Deep in the Heart of Texas (1948)

From the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the many despised racial minorities in the United States are the Mexicans. Many of them are actually American citizens, descendants of those who happened to be on the spot when the United States extended its frontier to the Rio Grande after the Mexican War.

During recent years, however, many Mexicans have taken to migrating across the border into the U.S.A. to work for Southern farmers and planters, mainly as cotton pickers and also to help in the harvesting of seasonal crops like vegetables. They have usually been hired on a contract basis, returning to Mexico after the harvesting has been completed, although a small minority have remained as semi-permanent residents.

The Mexican Government has always kept a watchful and jealous eye on these workers and during the war was able to take advantage of the labour shortage to insist upon certain minimum conditions for them, which the farmers were forced to accept. Realising that it has still got the economic whip-hand, the Mexican Government has now thrown the farmers into a panic by announcing that it henceforth intends to forbid the entrance of Mexican workers into the United States unless Texas (one of the chief states involved) suspends social, educational, and economic discrimination against Mexicans and Mexican Americans in 38 specified school districts.

Says the American correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (6/7/48), obviously enjoying the joke:

“Thus compelled by a foreign Government to live up to the Declaration of Independence, which  Texans have been celebrating as lustily as any other group of Americans, the Texas Cotton Ginners’ Association has promised to go around every one of these districts and persuade farmers and business men of the beauties of tolerance.”

Extra humour is added to the situation, the correspondent points out, because this crusade to impress upon Texas farmers, the virtues of racial tolerance happens to coincide with the Democratic Party’s Convention at Philadelphia which is meeting to decide whether to run President Truman for a second term of office. Truman, who always seems to be dropping bricks, somewhere, has dropped yet another by submitting to Congress a series of laws against racial discrimination. Having done this without apparently first finding out what the rest of the Democratic Party thought about it, he has now asked them to incorporate these laws into their electoral programme. Unfortunately for Mr. Truman, all the Democrats, particularly the Southern Democrats, are very far from seeing eye to eye with him on this issue, and the whole Party has been set into a ferment. As for the Texas delegation, which represents among others the interests of the cotton growers, and other big farmers, they must be suffering from an even bigger headache than the rest. What are they to do? Renounce their prejudices and save their crops or stand by their prejudices and run the risk of losing their crops?

Life must indeed appear hard to the racialist when he has to choose between his pocket and his prejudices.

Stan Hampson

Minor distractions on the Road to Freedom (1998)

From the August 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paris erupts. 'At last - Victory Is Ours! We beat the world' And Chirac was wearing the team scarf. Who cannot be proud to be French tonight. asks the ecstatic newsreader. Old woman on the corner of the Rue de Rivoli throws her hat in the air and thinks of next week's rent. Liberty? Fraternity? Equality? Maybe not. but We won the Cup. Let the world gloat.

Of course, we should have played Gazza. Two men in a pub relive a battle in which they fought valiantly with six-packs and a remote control.The BBC should have played the fat Italian opera singer. Having Faure's music as the theme tune could only encourage the French. Beckham's name is spat with contempt. He robbed us of elusive victory. Forgive what Thatcher did to the miners and Blair's grin of the youthful oppressor as he picks on the disabled and single mums, but who can think welt of national treachery cheered only by Scots and Posh Spice?

Why Did Ginger Spice Leave? The nation demands to know. Man at the Job Centre with three kids and no prospects reads the Sun with latest revelations of Spice News. Which one is your favourite Spice Girl, then? When did we last hear the gossip about Fifteen-Hours-A-Day-In-A-Bangkok-Shirt-Factory Spice? Ad exec sighs; the name has no ring to it. The kids need a role model. Look at Barbie Doll: always smiling. She can take it. Why can't everyone?

Bowler-hatted bigoted know-nothing no-surrender boys demand inviolable right to pester neighbours. It's tradition, see? So, No Surrender. Three kids burned to death in their home. It's tradition, see' Burning kids alive will soon be forgotten. but never the triumph of 1690.Were they waiting for the Big Match, these harmless, innocent. defenceless children, before the psychotic patriots extinguished their lives? Blair condemns, with limp sincerity.

But what about the stink in his back yard? Yes, you Tony—you with the permanent ad-man's smile. Did young Draper promise to fix it for a yankee capitalist in return for a well-stuffed envelope? Mandelson lets Draper take the rap. Blair lets Mandelson take the rap. Clinton insists that Tony would never mess. Tony declares that Bill would never take advantage of no~one. The girl was only in his room to get a saxophone lesson. It was all a horrible misunderstanding. Honest, guy. The People Must Be Told. Did Monica inhale? Had Dodi and Di done the business before that fateful journey? Is Big Mac better than a Burger King Whopper? And why are William Hague and Baroness Thatcher never seen in the same room? lt's an old trick. Will. You can't disguise it by wearing your baseball hat and bopping to reggae. You're an octogenarian n the body of a young man. What do you think about these alien abductions? They wish for little else in Wolverhampton.

Have you booked your ticket for the Greenwich Dome? Why, what's there? Dunno—but I'm definitely going. Where will you be on New Year's Eve 999? Drunk as a skunk in an East End boozer reliving 1966—Geoff Hurst, Harold Wilson. the Kray Twins. They was harmless boys—only wanted to look after their mum and torture people. Wonder how Gerry Adams treats his mum. Isn't the Queen Mum wonderful! Won't we weep like babies when she finatly comes to terms with nature. Old women in tower block (Bevan Court, by name) decide whether to open baked beans or put on the heater. The blood gets thinner when you're old. Unless it's blue. Queen Mum always has a spare coin for the meter. They have her girl's picture on, you know.

What about this Euro, then? Give up the Queen's head on our flyers? Never! Lining up at the cash machine will never be the same. Sorry. But Your Request Has Been Referred To Your Bank. Young William Hague will lead a national crusade to save our currency.We remember the blitz, Fritz. Britons never never never shall be. Gissa Job, guv.

Irritating pictures on the news of starving kids in Sudan. It's wrong—it's just not right to show that kind of thing when people are eating their dinner. Isn't life miserable enough without that? Pass the Prozac, pal. They look like humans. In your nightmares they look like your own children. The newsreader says—some of the images in this report may disturb some viewers. But most of the images won't. They'll leave you alone and let the mind rot in maladjusted tranquillity. It's called Normality.

