The Workers' Outlook (1943)

From the April 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The press has pleaded until recently that the war must be won before the “blue prints of the future” are made. Now for a number of reasons the planning and. reconstruction propagandists are given full play, both over the air and in print.

Perhaps a good reason for the present flood of spiritual and temporal oratory on the part of the “better worlders” is the marked apathy shown by the workers to those who would arrange their future for them.

Truly no Socialist in the ranks of the organised workers could fail to see that, granted the toilers dutifully put up with all the “directions” given under the Essential Works Order, are ”pushed around,” as Americans say, that this is only tolerated because of their war resolution summed up in the words, “We don't want Fascism here." Yet by no token can this mood be taken as being in the spirit of class-collaboration. Indeed, in this respect the "Communists" have become about as popular as black-beetles by the anti-dispute aid they give the capitalists and their managements.

Perhaps the outlook of the not-too-articulate workers may be gathered by a quotation from an article by R. B. Bathers in the A.E.U. Monthly Journal for December, 1942.

   In the midst of the general rejoicings over the Allied victories, Mr. Henry Kaiser informs the world that the great masses of workers are shivering with apprehension that the war will come to an end. General Smuts says in 1944. Another American has prophesied that when peace comes the United States will have 18 millions unemployed. Similar apprehensions have been voiced here, and. as Lord Croft, divulging the Tory mind, has declared that we need no new order, we can assume that the number of unemployed here will be several millions. Sir Patrick Hannon, President of the National Union of Manufacturers, has spoken of “the absolute certainty of industrial impoverishment at the close of the conflict.” There is the fear, the fear of want. The masses are sceptical about Atlantic Charters and speeches about the New World Order, many of which are quite sincere— many are not.
    Here, faith in the intentions of Parliament to implement the promises of the Charter is at a low ebb. It is lower because of our victories. For, as the tide has turned, so have the hopes of the Tories risen that they will continue to rule the roost and return to the Old Order. Big Business, represented by 120 prominent industrialists, has issued its programme for the future. Does this forecast the era of the Common Man? No. The Common Man is to be kept in his place as heretofore. He is to have no part in the control of industry, though he may get a few more crumbs. Sir Patrick Hannon fears that the Atlantic Charter, if carried out, would injure British competitive power. Obviously, he envisages an era of international competition for markets as before. That this would sooner or later end in war does not trouble Big Business. Like the Prime Minister, their slogan is "What is our own we hold.” 

It would be churlish to argue that the foregoing does not show the way to end capitalism; for it expresses a degree of class-consciousness which, if held by the mass of workers, would bode ill for capitalist rule.

In general one finds that though the workers are under the duress of war conditions, that Jingoism is weak, while the Socialist case, quite unvarnished, can be stated almost anywhere. But what of after the war? Can the capitalists hold their power and prestige?

It would be Utopian to think of a sudden conversion to Socialism on the part of the workers, as suggested by the I.L.P. in their ”Socialist Britain Now” stunt, even if the I.L.P. understood Socialism. In any case there are dozens of tricks left in the bag by which to bemuse a not-socialist working class.

Our capitalists could introduce centralised State insurance, Nationalisation, Empire, or should we say Common? wealth development, or even the setting of one section of the workers against the other by State jobs.

The ruling class could spend, if necessary, millions on propaganda in building up reformist or phoney parties to attract the workers, and would not be above taking an idea or two from the State Capitalism of Russia. In effect, any proposition could be tried which left the class relationship intact—namely, capitalists and wage workers.

In the opinion of the present writer, the political fight will become progressively keener, because of the State tie-up of the workers' industrial organisations, which may continue long after the war. This will have the effect of nullifying much of the bargaining power of the workers, such as strike action and industrial hold-up.

The class struggle then enters the political stage, which makes quite archaic the ideas of those who advocate direct action, in the sense that capitalism can be overthrown by force behind the barricades. It puts these ideas where they originally belong—to the conspiratorial, unenfranchised period of working-class history.

We as a Party unflinchingly upheld the Socialist cause throughout World War No. 1 and the present conflict. We correctly interpreted, against all opposition, the Russian upheaval as not being a Socialist revolution.

All this and more is the splendid background of the Socialist Party with the sound case for ending the wages system.

Frank Dawe

A Question of Incentives (1970)

From the November 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often told that a society operating on the socialist principle of — from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs — must fail. All the incentives that bring out the best in mankind are missing. Something called a reward in the form of cash payment is needed to overcome a natural reluctance to get down to a bit of hard work. The argument goes on that this is especially so where unpleasant working conditions are involved. How could large cities get people to man the essential services without monetary reward? So unpleasant are tasks such as sewage disposal, rubbish collecting and pest control we are told, that only the fear of losing their affluence keeps people at those jobs. Under Socialism, without wages to keep us working, we would laze our time away and end up engulfed by our own dirt. Let us see what this argument in defence of capitalism is worth.

How well does the “pot of gold" technique cope with routine tasks of keeping such vital services going? At the time of writing the people doing these jobs are exerting themselves to get more of that ‘reward’. Are they doing it by working harder? Not likely, experience has taught them that less work helps them in this respect. The strike and go-slow by virtue of the inconvenience they cause employers are weapons in the workers’ quest for more wages and better working conditions. It must be noted that employers can and do use the no-work technique to bring pressure to bear on their employees; that is the lock-out. The society of wage labour and capital is one of conflict and antagonism. On the one hand the workers must if they are to defend their interests act anti-socially. On the other, employers must resist and be no less anti-social. As in most strikes dire warnings are issued. This time they are not about “the nation’s trade" but about the danger to “public health" due to pollution from untreated sewage getting into rivers and a plague of rats thriving on uncollected garbage.

The Daily Telegraph (8 October) quotes Conservative Minister Peter Walker speaking on the environment at his party's conference.

  Referring to the strike of local government employees, he said no responsible authority could go beyond the offer the men had rejected. As a result of the men’s action rivers had been polluted and in some cases, if the pollution continued it might take years to put right.

Here the threat of pollution is being used as a weapon in the struggle. What an equation, the workers demand 55s a week pay- rise; the employers (responsible authority) offers 36s a week and over the difference of a miserly 19s, years of river pollution could result. As Walker well knows pollution is rapidly becoming a major problem for capitalism. Not because of strikes but due to the need to keep costs down; industrial and domestic waste including sewage is dumped as cheaply as possible and pollution follows. The quarrel over pay claims is bound up with this cheese-paring procedure. Far from being well paid it is recognised that these jobs are amongst the poorest. So much for rewards..

When it comes to taking adequate precautions to safeguard the public wellbeing in other ways we find that capitalism is just as niggardly. When dustmen strike we are warned of plagues of rats. In spite of the warning, those who pay the wages don’t seem to be in much hurry to settle the dispute. However it was admitted in a recent survey in the Evening Standard (8 October) that other factors are involved. One is demolition work. Another is economy measures. The G.L.C. borough of Islington has seven council rodent operatives whereas there had previously been twelve for the same area. The Evening Standard comments “no wonder they can’t cope. (Last year the seven operatives made 3.500 visits in the borough)”.

If capitalism runs its services for preventing disease on a shoe string, how does it do when curing the same? The same London evening paper ran a story that started:

  A casualty patient can wait up to three hours to see a doctor in most inner London hospitals. The cause : A severe shortage of doctors and nurses.

