Open letter to Ken Livingstone (1983)

From the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Ken,

Your regular comments on the subject of Ireland, together with your recent entertainment by the Sin Fein leadership in west Belfast and your reciprocation of their political hospitality in London, has made you both a devil and an angel in Ireland. You have pleased immensely Sinn Fein and its followers and, in the measure of your pleasing them, earned the anger and hatred of the Ulster loyalists. Of course, the mass of the followers of both elements are members of the working class; both largely conservative and tribally religious; both anti-socialist — despite the misuse of the word "socialist" by Sinn Fein and its occasional application to loyalist paramilitaries by equally ignorant journalists and media commentators.

It is a dangerous game you are playing, Ken — this support for the viewpoint of one essentially sectarian, conservative and anti-socialist faction against another. Certainly it is not a tactic calculated to assist in helping the working class in Ireland to realise that nationalism and unionism are two sides of the same coin. Notwithstanding the "revolutionary” blathering of both sides — and, especially, the side you support — what they kill and maim their fellow-workers for is the same old, failed system of capitalism in which workers produce wealth for their masters in return for a wage that guarantees the continuation of their working-class status: their mere poverty on the job or dire poverty on the dole; their slums and second-rate homes, their mean, restricted lives — even the continuation of the very material conditions out of which the present "troubles” emerged.

It is possible, of course, that Sinn Fein has convinced you that they have a plan to eliminate these things and create, in a united Ireland, an oasis of social sanity where poverty in all its facets is banished. Indeed, even a dramatic reduction of poverty would probably be as acceptable to the great mass of Protestant loyalists in Northern Ireland as it would be to the majority of impoverished Catholics in the north and in the Republic.

Would it not be cleverer, more humane and less divisive for Sinn Fein to demonstrate openly to their friends and opponents how they can solve, or dramatically ease, the problems of capitalism than to continue killing and maiming and succeeding only in providing opportunities for working-class kids to spend miserable lives in prison.

It is true that in the past Sinn Fein had few opportunities in the media to present its arguments. But it did get opportunities and it did have, and still has, a weekly newspaper which is widely read in Nationalist areas of the North and is doubtless sent to you. Now, of course, its electoral success has opened the door to full media exposure and the Sinn Fein leadership are given star treatment with ample time and opportunity to state their views. And they do: they talk about the poverty features of capitalism. About the poverty of the poor, bad housing, lack of jobs. Generally, when they mention these effects of capitalism one could be forgiven for thinking that they only afflict those members of the working class who are Catholics; always, unfailingly, Sinn Fein spokespersons ascribe the evils of capitalism to British rule in Ireland.

Get the Brits out! Let Sinn Fein/IRA have control of production and distribution of wealth and they will run the system of wage labour and commodity production in such a way as will solve Ireland's problems. They will succeed where all governments, everywhere, have so far failed: they will run a system based on the exploitation of the working class in the interests of the working class.

Now Ken. we both know that your Labour Party has failed to make any basic change in capitalism and that there is nothing that the Tories have done, or are doing, against the working class that your Labour Party have not also done during its different periods of office. Now it is claimed in the media that you have suggested that Sinn Fein's economic policies are similar to those of the Labour Party. Sinn Fein have claimed to have a social policy based on Christian principles that would involve a synthesis of western "individual” capitalism and Russian-style state capitalism. You might wonder why, given such nonsense, they claim to be socialist except that if you can accept the Labour Party claim to be socialist, it is hardly possible for you to be more confused. But your assertion, Ken, presumably made against the background of some knowledge of the policies and attitudes of Sinn Fein, confuses me — and leaves me worried.

You see Labour policies have been tried in Northern Ireland. Ober-fuhrcr Mason and his equally hypocritical colleague Merlyn Rees, both prominent Labourites, ran affairs in Northern Ireland with all the powers of colonial governors. Despite the fact that they were at various times abetted by "left wingers” like Stanley Orme they failed as miserably as Whitelaw and Prior to remove even one of the social evils on which violence here flourishes.

Being a practical man concerned only with facts you will no doubt appreciate why I am confused by your thinking that Sinn Fein's Labour-style policies will be helpful. On the other hand, I had left out of my reckoning the fact that Labour's traditional excuse for failure is that they had the wrong leaders. Given new leadership . . . It squares admirably with the simplistic ideas of Sinn Fein, who also emphasise leadership as opposed to socialist principles.

What worries me is your recognition that Sinn Fein have nothing more to contribute to the problems of Ireland than a new rag for the masthead of deception and Labour policies. I say “worries me” because, while I am prepared to accept that Sinn Fein share the nonsense of the Labour Party, there is something they do not share with the latter: an acknowledgement of the decision of the ballot box.

As I have observed. Labour governments come and go in Britain. They get elected to office when the non-socialist working class there think they might be able to run capitalism less badly than the Tories. They get kicked out again when they demonstrate that they can not. Always, the Labour Party accepts the democratic decision of the electorate to alternate the political administration of capitalism.

This, at least, helps to ensure that the democratic process is maintained; that a genuine Socialist Party offering a real alternative to capitalism is allowed to function, to define and propagate socialism and, ultimately, to achieve a revolutionary majority for the democratic establishment of socialism.

Sinn Fein and the IRA have no democratic tradition; they have an utter contempt for democracy. Their bogus claim to be heirs to the mandate given to Sinn Fein at the last all-Ireland elections in 1918 is exposed by their leftist vapourings. The ultra-conservative, Catholic majority that voted for Sinn Fein candidates in 1918 were voting for the policies of a party dedicated to Irish independence for the purpose of legislating policies of free trade for a fledgling capitalism in southern Ireland. They would have rejected, and subsequently did reject, even the slightly pinkish policies of social reform offered by the wholly respectable. church-imprimatured, Irish Labour Party.

The Provisional IRA and its political partner, Sinn Fein, were born out of the union of Orange violence and British government indifference. The midwife that attended on the birth of this political mutation was the RUC and the British Army; its swaddling clothes were provided by elements in southern capitalism who feared what they thought (mistakenly) was the growth of socialist ideas in the “official” IRA. The boasted Provo strategy of “an Armalite in one hand and a ballot paper in the other" sums up their contempt for democracy.

There is little hope of them achieving the victory you apparently wish them but. in the unlikely event of them emerging bloody but victorious — could you, Ken. see the collection of unscrupulous, self- mandated. anti-democratic war-lords that are the Sinn Fein leadership, yield to the response of the ballot box when their Labour-style policies had failed as signally in Ireland as they have repeatedly in Britain?

You have given credibility to an organisation which has become a major barrier to the establishment of such conditions as would presage the growth of socialist ideas in Ireland. I think it reasonable to ask you, Ken, to provide facilities for those who advocate socialism as an answer to the problems of world capitalism — including the so-called “Irish problem”. A member, or members, of The World Socialist Party of Ireland will be delighted with an invitation from you to state our case for socialism and against capitalism as favoured by your own party or Provisional Sinn Fein.

Come to that. Ken. it might make the discussion even more interesting if you and a member of Sinn Fein (without the Armalite) were to publicly defend your views in a debate with the World Socialist Movement — either the World Socialist Party of Ireland or the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Looking forward to your early response,

Richard Montague

Belfast

Slick Operators (1983)

Book Review from the December 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil and World Power by Peter R. Odell (Penguin Books, 1983)

This book, now in its seventh edition, gives a very fair account of the history of the oil industry in the post-war period. Not surprisingly, the author provides us with abundant evidence of the validity of the materialist conception of history; indeed, it is scarcely possible nowadays to do otherwise and retain much semblance of credibility.