After Winston Smith had come out from Room 101 he could see everything much more clearly. Distracting thoughts of freedom had been cleared from his head. News came on to the telescreen. France has won! Rejoice! But England should never have dropped Gazza.

An Old Comrade Passes (1943)

Obituary from the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

London members of the Party will learn with great regret of the death of Comrade J. Barker, of Tottenham Branch. He joined the Party on March 11th, 1919, and from then right up to the end of 1942 he was always in attendance at branch meetings, propaganda meetings, and always willing to give every help he could in the work of the Party. He was known as a member who was always keen, patient and dependable. Whether to sell literature, take up collections, act as chairman, or carry the platform, he was always on the spot, no matter what the weather. No difficulties were too great. In recent years, age (he was well over 70) and the hardship of the life he had to lead were telling on him, but it made no difference to his enthusiasm and willingness to help. The Party has lost a valuable comrade.

Obituaries: Bill Critchfield and Bernie Flitter (2016)

Obituaries from the June 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bill Critchfield

Bill Critchfield died on 1 April. He was 91 years old. The official cause of death was pneumonia but this was a development of his remorseless decline, over some ten years, through Alzheimer's disease. He came from an extended family of which there were seven members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

During the war he volunteered to join the Air Force and he was sent to Canada to train as a Bomb Aimer. After returning to England he flew on a number of bombing raids over Germany. In 1945, with the end of the war in Europe he was posted to India where he completed the term of his time in the Air Force.

When he returned home it was to find his two brothers were members of the Socialist Party and after a lengthy period of disagreement with them he was convinced that he should do the same. He joined the Ealing Branch, where he took on several administrative jobs and regularly spoke to introduce the Party at street corner meetings, which were then a regular feature of our propaganda.  When, following the outbreak of the Korean War the Labour Government re-introduced military conscription Bill informed the Air Ministry that as a socialist he would refuse to be re-called. Towards the end of his life, with the cruel decline of his senses, he took comfort from the anti-war poems of the likes of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.

RC

Bernie Flitter

We are saddened to have to report the death in April at the age of 90 of another longstanding comrade, Bernie Flitter. He joined the then Bloomsbury branch in 1943 after listening to our speakers in Hyde Park. He later transferred to Fulham branch where he was an active member and outdoor speaker in the 1940s and 50s. He earned his living as an accountant. Latterly he was a member of Central branch. Our condolences go to his wife, Marie, also a member, and family.

RC

On Political Cowardice. (1905)

Book Review from the August 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Labour Party." By J. Ramsay MacDonald, Secretary to the Labour Representation Committee

Our objections to this brochure start on the front page of the cover and multiply in the proportion of about ten objections per page to the finish. It purports to deal with the Labour Party. As a matter of fact it deals exclusively with the Labour Representation Committee — a very different matter. It is conceivable that the Labour Party may presently embrace the components of the L.R.C.. but no Labour Party could embrace the L.R.C. itself, as that unhappy body is understood to-day.

Moreover the pamphlet is not even an explanation of the position of the L.R.C. It is an endeavour —and a laboured endeavour at that —to justify the existence of a body with neither principles nor programme, and with only the most nebulous of objects to lie reached by the most ill-defined of methods. And although (vide a certain “Labour” journal scribe) it is the “dark eyed inscrutable” secretary of the L.R.C. himself who essays the justification, we confess to not being greatly awed by his effort.

The impression the writer has succeeded in conveying is that of a man deliberately weaving words into an inscrutable (inscrutable seems a very apt word here) pattern in order that the real matter for consideration may be obscured, and at the same time that the idea is fostered that the writer is an exceedingly honest person whose one desire is to lay bare the whole truth.

The Labour Party, we learn, comes “to deal mainly with the social condition of the people. A never-ending industrial conflict which necessitates standing armies of Capital and Labour, which drags into its heated and noisy vortex Press and Pulpit, Lawcourt and Parliament, and which throws out a constant stream of maimed and wounded and shuttered humanity ”—which for a prominent member of an organisation that repudiates the class struggle as “an obsolete Marxian dogma” is, to say the least of it, a noteworthy pronouncement. It is also a true one.

Very well. Now how is it proposed that this problem should be dealt with ? Mr. MacDonald’s Labour Party has no programme. We have this Labour Party therefore coming to deal with the social condition of the people without an idea sufficiency definite to be incorporated into a tangible proposal as to how it will proceed.

Here is a position bordering on the grotesque, and here Mr. MacDonald displays with marked ability Ins capacity for word-spinning. The Labour Party, he says, "has refused to compile a programme for the very sufficient reason that a party is not created upon a programme hut upon a point of view."

And what is a point of view ?

Is it not the standpoint from which certain problems—in this case the social problem—are regarded? How then does the L.R.C. regard the social problem which Mr. MacDonald says it comes to deal with? What is its point of view? And the answer is that the point of view is not yet formulated! So that the L.R.C. comes into existence without a definitely ascertained point of view, to deal with problems that it gives indication of understanding, by methods it is not necessary (because it is not possible) to set out. "Parties are not built up on programmes”!

Mr. MacDonald is not strong enough to write what is obvious to any but the most casual of observers, viz., that the L.R.C. is an organisation held together by no stronger tie than the desire of Trade Union officials and leaders of impecunious “Labour” parties, to secure political positions, and that it must fall to pieces directly it has sufficient honesty or intelligence to attempt to formulate a programme that shall definitely express its attitude toward the social problem with which it comes to deal, for the very sufficient reason that the great majority of the members of the various unions affiliated do not understand their position, and are still held in bondage by the political fetiches they have worshipped in their ignorance from their youth up. Consequently any move that might be made—and that must be made if the working-class are to deal with the social problem—will immediately come into sharp conflict with the worship of the fetiches, and the result would disastrous. Mr. MacDonald knows this very well, hut he may not admit it without conceding the accuracy of the indictment of political impotency which we of the S.P.G.B. bring against the L.R.C. So that he is reduced to talking round his subject with the palpable intention of covering the weakness of his position.