Need we go on? If there is one thing about capitalism it is that it provides plenty of evidence to expose the fallacious arguments about incentives and efficiency. The new government have sworn that things won’t change. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer put it:

   Employers both in the public and the private sectors must be prepared to resist unreasonable claims even if it means standing up to strikes. (Evening News, 9 October)

We wonder what he made of the report in the Times (9 Sept.) of a survey of directors’ salaries that showed “an increase of 91 per cent between 1968 and 1969 in the remuneration of part-time chairmen”.

What is the answer then? This strike has shown the potential. A call was made for volunteers to keep the sewage works going. Not with the lure of financial gain but on the basis of helping out in an emergency. That many people offered their help no doubt strengthened the employers' bargaining position. This is typical of capitalism that it perverts people's finer feelings, in this case by having them as potential strike breakers. At present the working class accept capitalism and are easily divided against their fellow workers. Once they understand their class position and how they are exploited through the wages system. they will unite for the political task of establishing Socialism. Socialism must operate on a basis of voluntary co-operation. Once the question of cash payment no longer intervenes, that of removing drudgery from work must dominate. It will only be in a free society where production is solely for use that human welfare will come first.

Joe Carter

Ups and Downs in China (2017)

From the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

We look at the rise of China as an economic and political power

In April the first rail freight service from Britain to China left a terminal in Essex for a 7,500-mile journey to eastern China. Thirty containers with goods such as whisky, soft drinks and pharmaceuticals travelled via the Channel Tunnel and seven countries (including Russia and Kazakhstan). The train took over two weeks to reach its destination, but this route is cheaper than air transport and faster than sea. Three months before, the first freight train had travelled from China to the UK. This illustrates the fact that China is now a central part of the global trade system, as both importer and exporter.

Developments over the last forty years have resulted in China being the world’s second most economically powerful country, after the US. Over a hundred Chinese companies are now on the Fortune 500 Global List, with only the US having more. State-owned enterprises gradually became less dependent on the government, but even private companies still rely greatly on government permissions and licences. Investment from overseas companies, mainly via joint ventures, resulted in industrial expansion. Labour costs have been very low, leading to big profits, but are now increasing.

The change from state capitalism to a mixed state and private system may have been started by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, but the idea of China being part of the global economy did not originate with Deng. As Mao Zedong is reported to have told a US diplomat in 1945: ‘China needs to build up light industries to supply her own market and raise the living standards of her own people. Eventually she can supply these goods to other countries in the Far East. To help pay for this foreign trade and investment, she has raw materials and agricultural products. America is not only the most suitable country to assist this economic development of China: she is also the only country fully able to participate. ‘

GDP has grown at around seven percent a year in the last few years, and exports have been consistently larger than imports (by $380bn in 2014, for instance, and $600bn in 2015). Manufacturing has been the core of the expansion, though now the service sector outranks industry and construction. Electronics, machinery and clothing are the largest export sectors, with many global companies having their smartphones and laptops manufactured in China, often in sweatshops and factories with appalling working conditions, leading to much resistance by workers. In the first three months of this year, GDP growth continued at an annual rate of just under seven percent, but there are signs of a slowdown since then. China’s foreign exchange reserves, though still enormous, have been falling steadily. There have been claims by some economists that China is on the verge of a crash comparable to the subprime crisis in the US in 2008, but such predictions are hardly reliable. In May China’s credit rating was cut by one agency.

One result of these changes has been a massive movement of people from the countryside to cities, not as a part of government policy but as a consequence of people seeing urban life as a way to escape from rural poverty and isolation. It is claimed that over the last 35 years, 500 million people have moved from the countryside to cities, including ten million moving to Shanghai alone. This inevitably puts enormous pressure on services such as housing and education, with many children of these migrants not being able to attend school. One response of China’s rulers has been to create urban mega-regions, which cover massive areas and have populations of perhaps 100 million. One example is Jing-Jin-Ji, to include much of the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and the province of Hebei.  These mega-regions need a great deal of investment in housing, transport and other kinds of infrastructure, and there are concerns that they will lead to ‘endless cities’, as already found in countries such as Brazil and Japan.

It is generally accepted that there have been big decreases in poverty over this period. On World Bank figures, in 1990 650 million people in China were living on less than $1.90 a day, but by 2013 this figure was down to around 26 million. But it is by no means clear how reliable such figures are, and even most of those living above this poverty line are pretty badly off. Moreover, inequality is not just a matter of rural–urban contrasts, as a 2014 survey suggested that one percent of the population possessed one-third of the wealth. There are more dollar billionaires in China than in the US, though even the richest (Wang Jianlin, with $32bn) is not among the world’s twenty wealthiest people.

And there are big plans in China for further economic expansion, with claims to sovereignty over raw materials in exclusive economic zones in the South China Sea, and the proposed Belt and Road Initiative (see the Socialist Standard, June 2015). Even though the economic problems mentioned earlier cast doubt on whether Chinese banks can finance all this by themselves, a big summit was held in Beijing in May to push the proposal. British capitalists have their eyes on China for increased trade, especially post-Brexit, and Philip Hammond said in a speech there that ‘Britain, lying at the western end of the Belt and Road, is a natural partner in this endeavour’. If – a big ‘if’ – Britain signed a free-trade deal with China, it might help to mitigate any adverse effects on trade and profits of leaving the EU. Representatives of the EU have, however, been less keen on the Belt and Road, supposedly because of the lack of commitment to environmental sustainability, but perhaps more because of concern about economic competition. Vladimir Putin spoke at the same summit, referring to a Greater Eurasia and declaring that this would be ‘a truly civilisation-wide project looking toward the future’. More rhetoric than anything else, of course, but the ‘New Silk Road’ may well be viewed as a framework for a forthcoming challenge to US global hegemony, with Putin not wanting Russia to lose out to China.

China’s rise has frightened the American ruling class in various ways. Under Obama it was decided that the majority of US naval forces would be transferred to the Pacific, and there are now over four hundred military bases, stretching from Australia, the Marshall Islands and the Philippines to South Korea and Japan, stocked with missiles, warships and nuclear weapons. No doubt these have many possible uses as a way of maintaining US dominance, but one potential employment is for what John Pilger (New Internationalist, December 2016) has described as ‘the coming war on China’. While campaigning to be president, Donald Trump described China as an enemy of the US, but the language became friendlier after he took office.

In May a trade agreement was signed under which China will allow imports of US beef, while the US will allow the import of cooked poultry from China. Hardly a major change, but possibly an indication of future developments. If China overtakes the US economically in the next decade or two, as some have claimed is likely, then US hegemony will have lasted a little over a century.

Paul Bennett

Canada—the Same Story (1963)

From the May 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no shortage of housing in Toronto. There are apartment blocks in abundance, sub-divisions in profusion, and gimmicks to induce the unwary signing of leases. The radio roars the advantages of “graceful living” in this area and the beauties of countryside combined with easy transportation to downtown Toronto, with a dash thrown in from the real estate agents to sell “your home" through them, fast . . .  fast . . .  fast . . . 