A basically orthodox viewpoint is presented, as the author does his best to be factual and not to show what he would no doubt consider to be "political bias". This means that it is assumed more or less automatically that capitalism will always exist, and that the developing alternatives to fossil fuels are scarcely mentioned; the book effectively disposes of the myth, which the oil interests themselves have at times encouraged, that there is a real oil shortage here and now. It is true that many oil-bearing sites are relatively difficult to work and therefore unprofitable but. as the author points out, we can expect these to be worked, and profitably, when the cheaper fields are exhausted.

Despite citing plenty of evidence that the oil industry in Russia operates under exactly the same profit motive as the American giants, the author states at the conclusion of a chapter headed "Soviet Oil Development" that Russia "has demonstrated that an oil industry working on other than capitalist lines can be successful". Old habits die hard indeed! Finally, he ends by suggesting that the world oil industry may be about to change its shape, with considerable reduction in trade involving the transport of oil over vast distances, and the emergence of oil regions aiming at some sort of self sufficiency across the capitalist states within them. National rivalries may hinder this but, contrary to what many believe, such developments would by no means imply a weakening of the capitalist system, merely a reaction by the capitalist concerned to the threat to their energy supplies, inherent in the present situation.

A valuable reference work in an easy-to-read style.

E. C. Edge

Fuelling Profits (1983)

Book Review from the December 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Energy a Guidebook. Janet Ramage (Oxford University Press. 1983).

Energy and food supply problems of capitalism are similar in that both are presented by the media in terms of unending crises and shortages. This contains a half-truth. Under capitalism production is geared to profits and therefore does not in general take place unless the goods can be marketed profitably. Thus capitalism is not geared to produce to satisfy the reasonable needs of the majority of the population. Nevertheless it has developed the means of production, including those in the fields of food and energy, to the extent that the creation of an abundance of wealth is now technically possible. So the popular idea of shortage is false.

In another respect the two problems are dissimilar. There are certainly unsatisfactory features about present day food production, in particular an excessive use of chemical fertilisers, but these can be remedied without altering the basic shape of agriculture. The energy problem is different in that the methods currently in use are in the main unacceptable from an environmental viewpoint.

The author of this book also has grave misgivings about the continued use of both fossil fuels (oil and coal) and nuclear power. While dearly sympathetic to the use of renewable resources, such as solar and wind power which are benign ecologically, Janet Ramage is quite unable to see any alternative to the capitalist mode of production. This leads her largely to suppress her actual desires in a monotonous succession of statistics designed to show how “uneconomic" these other methods are. One example of her mode of thinking is worth quoting: “How much of a resource is available depends on how much someone is prepared to pay to extract it, so rising international prices mean increasing local resources”. Here the author is so hooked on profitability that even the sense of the words “resources" and “availability” is changing with the fluctuation of the market. If oil and coal become scarcer and more expensive to extract, so the alternatives which are at present unprofitable will become relatively more profitable. This is the answer to those who suggest an “energy death” for capitalism through an atrophy of profitable sources.

The book provides useful technical information on a number of current energy production methods. The guide to terminology is helpful to socialists who will be required in the future to talk this language in arguing the case for the alternative to capitalism. We do not usually become confused over inches, miles and light years, all of which are measures of distance. However, at present we are much less familiar with the terms used for energy measurement, so definitions of megajoules, terrawatts, miilivats and tons of coal equivalent (t.c.c.) are helpful.

A comparison of consumption patterns of the USA, Switzerland, Great Britain and India shows the per capita figure for the last named running at only one thirtieth of the American value, reminding us again of the uneven development of the capitalist world. Indeed, much of India's domestic consumption — if that is the right word — is supplied from pre-capitalist, non-commercial sources and is difficult to measure by normal standards. Using per capita figures, however, is doubly confusing. It completely ignores the difference between worker and capitalist and also that between industrial and domestic use.

The book also performs a service in giving examples of renewable benign sources currently in use. A tidal power station at La Rance on the Brittany coast has been producing electricity for some 15 years. One of the most encouraging passages concerns solar energy. After emphasising that the cost per unit of electricity produced in this way is ten times that of nuclear power, the author draws attention to the growing number of houses in remote areas blossoming with little patches of silver-grey discs which are formed of photovoltaic cells. New methods of production have already caused the costs of solar cells to fall by a factor of more than ten in a decade. The main technical obstacle to overcome is that of storage, to counteract the unfortunate tendency for power to be required most when the sun is not shining. The storage problem is also hindering the development of the electric car as a means to overcome the stranglehold highly polluting oil has on road transport.

Janet Ramage's last paragraph reads:

   Or is there an altogether different alternative? How about a world-wide electric grid? It could use underground and ocean-floor super-conducting cables, and the power would come from solar farms in the world's major deserts, OTEC plants in tropical waters, and wave power-stations and wind turbine arrays in remote regions. No atmospheric pollution, no radioactive wastes. No wastes, no use of valuable agricultural land or previous fresh water. Would it work? Estimates of world annual energy demand in fifty years' time lie between 600 and 1.000 EJ. Using the data from earlier chapters, it isn’t difficult to find the size of installation for any selected contribution from each type of power plant. There are probably no insuperable technical problems. There is just one question. How do we get there from here?

In fact, although in a socialist society the world will function as one productive unit, it may not be necessary actually to construct a world-wide grid. With the probability of people living in smaller communities with modern energy-efficient communications reducing transport requirements, we may well see these communities self-sufficient in energy, although some provision for emergencies will be required. The environmentally benign, renewable methods are in many ways better suited to smaller scale operations, as shown to a certain extent by the instances where they are making headway at present. However, this is a small issue compared with the author's clear preference for it over the highly polluted alternatives to which she seems resigned. How do we get there from here? she asks. It should be obvious.

E. C. Edge

Marxism To-Day. (1929)

From the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The above is the title of a series of articles in the widely read magazine, “Current History,” for October, 1928.

These articles comprise a discussion by three writers—Prof. Laski, Morris Hillquit, and Prof. Carver, who holds the Chair of Economics at Harvard University. With the threadbare apologies of arguments used by Prof. Carver against Marx we are not now concerned. Neither shall we deal with the theory of Hillquit that Marxism is “essentially evolutionary,” especially as “Father” Hillquit, of the Socialist Party of America, forgets to supply any evidence to support the title of his article.

The position held by Prof. Laski and the following he has among many workers may make it worth while to call attention to some of the Professor’s statements. The title of his contribution is "The Value and Defects of the Marxist Philosophy.” While he says something about the value of Marxian philosophy, he never once attempts to show the defects of the Marxian view. In other words, he used the name .of Marx to support a number of policies, but never attempts to show that Marx accepted them.

He says Marx developed the strategy of Communism, and this was it:—

   "The Industrial Revolution brought with it the massing of the workers in the factories; trade unions developed in consequence to protect the interests of the workers. As these come to realise that their divorce from the means of production keeps them in subjection to the Capitalist regime, they become increasingly hostile to it.
   “They develop accordingly a growing class consciousness. Their solidarity finds expression in a revolutionary party which becomes dissatisfied with small concessions and insists upon the seizure of the State.
   “There then develops the final struggle with the Capitalists, who to retain power will stop at no means, however violent or brutal. The workers accordingly are driven to retort in kind. They seize in open warfare the institutions of the State and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, which by its iron rigor controls the transition from a Capitalist to a Communist Society. The period admittedly is one of bloody conflict, since no class—witness the Civil Wars in England and the French and Russian Revolutions—will peacefully submit to its own suppression. Since, therefore, the master class cannot be persuaded to surrender by democratic means, the class-conscious workers are the spearhead of the proletariat who drive the latter to victory.”