The pamphlet to us, therefore, has been wrongly named. It should have been described as an essay on political cowardice.

A. J. M.Gray

Overheard. (1905)

A Short Story from the July 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Frank —(To Jack, who appears to be thinking furiously.) What is the matter now?

Jack —You fellows say we are wage slaves, and are cheaper to the masters than chattel slaves, but that’s rot.

Frank—Steady, old chap; why is it rot ?

Jack — Because the chattel slave had to work absolutely for nothing, while the masters must pay us wages.

Frank (laughing)—Well, even according to official figures the average wage of the modern worker hardy represents his cost of maintenance, and as the slave was always fed and lodged, he could hardly have got less, could he?

Jack — Well-er-of course. Anyway the wage worker is not a slave.

Frank — Oh? The essence of slavery is compulsion; the means employed are unimportant. Now is it not slavery to be compelled to toil for another?

Jack—Certainly.

Frank — Well, is not the modern worker absolutely compelled by fear of starvation to sell himself to a master? Can the workers get a living at all to-day without the permission of the owners of the mines, factories, railways, land, etc.? And are they not, therefore, the slaves of this owning class ?

Jack — H’m! But still the wage slave, as you call him, is very much better off than the chattel slave. Just compare them.

Frank—Well, in the first place the chattel slave had a considerable exchange-value, and was sought after; whereas thousands of modern workers are compelled to tramp the streets in search of a master, and are starving for a crust.

Jack looks glum.

Frank—In the second place a master will take more care of a thing that will cost him a big sum to replace, than of a thing that can be replaced for the asking.

Jack nods assent.

Frank—So that if a chattel slave falls ill the master will get him well quickly, for he cannot work or be sold when ill; but if a wage slave is ill he is turned out and left to starve, for another can be had for nothing.

Jack — That’s right enough. If you feel unwell and get to work late two or three times, on the street you soon go.

Frank— Further it would hardly pay the chattel slave owner to overwork his slaves, for he would use them up too soon and have to pay heavily for new ones. But a modern employer finds it to his interest to use up his wage slaves as quickly as possible, for there are always plenty more to be had for the asking.

Jack—Yes, just as the modem contractor takes very great care that his horses are not overworked, but continually overworks his men.

Frank — That is so. The up-to-date capitalist uses his men only for the best years of their lives, and throws them on the scrap heap when he has taken the steel out of them.

Jack — Right again. They are turning out all the old men now. Only young men need apply. And at the pace they drive one can’t last long at the game. But with regard to the chattel slave; he used to get flogged; we don’t.

Frank — No, Jack, it is not necessary to flog us in order to make us work hard. The threat of the "sack,” the fear of starvation, is quite sufficient. Between being flogged to death and slowly starved to death, the choice would be embarrassing, would it not? A large proportion of the working population of to-day suffer slow starvation even while in work.

Jack — I begin to see that we are the wage slaves of the owners of the means of life.

Frank — Yes. Private ownership of the means of life gives private power to absorb all the surplus produced. Slavery can only end by the democratic control of wealth by and for the wealth producers: that is Socialism.

Jack — Good' Speed the abolition of wage slavery!

Frank — You see, then, that wage slavery, which hides its ugly features under the mask of Freedom, is much more profitable to the master-class than chattel slavery. And let me whisper this: Had it been otherwise, chattel slavery would not been abolished.

F. C. Watts

On keeping up with the Joneses (1958)

From the April 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Dr. Wintle, Medical Officer of Health for South Oxfordshire, offers advice in hit annual report on how to avoid coronary thrombosis. ‘Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses,’ he says. 

 "The doctor gives bad advice. 

 "It is competition which provides life, with the most health-giving dement of all—zest Britain would indeed be in a sad state to-day if her captains of industry, her scientists and inventors, had never had the urge to get ahead of the Joneses. 

"Besides, there are far greater dangers to human happiness than those which come from coronary thrombosis. 

"Worrying about an illness which may never happen is one of them. 

"Becoming a vegetable is another."

The above is taken from the Editorial Column, Sunday Express (29/12/57).

The writer does not feel qualified to comment on the merits or demerits of the doctor’s medical opinions. It would appear, however, the Sunday Express is of the opinion a desire to get ahead of the Joneses is the driving force of scientists and inventors. Yet if we read the lives of many famous scientists and inventors, we find many of them spent their lives pursuing their aims regardless of reward. A British inventor died in poverty; yet he revolutionised the cotton industry by his invention of the spinning jenny. For though a great inventor he was no business man and was in fact swindled out of the patent rights of his invention. No desire to outdo the “Joneses” here. If we turn to France we find an even better example of devotion to science for its own sake without thought of gain; Pierre and Marie Curie discoverers of radium, steadfastly refused to make money out of their discovery. To use the words of Marie Curie in a conversation with her husband Pierre: “If our discovery has a commercial future, that is, an accident by which we must not profit. And radium is going to be of use in treating disease. It seems to me impossible to take advantage of that” So much then for the comments of the Sunday Express on the driving force, with its avowed belief in the health-giving qualities of competition. There is, however, nothing healthy about present-day competition, since it breeds resentment, jealousy and frustration.

It brings out all the worst in man. Co-operation on the other hand fosters goodwill and friendship.

The Sunday Express, just like the Dally Worker, is most concerned that people should not give up the ghost, but go on striving for success within the framework of capitalism.

The Daily Worker encourages workers in Britain but not in Russia, of course, to strike for more pay, but they never mention the abolition of the wages system, while the Sunday Express talks about a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage (whatever that is supposed to mean). As for “becoming vegetables” -the writer is of the opinion the workers are behaving like cabbages in allowing the capitalist system to continue a day longer.

Instead, they should behave like mature adults organising to introduce a Socialist society, where all inventions will be used for the good of all mankind, and where the necessity for “getting ahead of the Joneses,” imagined or otherwise, will have taken its place in the limbo of capitalist society along with "healthy competition” and all the rest, including the Sunday Express, Daily Express, Daily Worker, Tribune, and all the other "tripe."

Phil Mellor

Editorial: The Curse of Work: The Right to Live (1907)

Editorial from the July 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party will soon need to cry “Save us from our friends”! The other “Leaders” who failed to secure election are turning upon them.