Truly a paradise—empty houses, flats and apartments. Unbelievable to the British Worker. True, nevertheless. Just listen, inspect and you are “sold.” Then comes the snag. How much can you afford for a down payment? There is now a housing problem in Toronto . . .  or is it a poverty problem? If you haven’t got the cash then you can’t sign the lease, purchase the house on a heavy mortgage, or take that wonderful trip to New York which was promised to you, just for signing on the dotted line.

Yet the large sub-divisions on the outskirts of Toronto which have been developed could be a foretaste of what housing could be like under Socialism when the profit motive has been removed. The houses are designed to suit the needs of families, whether large or small, and are fitted with all the necessary up-to-date equipment, such as refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers. There are several architectural plans to choose from. Each tastefully designed house has a garage, a basement recreation room and is fronted by a large lawn. Within a short distance are the shopping plazas and supermarkets.

Owning their houses is an ambition of many workers, but many of those who through a lifetime of sacrifice attempt to accomplish this, find that when their mortgage is due for maturity there is a lump sum payment or a bonus to pay. They failed to read the small print in the contract and could not afford to employ a lawyer. Often they are forced to sell quickly at a loss before the mortgagor forecloses. Or a fresh mortgage can be obtained at considerably more than was originally owing. This bonus system sometimes prevents the worker ever being able to pay off the mortgage and he never “owns” his house. The mortgage set-up in Canada is big business and sometimes a worker who proudly persuades himself that he owns his house after making the down payment, loses his life savings. Legally, of course. Forty-nine per cent. of all mortgages in Canada are owned by lawyers.

In the downtown area called Cabbage Town are concentrated the slums of Toronto, although they also exist in other parts of the city. Here one sees the hovels that pass for human habitation, hovels without adequate heat, light or air, fetid, stinking and disease-creating. Houses that are terraced, without inside toilets, and with an outside toilet sometimes serving as many as a dozen houses. Houses that are tumbling down, with paper hanging off the walls, broken steps, crumbling walls, and some rat and termite infested. Hovels that are rented to the most depressed section of the working class, those on relief and those who are unemployed. Landlords are unwilling to repair even if repair would help the condition at all, but in most cases they are beyond any patching up. Exorbitant rents are charged; each time an increase in “welfare” payments is received, the landlord puts up the rent.

In Metropolitan Toronto in the year 1961 there were seven evictions taking place daily. Families are split up, children put into the care of the Children’s Aid Society, and mothers at their wits end what to do.

In Northern Ontario on the Indian Reservation at Red Lake (and other reservations, too) the housing conditions of the Indians are positively unbelievable. There are wooden shacks with a floor area of 18 ft. by 22 ft. housing as many as twenty-two human beings for eating, sleeping and living. Wood stoves heat the hovels, and wretched rags are used for covers. Sometimes these people have only the clothes in which they stand and hunger and starvation are permanent features of their miserable existence. The Indian’s income is approximately £49 a year to keep alive on, plus whatever can be obtained from trapping, which is generally very little.

In the rare instance where an Indian has been able to obtain a job for any period, he is not usually any better off because he shares whatever he possesses with any or all of his tribe who are in greater need than he. Consequently, when he gets a little better house to live in, he is willing to, and does, share it with others of his tribe. The result is overcrowding.

All this exists in a country where an old-fashioned but structurally sound and perfectly usable City Hall is to be pulled down and a new stream-lined one built at a cost of approximately $27 million. Is any comment needed?

Sid & Gladys Catt

The Passing Show: Goa (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the February 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Goa

The successful Indian invasion of Goa set off a wonderful display of coat-turning. Many of those who supported British aggression at Suez in 1956 opposed Indian aggression at Goa in 1961: and vice versa. So many politicians seized the chance of using the arguments which had been used by their opponents at the time of Suez. Those who had hailed the British and French armed forces' attack on Nasser were then discomfited by having to watch Britain and France pilloried at the United Nations Assembly, with the vast majority of the member-states condemning the aggression, and only two or three countries, most of them Fascist or racialist like Portugal and South Africa, supporting it. At that time no state shouted louder against this wanton aggression than India.

So with what glee have many MPs and others—chiefly Conservatives—waded in with righteous speeches and articles denouncing the Indian aggression, and using the very “holier-than-thou” arguments which were used against them with such telling effect in 1956. Even newspapers like the Daily Mail, which has supported the British ruling class for many years through thick and thin, whatever methods it has used—indiscriminate brutality to the civilian population as in Cyprus, executions for having associated with suspected persons as in Kenya, or naked aggression as at Suez, all defended by sob-jerking references to “our boys out there’’—even newspapers with this record came out quite unabashed against India. The Daily Mail, straightening its very tarnished halo, and raising its eyes piously to the heavens, even had the nerve to proclaim that no action which was morally wrong could be politically right. How any Daily Mail journalist could write that without the typewriter jamming is hard to see.

Right to rule

On the other hand, we had many of those who consider themselves left-wing or progressive weighing in on the other side. Very often they were the same people who pointed out (quite rightly) in 1956 that it is no good denouncing aggression only when it is committed by somebody else; that aggression is still aggression even when the aggressors are the British ruling class. But over Goa they had deluded themselves into believing that the Indian ruling class had some “right ’ to rule over Goa and its people stronger than the “right” of the Portuguese to do the same thing. So out came the argument that “aggression is wrong, but—well, this is different"—exactly the argument used by the pro-Suez faction in 1956.

What it all boils down to is this: if you support capitalism, you will end up by backing this or that capitalist state against the others, even when it goes to war, kills innocent men, women and children, and commits the most barefaced aggression. It is only the Socialist who sees all capitalist states for what they are, and sees that when their own interests demand it they will all kill, execute, and commit aggression however much they have denounced other states doing the same things in the past.

Independence for Balham

But that is far from being the only insoluble problem of supporters of capitalism. While we are on the subject, here is another. All “liberal-minded, progressive people" support, of course, “national independence"—i.e., the right of one state to throw off another which attempts to rule over it. On the other hand, as one descends the scale of communities, there must be a point at which this “right of independence” no longer applies. If, for example, a small London suburb like Balham (even though it is, in Peter Sellers’ words, the “gateway to the south”) proclaimed its independence, there would surely be very few people, even in the Labour Party, who would be prepared to rally to its banner and die gasping out “independence for Balham!’’ with their last breath. But—and here is the sixty-four dollar question—where exactly is this point reached?

Ireland

A case in point is Ireland. Over the long years when the Irish propertied class was demanding its “independence” from the United Kingdom, the British ruling class said the British Isles was the smallest possible unit in this area which could claim independence: Ireland was too small. Against this, the Irish owning class argued that any community, even if part of a larger community, has a perfect right to split off if it wants to. Then when it became clear that Irish independence was only a matter of time, the capitalists of Northern Ireland began to claim the right to hive off from an independent Ireland. At this, the two parties did a smart about turn, and each stole the other's arguments. Now it was the emerging Irish ruling class which denied the right of a small part of a larger community to split off, while those who had previously said that the British Isles was the smallest community hereabouts which could claim self-determination now stoutly defended the right of no more than six counties in Northern Ireland “to determine their own future’’.