Where does Prof. Laski get this from? What he has done, no doubt, in order to find some arguments against Marx, is to neglect Marx and Engels’ writings and simply borrow from the manifestoes and theses of the Bolsheviks and father the lot on to Marx.

Marx and Engels, after laying bare the evolution of class society, insisted, as long ago as 1848 in the "Communist Manifesto," that the emancipation of the working class could only be achieved by the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority. In the same manifesto the workers are told that their first step must be to win the battle of democracy.

Right through their writings they insist upon the need for political action to accomplish the Social Revolution. The belief in violence as the road to Revolution was denounced by Marx and Engels in their attacks on Bakunin and his general strike and insurrection mania. The Bolshevik dream of a minority winning power for the rest of the workers was scathingly answered by Engels in his article (printed in The Socialist Standard) on "The Programme of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Commune.”

Even if Prof. Laski attempted to use the fragmentary writings of Marx and Engels on the class struggles in France between 1848 and 1850, he would have to face the fact that both Marx and Engels recognised that conditions were the determining factor in laying down a policy. So that when these battles were over they recognised the need of a different policy. And their activity in favour of universal suffrage and the organisation of the workers is plain evidence of their realism. Read! Mr. Laski, Engels' striking preface of 1895 to Marx’s "Class Struggles in France,” and see there how he recognised that no minority action, no violent attack, no clever seizure of State, could ignore the need for Socialist education and organisation of the working class for political control of the State.

In no publication did Marx urge that the dictatorship of the proletariat was a necessary step under modern conditions for the world’s workers.

In semi-feudal countries with a large peasantry, where the wage workers were a minority two or three generations ago, the phrase dictatorship was used in outlining policy. But in most cases Marx preferred the phrase used in the Communist Manifesto and also in the Programme of the Communist League of 1848—"the Rule of the Proletariat.” And the dictatorship referred to was not, like in Russia, a dictatorship of a few, but, as Engels indicates in the preface to the "Commune of Paris”—a "dictatorship" which relied upon universal suffrage. Mr. Laski should know that in modern countries with a majority composed of wage workers, the phrase "dictatorship of proletariat” has lost its meaning. It is out of date. For if the workers are the majority, how can there be a dictatorship of the majority!

But Professors are always trying to put Marx right, and so next month we will see how Prof. Carver does it.

Adolph Kohn

The Workers Under "Labour Rule." (1929)

From the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lessons from Australia

The Socialist Review, organ of the I.L.P., has been publishing articles on the Australian Labour Movement by one of its supporters, Mr. L. Ross.

Mr. Ross gives evidence which supports our repeated assertion that the administration of capitalism by the Labour Party, whether in Great Britain or Australia, or anywhere else, is of no material advantage to the working-class, and is not a change which brings Socialism nearer.

Mr. Ross points out (Socialist Review, December, 1928) that the taking over of various industries by the Labour Governments helps to reduce prices, but since the general level of wages under capitalism is influenced directly by the cost of living of the workers, the effect of lowered prices under Labour Governments is just the same as elsewhere—wages fall correspondingly and the capitalist class are the gainers; “as prices fall, all wages, settled by the arbitration courts . . . .  fall automatically."

Labour Government and Big Profits.

Mr. Ross goes on to show that the effect of “Labour" administration and the extension of nationalisation is to increase production and the employers' profits.

  “Premier Lang (Labour) presided at the opening of new factories and expressed gratification because he found that most of the manufacturing and other industries were paying dividends of 10 per cent, or over.”

Again he says that the chief electioneering propaganda of the New South Wales Labour Party at the last election was “a long list of the dividends the capitalist firms were paying in order to show that Labour brought prosperity and no one suffered.”

“Labour legislation,” says Mr. Ross, “has brought higher profits, a more unequal division of the wealth of the country.” He quotes from a work by Labour Minister Lacombe, of Queensland (Labour's Ten Years' Progress) that after their experience of Labour rule, investors “have absolute confidence in the Labour Government.” When trade is bad, Labour Governments treat their employees in the nationalised industries in just the same way as the private capitalists treat theirs. "Men are retrenched or given the alternative of shorter hours and decreased pay . . . .  the State employees are the first to suffer." 

These State industries are, of course, set up by means of Government loans. The capitalist invests his money in Government loans instead of in private companies. He thus gives up the chance of fluctuating dividends which may be high or may disappear, and gets a fixed rate of interest with absolute security. Under Labour Governments, like other Governments, it is the workers whose wages are cut when trade declines: “The money-lenders, of course, suffer no reduction whatever in their interest receipts."

At this point, Mr. Ross plaintively asks: 

   “What is the good of a Labour Government if it can find no way out except the way of capitalism?"

The Living Wage and Family Allowances.

Mr. Ross goes on to describe the effect of the introduction of Family Allowances in New South Wales. This is of particular interest, because it is from New South Wales that the I.L.P. borrow the scheme of Family Allowances which is an integral part of its Living Wage programme. The I.L.P. proposes that the State should give an allowance of 5s. a week to working-class mothers in respect of each child. The I.L.P. are, of course, aware that this scheme has been used on the Continent as a means of reducing the wages of single men, so that, in effect, the married men’s children are supported at the expense of childless workers, which costs the employers nothing.

It is instructive therefore to learn from Mr. Ross that this is precisely what has happened as a result of the introduction of Family Allowances by the New South Wales Labour Government.

  The New South Wales scheme, instead of redistributing wealth, actually meant a reshuffling of wages between single and married men. Much of the Labour legislation has had this characteristic that it has so little harmed the capitalists that the non-Labour Governments have taken it over and left the Labour parties without a distinctive policy. ”

Labour Governments and Strikers.

Mr. Ross tells us also about the suppression of strikes by Labour Governments in Australia.

In 1926, Queensland railway workers decided, to help striking sugar mill employees by refusing to handle goods produced by "blacklegs.” The Labour Premier, McCormack, promptly dismissed the strikers. The Labour newspaper, The Daily Standard, criticised his action, and the Labour Government then struck a severe blow at the paper’s finances by withdrawing all Government advertisements from it.

In South Australia, the Labour Government employs "vigilance men” to act as "private detectives” in the State industries to see that the workers do their work properly. In general, says Mr. Ross, the treatment of their employees by Labour Governments has been "less progressive than enlightened American capitalism.” He sums up by saying that "I think that Queensland is further away from Socialism as a result of Labour Rule.”

After demonstrating once more that capitalism works in just the same way, as far as the workers are concerned, whether administered by Conservatives or Labourites or anyone else, Mr. Ross produces his "remedy.” It is a demand for "sincerity” and "unselfishness ”! He fails completely to realise that the factor which dominates the Australian situation is the factor which dominates the situation in Europe, America and elsewhere.

That is the lack of Socialists. The great mass of Australian workers, like the workers generally, do not understand Socialism and do not want it. Until there are sufficient Socialists, organised in a Socialist Party, there will not be Socialism, "sincerity” and "unselfishness” notwithstanding.

The way to increase the number of Socialists is to support the Socialist Party, financially or by joining actively in its work.

Edgar Hardcastle

Wages and Nationalisation (1929)

From the March 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Cramp, Industrial General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, giving evidence before the Royal Commission on Transport, was asked by Major I. Salmon, M.P., whether nationalisation of the railways would lead to higher wages for the railwaymen. Mr. Cramp, who was there as an advocate of railway nationalisation, replied “Certainly not.” (“Daily Telegraph,” 17/1/29.)