Mr. Russell Smart, in the columns of the Labour Leader, asserts that, since the General Election, they have lost ground because of the “tame and unheroic policy the Labour Party has followed in the House of Commons; in the eyes of the electorate it has scarcely justified its existence.”

But what does Mr. Smart expect? The Labour members cannot go beyond the people who elected them. As these people were not Socialists, in some cases as at Leicester, Halifax, etc., avowedly Liberals, the Labour members can do no more than ordinary Liberals would do. Surely Mr. Smart does not expect them to sacrifice any of their respectability by making themselves unpleasant in the House of Commons. It’s much more to their liking to stump the country telling the people how they “love” the Liberal Leader and how "gratified" they are at the measures which the Government introduce.

And does Mr. Russell Smart know where he is? It would appear not. He rightly asserts that to get public support and enthusiasm the Party must have something worth fighting for (assuming they desire to fight, which we doubt). As he says “the people will rally to a ‘Cause’; they will remain cold to a policy.” What is the “Cause” that is to rally them? The Social Revolution? Oh, no! All that is suggested is that the Party could rally to its support the whole Labour world, organised and unorganised alike, by putting into concrete form the “great and inspiring idea" — the Right to Work !

No wonder Mr. Ramsay MacDonald describes Labour Party Politics as a “confused jumble of futilities.”

The God-given Curse.

The Right to Work ! In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread. So runs the “ God-given curse.” And in the twentieth century, “when Labour is awakening to a sense of its power and responsibility," its attention and efforts are to be concentrated on the Right to Work!

In the dining room of the House of Commons, in the luxurious saloons of the Carlton Restaurant, the Pavilion, the Popular, the Trocadero, and the Mansions of the West End, word is to be conveyed to those who “ toil not, neither do they spin,” that the Labour Party is anxious that the “right” of the wealth-producers to work shall be conceded by Act of Parliament; that the separation of the master class from the working class shall be even more legally recognised; that it shall be by law enacted that the working class have the "right" to work, as distinguished from the master class, which has the “right” to enjoy the good things of life without toil, and over the “apples and nuts,” over the wine and cigars, the master class and its parasites will smile the smile of smug satisfaction, and drink the health of that, from their point of view, beneficent institution, the Labour Party.

Many years ago when, at the behest of the “leaders” the unemployed were—as they are doing now— praying to spooks, following priests, petitioning kings, appealing to politicians, looking to leaders,—anything but relying upon themselves, a demonstration was held in Trafalgar Square. On the plinth was Mr. Ben Tillett, amongst others. With broad-brimmed hat covering the top of his face, with coat collar (it was winter) turned up and covering the bottom part of his face, he bellowed: “To day we demand the right to work, next year we will demand the right to live.” Why wait until next year, he was asked, but did not reply. And to-day, ten years after, the same old fraud is being put forward as a “Cause,”—the Right to Work.

The Evil of Compromise.

Could we have a better illustration of the evil of compromise? If the people have any right to live, they have it now, not next year or at any future time.

And what does the “Right to Work” mean, under Capitalism? The unemployed are to be put to work, in accordance with an Act of Parliament which the Labour Party is to get passed. Is there not already sufficient wealth produced to satisfy the needs of every member of the community? There is enough wasted every night to feed all who lack food. It is therefore evident that what is required is not more work, but a sensible distribution of present work and the wealth already produced. This fact, however, seems to be ignored by our “Right to Work’’"friends.”

If the “Right” of the working class to work is conceded by Act of Parliament, to what work are the unemployed to be put? Already there is produced not only as much as there is an effective demand for but in many cases more. If, therefore, those not required by the capitalist "organisers”of industry are put to work under the usual conditions as to hours, etc., their product must tend to glut the market and, competing with the product of other factories, involve some capitalists in loss and throw other men out of employment. Does Mr. Smart expect the capitalists to pass a measure providing for this?

If, on the other hand, they are to be put to work producing only those things which they require for their own use, the necessary hours of labour would be so very few that the working class would recognise the extent to which they are robbed by the master class and—the capitalists’ game would be up. The master class are quite aware of this, and are not to be caught in this direction.

Useless Work.

Work will only be provided by a capitalist government for those of the unemployed who make themselves objectionable, and menace capitalist property. When it is found, it will consist mainly of the useless kind digging holes and filling them up again.*

What the unemployed and all other folks want is food, and also clothing and shelter. That these can be obtained by some individuals without working for them no one can dispute. We object to any able-bodied person obtaining them without doing his share of the necessary labour, but seeing that they can be so obtained, the unemployed have as great a right to obtain them in that way as the members and parasites of the master class. Let the unemployed throw over the misleaders who urge them to appeal to their masters to find them work. Let them recognise that only the common ownership of the means of life will solve their problem and proceed to convert their fellows. Pending the conscious effort of the working class that shall establish the Socialist Commonwealth, let the unemployed determine that they will not starve.

When our Right to Live is conceded we are prepared to recognise our obligation to perform our share of the necessary labour, but not till then. Let our rallying cry be “Down with the ‘Right to Work’: Up with the ‘Right to Live.’ ”

* In his pamphlet, “The Right to Work,” Mr. Russell Smart urges that the unemployed should be set to stone-breaking as a labour test.

Rocked by poverty and despair (1995)

Theatre Review from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Knocky by Michael Wynne (Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court)

Michael Wynne—a young graduate in politics—comes from Birkenhead, and his first play The Knocky is set in a council estate in his home town. Tommy Kelly and his two older children are out of work; another child, traumatised by a personal assault, remains forever indoors; but mother and young son, Stephen—two wonderful performances—remain optimistic, dreaming their dreams.

In many ways Wynne presents us with a vivid and authentic slice of life. The plight of the Kellys, and the community (sic) of which they are a part, must be mirrored hundreds of times across the country. Rocked by poverty and despair theft is commonplace, as victims steal from one another in an attempt to clear their debts. Young Stephen witnesses his elder brother stealing the family's video and is torn. Should he say nothing out of loyalty or tell his parents?