Katanga

Another example of the same difficulty —and one which is causing repeated loss of life both among the “United Nations" forces and among the forces supporting Tshombe—is Katanga. One view is that the Congo is the smallest possible unit which can feasibly claim independence; the other view is that Katanga is large enough to stand alone if it wants to. The problem is in fact insoluble in capitalism, except by force. There is no valid rule which lays down how large a country must be before it can demand “ independence”. So the two sides—the Congolese ruling class which wants the mineral wealth of Katanga, and the Katangese rulers who want to keep if for themselves —fight it out in either open war or uneasy temporary peace.

The only permanent solution of the Katanga problem, and all the other problems of “national independence”, is Socialism. In a Socialist system of society there would be no national boundaries, no state frontiers, because there would be no ruling classes to impose them: so naturally there would be no dispute as to where they should lie. Those earnest supporters of the “ United Nations” who are now deeply puzzled about the Katanga impasse might usefully consider our alternative.

Alwyn Edgar

The Passing Show: What it Means (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

What it Means

In The Times recently there was a reference to President Nasser’s nationalisation policy, under the name of "Arab Socialism"; and on the same day (27/10/61) there was a report of a speech by the President of the Senegal Republic in which he referred to “ the Negro-African form of Socialism.” So much confusion is caused by reformist politicians in every part of the world wishing to masquerade under false colours that it was not surprising to read (in the same issue) the following report of a meeting of the so-called “ Socialist International ” (which is in fact a collection of Labour Parties):

  A particularly able speech was made by a delegate from the Action Group of Nigeria, who, he said, had recently announced that they were going to embrace democratic socialism, and were now hotly discussing what that meant.

For the benefit of the Action Group of Nigeria, democratic socialism means nothing that socialism does not already mean. Socialism, being a system voluntarily entered into by society as a whole, and being without any coercive forces, is by definition democratic. In the same way, it is pointless to talk about Arab socialism or Negro-African socialism; one might as well talk about Birmingham Socialism or Tooting Socialism. Socialism is in its essence international, and knows nothing of racial or national differences.

All that is needed to complete the confusion is for the Labour Parties of the Common Market countries to join together and start talking about “Common Market Socialism.”

Apes

Reviewing a recent book (African Genesis, by Robert Ardrey) a Sunday Express writer triumphantly records the author’s conclusions about monkeys and apes (22/10/61):

  He shows clearly that their most powerful inborn drive is, first, for status; next, for territory (both family and tribal); and, only third, for sex. Thus such things in men as ambition, patriotism, and a yearning for a house of one’s own are not—as many fashionable thinkers have tried to make us think—an artificial product of an artificial civilisation. They are natural and inborn, especially in the higher animals.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept what Ardrey says about apes, his premises clearly do not support his conclusions. It would only be possible to reason in this way if man was descended from the monkeys or the apes: but, in fact (although this may be news to the Sunday Express) no scientist has ever maintained that this is so. What all scientists do now maintain is that man and the other primates are descended from a common ancestor. So what has to be explained is why man has left all the other animals far behind, while the monkeys are still swinging in the trees. And if the main interests of apes are, first, status, and second, grabbing more territory, that would go a long way towards accounting for the great gulf between man and monkeys. Men have developed in the way they have simply because they co-operated—they lived together amicably in tribes and owned property in common. As Engels says (in Chapter 2 of The Origin of the Family): 

   For man’s development beyond the level of the animals, for the achievement of the greatest advance nature can show, something more was needed; the power of defence lacking to the individual had to be made good by the united strength and co-operation of the herd. To explain the transition to humanity from conditions such as those in which the anthropoid apes live to-day would be quite impossible; it looks much more as if these apes had strayed off the line of evolution and were gradually dying out or at least degenerating . . .  Mutual toleration among the adult males, freedom from jealousy, was the first condition for the formation of those larger, permanent groups in which alone animals could become men.

No satisfaction

Who said this? "There were literally thousands of jobs in industry which gave no satisfaction to the worker and never could . . .  as a result among the great working class areas of the country” men were getting no "sense of fulfilment . . . from the tedium of their day-to-day jobs.” 

It was no Socialist, agitating for a new society; it was the head of the state-capitalist board which now runs the coal-mines—Lord Robens. He was speaking at the recent national conference of the Institute of Personnel Management. It would be difficult to think of a much stronger argument against our present form of society than this—that the workers get no sense of fulfilment from their jobs, which occupy so large and so central a part of their lives: yet here we have one of our leading operators of state-capitalism saying just that.

If Lord Robens really believes this, it is about time he thought of resigning his job and joining the Socialist Party, since that is the only way he can help to bring about a change in the situation.

Alwyn Edgar

Obituary: Bill Mack (1982)

Obituary from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with deep regret that we report the sudden death of Bill Mack at the age of 67. Bill joined Birmingham Branch in 1960, although he had been a socialist for many years. As a young man he tried to escape poverty, like so many others, by joining the army. Bill's long military career made him acutely aware of the horrors of war and later, as a socialist, he was keen to make others aware. His contribution to Branch activity was enormous, and his presence will be sorely missed by all those who knew him. We offer our condolences to his wife Lillian and his three daughters and son-in-law.

Lew Higgins

Mr. Baldwin's Utopia: Can Lions and Lambs Co-operate? (1925)

From the April 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

So many people have jumped on poor Mr. Baldwin for his recent appeal for an industrial truce, that it seems a shame to add to their number. He is such an “honest” man; so obviously well-meaning'; so kindly. His democratic tastes are illustrated by his addiction to the plebian pipe. In many of his speeches, how beautifully has he voiced his love of the English countryside; its farms, its hedgerows, its winding lanes and quiet villages. He loves the memory of the old days, when man and master were personal friends and the “sack” almost unknown. A man of simple tastes, with nothing of the “high brow" or superior person about him. If we were writing his life for a Sunday dope-sheet, we should describe him as “a plain, simple, home-loving Englishman; a lover of peace and tranquillity.” As we are writing for a Socialist paper, we have to take a wider view. We have to recognise that he is a big capitalist in a big essential industry. We must note that he is the elected head of a malignantly capitalist party. We must observe that he is speaking for the class that pays him and of which he is a representative member. This is not set down in any personal, malicious spirit, but as a plain statement of self-evident fact.

The speech itself was in no way remarkable. That it has occasioned such widespread controversy is an eloquent comment on the poverty of contemporary politics. One searches it in vain for a definite, tangible, constructive proposal upon which one can fasten and say, “Here is a gleam of hope for the workers.”' It was thickly besprinkled with woolly phrases such as: “Suspicion must be removed"; “all must join hands to pull the country into a happier position”; “all concerned in industry should try and get to the root of this kind of thing” ; “all should take counsel together and see where and how improvement can be made in this country, to achieve the desired result ”; “a common desire to get at the facts and a common desire to help things”—and so on. Just strings of windy bubbles, floating on a morass of verbiage. One bubble was not so gaseous as its fellows, but Mr. Baldwin did not know it. It was the text of his discourse: “I want to plead for a truce.” This, beyond a doubt, is a direct admission of the existence of a state of industrial war. Socialists have been engaged in pointing this out for upwards of a century. We call it the class struggle. In spite of Mr. Baldwin’s candid admission, you will find its existence regularly denied at least once a week. For what is a truce? An agreed temporary peace between belligerents. And who are the belligerents? Mr. Baldwin defined them in his opening sentences. We should have said “Capital and Labour,” or the “Workers versus the Parasites,” the “Rich versus the Poor,” or something equally trite and explicit. Mr. Baldwin phrased it differently. He said, “This country would be confronted more and more with great combines and great aggregations of labour.” And now, he said, when there seemed a faint hope of revival, we were confronted with a gathering storm which, if it burst, would blot out all prosperity. “All prosperity"! So there is some prosperity about somewhere. Are we very far wrong in assuming that the struggle the truce is to suspend is concerned with this prosperity and its position on the wrong side of the line? We know it is not on the workers' side. My. Baldwin, therefore, must be speaking for the other, the masters'. Behind the homely, pathetic figure of Mr. Baldwin we discern, without the aid of binoculars, the sinister figures of his employers. Ruthless, callous, malignant, and vindictive, the phalanx of capitalism is packed at his back. And having battered the workers to the edge of endurance, their spokesman suggests a truce. One feels tempted to reply:

   Mr. Baldwin and Friends,—We are deeply touched by your moving appeal for a truce in our embittered relations. Naturally a peace-loving, easy-going crowd, we are not entirely unsympathetic. But there are certain facts which seem to have escaped your notice. We would remind you that in ten short years you have succeeded in burying a million of us beneath Flanders' mud, and in maiming a further million or two preparatory to returning us to civil life. That civil life contains elements we do not consider altogether satisfactory. A million and a quarter of us seem condemned to perpetual unemployment. You endeavour to keep us from becoming troublesome by a niggardly, inadequate sum to which you attach the insulting term “the dole." Those of us fortunate enough to find masters have had our wages battered down to a point inconsistent with a full and joyous existence. Your promise of a land fit for heroes was a mockery; of better education for our children, a bitter jest. You cannot even house us. Your pleas of poverty and lack of funds are falsified by the millions found for rebuilding banks, stores, and offices on the most valuable sites in London; by the millions found annually for battleships and armies; by the constant oversubscription of gilt-edged loans. And we are sick of it. We are tired at playing Lazarus at the feast we have provided. We are—   

But we said one feels TEMPTED to reply in those terms. One quickly realises that he and his masters would be as deeply impressed by our oratorical flourishes as we are by theirs. We remember that “the rich will do anything for the poor, except get off their backs.” That is our sole concern—to get the rich off our backs. Speeches have their uses, but they will not do that. It is action that counts, and when' the workers decide to act intelligently and with knowledge they will not be fobbed off with speeches. Prosperity for the rich and poverty for the poor are inseparable. The one is the consequence of the other. To talk of a truce in such circumstances is to imply that we enjoy being robbed. There can be no truce between those who live by robbery, and their victims. The only concession one can make is to recognise that the division of society into two warring classes does not proceed from human wickedness or simple perversity. But it has proceeded from traceable historic causes, and having discovered its laws of growth, we can now guide the progress of society into a more harmonious form, wherein classes shall cease to exist, and class-war have no place. This is the mission of the working class, and by joining the Socialist Party each can take a part in inaugurating the new human society.

W. T. Hopley

Editorial: What comes first? (1963)

Editorial from the February 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

To put it mildly, life under capitalism is an unpleasant business. Apart from the dominating problems, there are the lesser irritations which also go into the balance against the private property system.

There are, for example, the constant admonitions to us, from government, church, press and so on, to conform to the morality of capitalism. For the workers, this means an uncomplaining acceptance of the system. It means to work hard and soberly and to keep capitalism's laws. A man who ignored these precepts to the extent of neglecting his sick and hungry children in favour of a career of destruction and violence would not only find the finger of the law upon him. He would also be an outcast because he had offended against capitalism’s morality. We can all imagine—in fact we have all seen—the treatment the popular press would give to such a man. We have all seen the emotional headlines and the carefully horrible photographs, all designed to make the man seem a human monster.

Very well. A man like that would certainly be an extremely objectionable person, one with whom it is impossible to feel much sympathy. What, then, are we to say of a social system which acts just like that man? How does capitalism itself live up to its own morality?

Violence and destruction? The British government is now spending £1,709 million a year on its armed forces and their weapons. The United States, with its greater power and its heavier international commitments, is spending at the rate of £17,648 million a year on the same things, over £5,357 million of it on nuclear weapons.

Now what about capitalism’s sick and hungry children? All around us there is evidence that plenty of such children literally do exist, hanging on to life by their fingernails. We have just come through the Christmas period, a regular feature of which is the mass of appeals from all sorts of charities whose declared object is to feed and to help distressed children. We have seen the pitiful pictures of the wasted little bodies, near-skeletons with swollen bellies and desperate eyes. The people who organise these charities are undoubtedly sincere and are involved in a problem which is quick to move any human being.

These are not the only things which capitalism neglects. We have recently heard that the research unit at Hammersmith Hospital, which has been doing such valuable work in the field of kidney grafting, has had its future threatened by lack of funds. Nor is Hammersmith Hospital the only research centre suffering in this way. Mr. James Callaghan, the Labour Party Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has said that he has heard of another “vitally important medical research unit which is living from hand to mouth.” Mr. Callaghan, of course, was gratefully wielding a stick upon the Tory government. Things were no better when Labour was in power.

There is one thing which all these charities and research teams need and which, within capitalism, might go a long way to assure their future. Money. Why don’t they have it? Because the capitalist class knows that its interests demand that it lavishes enormous sums upon making the means to kill and terrorise humans, even while the organisations which at any rate try to help humans are forced to penny pinch and to rely on charily.

Not that the answer is to support the charities. Those people who support capitalism and complain about its inevitable problems are as illogical as the man who drinks a bottle of whisky and then complains when inevitably he cannot walk straight.

The real solution to this is for the world working class to establish Socialism. This will be a world without armed forces and all that goes with them, without money and all that that entails, without the need for charities. It will be a world in which human interests are Number One Priority, in which the only motive for human activity will be human benefit.

Editorial: Everybody out . . . (2002)

Editorial from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oh for the glory days of the 1970s! Men huddled around braziers at the factory gates, collars turned up on their duffle coats to protect them from the biting wind. Mass meetings, addressed by the great union leaders, with hundreds of hands lifting in unison to support the motion of the day. Left-wing paper sellers on every picket line, hawking Militant and Socialist Worker to "the workers in struggle". Those were the days indeed . . .

Before the last general election, Arthur Scargill, leader of the Socialist Labour Party and no stranger to picket lines himself, was asked about how his vision for the future seemed curiously stuck in the past - specifically the 1970s. Though meant as a criticism, Scargill took this comment from a hostile interviewer as a compliment, saying that this was exactly what he wanted to return to. Reading the newspapers at the moment, you would be forgiven for thinking that his wish has become a reality.

For the first time in some years, the UK seems beset by industrial disputes. Whereas as recently as 1998, the working days lost to industrial action in this county were the lowest on record, working class militancy has seemingly returned. At the time of writing there are ongoing disputes taking place concerning workers in the RMT rail union, the Post Office Workers Union, staff at Manweb/Scottish Power and many others besides. This has stirred the right-wing press into one of its periodic frenzies against the "wreckers" who care nothing for business and little for the paying customer.

