Studies published on 12th January 1977. The crisis and the depression affected the rich very little. Colin Clark, the economist, estimated a fall of 9-11 per cent, in personal expenditure of those with incomes over £250, from 1929 to 1933 — a figure well balanced by the sharp fall in prices.

The depressed areas of the ‘thirties were those with older industries such as shipbuilding, iron and steel, coal, and textiles. The new light industries in other areas expanded, and the multiple stores selling cheap shoddy goods paid high dividends (a table published by the News Chronicle called Woolworth’s and their like “depression-proof investments”). It was a chaotic, insensible time brought about by the senseless chaos of capitalistic production, and that applies with undiminished force in the nineteen-seventies. What were proposed as cures for the economic and social problems then are in operation in the depression today, but are regarded as part of the trouble: inflation and the Welfare State. Conversely, today’s alleged solutions were part of the situation in the nineteen-thirties: a “strong” pound, import controls, and low prices (including wages).

One more similarity is the circuses provided to mollify the breadless. In the midst of mass unemployment, they had a Royal Jubilee and a Coronation; by what may be thought a nice coincidence, 1977 offers a Jubilee too. In Coronation week, 1938, everyone registered with the Unemployment Assistance Board was paid an extra 2s.6d. What overwhelming bounty is in store this year? W.H. Auden called the nineteen-thirties a "low, dishonest decade”. No more so than any other decade under capitalism, Mr. Poet; and that isn’t the point anyway. The ’thirties and the ’seventies show the capitalist system in its cycle, which will come round again if it is not stopped. On a brief inspection, plainly the only alternative is Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

A Letter from a Former Communist. (1935)

From the March 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

[We have received the following letter from a former Communist. It is particularly interesting, as the writer took an active part, in the Manchester area, in the work of the Communist Party. While we may not see eye-to-eye with the writer on every point, his letter merits serious attention, as an example of the outlook to which years of wholehearted support of the Communist Party has brought one of its adherents.—ED. COMM.]

Stockport.

      February 20th, 1935.

The Editorial Committee,

              THE SOCIALIST STANDARD.

Dear Comrades,

Although in the past I have been an active and enthusiastic member of the Communist Party, the recent change of policy in relation to the Labour Party has compelled me to re-examine the principles and policy of the Party I formerly supported. The conclusions, for what they are worth—but by no means lightly arrived at—are set out below.

At the moment, the C.P., notwithstanding all specious reservations, is committed in principle to the return of a third Labour Government as a “lesser evil" to the National Government of to-day. This in spite of past vehement declarations that Labourism was Social Fascism, was, as Stalin declared, “objectively the moderate wing of Fascism." I, at least, have learned the lesson that the Labour Party “is the most dangerous enemy of the working-class within the working-class" too well; so well, in fact, that I find it impossible to support one capitalist party against another in the supposed interests of unity—even though the Party I am asked to support calls itself Labour.

The incontestable truth is that the change from unqualified opposition to the Labour Party and I.L.P. (quite clearly defined in the C.C. Resolution of the C.P.G.B., 1931) to one of support, was imposed from above by the Comintern when, after the German disaster and at a moment’s notice, it issued its world-wide appeal to its component parties to make unity overtures to organisations hitherto denounced as “Social-Fascist," etc. Evidently, one policy having proved so disastrous, it was decided, with a complete lack of political principle, to try something else.

The indecent haste employed by representatives of the Soviet Union in attempting to conclude pacts of an economic and political character with the butchers of the German working-class; the entrance of the Soviet Union into that “thieves' kitchen," the League of Nations; the substitution of the “defence of the Soviet Union" for the world revolution, can only mean that the Comintern has become completely subordinated to the special interests of the Soviet Union; and that, consequently, the various Communist Parties have been degraded to mere advertising agencies for Russia.

The advent to power in Germany of the Hitler dictatorship proves quite conclusively the bankruptcy of Communist policy. Through their blind “fetishism" of violence, the German Communists contributed just as much to the dissipation of the working-class forces as did the Social-Democrats through their shameless prostitution of the name of Socialism. Palme Dutt, in his book, "Fascism and the Social Revolution," quotes, in support of his case, Kautsky, who, in his introduction to the third edition of his book, “The Proletarian Revolution" (1931), says: “In November, 1918, the Revolution was the work of the proletariat alone. The proletariat won so all-powerful a position that the bourgeois elements at first did not dare to attempt any resistance." What lesson is drawn from this? That the German Social-Democrats betrayed the revolution because they persuaded the German working-class to adopt the “ peaceful path to Socialism," as against the path of violent revolution advocated by the Communists.