So far so good but sadly there is a downside. Wynne’s play is full of scouse humour, but too frequently we seem to be laughing at the characters rather than with them. Wynne seems to be inviting us to patronise the Kellys rather than to sympathise with them. And the introduction of Mary, mother’s outrageous sister, further undermines our sympathy. In his desire for laughs Wynne has Mary remove her bra and flaunt her breasts in front of a supposed peepingTom peering from an off-stage window. And when her victim has a heart attack and dies before the arrival of an ambulance, Mary affects not a jot of concern. Mary is a monster—the family of which she is a part is guilty by association—and sympathy is transformed into circumspection.

Perhaps next time Wynne will be strong enough to resist cheap laughs if the price is the integrity of his characters and the honesty of their predicament. Perhaps, too. he will look beyond descriptions of unemployment and poverty, and the feelings and actions which these induce—good though he is at dealing with these things. What, in part, marks out the successful playwright is the capacity for analysis as well as description. Wynne shows us folk ground down by unemployment and despair, and he seems to be sympathetic. But he appears unable to offer any explanation for their situation, or to suggest any alternatives. Presumably degrees in politics at London University don't offer insights into the nature of capitalist economics? 

Michael Gill

This is life? (2016)

Book Review from the June 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

'This Is London: Life and Death in the World City'. By Ben Judah, Picador. 2016.

This is a sad, insightful and ultimately haunting insider account of life in London by a writer who can really write. It is a picture of what life is truly like for hundreds of thousands of London’s current inhabitants by someone determined to identify their struggles and recount their lives – people who most of us know are there, but perhaps never quite get to know. The Romanian beggars working for gangs to pay off their debts in the subways under Hyde Park Corner, the Mayfair Arab princess out of her mind on skunk most days because her every move is controlled by her father (even remotely via his security team), the itinerant Polish builders of Beckton creating the ‘dig down’ basement flats for the rich in Knightsbridge, the East European and Latin American street walkers of Ilford Lane, ever fearful of the next attack from a punter.

Judah’s opening lines tell us his motivation: ‘I have to see everything for myself. I don’t trust statistics. I don’t trust columnists. I don’t trust self-appointed spokesmen. I have to make up my own mind. This is why I am shivering again, in Victoria Coach station, at 6 am.’

By spending months trying to uncover the ‘other side’ of London to the one the tourists see, he has managed to create a fascinating and compelling book based on his experiences of the street. The facts are clear – as few as 45 percent of Londoners now are ‘white British’ and over a third have been born abroad. But this is not a UKIP manifesto in disguise, it is book that focuses on the lives of real people who are now more genuinely representative of those scraping a living in ‘the world city’ than the occupants of the glossy colour supplements and property magazines. These are the 95 percent of cleaners working for Transport for London who are immigrants, doing the job that others won’t do or can’t. The occupants of Zones 3 and 4 who have been pushed by the global elite out of central London – the traditional first home to UK immigrants – into what were once mainly white working class suburbs full of semis and terraces. This is where multi-occupancy now reigns courtesy of buy-to-let landlords, and life is precarious and often dangerous – the Edmontons and Leytons of this world, the Harlesdens and Neasdens. This is the world of pounds shops, ‘cash converters’, mobile phone un-locking, and pubs now converted into African churches, of betting shops, and fried chicken and kebabs.

You will have sensed this not an uplifting read. Some of the laziest racism, for instance, is to be found among poor, black evangelical Christians in Peckham, ever suspicious of the Asian shopkeepers they think fleece them at every turn. And when you have nothing, materialism and competition can be brutish enough and a descent to drink, drugs and desperate gambling close around the corner.

It is partly because of situations like this that socialists are socialists – not because of some abstract moral pity for those less fortunate, but because the society we live in is based on the need to keep us insecure and fearful, with a descent into the ‘underclass’ or ‘precariat’ all too vivid a misfortune for those who struggle every day in the grandly- named ‘market economy’.

Dave Perrin

The Old, Old Story. (1916)

From the January 1916 of the Socialist Standard

A trade-union conference was recently held at the Central Hall, Westminster, at which three ministers addressed the delegates with the avowed object of gaining their influence against any movement by munition workers for an increase in wages. The ministers, with their usual contempt for the representatives of the workers, delivered their speeches and took their departure. What they had said, though economically unsound, contradictory and absurd, was to be taken as gospel and transmitted to the workers. The delegates made no attempt to expose the ludicrous mistakes and wilful misrepresentations contained in the statements of the three ministers. They came to heel, and carried out the instructions of their masters—as good labour leaders have always done in the past.

Asquith figured first, and destroyed the case of his colleagues before they spoke. Four-and-a-half million workers, one-third of the total, had received an average increase of three and sixpence per week. An increase of a fraction over 5 per cent. for the whole of the working-class. He then showed that the cost of living had risen in the same period by 30 per cent. Thus proving that the working class of this country had sustained a reduction in wages of 25 per cent.

No wonder that Mr. McKenna followed with the remark: “I am not sure that I am very fond of explaining to an audience of this kind why, in the present circumstances, it is contrary to the interests of the State to put forward claims for higher wages in particular trades.” The State having, without friction, achieved a 25 per cent, reduction all round could, of course, afford to pay for the overtime worked in those particular trades and even grant a substantial increase in wages but, that would not be business, and besides, the rest of the workers might want a rise as well. We pass over the insinuating remark that the speaker dislikes the task of dissuading the workers from attempting to improve their conditions. He is no doubt fully alive to its contemptible nature. The insinuation is only one trick in the miserable game played by professional politicians and their colleagues the labour leaders.

Mr. McKenna then proceeded to argue that higher wages means higher prices. He may or may not believe in this oft exposed fallacy. But he is confident of one thing: it is a convenient doctrine to impress upon the workers. Especially that section of the workers completely at the mercy of the masters because they are unorganised. Millions of workers, who's wages are below the average, and who are unable to distinguish the real cause of their poverty, are easily persuaded that their fellow-workers are responsible for some of it when they strike for higher wages.

"Very large wages” said Mr. McKenna, “have been earned in many cases. Now, half the trouble would never have arisen if those large wages had not been lavishly spent.’’