But why this flurry of activity all of a sudden? Well, there's no surprise perhaps beyond the fact that it hasn't happened sooner. When the rail companies have been short of drivers and there are not enough trains for the passengers to cram into it is hardly surprising there is going to be industrial action of some sort – quite simply, train drivers have managed to increase their pay levels as the competing train operators desperately vie for their services. Others in the rail sector understandably want to follow suit, also mindful of the type of "salaries" paid in recent years to the so-called "fat cats" at the top of the companies. As even the Guardian recently put it, if the fat cats have been creaming off the milk for so long then why can't the thin cats get in on the act?

Added to this is the fact that the economy is just about entering its tenth year of fairly sustained growth (notwithstanding the recent slowdown) and this growth has led to levels of unemployment that are historically low for this last twenty or thirty years. In these circumstances, workers are likely to push all they can to safeguard the conditions of workers in any threatened industries as the inevitable downturn looms and yet push for wage claims which outstrip the level of price rises whenever they can in sectors where the profits seem to be healthy. Workers at Consignia (formerly the Post Office) are a good example of the former, being employed in a sector that has been under attack from management for several years prior to privatisation and which is now a comparative hotbed of militant trade unionism as the company tries to reduce its costs by £1.2 billion and the workers try to defend their position. In other sectors of the economy the workers continue to press more proactively for big wage increases - but at a time when management is just starting to become wary of an impending downturn in the economy. The result can often be an industrial dispute.

Socialists are, of course, on the side of the "thin cats" not the "fat cats" in these disputes. Wage and salary earners are the subject class in capitalism, selling our abilities to the owners and controllers of wealth for wages and salaries that are just enough to keep us in reasonable working order given the historical conditions in which we find ourselves.

Indeed, based on our understanding of this situation, our advice to workers is threefold:

• Try to push wages and salaries as high as they are allowed to go by the owners and management;
• Organise democratically to achieve your aims, without reliance on "leaders", who will sell you down the river;
• Recognise that any union struggle is necessarily a defensive one as there can be no real and lasting "victory" within the profit system.

Given the extent to which employment law in the UK has been skewed even further towards the bosses in the last twenty years, a repeat of the 1970s is unlikely and we suspect that Arthur Scargill should not get too excited for the moment (nor his like-minded friends in the Trot-dominated "Socialist Alliance").

Trade unions are essentially fighting over the crumbs. Socialists long ago raised our sights beyond the crumbs (necessary though that fight is within the system) to fight instead for control of the whole bakery. That way we will not be perpetually doomed to repeat the battles of the past, however they may be talked up as "subversive" acts by the mouthpieces of capital in the press, or how "glorious" they are portrayed as being by the self-styled leaders of the left.

‹ No. 1170 February 2002

Sting in the Tail: Perks of the Job (1992)

The Sting in the Tail column from the July 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perks of the Job

Whenever one of Europe’s African colonies achieved independence its new black ruling class quickly adopted the luxurious lifestyle of its white predecessors.

In South Africa the leaders of the African National Congress are introducing themselves to the good things In life. According to The Independent on Sunday (17 May) Nelson Mandela has bought a "spacious new home in gracious Houghton, Johannesburg's answer to Hampstead", for £100,000, but this is probably a hovel compared to ANC chairman Oliver Tambo's £500,000 house in Sandhurst, "the most expensive suburb In the country".

Their good taste also extends to cars: a national executive member "recently remarked that the underground garage at ANC headquarters looked like a Mercedes and BMW showroom".

In one way the ANC leaders are different from those black ruling classes elsewhere in Africa: they aren't waiting until they actually get their hands on political power before they get them on capitalism's little luxuries.

Baying for Blood

Aren't our policemen wonderful? At the annual conference of the Police Federation in Scarborough a call to abandon their policy of restoring hanging was heavily defeated.

Not even the examples of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the numerous other innocent people who would be dead if hanging was still law, made any difference to this bloodthirsty mob.

Pro-hanging delegates raged at liberals, wets, do-gooders, etc., and the conference was urged to "Remember our murdered colleagues" (The Guardian 22 May).

So, in the Federation's eyes killers should hang, but do they think this should apply to policemen who were later found to have had innocent people convicted and hanged on trumped-up murder charges?

Taming the Trots

During the mid 1970s the Socialist Party in Glasgow had competition for a while at its Saturday outdoor meetings from some young Trotskyists of the long-since vanished International Marxist Group.

Their speakers outdid one another In demanding violent insurrection, denouncing the Labour Party and ridiculing electoral activity. One in particular was fond of telling his audience "we don't want your votes, It's your ACTION we want!"

During this year's local elections, there on TV was a Labour Party official condemning the Trotskyists of Scottish Militant and especially Tommy Sheridan. He looked familiar. . . yes, it was that same firebrand from the 1970s!

This poacher-turned-gamekeeper is now one of "the leading lights in the movement to rid the city of Militant" (The Glaswegian 16 May), and his attitude to votes has changed too: he was an unsuccessful Labour candidate at the general election and in the May local elections he lost again to . . .  Tommy Sheridan!

The spectacle of Trotskyist zealots ending up as Labourites is a familiar one, and nobody should bet against the same thing happening, sooner or later, to the current crop in Scottish Militant.

In a Nutshell

The killing and atrocities in what was Yugoslavia are being blamed by the West (the US and Its allies) on Serbia and in particular its leader Slobodan Milosevic.

A letter writer in The Guardian (27 May) pointed out the double standards used by the West in condemning Serbia for the use of force while remaining silent when East Tlmoreans, Thai demonstrators, Latin American peasants and Indians, Palestinian refugees and the victims of Pol Pot are slaughtered.

He added that whatever crimes Milosevic may be guilty of

He has a long way to go before he can be classed with the likes of Pinochet, Duvalier, Suharto, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Samuel Doe and D'Aubuisson, all of who enjoyed the protection of the US while perpetrating unspeakable atrocities.

"Mean Jeane” Kirkpatrick, a prominent member of the Reagan administration, summed up very well the view taken by the US government of the above-mentioned murderers, when she said - "They may be bastards, but they are our bastards."

High Street Massacre

The news that Lloyd's bank has dropped its bid for Midland bank has been welcomed by the banking trade union BIFU.

If the takeover had succeeded then Lloyd's, besides getting rid of a major competitor, would have made huge savings by closing 1,000 High Street branches and cutting 20,000 jobs.

BIFU opposed the proposed takeover and accused Lloyd's of being more interested in bigger profits for its shareholders than it was in worker's jobs!

But this is only normal practice in capitalism. British banks cut 40,000 jobs in 1990-91 with possibly another 30,000 in 1992, and all this without any takeovers.

The fact is that there are too many banks in Britain competing for the available business. To make matters worse the building societies are now providing banking services so the pressure to cut jobs will continue.

BIFU should know that banks, like any other business, exist to make as much profit as possible and not to provide jobs for workers.

Scorpion.

Editorial: A Question of Policy. (1913)

Editorial from the February 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several correspondents having recently asked questions with regard to the future revolutionary economic organisation, an attempt is made to deal generally with the matter in the following article.

In the first place the position of this party has always been, no matter whether it is the economic organisation or the Socialist Commonwealth that is in question, that all matters of detail most be left to those upon whom the necessity to consider and arrange them is imposed by social development. Social development does not impose this task upon the Socialist Party at the present day. In every walk of life the broad scheme comes first. No organiser ever proceeds from the particular to the general—from the detail to the whole.