The one clear and indisputable conclusion, namely, that Social-Democracy was able to operate a policy of capitalism, suitably garbed in “Socialist" phrases, because the majority of the German working-class were in complete ignorance of Socialist principles, has so far been completely ignored by Communist writers on German events.

Before the workers can obtain political power, and wield it in their own interests, they must be conscious of those interests. The Communist Party, in urging the workers to fight for reforms, has not assisted in any way in aiding the workers to realise the need for Socialism. In fact, the thousands that have drifted in and out of the C.P. proves that they have failed to educate their own members in Socialist principles, to say nothing of the working-class.

For a so-called revolutionary party to enter into competition with reformist parties for reforms, is utterly futile. Any reforms that capitalism may think necessary will reach the working-class via parties with years of experience, organisation and traditions in the reformist business.

If the emancipation of the working-class is to be the work of the working-class itself, it follows with iron logic that the working-class must know from what it has to emancipate, and to what its emancipation will lead. This can only be achieved by spreading Socialistic knowledge.

Therefore, I appeal to all thinking members of the Communist Party to earnestly consider whether their time could not be more profitably employed in working for a Party that stands uncompromisingly for Socialism, instead of in a Party where half their time has to be occupied in explaining away the political somersaults of the Communist leadership. and the other half in urging workers to fight for reforms, which, even if granted, leave the position of the working-class materially unaltered.

                                                                                                                        Yours fraternally,

A. H. Maertens

The Rise of Parliament in England (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

In considering the history of Parliament, it is convenient to commence with the events leading up to the Civil War in England, when the institution of Parliament was at a crossroad. In Europe, under despotic monarchs the old feudal Parliaments were falling more and more into neglect. In England, however, as in the Netherlands, Parliament could not only maintain itself against the trend but could also struggle for greater strength.

Parliaments, Kings and Courts are not, and certainly were not, abstract methods of ruling. These institutions represented the administrative power of various economic classes and groups with their different interests in the organisation of society.

James I ruled through a Privy Council and Secretaries of State. The Law Courts, as the financial department, were openly involved in politics. Very few officials were paid; most obtained their money by fees, fines or tips. Patronage was the principal method of advancement as a servant of the Crown. Even foreign countries paid fees to courtiers to keep their interests in a favourable light.

Parliaments were only called into operation at odd intervals, generally in order to sanction new methods of raising money for the Crown. The Kings received monies raised by various means and this was a bone of contention as it made the Monarch partially independent of Parliamentary sanction.

The large landowners, or Lords, were increased in number by the Stuarts in order to strengthen their control over the House of Lords. The largest social group were the Gentry, or smaller landowners; they numbered about three-quarters of the House of Commons. The smaller groups—merchants, financiers and manufacturers—tended to side with the gentry, especially in the Commons. The legal profession was used by the sons of the gentry to gain knowledge of the law and a wider education. Oliver Cromwell was himself trained in this way.

The middle class groupings not only occupied the House of Commons but, as the ballot was based on property, also provided the electorate. Oddly enough, the Town middle class in places like London were not well placed in the number of Parliamentary votes available to them.

The lower social groupings had no political influence and exerted themselves, when conditions were favourable, by spasmodic rioting. The gentry were not entirely dependent on the land and had interests in wool, mining and trading, well as shipping loans. Thus they became more resentful interference by the Crown and Court in matters of trade, finance and taxes, but neither they, nor any other class, had the strength or the desire to remove the power of the Crown and the great lords.

The ideas of men were encompassed by religion and politics were often expressed in those terms. Thus the radical wing of English Society were by definition strict Protestants, who by using the House of Commons as a platform strengthened Parliamentary procedure. The tussles between James I and the Puritans often, therefore, revolved around Church matters. James halted the process of Church lands going to laymen and the Puritans sought to clip wealth from the Bishops.

But Parliament was still weak; between 1603 and 1629 it sat for only three years and four months. While the Crown could force loans, it was dependent to some extent on London usurers. A split arose over James I’s Great Contract, a cloth and wool trading plan which floundered in an economic morass. As a result James dispensed with Parliament for 10 years.