Mr. Asquith had previously demonstrated to the delegates that the workers had sustained a 25 per cent. reduction in wages. Thereby proving that their purchasing power had been reduced. But Mr. McKenna bad the audacity to tell them that four-and-a-half million workers whose actual wages have only fallen by 15 per cent. instead of 25 per cent, are responsible for half the trouble, because they spent this fictitious increase, together with their overtime money, instead of saving it. Note, too, the concern of the little brother of the very poor. “The larger demand amongst that section of the community which was enjoying higher wages and higher income sent up the price of the article and diminished, therefore, the power to purchase of their poorer neighbours."

The whole burden of Mr. McKenna’s speech is summed up in his concluding sentences. “Those who demand higher wages must show themselves worthy of higher wages. They must show they can save in the interests of the State and their neighbours, their families and themselves . . . That is the demand you have to make, and, until you can do so, you are not justified in asking for higher wages for a special trade to the injury of all other classes of the community."

His speech was a transparent attempt to raise a popular outcry against that section of the workers who, in the present crisis, could by organised action demand and obtain a substantial—though temporary increase in the price of their labour-power.

It was reserved for Mr. Runciman to insult the intelligence of the assembled delegates. Many labour leaders profess Socialism. Mr. Runciman, of course, knew the extent of their Socialistic knowledge—nationalisation of industries and the like so, after informing them that the Government had spent forty millions buying up sugar, he gravely informed them that it was “one of the greatest Socialistic experiments ever entered upon by any government.” They also purchased wheat from India, the United States, Canada, and the Argentine in enormous quantities. “That” he said, “was Socialism again, but it was Socialism on a business basis, and I should always be prepared to do business on those terms.” And the delegates, well, they quite appreciated these profound remarks because they coincided with their own limited knowledge and confused ideas of Socialism. We read, therefore, without a symptom of surprise that the conference “decided to send to the members of all trade unions copies of the speeches and commend the appeals to their earnest and favourable consideration.’’

F. Foan

The Good Time That is coming. (1915)

From the April 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

To-day we are being told that this is the last war — the war that is to end war. The world that emerges from this inferno, we are given to understand, will never be as in the past. We are wading through a sea of blood, but it is to a New Jerusalem, and a system where antagonisms between nations and classes will have disappeared and rivalry in armaments will have gone for ever. There is to be an enduring peace, in which the legitimate purpose of our lives—“production, and buying and selling"— will go on uninterruptedly—especially the buying and selling of the workers. So say all the capitalist hacks, political, religious, and philosophical.

The war that will end war is the capitalist excuse for war —for what even they are ashamed of. Because they are ashamed the rulers of each country endeavour to fix the blame upon their opponents. So long have they preached the blessings of peace and commended themselves for its lengthy duration (as if anybody but they desired to break it), that no words are strong enough to describe their provocation. “The rights of small nationalities"; “Scraps of paper," and outrages—without which no war has ever yet been prosecuted—are daily recited with melancholy repetition in the capitalist Press, that they may sink into the minds of the workers, become part of their thoughts and loom large in their conversation, and appear to them as reality—as substance, instead of shadow—as something that matters to them.

In order that the flow of recruits may continue, unstinted praise is lavished on those who have joined. They are all good fellows and the brainiest of fighters now, though but a few short months ago many of them were “just poor creatures without initiative or ability." But the ruling class wants them to-day because they are strong and can be trained to fight.

So, in the columns of the Press, they fall upon their necks, woo them with colour posters, and whisper to them of “our" common nationality. We are all brothers to-day, they plead; one nation, one class, one interest, and one purpose. What grandeur there is in the thought that all our differences have been swept away and we are absolutely united against our common foe! Never can there be a relapse. When, in the future, differences arise and class antagonisms—but there, that is unthinkable—are we not one!

How beautiful they all read —the fairy promises of those who need your help! The gaudy futurist pictures of those who are stricken with the deadly fear that they may lose some of their wealth, or that their power to exploit you may be curtailed or purloined by the capitalists of another nationality. They may well commend you for your patriotism, for it is their country you are fighting to preserve to them— their country, and they hold the bonds, the scrip and the gilt-edged securities.

Would you have your country, they plead, ravaged by the foreign invader as France and Belgium have been ravaged ? Will you submit to slavery, outrage, and murder at the hands of the Germans, or will you bring your “strong right arm" to bear against our common enemy and preserve unsullied, our glorious nationality from the deadly peril of German Militarism?

These are words on their lips; but business is in their minds, though they dare not speak the whole truth. If they did they would say: We are at war with the capitalists of Germany for markets, in order that we may increase our trade and profits. Our share in the earth is at stake; our land, mines, railways, and factories may be lost to us, or tribute may be levied upon them by the invader, as has been done in the case of the property of the Belgian capitalists. Keep the German out, or you will be his slaves instead of ours.

According to Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Harcourt, “forced labour for private profit amounts to slavery." This definition exactly describes the condition of the working class in every capitalist country, England included. For every worker being divorced from the means of life is forced to labour for the profit of some capitalist or capitalists.

So the workers in all capitalist lands were slaves before the war. How, then, can they be made slaves by the Germans? But their slavery can be intensified, it may be retorted. True, but not necessarily by reason of a change of masters. Conditions for the workers must intensify as a result of capitalist development, by the simple process of replacing men with machinery, and with women and children, thereby increasing the unemployed and furnishing the capitalists with the necessary power to reduce and to speed up their workers

The economic whip, the spur of the “sack," is far more effective as a slave-tickler than was over the lash of the ancient slave-driver. The capitalist has the experience of history behind him; he goes by results, and knows that the wage slave, driven by the fear of hunger, is more effectively under his control, more amenable to discipline, and has less independence and spirit, than chattel Slaves and serfs. Docility and efficiency are the attributes of the slave, and the wage-slave possesses these in a fuller measure than slaves nave over possessed them all down the steps of time.

When society has once passed out of the stage of chattel-slavery there can be no general return to it. Those trifling exceptions affecting comparatively small numbers in different parts of the world —such as peonage, indentured labour, and the forced labour of the Belgians who receive rations for work performed —these forms only go to show the similarity of conditions for those subjugated—a mere subsistence, under any form of slavery, including capitalism. It is impossible for the workers to be inflicted with something they already suffer. But can the war remove the infliction?