That which has been placed before the working-class intelligence to-day is the need for the broad, undetailed social system based upon the common ownership of the means of life. We know that from that basis certain broad conditions must arise. Those conditions are of such vast importance as to dwarf all matters of detail into the elusive diminutive of “nothing,” just as the corresponding conditions which arise out of the present social basis (wage-slavery, for instance) are of such overwhelming moment, as to reduce all other matters to insignificance.

The Socialist, as the member of society upon whom the need for this change in the social base has been borne, accepts these broad conditions which he knows will arise as sufficient. He is aware that such changes may take place as will prevent the establishment of common ownership in the means of living (though he regards the contingency as so remote that it does not worry him), and in that case the whole and the detail would be equally vain. But he is convinced that, whatever changes may take place, or unforeseen circumstance arise, if such happenings are not of sufficient magnitude to prevent the social base being established, then all the effect of those changes must fall upon the details, and cannot affect the broad outline of the new social scheme.

In regard to the revolutionary eoonomic organisation the Socialist position is identical. That such an organisation will be called for as part of the organisation of the working class for the achievement of their emancipation must be admitted by every Socialist. That such organisation, since its aim is the organisation of the working class, must be upon class lines, is the simple logical implication of the facts. That such an organisation, since its object is revolutionary, must hare a revolutionary basis and be composed of revolutionaries admits of no dispute. But beyond certain general conclusions clearly arising from the given premises, and which no changes that do not first disestablish those premises can alter, the Socialist, and in an added degree the Socialist Party, is not called to pronounce.

The work the Socialist has before him is to make Socialists—to make adherents to the Socialist whole, not to any conglomeration of Socialist detail. The details can have no significance to the person who does not understand the whole, and to the person who does understand they do not matter. For the first thing that happens to the man who does understand—to the Socialist, that is—is that he perceives that his only hope lies in his class. If his class is not equal to taking every step necessary for their emancipation; if his class is not capable of considering and deciding every matter of detail when the necessity arises; if his class is not of sufficient mental calibre to lightly throw off the dead hand of any notions and determinations we might seek to impose upon them, then the working class is doomed.

Why, then, should we trouble ourselves with details that we are not called upon to face? We could only consider them in the light of our present environment, and that, we know, is changing every day. It is a very essential, a fundamental, part of our Socialist position that our environment is changing every day. Upon our conception of the broad tendency of that change we base our general policy, but it is the details of that environmental change that must affect and determine the details of the future policy, and as to the details of the change which will take place in the multitudinous conditions that surround us, we are supremely ignorant.

This, however, we do know: before we can have Socialism we must have, not merely Socialists, but a Socialist working class; and before we can have even the Socialist economic organisation we must have the Socialist material with which to form it. It is a significant fact that those who claim to be able to form a revolutionary economic organisation with non revolutionaries are the same who have succeeded in framing a Socialist (!) political organisation without Socialists.

In the knowledge, then, of what we do know; of what we are sure will be necessary in spite of all changes that are not of sufficient magnitude to touch the fundamentals of our position, we concern ourselves with the work that is at hand—the making of the material necessary to the establishment of Socialism. And we do this, whether that material is to be used in the economic field or the political—or both—without imposing on the future the dead hand of unripe judgments—unripe because they must necessarily be formed in an untimely environment.

But as for the specific questions put by one enquirer, we may hazard a reply. The questions are: “How could the economic organisation work in complete unison with the political party if it was kept separate and apart by non-affiliation?” and secondly : “If the economic organisation is to consist of the same units which compose the political organisation, what structure will it (the economic organisation) take so as to debar from membership the non-revolutionary?”

The question of affiliation, as was pointed out in a former answer, is largely a matter of definition. What is certain is that between the economic organisation of the working class and the political there must, since they each will exist for the same revolutionary purpose, and will each be necessary to that purpose, be such close co-operation as will secure the end in view. There is no mystery about this. Just as the capitalist on the economic field and on the political field, can take consistent action in his own interest without affiliating his economic self with his political person, so can the Socialist. Whatever form of words may be used to designate the organisations, since they will, after all, simply be the revolutionary working class organised on the industrial and the political fields for the same object, they will in effect be different sides of one organisation. Nothing can keep them apart, and if there is no definite act of affiliation it will be because none is needed. For example, the workers, in their economic organisation, will be anxiously waiting for the opportunity to go to work on the co-operative basis, but being Socialists, they will know that they cannot do so until, in their political organisation they have taken certain steps. It is hard to believe that, politically, they can take certain conscious steps and, economically, not know they have done it. 

Regarding the last point, it certainly seems that provision for sound membership might be made in the same way that the S.P. secures it: by a declaration of principles—and discipline.

Taking the poison again (1983)

From the June 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Elections always nourish hopes. I had high hopes for the Labour Party in the 1964 election and was sure they would be fulfilled when Labour were returned to office for the first time in thirteen years. It would all begin. Things would start to go well because at last we had a government that cared about people, understood their problems and wanted to solve them. More than anything we had in Harold Wilson a leader with the flair and confidence to control events and shape the future in the general interest.

Wilson reigned for six years. During that time the cost of living went up by thirty per cent, unemployment doubled to 700,000, National Health charges were drastically increased, free milk for schoolchildren was abolished, racist legislation was passed and the government supported horrific wars in Vietnam and Nigeria. I wondered at the time why all this was happening because none of it had been in The New Britain, Labour's 1964 election manifesto. I was surprised at Harold Wilson too because all this meant that the reputation he had made for himself in opposition as some kind of political magician was now lost.

But this didn't stop me supporting Labour. Old ties are hard to break and, anyway, I didn’t see any alternative. I was puzzled however as to why, if Labour really cared, it hadn't tried harder to keep its promises. Perhaps it really hadn't, as it claimed, had enough time to clear up the mess the Tories had left behind and would do better next time.

But there wasn’t to be a next time, or not right away, because in 1970 the Tories were voted back in. Although I was disappointed, by this time I’d come into contact with some people calling themselves socialists who were actually telling you not to vote Labour in elections and who, I soon found out, had said the same thing at every election the Labour Party had ever contested. All the people I’d previously known as socialists, no matter how opposed to or sceptical of the Labour Party they were most of the time, considered it an article of faith to vote Labour in elections if only to “keep the Tories out”. But these “new”’ socialists said that there was no more point voting Labour than voting Tory and that a Labour government could only deceive and disappoint the workers who elected it. And when I started to look into the Labour Party’s record in office, 1 realised that this argument had history on its side. Labour governments in 1923-24, 1929-31 and 1945-51 had presided over rising levels of unemployment, falling living standards, strike breaking, militarism and scores of broken promises. What I'd just experienced was only the latest in a succession of similar failures that went back over forty years.

Does it always have to be like this? The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always said it does because the Labour Party in office has the same function as the Tory Party — to administer the capitalist system, and that system cannot be administered in the interests of the majority, those who have to work for a living. And if you look at this proposition, certain things become clear. “Capitalism" no longer appears just an empty word. It actually describes the world we live in, a world which depends on capital being invested by that small minority who own it with a view to making profit. If capital can’t be invested at a profit, it isn’t invested at all. This causes production to cease, regardless of the need people may have for the fruits of that production and it also causes workers to be unemployed. Governments of whatever colour and whatever their stated intentions, can be seen in their true light as guardians of the existing state of things and therefore working to preserve and protect the interests of that capital-owning minority.