The correspondents of "The Times” and “Morning Post” also record that Mr. Cramp replied in the negative to this question, but curiously enough, the “Daily Herald” correspondent, although his report is much longer, appears not to have noticed either the question or the answer.

From the railway workers’ point of view, all that Mr. Cramp hopes for as a result of nationalisation, is an “improvement in status” (whatever that may mean) and “conceivably” an “improvement” in conditions which would “probably” take the form of “a better system of superannuation.” (“Daily Herald,” 17/1/29.)

The Socialist Party bases its attitude of deliberate and permanent hostility to nationalisation on the ground that nationalisation is a question affecting capitalist interests only, of no real advantage to the working class and possessing certain material disadvantages. It would be interesting to learn from Mr. Cramp and his fellow supporters of nationalisation in the Labour Party and Communist Party, why they continue to advocate it.

Edgar Hardcastle

Heard in the Train. (1929)

A Short Story from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morning, Dick! Just enough room for you before “she” goes. We’re lucky this morning; only twelve standing. Was just reading in the “Wail” that all the hotels in St. Moritz are booked up for visitors for the ice sports, and that London is "empty.” Wish this carriage was a little more "empty,” don’t you? Always moaning? Surely, Dick, you are not satisfied with conditions in general, are you? It is a poor horse that hasn’t a kick when it is stung with continual whipping, and you are in a worse predicament than that beast of burden, for to buy a horse needs money, but as for you—there are two million workers wandering the streets seeking a master, willing to work but unable to do so, desirous of producing the very articles we are so badly in need of—food, clothing and shelter.

Look at these vile slums we are passing now! Drab, dingy buildings, where no pure air can penetrate. They want bombarding with 15-inch shells, man. A breeder of prize pigs would scorn them rent-free, and yet we are the working class. We build the luxurious hotels and mansions of the world and have to exist in those vile dens from childhood until the master whispers in our ear that we are too old for work, and we toddle along to the workhouse. We build floating palaces to transport our masters to foreign climes, and our share of that luxury is probably a view of the “ocean greyhound” as we stand on the end of Southend Pier.

What d’ye say? Why talk of classes. Look, here’s another train passing us. A few carriages are first class, some second and a lot third. Well, why not have all first class carriages? They are much more comfortable and there is no shortage of material necessary for making first class carriages. The Socialist argues that there should be but one class—the working class —for a class which doesn’t work is not necessary, is but a drone in the hive and should be abolished.

Won’t alter human nature, Dick? Well, the Socialist doesn’t propose to alter human nature. Human nature is but man’s desire to eat, sleep and drink and reproduce his species and to experience, understand and enjoy all that civilisation can make accessible. Our aims are concentrated upon educating the workers to understand what their position in society actually is, viz., a slave class. It is not we who propose to alter anything—only the position of my foot when you’ve finished standing on it. The alteration or change over from Capitalism to Socialism must be accomplished by the working class themselves, and once our mission has succeeded the Socialist Party will cease to exist; its function of educating and organising the working class is the sole reason for its existence.

Oh, yes! I know you think the Labour Party ought to have a chance. They ought to have another chance to vote for another war—the same as they voted for the last war. Do you forget the alliances they have made at elections when they have amalgamated with the Liberals, and vice-versa? Here! look at that “Daily Herald” placard on that bookstall—“ We gave four winners yesterday.” Come on, buy the Socialist Standard and we’ll give you A winner—back Socialism for the Human Race—there is no other running; it’s bound to win.

Well, here we are, Dick. Think it over during the day. There’s probably a branch of the Socialist Party your way. Call round; they’ll be glad to see you.

H. G.

The Uses of Hate (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The word hatred describes an emotion with which we are all familiar. Like all such "emotional" words it is habitually overworked, and is used to describe all the variations of dislike, from a mild indignation to a maniac's obsession. A dividing line is difficult, but it should obviously be confined, in human affairs, to describing a dislike that is intense and long continued. Like all emotions, it is ephemeral, unstable, and erratic, and if too intense, or too protracted, either burns itself to ashes or becomes a form of lunacy. That is why it is so completely untrue for the enemies of Socialism to describe it as a doctrine of hatred. We need not, and do not, worry because they say that, for they will continue to use all forms of abuse so long as they are deemed effective. A somewhat different aspect of hatred is given by those—Communists and others—who say we do not infuse enough hatred into the workers; those who view hatred as a formidable serial factor; those who contend the working class will be drawn into a revolutionary struggle for power through a growing hatred of their masters. The answer to both criticisms is a brief one. As already stated, hatred is merely a feeling, an intense and prolonged dislike. Action can follow, and often does follow, as a result of the feeling, but as the emotion is an unstable one, the action is more than likely to be equally erratic. Passion may burst a way through a wall, but one cannot build a wall on it. Hatred may be A factor, it cannot be THE factor. Socialism has but small use for it. Whilst we depict the cruelties and infamies of capitalism in order to rouse the indignation and fix the attention of our fellows, we should be worse than fools to build a movement on mere indignation.

In our perusal of history, in our observation of the world around us, there is always enough to keep our indignation alive, but we do not peruse history or look at our world for that. We study these things that we may understand how our society has come to be as it is, and how it may be made to serve human happiness more perfectly. We may perceive that malice, ignorance or sheer perversity may have added to human misery or may have diverted the results of communal effort into private channels, but indignation will not remedy it. Neither will action based upon mere hatred of the human agents involved. Socialism has little use for hatred. We prefer to concentrate on knowledge, for with knowledge comes understanding, and from understanding proceeds intelligent, definite action. This is one great difference between the Socialist Party and the Labour Party. The latter—and this is not a mere jibe—specialises in sob-stuff. Its Press and its political representatives are absorbed in the appeal to sentiment. They appeal constantly for your tears for the orphan, the underfed, the widow, the aged, the out-of-work, the casual labourer, the poorly housed, the "ex-Service man," and dozens of other categories of poverty. And being a mere sentimental appeal, and further, being without the correct knowledge and understanding, they invite you to get the Government to give a pension to this one, increase the pension to that one, feed the children of the other one, and so on. They assure you that this kind of thing is "practical Socialism," and implore you to give them the keys of power so that they may dispense the appropriate plaster for each social sore. The appeal is purely sentimental; a fatal basis upon which to build an effective party. People may respond more quickly to an appeal to their feelings, rather than their reason, but, action based upon reason will go further, make fewer mistakes and get there, long before sentimentalism has exhausted all the possibilities of error. Perhaps a couple of recent examples will illustrate the point. Lans-bury is an incorrigible sentimentalist. He is one of those many critics of our Party who say : "Yes, the object of your organisation is quite good, but it is useless to oppressed and starving men. What we want is something practical: something now." He is one of those who have alternatively called forth the workers' anger against their oppressors, whilst addressing heart-stirring appeals to the oppressors to be just, charitable, equitable and what not. In our twenty-five years of existence we have consistently demonstrated the utter futility of the "something now" policy, and the rank and dangerous absurdity of the mere appeal to righteous indignation. In the "New Leader" of April 19th, Lansbury writes :—

   "Small measures of reform are of no use. Tories and Liberals will all the time outbid us on them. We have reached the end of our journey along what might be described as the Palliative Highway."

What a pity it should have taken him half a lifetime to learn what we have been saying for a quarter of a century. We wish we could think he meant what he was saying. And then there is A. J. Cook, another sentimentalist. Full of appeals to feeling, to hatred, to indignation and anger. According to the “Sunday Worker,” April 21st, he is alleged to have said in 1926 :

  “If ever you read of me dining with Royalty, you workers can say Cook has deserted you.” 