One writer of some standing says: “Whatever the result, the world that will emerge when the deluge of blood has subsided will be a world that will be new and strange." But those who understand the system, who analysed it before the war and have seen the anarchy and greed of the capitalists, even while they were calling upon the workers to make sacrifices for them and their country —those who understand the nature of capitalism, expect no fundamental changes.

There will be, no doubt, delirious and fanatical expressions of joy, with, perhaps, a universal holiday—as when a king is crowned —on the proclamation of peace. But capitalism, with all its horrors, will remain to us. Miners will go down to their death in mines known to be dangerous; workers in every town, sunk in poverty, will continue to breed consumption in reeking slums. The un-classconscious workers will still be goaded by the wretchedness of their conditions to strike, and they will suffer all the penalties of daring to dispute with their masters. The confusionist will still be engaged poisoning the minds of the workers with every kind of superstition that can possibly keep them in ignorance and subjection. The outlook of the worker cannot change as the result of war; while the philosophy of the capitalist—which begins and ends with profits —will remain the same in all the countries concerned. The workers of no country need fear to have slavery imposed upon them, for there is no form of slavery, tried or untried, that can mean deeper poverty, toil, and degradation for them.

The “better time that is coming "can only be the result of the workers’ own efforts, after they have fought the class war to a finish. For this is the only war that concerns the working class — that can open up a new world for them. We, who understand this, continue the struggle even in the midst of national strife, because the quarrels of the capitalist rulers of the different countries—no matter how many millions of workers are involved—are as dust in the balance compared with the quarrel we have with the ruling class. We therefore call upon the workers of all lands to make an effort to understand Socialism. that they may be fully equipped for the last war—and their emancipation.

F. Foan

The Prostitute Press. (1915)

From the April 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has produced many vile institutions, but none more corrupt and degraded than the capitalist Press, by which the workers are systematically hoodwinked and led astray.

Whenever a section of the workers are goaded by the horrible conditions of their existence, into striking, the cheap and nasty Press lets itself go and pours out a perfect deluge of lies. If the men come out in accordance with the wishes of their trade union officials we are told that they have been led astray by demagogues and agitators; if they strike against the wishes of their officials .they are denounced for having thrown over their “responsible leaders ’’!

For example, on the occasion of the strike movement in South Africa last year, when nine of the strike leaders were deported without trial, that organ of light and truth, the “Morning Post,” presented us with the following gems of editorial wisdom:

first editorial.

"Supposing that Ulster were pacified as Warsaw was pacified on a famous occasion, a legacy of hatred and resentment would be left behind that would sooner or later bring to ruin the new system of government. Force, the Liberals have always told us, is no remedy. Certainly, the attempt to apply it to Ulster will lead to utter and perhaps irretrievable disaster."

Second editorial.

“The Union Government seem to have broken the back of the general strike in South Africa . . . Now, these are strong measures, but it is sometimes necessary to be cruel in order to be kind. General Botha was faced by the danger of a most dangerous and calamitous anarchy and he treated the case with the decision and energy of a soldier and a man of courage and character."

As the showman says: “You pays yer money and you takes yer chice."

But not only does the Press drug the workers' minds in the interest of the masters; it also assists them to poison their bodies by booming adulterated and unwholesome products. Who does not remember the “Standard Bread" craze that was so assiduously boomed by a section of the Press some time ago? One might have thought that the sole concern of these newspapers was for the purity and wholesomeness of the people’s bread, instead of which all the wheat sweepings which had been lying in the warehouses for years, and which are generally used for feeding cattle and pigs, were suddenly taken away—one can guess where they went to.

We Socialists have always contended that lying is the common character of the capitalist Press, and is not confined to the German section of it; and our attitude is justified by our opponents. Even Lord Selborne, in a letter to the “Times" says:

“The Press Bureau consistently slurs over bad news and exaggerates good news. The Press lays every emphasis by poster, headline, and paragraph on that side of the war which is flattering to our pride. It keeps further in the background the news which is disagreeable to us, and the result is that our sense of proportion is being destroyed and that perspective is ceasing to exist. I could multiply instances of what I mean. Frequently, lately, we have seen the roll of casualties of some battles in Flanders amounting to two hundred, three hundred, four hundred men, or even to half a battalion. These casualties took place in February, January, or December, but who can recollect that at the time we received any impression of such loss by the news published? The fact is that these casualties have usually occurred when we have lost a trench or a line of trenches, and the men holding them have been killed or made prisoners. A day or two after this had happened we were probably told that a trench which had been lost had been brilliantly recaptured, but we had never been previously told that we had lost the trench, and we were never told at the time what the loss of the trench or its recapture had cost us.”

Here we have an admission by a leading light of the capitalist class that the people are deliberately being gulled by their penny and halfpenny oracles.

When capitalist society is a thing of the past the Press will be run by the people themselves for its true purpose, viz., for the dissemination of news, and only then will it be free from the hypocrisy, lying, and cant that characterise it to day, because then there will be no capitalist interests to bolster up and no subject class to be kept in mental darkness.

H. T. Edwards

Votes for Ladies (1999)

Book Review from the November 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sylvia Pankhurst. A Life in Radical Politics. By Mary Davis, Pluto Press.

Sylvia Pankhurst, one of the daughters of the famous suffragette leader Mrs (Emily) Pankhurst, will have done at least one thing for modern feminists: drawn their attention to the complexity of the votes issue before 1914.

Most people will probably think that the suffragettes who chained themselves to railings, knocked off policemen's hats, etc were demanding universal suffrage, i.e. votes for all adult men and women. Actually—and this was a conscious policy decision by the Women's Social and Political Union to which they belonged—they were campaigning for "Votes for Women on the Same Terms as then obtained for Men". But before 1914 not all men had the vote; owing to a property qualification, admittedly fairly low, only about 70 percent of them did. To have extended the vote to women on these terms would (according to one figure quoted by Mary Davis) have enfranchised less than 8 percent of women. Nearly all married women would have remained voteless as their family's "property" was in the name of their husbands.

The WSPU was aware of this and was prepared to go along with it. This meant that what their militant tactics aimed at was, in the contemporary phrase, "Votes for Ladies", votes for rich women. In other words, they were not democrats who were campaigning for votes for all women but, whether intentionally or not, people whose policy would have strengthened the political power of the propertied class by increasing the proportion of capitalist voters at the expense of working class voters. No wonder the Socialists of the time opposed them, as did many ordinary democrats.