The crowning of Charles I tended to aggravate the simmering conflict. Not as flexible as his father, Charles was influenced by the continental despotisms and saw himself as King by “Divine Right” (an argument which was rather new). In his second Parliament (1626) Charles, in what he no doubt considered a smart move, removed the leaders by making them Sheriffs’ But the gap was filled by the few, eloquent extremists. When the King forced a loan, 70 gentry went to gaol rather than pay up. The Commons wanted intervention in Germany to offset Spain but refused to pay or sanction taxes for its prosecution. The gentry and traders needed a navy to protect their trading vessels but they jibbed at paying “Ship Money.” At the back of this conflict was the Commons' strong objection to money being raised without parliamentary consent, the mistrust of Charles' objects and a fear of England being tied to either Spain or France.

The King’s threat to restore Church and monastic lands, thus bringing the Church nearer to the old Catholic faith, alarmed even the Scottish peers. The King and Court became weaker, while Parliament and the social groups who supported it gained strength The Long Parliament (1640/1) removed the King’s advisers, ordered a Parliament every three years, broke some of the Crown monopolies (some of which Charles had dug up from feudal times), abolished the Star Chamber and ended the Welsh and Northern Councils, bringing the country as a whole increasingly under the control of Parliament.

However, the more cautious groups feared riot crazy mobs and the “root and limb” Puritans. The Petition of Great Remonstrance was only carried by 11 votes; the King recovered some of his lost ground. His undoing was the City of London-controlled by Puritans, its citizens having a very low voting quota, the place seethed with riot and revolt. When Charles tried to arrest five members the City gave them refuge; the King's entry into Parliament with soldiers was regarded as the final straw.

The Civil War divided the country roughly into two parts —Parliamentary London, the East and South—Royalist Wales, the West and North. The class struggles were still not clearly defined and it was in the realm of ideas that the divisions of the Civil War were more sharply expressed.

Parliament’s victory soon revealed that it was unable to rule, because the classes who were in power were not strong or developed enough to do so. The Presbyterians aimed to dispense with the Army. The Independents and Levellers feared this as a blow against them. Eventually the Army purged the House of Presbyterians and the strengthened Independents then purged the Army of Levellers. Cromwell, unable to obtain a “Puritan Policy,” ruled as Protector, his powers curbed by a body called the “Instrument of Government.” Thus the aspirations of the Gentry for a strong Parliament linked with a more pliable King came to naught.

Charles II's Restoration was welcomed as a means of overthrowing the more extreme Puritans, and though the King was back in the executive saddle Parliament maintained itself. The coming of James II opened the old rupture. James stood for an absolute Catholic monarchy and tried his hand in a number of illegal moves. But times were changed; there were not enough of the old time Catholic Absolutists to back him up. James was exiled and the Stuarts had backed another loser.

English Parliamentary structure and methods became bedevilled by a fear of change. The gentry saw themselves as the class destined to rule England, a position they jealously guarded until the Reform Bills and the construction of a new electoral system. The Kings still played their role, but the Hanoverians lost power. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet became the key men and the Court more and more of a rubber stamp; the King appointed the Ministers, but they could legislate only with the consent of Parliament.

By the 18th and 19th centuries the social face of Britain was changing. The gentry were involved in the rapidly expanding mines,' and land ownership was not the sole means of wealth. Industry was in a state of technical revolution, factory owners emerged from the gentry. Towns, new and ugly, grew apace, while the old ones decayed and transport advanced, and the far corners of the earth became places fit for plunder. The use of religious terms in politics declined and political labels took their place. A property-less working class grew up and the independent craftsmen were swamped, in the upsurge of capitalism.

The new class of capitalism—manufacture, financier and worker—were confronted with an electoral system that may have been useful in the middle ages, but by the 1820s had become a bad joke. Sheep-grazed hilltops returned two members to Parliament, but new, smoke-laden industrial centres had no representation at all. The voting system was a disorganised fantasy, based on the rateable value of property but much modified over the centuries by local conditions.

The Whig Peers backed up the new ruling classes in the struggle for Parliamentary reform. The Tories were fighting a rearguard action, hoping to ensure that they would not be penalised under the new system. After three attempts, the Reform Bill went through in 1830. Though the new House of Commons still comprised gentry and aristocratic relatives, it allowed the new capitalist class to clear the decks for their ultimate take over.

The next century was one of piece-meal struggle and compromise, as the Commons whittled away the powers of the Lords until in 1911 the Commons obtained the final recognition as the premier body. This period also saw a shifting of ranks, as groups and classes edged from one political party into another. The present Liberal Party no longer contains the descendants of the Great Whig Peers and the Tories are now far more industrialist than landowner.