And yet in 1929, only the other day, Mr. Cook is lunching with the Prince of Wales. Dearie me! More apropos of the point under discussion, he contributed an article to the “Evening Standard” of April 20th, bulging with the most sentimental, inept twaddle that journal has published for some time. It was called "The Prince of Wales.” Apart from its rather fulsome eulogy of the Prince as an individual (quite possibly true) phrases like the following occur. “I never met a man with such a rigid conception of fair play.” He has been “a good democrat.” “When the Prince went to Durham he was horrified. He said so; and when he told what he had found, he cut clean through old controversy —economic and every other kind.” “That man had no use for pomp and formulae. He was not concerned with theory. It was, it is, men, not manners, that concern him; conditions, not conventionality. ”

These are a few of them. And what do they all mean? How far do they take us? What problem is solved? None! For none is stated. We are even told that the sound of the Prince’s voice over the wireless, reduced him to tears and caused him to empty his pockets for the Miners’ Fund. That is the worst of emotion; its victims alternate between raving hatred and slobbering affection. Their only stability is a pause between absurdities. Cook records in the article that a woman, also listening to the Prince’s wireless appeal, cried out wonderingly, "Why, Arthur, it might have been you or Bob Smillie appealing.”

When Cook has dried his eyes, perhaps he will take another look at that remark. Just as Lansbury has found out that Tories and Liberals can outbid Labour on palliatives, so Cook should reflect that the Prince of Wales can do what he and Smillie are doing, quite as effectively, possibly more elegantly, and certainly with no more danger to Capitalism. To return to the heading of this article. Hatred, auger, indignation, are not enough. Socialism is a practical, scientific proposition, to be applied to existing society. It will not be brought” into operation by angry men, for anger is a bad counsellor. Socialism will be resisted, even when economic necessity has made it imminent, by desperate, powerful interests, and those who would lead the workers against those forces armed with nothing but indignation and a sense of wrong, are criminal lunatics. Hate is ephemeral, knowledge eternal. Anger is warping, science is certain. He who feels is the creature of his feelings. He who knows is superior to them.

W. T. Hopley

The Labour Failure in Queensland (1929)

From the June 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

After being in power for 15 years, the Queensland Labour Government was heavily defeated at the General Election early in May. In the last Parliament it held 43 seats out of 72. At the election, the Labour Party lost 16 seats and now holds only 27.

For 15 years the I.L.P. in this country have been proclaiming that Queensland was an illustration of “Socialism in Practice.” If that were true we should be faced with the fact that the Queensland workers had tried Socialism and rejected it and, needless to say, this has been gleefully exploited by the Conservatives and Liberals. The truth is that at no time has there been any attempt made to replace Capitalism by Socialism in Queensland or any other Australian State. Capitalism is and always has been the system of society operating there. The Socialist Party all through these years has constantly warned the workers that the Queensland experiment would bring no material change in the position of the working-class there, and would fail to solve any of the various problems arising out of Capitalism. By pretending otherwise, the I.L.P. has been deceiving the workers and misrepresenting Socialism.

One outstanding event which illustrates the impossibility of administering Capitalism for the benefit of the workers was the 1927 railway lock-out. The State railway workers decided to assist striking sugar workers by refusing to handle "blackleg” goods. The Labour Premier, faced with the necessity of safeguarding the operation of Capitalist industry, locked out 11,000 railwaymen in just the same manner as has been done by non-Labour Governments. Whatever their sympathies, a Government, any Government, which undertakes to administer Capitalism, has no choice but to use the powers of the State in defence of Capitalist interests when these are threatened by striking workers.

Failing to solve the problems which are insoluble within Capitalism and having no mandate to establish Socialism the Queensland Labour Government, like Labour Governments here or elsewhere in the same position, was foredoomed to failure.

The circumstances under which the Queensland Government entered office were clearly explained by Labour Premier Theodore.

Writing in the “Labour Magazine" (London, September, 1923), he expressed himself as follows :-

  The Labour Party in Queensland found itself called on to administer a capitalistic state of society, and without any direct mandate or authority to overturn the existing order or to undertake a drastic reconstruction.

Incidentally, this fiasco proves the fallacy of one foolish, if not dishonest, I.L.P. and Communist argument. Members of the I.L.P. who were somewhat critical of the Labour Government, and Communists who frankly condemned it, united in voting for it on the specious plea that after expenencing the failure of the Labour Party, the workers would be ready to “go further.”

In “Queensland,” the successful party now is the National Country Party, which is frankly Capitalist. The Communists have not got the support which they believed would come to them when Labour failed. What these dishonest supporters of the Labour Party always forget is, that you cannot win Conservative working-men over to voting Labour by telling them, that the Labour Party is no good. Communists who tell the workers to vote Labour are, therefore, compelled, if they wish to be effective, to hide their real views and tell the voters that the Labour Party is worth their votes. When the Labour Party proves its inability to solve working-class problems, its Communist supporters are carried down with it, and the disappointed workers vote Conservative "for a change,” or stay away from the polls.

Edgar Hardcastle

How Not To Get Socialism. (1929)

From the July 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Alderman Tom Kirk writes in the “Railway Review” (May 31st, 1929) an article entitled “The Revival of Socialism.” The first paragraph is unimportant, but we reprint. here the remainder of Mr. Kirk’s article.

  But here is where we draw a distinction between Socialism and Labour politics. To the Socialist there is only one thing that matters, the growth of the Socialist outlook in the public mind. It is his sole reason for being in politics at all. He perceives that you cannot make Socialists by just preaching theory. That was the dream of the old Socialist League, just as it is the dream of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. But the mind of the average man can only be reached through the current politics of the moment. In order to be with you, he wants to know what you are “going to do." And you must provide him with a plan of action, even if the action is not likely to produce much more than a growth of his Socialist convictions. We can no more escape from the illusion of politics than the early Christians, by burying themselves in the deserts of Egypt, could escape from the contamination of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

   Consequently, however much the austere purists may declaim, we have got to get on with the job as we find it. Fortunately, the movement has now reached a point that we can definitely warn our supporters from expecting too much from this or that particular reform. It has been a matter of great satisfaction to note the almost complete absence of the type of speaker who promised a solution of unemployment if the workers would only “vote Labour.” And in his place a stressing of the point that unemployment would not be “solved” while the capitalist system remained. It could only be ameliorated, not “solved.” All this is to the good; and it is a healthy sign of the times that the boastful promises of the Liberals have been contemptuously disregarded by organised Labour, with the result that Mr. Lloyd George became exceedingly angry. On the whole, tosh and window-dressing have been at a discount at this election. 

   The task of making the great mass of Labour electors into Socialists still, however, remains. Nationalisation, municipalisation, and public ownership still appear too much in the mind’s eye of the average workman as methods whereby he will immediately advance his wages and working conditions. Ultimately they must lead to his uplifting and betterment, otherwise they would be purposeless.

    But as Hyndman used to say, “You cannot make oases of co-operation in the midst of a howling wilderness of competition. The Socialist perceives this; the mere Labour elector does not. While we do not expect a nationalised industry to “pay its way” in the capitalist sense, we cannot run it regardless of the balance sheet. That way trouble lies; and the ending of things as they have ended in Queensland. 