However, not all suffragettes were in the WSPU and not all of those in the WSPU favoured this policy aim, Sylvia Pankhurst among them. In fact she fell out with her mother and elder sister over the issue and was expelled from the WSPU in 1914. Her branch became the independent East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) which pursued a different strategy, of including working class women and demanding universal suffrage.

When the war broke out, the WSPU went super-patriotic. The name of their paper was changed from The Suffragette to Britannia and they began, as Sylvia Pankhurst put it, to hand "the white feather to every young man they encountered wearing civilian dress". She moved in the opposite direction, opposing the war. In 1916 the ELFS changed its name to Workers Suffrage Federation and in 1917 its paper Woman's Dreadnought became Workers' Dreadnought; in 1918 the WSF became the Workers Socialist Federation. The WSF was one of the organisations involved in the founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1921. Pankhurst, however, was by this time an anti-parliamentarian (so much for votes, for men as well as women) and was opposed to the new party seeking to be affiliated to Labour. For this she was denounced by Lenin as an "ultra-leftist". She lasted only six months in the CPGB before being expelled.

The Workers' Dreadnought continued to appear until 1924 and was a valuable source of information and documentation on the opposition groups in Russia, including those who argued—as indeed did Pankhurst herself—that Russia was heading for state capitalism not socialism. Mary Davis records that in 1923 Pankhurst set up a rival unemployed organisation to that of the CPGB, "the Unemployed Workers' Organisation (UWO), whose slogan, 'Abolition of the Wages System', was supposed to expose the 'reformist' nature of the demand of its rival—'Work or Full Maintenance'". This could only have been a gesture, but one Socialists can appreciate.

By 1924 Pankhurst had tired of the working class and radical working class politics and reverted to being essentially a single-issue reformist. She remained a feminist (deliberately choosing to become "an unmarried mother") advocating such reforms as the introduction of maternity benefit. In 1948 she joined the Labour Party. But from the 1930s on her main centre of interest became Ethiopia. She championed its cause against fascist Italy and came to be a friend of Emperor Haile Selassie. In 1956 she went to live in Ethiopia where she died four years later at the age of 78 and is buried there.

It has been reported (Times, 18 August) that Gordon Brown is supporting the idea that the vacant plinth at Trafalgar Square should be filled by a statue of Sylvia Pankhurst. Evidently, he is unaware that she once advocated the abolition of the wages system and money. Still, come to think of it, better a statue to someone who held this view however briefly than to some warmonger.

Adam Buick

Angry Christians, Hot Dogs and Venezuela (2016)

The Halo Halo! column from the June 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘A majority of millennials now reject capitalism’ reported the Washington Post (26 April) after a recent Harvard University poll concluded that 51 percent of people between 18 and 29 do not support the system and only 42 percent said they did. More interestingly, 33 percent said they supported socialism.

Let’s not start winding up the World Socialist Movement just yet though, our job isn’t quite done. The Washington Post pointed out that ‘Capitalism can mean different things to different people’, and noted ‘Bernie Sanders is profoundly changing how millennials think about politics’. Ah, Bernie Sanders, that American capitalist politician who thinks he’s a socialist. Perhaps someone should inform the Washington Post that ‘Socialism’, too, means different things to different people.

Whether the rightwing Christian Post website has been bamboozled by Bernie, too, is not clear but some joker seems to have told them that socialism has been established in Venezuela and they’re not happy about it. And that Harvard poll has pushed them right over the edge. Anyone browsing their website be warned, you can almost feel their anger and indignation blasting its way through cyberspace and smashing against the inside of your computer screen.

This survey, they say, ‘goes to show you that higher education can’t fix stupid – especially when it’s flowing from the mouths of anti-capitalist educators’. ‘These educators’ they go on, ‘take advantage of their captive audiences, rambling on with their vast “knowledge,” mistaking the blank stares and half-smiles in the room as “interest” having no idea that if they heard themselves in playback, they’d probably stab themselves with their pointing sticks’.

And we thought Christians were such nice, peaceful people. ‘Before all you anti-capitalists jump on the socialist bandwagon’, they warn us, ‘why not first take a look at what’s happening in Venezuela, that pitiful place on the globe where it takes a wheel barrel full of cash to buy a hot dog’. Ah, hot dogs are involved. No wonder they’re angry.

‘I know American socialists are far above eating hot dogs’ their writer explains, ‘and probably prefer munching on exotic tree bark, but if a hot dog is what’s available thanks to your beloved socialism, needing a wheel barrel full of cash to buy one is a bit much, wouldn’t you say?’

It descends into a bit of an incoherent rant after that, although a few paragraphs later we do get a clue about their anger or, at least, their confusion.

Still seething about nasty university lecturers who, although they don’t actually blame them for the economic situation in Venezuela, they do hold responsible for the result of the Harvard poll, and inform us, ‘Venezuela happened – amidst their attempts to paint a rosy picture of socialism, omitting from their lectures historical facts about the collapse of communism in the Eastern bloc’.

Well, Christian Post, here’s a historical fact for you.  There was no communism or socialism in Russia and the Eastern bloc, or in Venezuela for that matter. What they had in Russia, and in Venezuela was just another form of capitalism – administered by the state instead of by big business. And, as we saw in Russia, state administered capitalism is just as useless as private capitalism.

As for your concerns that ‘The International Monetary fund says this year Venezuela’s inflation rate will rise to 500% while other experts predict 700%. That’s why you need wheel barrels loaded with worthless cash to buy hot dogs’. Well, that’s capitalism for you – private or state run. And, we seem to recall, capitalist America too had a bit of a depression back in the 1930s.

And more recently (See wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States) ‘Recent census data shows that half the population qualifies as poor or low income, with one in five millennials living in poverty’ and ‘In 2011 child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households’.

Rest assured, when we have real socialism, even in America you won’t need a wheel barrel (or wheelbarrow as we call them on this side of the pond) to collect your hot dog – you just won’t be that hungry.

Pass that on to Bernie, will you?

NW