The emergence of the mass working class as a political and voting force has altered the face of parliamentary tactics. No party can control the machinery of government without some hefty backing coming from the working class. In order to run capitalism in the interests of the privileged few, modern parties have to speak in the name of all and sundry.

In their struggles to better their lot, and for a say in the running of capitalism, the working class have played no small part in the strengthening of parliamentary institutions. The Reform Movement, the Chartists, and the Suffragettes have all been operative only because of working class support. There is now an even greater task for the working class to perform.

Jack Law

Doing their job (1997)

Book Review from the February 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Promising the Earth by Robert Lamb, Routledge.

This is a well-written and very readable book covering the history of Friends Of The Earth (FoE) from its conception (and before) in the 1970s to the present day. It has been produced due to the 25th anniversary of FoE.

The author sees FoE as a highly successful campaigning organisation and claims that the environment has been put on the political agenda by groups such as themselves (the Rio summit being the obvious example). The success of various direct action campaigns are also seen as great victories for the environment.

Maybe they are but FoE and all the other environmentalists suffer from the same delusions. The idea that somehow, with enough campaigning and raising of environmental awareness, an ecologically friendly society will be brought about is rooted in the environmental activists' approach but is based on pure fantasy.

Environmental problems and disasters do not occur because of bad or evil men who don’t care a damn for the world but because of the profit motive rooted in capitalism.

Twyford Down wasn’t about the government's disdain for the environment but due to them doing what is effectively their job in capitalist society; serving the interests of those who own the means of production. Congestion on the M3 was holding back profit. The violence used against the protesters shows just what value capitalism puts on diversity of thought if it stands in the way of profit. Environmental campaigners are okay as long as direct action doesn’t touch the bulging wallets of the capitalist; "middle England”, usually courted embarrassingly unscrupulously by Britain's political parties are then quite in line for a baton round the head courtesy, of the police.

Twyford Down, however, has been seen by FoE as a success in terms of unification of groups with environmental objectives and to some extent the media.

The Twyford Down protest did not succeed in getting the road stopped, and the list of other unsuccessful direct actions campaigns is almost endless. Yet FoE claims to make a difference in terms of awareness and altering government approach to sustainable and pro-environment policies. Is this so?

Even if it is. within capitalism it is fighting a losing battle. A success, for example, against the expansion of the nuclear programme (1980, after FoE revealed secret government negotiations) is offset by innumerable environmental problems elsewhere.

If campaigners find a loophole in the Law it is rapidly closed; after all they are playing the game to the capitalists' rules.

If laws protecting the environment are produced, as they have been in the last few decades. they are often unworkable (as the Basel ban will prove to be) or so loosely applied as to be meaningless.

Promising The Earth, unsurprisingly, concentrates on the positive aspects of FoE and its development. It runs through their various campaigns; from their launch and campaigns against Schweppes in 1971 (arguing for returnable bottles) through numerous other campaigns to the recent Newbury by-pass protest and House Energy Conservation Act in 1995. It also deals with internal struggles and difficulties within the green movement and far from paints an entirely rosy picture of the movement as a whole. The author, though, clearly sees FoE and its sister groups as the force for change into an eco- friendly society.

While the non-violent direct action policies of FoE and others may achieve limited success against government policies and lobbying for legislation, at the end of the day they will never be able to combat the motive of profit which is the root cause of the problems they wish to ameliorate and are destined to struggle endlessly against the tide of capitalism.

Colin Skelly

No real understanding of Socialism (1997)

Book Review from the February 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

H.G.: The History of Mr Wells by Michael Foot, Black Swan £7.99.

According to its author, "this is a book about Socialism, but personalities will constantly be allowed to intrude". In fact, it is not about Socialism at all; rather, it consists of Foot's defence of one of his political heroes against a variety of crimes that have been laid at his door, from elitism to racism and sexism.

There is no doubt that HG Wells was an enormously influential writer in a number of fields, from pioneering science fiction to social novels, from popular history to political essays. As a one-time Labour parliamentary candidate and member of the Fabian Society, he was naturally associated with left-wing ideas and a variety of reformist causes. There is no denying the power of some of Wells’s depictions of poverty, and I for one love the following passage from The Time Machine, part of a discussion of the potentialities of travel into the future:

"‘One might invest all one’s money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead. To discover a society,' said I, ‘erected on a strictly communistic basis.’" 