   Then, again, what is going to be done with regard to the vast sum of British capital which is invested in foreign undertakings? The annual interest on that is responsible for a quarter of our imports. It represents about £300,000,000 annually. It is gained by exploiting the foreigner. Do we propose to take over these investments? If so, the British Labour State would become an exploiter of foreign workmen. Do we propose to leave these foreign investors to enjoy their incomes undisturbed except of such taxation as we could impose upon them? But in any case, as the £300,000,000 principally arrives here in the shape of food and raw materials, which we require for industries, we should have to do “something,” All of which shows that when it comes to the real business of getting down to the establishment of Socialism we have hardly discussed the matter at all. It will be the work of Socialists in the immediate future to promote discussion on such subjects. We cannot live for ever on a mere nebulous labourism. We shall have to get back to the healthy old business of the I.L.P. and S.D.F. setting the pace. And now that Communism has become a spent squib, the possibility of such a development is apparent. The specific function of the new orientation will not be vote catching, but education of the public as to how Socialism is to be established.

THEORIES—THE TRUE AND THE FALSE.

Now to disentangle this network of Kirkian errors. Mr. Kirk professes to be a Socialist, and accuses the S.P.G.B. of being dreamers of theory. Nothing matters to Mr. Kirk but "the growth of the Socialist outlook in the public mind.” But what is the "Socialist outlook” but the knowledge of Socialist theories? Therefore, Mr. Kirk is another dreamer, if to hold a theory is to be a dreamer. But the S.P.G.B. repudiates that title. We are a political organisation, and are not devotees of the cult of Utopias. We do not pray for spiritual aid to attain our ends. Our declaration of principles distinctly says, "That the Working Class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, etc.,” and at the elections we are prepared to put candidates for the polls. If the workers are not sufficiently class-conscious to support a Socialist candidate by supplying his deposit money, that is not our fault. Rather it is Mr. Kirk’s fault, and their misfortune.

After the high-minded attitude of "nothing mattering, etc.,” Mr. Kirk then says, “But the mind of the average man can only be reached through the current politics of the moment.” Here is the pose of the modern Jesus soiling his hands with Party politics. The next piece is rather funny. “He (the worker) wants to know what you are going to do.” So, Mr. Kirk thinks it best to present him with “a plan of action,” even if it will not bring forth much more than “a growth of the workers’ Socialist convictions.” But we thought Mr. Kirk was a Socialist. He should, then, be more than delighted if his “plan of action” only brought forth this "growth of Socialist convictions.” He, however, knows very well that it does no such thing, and only makes confusion worse confounded. The knowledge of what is meant by Socialism is essential to the making of Socialists. Mr. Kirk leaves us to infer that this "plan of action” is really only a blind to keep up "the illusion of politics.”

We cannot agree that politics are an illusion, but if Mr. Kirk thinks so, on what grounds can he justify his action of keeping up an illusion? I am afraid, after all, it is Mr. Kirk who has been dreaming. But to proceed. He says, “We (that is, the Labour Party) must get on with the job as we find it.” That, of course, means continuing to introduce reforms and patching up the capitalist system, but then he has the audacity to say that "at the same time they must warn their supporters that they must not expect too much from it.” He is pleased to notice that the Labour candidates stressed the point during the Election that while the Capitalist system remained they could only ameliorate unemployment, not solve it. Yes, but what happens after the ball? If they know this, why are they taking the reins of government into their hands again? And on what grounds can the Labour Party justify its existence, and Mr. Kirk his support thereof? Why does he not tell the workers that the advent of Socialism alone will solve their troubles?

Then we have Mr. Kirk bemoaning the fact that Nationalisation, etc., appears too much in the minds of the workers as a method by which they can improve their wages and working conditions. He quotes Hyndman as saying “ You cannot make oases of co-operation in a howling wilderness of competition,” and says that the Socialist perceives this; the mere Labour elector does not. But who is it that propagates the idea of Nationalisation? The Labour Party, not the S.P.G.B. Yet Mr. Kirk now finds it a stumbling block in the way of making Socialists. Oh, wonderful logic! The Socialists, to Mr. Kirk, means the I.L.P. and the Labourites. Therefore, they stand in the unenviable position of telling the workers to support a thing which they know to be unsound. Still speaking of Nationalisation, he says it must ultimately lead to the betterment of the worker, otherwise it would be “purposeless.” That is just the point; it does not lead to any betterment. By making industry more efficient less workers are required, unemployment increases, and these schemes, therefore, from the point of view of the workers are worse than purposeless, they are definitely harmful. He says, "while we do not expect a nationalised industry to pay its way in the capitalist sense, we cannot run it regardless of the balance sheet. That way trouble lies, and the ending of things, as they ended in Queensland.” In fact, of course, the I.L.P. advocates of Nationalisation vigorously affirm that in Queensland it did pay its way. The Queensland Labour Government failed because, as administrators of capitalism, they could not “deliver the goods” which they had promised to the workers. The workers were disillusioned, and having no knowledge of Socialism, voted once more for the capitalist class. Mr. Kirk would lead us to believe that the Queensland Government was being run by mere dreamers trying to run the. finances of the country without due regard to its balance sheet. But can he show us any important difference between the Labour programme in Queensland and in this country? He wants to support the Labour Party while disassociating himself from its policies.

Mr. Kirk could not have meant to have revealed such a lot when he started, but perhaps he was counting on the “Railway Review” not being read by “Austere Purists.” However, the cream of the thing is yet to come. We find poor Mr. Kirk getting concerned as to what the British Labour State (whoever that may be) would do with the interest coming from British invested capital abroad. I am afraid we cannot tell him. You see, we are only Socialists, and we only know what Socialists would do. We must leave the British Labour State’s problems for itself and Mr. Kirk to solve. "All of which shows that when it comes to the business of getting down to the establishment of Socialism we have hardly discussed the matter at all,” cries Mr. Kirk.

Presumably, then, settling the destination of interest from British invested capital abroad comes within Mr. Kirk’s theory of Socialism. Mr. Kirk’s theories make a Socialist feel sick. Interest and capital under Socialism! A little understanding of sound, instead of unsound, theory, would greatly benefit the illustrious Alderman. Interest and profit are essentially features of capitalism; likewise is the individual owner of property. Socialism means common ownership. There would be no persons here or abroad possessing capital. The question only arises in the dreams of Mr. Kirk. It certainly has nothing to do with establishing Socialism.

THE “HEALTHY OLD BUSINESS” OF MISREPRESENTING SOCIALISM.

The last few sentences are a fitting end to his article. I wonder he dares mention the S.D.F. or the I.L.P. in connection with "health.” Their part does not bear inspection. They have proved to be bad guides throughout to the working class. Their attitude on the War and their trickery at the elections of 1910 and 1906 respectively (see our Manifesto for facts) proves that the "healthy old business ” of the precious pair is not healthy but thoroughly diseased, in fact rotten to the core.

May Otway

Pathfinders: Farron, Fossils and Fire Ice (2017)

The Pathfinders Column from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

One claim that raised eyebrows during the recent general election was Tim Farron's assertion that the UK could be completely self-sufficient in renewable energy, this despite the Lib Dems' own manifesto pledge of reaching just 60 percent renewable by 2030 (Link). Team Tim promptly issued a qualifying statement (aka rebuttal) describing his claim as 'visionary as opposed to completely literal'.

Yet Farron has not completely fallen out of his chimney. The UK recently passed an important milestone with its first coal-free day since the 1880s (Link) and just last month the National Grid tweeted news of a further milestone, that on one particularly sunny and windy day in June just over half of UK energy was supplied by renewables for the first time (Link).

Things have changed in the past ten years or so, with renewables becoming steadily cheaper and more efficient, while international consensus on climate change, as well as the economic recession, have exerted a downward pressure on fossil usage. From a thirty-year flatline, renewable production has turned sharply upwards since 2010, crossing the spasmodic free-fall of coal in 2015 to reach 26 percent of the grid, more than any other source except gas (see Graph 3, Link). However, just as Germany plugs the dropouts in its renewable supply by strip-mining and burning brown coal, the UK props itself up by importing a third of its energy in the form of natural gas, mostly from Norway.