Socialism too takes on a definite meaning. It has nothing to do with the particular method the Labour Party has of running capitalism but means a completely different kind of society from capitalism, the like of which we have not yet seen anywhere. It means a society where production doesn’t take place for profit but directly for use, where everything is owned in common, where all goods and services can be taken freely by everyone and where governments don’t rule but people participate democratically and meaningfully in their own affairs.

So is there no difference between the Labour and Tory parties? Only so far as each claims to govern according to its own distinctive values and philosophies. Labour says it is a party of humanitarianism, compassion for the underprivileged, intervention by the state to serve the interests of working people. The Tories also say that they are concerned about workers’ well-being but that what is ultimately of benefit to workers is the success of private enterprise and keeping state intervention to a minimum.

But “values” and “philosophies”, like manifesto promises, are discarded by both parties when they are faced with the reality of trying to keep capitalism on an even keel. British capitalism needs to keep its costs down in order to compete favourably with other national capitalisms in the world and this imposes on both Labour and Tory parties policies which have neither been part of their declared outlook nor corresponded to their pledges. And these policies have often been strikingly similar — wage restraint, cuts in education and social services, trade union curbs, inflation caused by printing an excess of inconvertible paper currency, and so on. Labour, despite its compassionate, peace-loving image and its sentimental links with the working class, has gone in for cuts in the health service, strike-breaking and war-making, while the Tories, despite their free market “principles" and tough, “stand on your own feet” reputation, have backed nationalisation (e.g. Rolls-Royce) and seemingly humane reforms (Supplementary Benefit legislation) when conditions dictated. And what unites the two parties — their commitment to operating capitalism and their adherence to its immediate dictates — is much more fundamental and important than the different values, rhetoric and promises supposedly dividing them.

So this election is not, as Tony Benn called it, “the most critical in this century” (South Wales Miners’ Conference, 10 May) nor is it, as the Guardian newspaper has said, “likely to decide the political direction of the UK for a generation”. It is an election like any other whose result will not touch the root cause of social problems, the system of production for profit, but will only alter minor details within the framework of that system. After the election the winning party will pull out the goodies from its manifesto cupboard only if they contain the ingredients the world market can digest. Michael Foot can bluster about reducing unemployment by “reflating the economy” and Margaret Thatcher can insist that the only way to get people back to work is to “stimulate investment". But “reflation” is a dead end, as Mitterand’s failure in France has shown, and investment will only be stimulated by the prospect of profit, which depends on the present slump in world trade easing off and markets beginning to expand. Only if this happens will the jobless figures go down and neither Foot nor Thatcher, nor any individual or political party, will have any influence in the matter.

On unemployment therefore, as on other issues, both will inevitably fail to keep their promises — perhaps through naivety, but certainly through their inability to control a system that is uncontrollable. But even if they miraculously managed to run capitalism according to their predetermined plans, they would still be failing — and in a more important way — the majority of those who elected them. They would be failing the wage and salary earners by fostering the illusion that there is no alternative way to organise things than through buying and selling and that any attempt to manage our affairs sanely — without markets, without wars, without wages and salaries, without governments, without the whole paraphernalia of buying and selling — is impossible, unrealistic and not an issue worth considering.

But then, in the final analysis, it is up to the majority not to be taken in by the illusions of the capitalist parties and their leaders and to take our own democratic political action to change things. As long as we leave our world in their hands, they will fail us and we will be failing ourselves.

Howard Moss

What goes around comes around (2001)

Editorial from the September 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The mantra repeated by Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown since they were first elected has been the importance of avoiding "Tory Boom and Bust". Everything else has hinged on the economic stability which they claim is the almost unique preserve of their type of "new" Labour government, with its supposed emphasis on "building for the long-term" over "short-term fixes".

During the recent election campaign Labour put up posters across Britain depicting William Hague and Michael Portillo as Mr Boom and Mr Bust in a pastiche of the film Towering Inferno, called instead 'Towering Interest Rates". Those with long memories will have found this slightly odd – not because the Tory record on unemployment and recessions was a good one – but because no Labour administration in history until the present government had ever left office with unemployment lower than when it had been elected.

Since 1997 the government under Blair and Brown has harvested some of the luck denied to these previous Labour governments, simply by virtue of being elected during an economic boom (even if it offends their sensibilities to describe it in such terms). And their reticence to recognise the recent economic prosperity for what it really amounts to is significant in itself. It stems from their awareness that most people think that all booms eventually end in busts, no matter whether it is the Tories in office or some other group of tricksters.

In the rather distorted worldview of Blair and Brown things underneath really are different this time, as a benevolent New Labour government guides the economy along a smooth upward path avoiding the recklessness and irresponsibility that led to two consumer booms and two deep recessions under Thatcher and Major. New Labour has allegedly tapped into a technological "paradigm shift" in the global economy, rendering the old problems and previous conceptions and analyses obsolete. But it is a worldview which is increasingly – and embarrassingly – child-like and which is now finally being tested to the limit by economic realities that are starting to emerge on an almost daily basis.

On the back of the big slowdown in the US economy (caused by an over-expansion in relation to market demand of the high-tech and "dot com" industries) there comes a British manufacturing sector which is now officially in recession, having suffered two consecutive quarters of economic contraction (or "negative growth" as the government euphemistically likes to call it). That this state of affairs has transpired should be no real shock to anyone, for the economy in Britain has been in the grip of a consumer boom in recent years to rival the best of them. Total consumer debt in the UK is now 10 percent higher than total disposable income with many people borrowing against rising house prices to sustain – or increase – their spending levels, just as they did in the last unsustainable boom. With mortgage brokers and building societies issuing warnings that rises in commercial and domestic property prices are now about to stall with the market reaching its peak, the signs are there for all who want to see them.

Not that the present government does want to see the signs of course, any more so than any of its predecessors did. The present Labour government has never taken the considered view of those who have based their analysis on the entire history of the operations of the market economy, and certainly not of anyone claiming to put a Marxist analysis, as we do.

But whether they realise it or not, the moment of truth for this official government outlook is now upon us it seems. Is modern capitalism under Blair and Brown really crisis-free or is it still essentially the same system it always has been?

While Karl Marx in the nineteenth century and we in the Socialist Party today claim that capitalism inevitably goes through a periodic cycle of expansion, over-investment, crisis and economic stagnation, new Labour contends that it is all old hat. But their problem is that so has, in effect, every government that has ever preceded them. Those governments didn't necessarily talk about paradigm shifts but they did talk a lot of other economic tomfoolery: from protectionism to free trade, from nationalisation and indicative planning to laissez-faire and privatisation, from Keynesian intervention to monetarism, and all in the hallowed name of "economic stability". And what was the one thing they all had in common? Sooner or later they were all beset by the very boom/slump cycle of capitalism (and its attendant economic problems) that the Marxian analysis contends is endemic to the system.

Will Blair and Brown's government be able to buck the trend? Well, not if history, tried and tested sound economic analysis and the government's own figures on the stagnating manufacturing sector are anything to go by.

So forget the rhetoric and forget the "paradigm shifts". Once again it looks like time for Mr Boom from 11 Downing Street to go and visit his friend next door, Mr Bust.