Foot of course doesn't quote this, and instead offers long justifications of some of Wells's conduct towards the various women in his life.

In fact neither Wells nor Foot show any understanding of Socialism. Wells wrote a number of books set in the future as he imagined it might be. or hoped it would be. Broadly the same sort of picture is presented in these writings. and there is little doubt that in essentials it represents Wells's own ideas about how society should be run. Firstly, there is a naive acceptance of technological and scientific advance. and the benefits this will bring. Secondly, there is an end to nationalism and the establishment of a world state, run by a global government. Thirdly, there is an élite which administers this world state in a dispassionate and altruistic way. In A Modern Utopia (1905) this élite consists of the samurai, a "voluntary nobility". Foot notes that the young Wells thought scientists more reliable and disinterested than politicians, and the samurai is a projection of Wells's faith in knowledgeable and public-spirited people as the most suitable to run society. Foot's defence of Wells against the charge of élitism is pathetic: Wells was “avidly read. say. in the Workmen’s Halls in Wales” and so cannot have been an élitist!

It was Wells who coined the phrase "the war to end war” as a description of the First World War. He had often warned against the possibility of a global conflict, but he saw war as being caused not by economic considerations but by militarism and nationalism (which was one reason for his advocacy of a world state). In fact he supported the First World War. on the grounds that the enemy was German militarism, and he offended many friends by putting this view in the jingoistic gutter press. Even Foot has trouble excusing this.

The following passage from A Modern Utopia gives a good idea of the functioning of the world state as envisaged by Wells:

"It will maintain order, maintain roads, maintain a cheap and efficient administration of justice, maintain cheap and rapid locomotion and be the common carrier of the planet, convey and distribute labour, control, let, or administer all natural productions, pay for and secure healthy births and a healthy and vigorous new generation, maintain the public health, coin money and sustain standards of measurement, subsidise research, and reward such commercially unprofitable undertakings as benefit the community as a whole ..."

This is a clear depiction of state capitalism, and there is little doubt that this is what Wells stood for. Foot's study has to be seen as an attempt to defend such ideas now that the Labour Party has abandoned any commitment to nationalisation or a comprehensive welfare state.

Paul Bennett

Russia re-defines socialism (1985)

From the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the aid of the Oxford Student's Dictionary of Current English, Russia has officially re-defined socialism (Daily Telegraph, 8 April 1985). Why they felt it necessary to do so is another matter. Russian capitalism, controlled by the state, is beginning to lose favour with that section who regard state interference in the growing black market economy as a fetter on their activities. However, the old ideology of revolution weights heavily like an incubus on the mind and, for the time-being, politics and not economics dictates the pace at which this change is taking place.

Socialism is not an issue because the Russian working class are not socialists. After nearly 70 years of state capitalism even the state-salaried spokespeople are finding it difficult to explain the difference between the Russian system and Western capitalism. Now they have secured the services of the highly respected Oxford University Press, who have recently sold over 100,000 copies of the new dictionary to the Russian government. It appears that one of the conditions of the sale was the re-definition of certain words, including socialism, specifically to meet the needs and desires of their Russian clients. The OUP were unable to explain how it happened, but it's really quite simple: their commercial interests overwhelmed their literary integrity.

The new definition describes socialism as a "social and economic system which is replacing capitalism". We do not know where this is taking place but certainly it is not in Russia. The definition does not define anything; that was the whole point of the exercise. The Russian working class does not understand socialism and if they were provided with an accurate definition they would at least be able to compare the existing conditions with the terms of the definition and have a target to aim for. It is in the interests of the Russian capitalist class to conceal the target. References to socialism will be left vague and obscure.

It is worth noting that the Russian dictatorship. even with all its powers of propaganda and censorship, unencumbered by free speech and democratic practice, has to move some way towards providing excuses for the social conditions and the antagonism of the Russian workers to them. Like many a government in the past, it is finding out that the class struggle cannot be censored or, to use Marx's phrase, got rid of by "bold leaps or legal enactments". Certainly, there is no shortage of the latter.

Some clue as to the Russian government's intentions may be gleaned from the existing definition of socialism in the Oxford Dictionary, which was previously accepted but is now discarded. This describes socialism as "a theory or policy of social organisation, which advocates the ownership of the means of production, capital. land and property by the community as a whole". This is a contradiction. Capital is an integral part of the private property system and cannot be separated from that system. Common ownership and capital are diametrically opposed as capital is the very essence of private ownership, including state ownership. The point is. why is this definition no longer acceptable? Contradictions and impossible propositions have never worried or embarrassed the Russian dictators before. Their whole regime is a grotesque travesty of socialism yet they persist in calling it socialism.