Meanwhile, the much-vaunted new nuclear renaissance has largely failed to materialise, with old power stations being kept running beyond their use-by dates and virtually all new building projects cancelled or mothballed, not just in the UK but across the world (New Scientist, 17 May). Blame the recession, and the Fukushima effect.

But it's not all green sunlit pastures for the renewable industry. Capitalist money-chasing gets in the way and renewable investment tends to founder whenever oil and gas prices plummet, as has been the case in the last few years thanks to OPEC price wars and the fracking bonanza. And renewable energy has built-in problems, notably its poor conversion ratio. UK renewable production for 2015 including wind, wave & tidal, biomass and other gas sources, hydro and solar, amounted to the equivalent of just over 7 million tonnes of oil. However conversion losses amounted to a further 6 million tonnes, giving overall a roughly 45 percent conversion loss. Why so much? Because power is rarely used where it is produced, and wastage through pipe bleed multiplies with distance. Meanwhile wind and solar, being sporadic, need buffering to smooth out the bumps, but large-scale efficient batteries do not yet exist, so power is steadily lost in storage. There are various systems which store power by converting it to something else and then reconverting it for later use, but power is lost in these bi-directional conversions. Meanwhile a plan to sell renewable power abroad when in surplus and buy it back when in deficit – known as an interconnector deal - may offset some storage losses while incurring greater transport loss, as well as being prey to the vagaries of the market and, of course, the weather. Just because the wind stops blowing in the UK doesn't mean it will obligingly start blowing in France.

Socialists have said this so often it's hardly worth repeating, but socialism would start addressing energy by looking at ways of not wasting it in the first place. For instance, instead of building extra capacity, it would be more sensible to insulate and double-glaze houses, a task at present left to cash-strapped householders. But the biggest consumer of energy in the UK is not the domestic sector, or even industry, as you might think, but transport, and much of this energy is coughed out of exhaust pipes while miserable commuters sit in twice-daily traffic jams and motorway tailbacks, forced by capitalist economics to chase jobs in other cities. In socialism, where people would only work on a voluntary basis and mostly close to home, there would be no need for regular long-distance commuting. Put freight back on rails too, and the roads may become almost empty, thus reducing energy consumption, not to mention improving air quality.

However, socialists also take a pragmatic view of energy as with other technologies. It makes no sense to come out today against a technology you might need tomorrow. If, for example, socialism were obliged to rely on frack gas deposits, then of course it would use them. A similar rationale applies to nuclear power, GM crops and others which today inspire protest among those who seem keener to oppose than propose.

One technology, though, might give us pause. If you haven't heard of methane hydrates yet, you're going to soon, and probably from the publicity of a colossal 'anti-hydrate' movement which is no doubt gestating even now. If you think fracking is bad, you're about to be horrified.

Methane hydrates, or 'fire ice', are burnable deposits of frozen methane which lie under the world's oceans, most of them close to continental shelves, and between them may offer more energy than all the world's coal, oil and gas combined, or up to 800 years' worth at current gas usage rates. Discovered in the 1960s, fire ice has largely been overlooked because of the difficulties of mining and extracting it, and because fracking is easier for now. However things have changed, and China recently announced a breakthrough in extraction technology which could lead to a new energy gold rush (phys.org, 19 May). So what's not to love? Well, it's methane for a start, like frack gas, and when you burn it, it releases carbon the same way. But it's concentrated, so a cubic metre of fire ice translates to 160m3 of airborne methane gas. There are two problems with this. One is that methane, while being relatively short-lived and in short supply compared to carbon in the atmosphere, is around 86 times more potent for global warming (Link). The other problem is that ocean floor drilling is still at the very edge of what mining companies can do, and a submarine blowout at depth would be like Deepwater Horizon all over again, except spewing millions of tonnes of the worst possible climate gas into the atmosphere. 'If all the methane gets out', said an International Energy Agency spokesman in 2014, 'we're looking at a Mad Max movie' (Link). Added to this, the proximity to continental shelves is predicted by some to cause large-scale underwater landslides which may trigger coastal tsunamis. So, not an energy technology likely to be warmly received in many quarters, especially considering capitalism's ability to promise the moon on a stick and then balls it up and stick us with the consequences.

Paddy Shannon

Aspect: The Future according to Galbraith (1967)

From the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Autumn of 1966 Harvard Professor of Economics J. K. Galbraith gave a much publicised series of lectures on the B.B.C. Home Service. They were part of a book on which he had been working for many years and which he now publishes under the title The New Industrial State. (Hamish Hamilton, 42s.).

In it he describes and explains the rise of the big industrial corporations in America; tells us how they are evolving towards a planned society not foreseen by the supporters of Nineteenth Century capitalism or by socialists; and that where America leads the rest of the world will follow.

Before the era of the big corporations the individual capitalist had to compete with his rivals in a market and at prices neither of which he could control: he also had to fight the trade unions. His sole object was to make as much profit as possible. This, says Galbraith, is still true in the world of the independent retailer, the farmer and the like :

Here prices are not controlled. Here the consumer is sovereign. Here pecuniary motivation is unimpaired, (p. 395)

But according to Galbraith, it is otherwise in the “industrial system”, that is among the “mature corporations” such as General Motors, Standard Oil, Fords, Du Pont, etc. (he names ten of them). Here it is the few big corporations who determine prices and create the market by advertising. They are no longer concerned to show maximum profit because the shareholders, who do want maximum profit, have lost control to the group of technicians, sales executives, engineers, scientists, designers etc. He defines them as all who bring “specialised knowledge, talent, or experience to group decision-making” (p.71) and calls them the “Technostructure”.

The interests and aspirations of the Technostructure lie in their own jobs, their security and prestige, all of which are to be achieved by promoting the technological efficiency and expansion of the corporation to which they belong and by cultivating close relationships with the governmental authorities who regulate and stabilise the general wage and price levels and secure an approximation to full employment. He sees the big corporations possibly merging with the state apparatus. He also sees the trade unions as a declining force.

An essential point in this argument is that the big corporations are able to finance their own expansion out of undistributed profits and have thus freed themselves from dependence on the money market and the banking world through which they formerly raised capital.

He also maintains that (subject to some qualifications), the trend towards control of industrial organisations by the “Technostructure” is in evidence in Russia, and in nationalised industries everywhere.

At the end of the road, unless we are saved by the enlightened intervention of the educationalists and scientists in collaboration with the Technostructure, we shall live our disciplined and liberty-less lives in a world of corporations (private and public) narrowly devoted to the purposes of production, expansion and technological advance.

Much of this ground has been covered before though without the systematic treatment given it by Galbraith. The first name that comes to mind is James Burnham with his The Managerial Revolution published in 1942; but with a surprising indifference. Burnham saw his models of the Managerial state in Germany, Russia and America. For him the 1939 war was “the first formative war of managerial society”. It would be followed, he said, by wars for world domination between the only three possible centres, America, Europe and the Far East. (See Penguin edition 1945 pages 219 & 220). Galbraith sees the Managerial revolution producing the exact opposite, a coming together of the “free world” and the “communist world” because “it will dispose of the notion of inevitable conflict based on irreconcilable difference” (P.391).

Galbraith here makes one of several references to Marx, most of which betray an almost total failure to understand what Marx held to be the nature of capitalism. He charges Marx with not having foreseen this coming convergence: on the contrary Marx did foresee that Russia would become, as it has, a capitalist state. But Marx did not explain that the conflict between capitalist states as being due to their unlikeness but to their likeness. As he wrote in the Communist Manifesto, “The Bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle . . .  at all times, with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries”. They are in conflict over markets, raw material sources and strategic points.

Russian and American capitalism may indeed find common ground for a time (as they did in the last war) but not for the reason he gives. Then it was the need to resist German and Japanese expansion. Next time it may be the need to contain Chinese expansion.

Galbraith's confusion is the common one of supposing that socialism (or communism) in the Marxian sense means nationalisation or state capitalism. The consequence is that although he has a chapter on “Socialism” and many references to it elsewhere he nowhere even considers the possibility of the human race finding the solution to the problems he raises by going over to a classless social system without wages, prices, profits or production for sale.

The evidence Galbraith gives to support his case is in almost every instance exaggerated, or based on trends which may be reversed or is mere assumption about what may happen.

It is indeed true that a tendency in recent years in this country has been for big companies to rely more on providing capital for expansion out of undistributed profits, instead of raising capital from outside. It is however, partly the result of the method of taxing company profits, which could be altered again. Even so we have such examples as ICI raising £60 million in 1966 by loan stock, and three big companies, English Electric, Associated Electrical Industries and Rolls-Royce, which between them have outstanding loans from banks and acceptance houses of nearly £100 million. They at least have not become self-financing.

Galbraith believes that the propertied class as a whole, though its interest would be served by getting maximum dividends and by curbing the big near-monopolies, will passively allow the Technostructure to thwart it. There are, however, influential groups in political parties and business circles determined to prevent this. In the last resort it will be settled by government action one way or another.

Then there is his belief that the trade unions are declining. He bases this on the fall in the number of industrial workers (blue-collar workers in American terminology) among whom trade unionism has been strong, and that white-collar workers (clerical, technical, administrative etc.) though growing in number are “not within the reach of unions”. With growing affluence, he says, the workers in the corporations are on better terms with their employers and less militant; but at the time of writing 160,000 American workers are on strike against one of his named corporations, Ford, and other motor companies are likely to be involved.

The position of trade unionism among British white-collar workers was examined recently by George Sayers Bain in the British Journal of Industrial Relations (November 1966) and while showing a remarkable growth of white-collar unionism in recent years he reaches a conclusion rather like that of Galbraith, on the ground that so far only a small proportion are organised. But is this conclusive? At one time trade unionism was confined largely to craftsmen and it was argued then that “unskilled” workers were unorganisable.

The non-manual workers affiliated to the TUC, covering civil servants, local government staffs, draughtsmen, supervisory and technical workers, professional, clerical and entertainment workers have increased from 917,000 in 1947 to 1,679,000 in 1966: to which should be added about 300,000 teachers. Why should this trend not continue? On present evidence it will.

In support of his case that it wont continue Galbraith relies heavily on the “affluence" of workers in the industrial countries and on the ability of governments, using Keynesian techniques, to maintain nearly full employment. Millions of workers do not share his optimism on either count, not forgetting the current British unemployment of 600,000, expected to rise substantially this winter; and the “low unemployment" of about three million in USA, commonly regarded as understating the real number. Included in the unemployed in Britain are quite a lot of Galbraith’s ‘Technostructure”. They suddenly found that they were not in control after all.

If the strike of Ford workers knocks a big hole in Galbraith’s belief about trade unions, another event in USA does the same for his belief that the big corporations so dominate the market that they can fix the prices at which they sell their products. One of his ten corporations is Du Pont, the largest chemical company in the world. It was reported in the London Times (9 September) that Du Pont had announced an expected fall of twenty per cent in their profit this year. And the reason? “a sharp decline in the prices of synthetic fibres". So much for the Galbraith theory.

Among Galbraith’s misleading references to Marx are his statement (p.290) that Marx assumed "the progressive immiseration of the working class” and that as revolution was inevitable according to Marx, why was it necessary to advocate it. (p.321).

He overlooks that Mara’s statement about the lot of the worker growing worse was set in relation to the accumulation of capital and “be his payment high or low”. And Marx, who insisted that man makes his own history, never supposed that socialism could be achieved without the conscious act of the organised socialist working class.

Marx would, for example, not have subscribed to Galbraith’s despairing doctrine (p396) that the belief “that he can decide the character of his economic system" is no more than “the vanity of the modern man”.

Modern man does not have to resign himself to Galbraith’s grim new industrial state.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: The Labour Government: Truth Will Out! (1929)

Editorial from the August 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed 25 years ago to work for Socialism. We found ourselves then, as now, opposed by the I.L.P. and other bodies, whose members believed that it was useless to preach Socialism. Their method was to try to win working-class support by promising and agitating for Old Age Pensions, Health Insurance and other reforms. The workers, they said, want not Socialism, but “something now.” Let us promise them what they want and thus get a Labour Government. The numerous benefits it will bestow on the workers will then win their support for the introduction of Socialism.

This theory, as we pointed out, was based on a series of misconceptions. It assumed that a Labour Government could so run Capitalism as to remove the great problems which have been, and are being, produced by Capitalism. It assumed, in other words, that unemployment, poverty and the like, are the outcome, not of the system, but of the stupidity, malevolence or incompetence, of Liberal and Tory statesmen. It overlooked the very important lesson of modern representative Government that the party which happens to be in power gets blamed by working-class electors for the evil effects of the Capitalist system on themselves.

All these years we have carried on the hard struggle to build up a party of Socialists, understanding and ready to work for Socialism. Our critics, in the meantime, have carried on their work of building up the non-Socialist Labour Party, incidentally making our work tenfold more difficult. They have succeeded to the point of being in power, the largest party in the House. But no sooner do they get to work than they discover the truth of some of the counts in our argument.

Mr. J. H. Thomas, Lord Privy Seal, is commander-in-chief of the special section devoting its energies to the problem of unemployment. On Friday, July 5th, he addressed at Southampton the Annual General Meeting of the National Union of Railwaymen. He first admitted that the Labour Government is in office to administer the Capitalist system. He said :—

  I have been entrusted with the responsibility of seeing how far within the limits of our Parliamentary traditions and our resources of the State—and accepting the present order of society —how far it is possible to mobilise, organise, institute, and get going useful works for those now unemployed. (See “ Daily Herald ” Report, 6 July.—Italics ours.)

His subsequent remarks indicated that even a few weeks of office have taught him how little difference a change of persons makes to the administration of Capitalism. He said :—

   We ask you not to expect too much, nor attempt to force from us, because we are a Labour Government, what you would not force from a Capitalist Government.

Thus we have the delightful spectacle of the workers being asked not to demand their instalment of “something now” (which they have already waited a generation to get) by the very people who have preached the doctrine of “something now" in opposition to Socialism.

The moral of this has been seen by at least one Labour opponent of the Socialist Party, Mr. Tom Kirk, alderman at West Ham. In a letter to the “New Statesman" (July 13th) he states that the Labour Government’s declarations on unemployment caused dismay among their supporters in the House. But what is most significant is Mr. Kirk’s admission that the building up of the Labour Party has been at the expense of Socialist propaganda. He writes :—

  The work, however, of building a Labour Party thrust “critical revolutionary” Socialism into the background, where it stubbornly maintained itself in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Mr. Kirk, one of those who helped to thrust Socialism “into the background” is now convinced that the Labour Government will prove a broken reed. "Indeed,” he writes, "unless I read things wrongly, we shall soon witness a reversion to the earlier standpoints of the old S.D.F.”

To this we need only add that the earlier standpoints of the S.D.F. are embodied in the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the only organisation which declined to abandon Socialism in order to build up the Labour Party, and the only organisation which will not be implicated in the disgust and disillusion which will follow the inevitable failure of Labour Government.