The reason may be that within that definition, capital and socialism are not incompatible. Both can exist alongside each other. When such an unworkable and nonsensical definition is given official backing, it is liable to all sorts of interpretation. Individuals will have their own ideas of what it is supposed to mean and how to implement it. Some of the individuals will naturally include those groups who wish to promote private enterprise. The use of capital and its accumulation would be regarded as a desirable "socialist" objective.

At the moment, the Russian government is apprehensive about encouraging, or even allowing, the development of private capitalist enterprise. To begin with this could mean an increase in the production of consumer goods leading eventually to an increase in consumption. The workers' aspirations would expand and there would be pressure for a general rise in wages to meet the cost of a growing standard of living. The present policy of the Russian government is to restrict consumption and to keep wages down.

Any definition of socialism, however absurd, which allows for the independent development of private capital, apart from upsetting the existing state monopoly, is not likely to get a warm welcome in the Kremlin. Far better to change the definition so that socialism is a social and economic system which is replacing capitalism.

The socialist movement has always been plagued by ignorant definitions and descriptions of socialism and dictionaries have played no small part in this deception. An objective test of socialism is contained within its two cardinal principles: first, abolition of the system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution and its replacement by a system of production based on common ownership; and, arising from this, the abolition of the wages system and capitalist exploitation. This is the revolutionary approach to politics which workers, including those in Russia, will have to think about rather than allow themselves to be misled by definitions written by commercially-minded academics.

Jim D'Arcy

Cooking the Books: Capitalism Goes into Space (2016)

The Cooking the Books Column from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Dutch Marxist, Anton Pannekoek, once wrote that because the Earth’s size was limited so would capitalism be, implying that when capitalism had extended to the whole of the globe it would come to an end. This conclusion might have been reassuring, but it was never a rigorous argument. The Earth’s size has nothing to do with the lifespan of capitalism. But, if it had, Pannekoek had overlooked the possibility of capitalism extending itself beyond the Earth; surprising since he was a professor of astronomy, but he was writing in 1942.

Fast forward to today and an online article on 25 November (tinyurl.com/nq9csxn) suggests that we too might be behind the times when we talk of ‘world’ socialism:

‘President Barrack Obama today put his signature on a law supporting the rights of space miners to extract, use and sell resources from asteroids, the moon, Mars and other celestial bodies.’

The US law exploits a loophole in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which banned weapons of mass destruction (but not other weapons) in space but which also laid down that ‘outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.’ This meant only that no state could claim territorial rights over parts of space but did not rule out corporations or individuals exercising private property rights over them.

The 1979 Moon Treaty did attempt to prevent this, declaring (Article 11) that ‘the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind’ and banning any state, corporate or private individual ownership of them. Since this treaty was not signed by the US or by any other country likely to send a mission to the Moon this clause was without effect. Now the US has enacted a law permitting the exercise of private property rights there and beyond.

It was passed as a result of lobbying by capitalist corporations that are already investing in the possibility of exploiting the natural resources of the Moon and near-Earth asteroids.

They were over the moon about it. ‘This is the single greatest recognition of property rights in history,’ exaggerated Eric Anderson of Planetary Resources. ‘In the long view of history,’ enthused Rick Tumlinson of Deep Space Industries, ‘it is the sort of positive action that changes civilization’. It, added Hannah Kerner of the Space Frontier Foundation, ‘extends our free market values into space.’

Actually, in the long view of history, it is more likely to be seen as a disaster and a disgrace as extending into space private property rights and the production for profit that caused such havoc on Earth. There is nothing wrong with making use of the natural resources of the Moon, Mars and asteroids. It’s an exciting prospect and will be an advance in human civilisation, but it will only be done rationally and in the interest of humanity if carried out under conditions where these resources, together with those of the Earth, really are ‘the common heritage of mankind’.

These are conditions which Article 11 of the Moon Treaty could be adapted to describe:

‘Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Earth, the Moon or other celestial bodies, nor any part thereof, shall be the property of any state, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person.’

Fortunately, Pannekoek was wrong about capitalism having physical limits since space is so vast that, if he’d been right, capitalism would potentially be able to last forever.