50 Years Ago: Distorting Marxism (2017)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The theory and practice of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain is based on Marxism; that is, we accept as valid the main theories put forward by Marx about history, political economy and politics. We accept that the materialist conception of history is a very useful method for examining and understanding social and historical events and changes. We accept that Capital is a brilliant analysis of the workings and historical tendency of capitalism and exposition of how the working class are exploited. We accept too that the working class can be freed from wage-slavery only by its own efforts, by taking class-conscious democratic political action to get Socialism. We were unaware that in so doing we were 'emasculating' Marxism and we are not prepared to consider the allegation that we have distorted Marx's views until and unless Mr. Therrien, or anyone else, produces some evidence.

As a matter of fact it was Lenin and the Bolsheviks who twisted Marx's theories. For Marx the emancipation of the working class had to be the work of the working class itself. Lenin rejected this. In What Is To be Done? he says, contemptuously, of the working class that 'exclusively by its own effort' it can only reach a trade union consciousness. Socialist understanding, Lenin argued, must be brought to them from outside—in Russia by a band of professional revolutionaries organised as a vanguard party. In other words, Lenin and the Bolsheviks held that a vanguard party could free the working class rather than the working class, through its own class-conscious democratic political action, free itself.

(from Reply to a Letter, Socialist Standard, December 1967)

Themes from Marx (1982)

Book Review from the June 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Penguin Books have recently reprinted the third volume in their selection of Marx’s political writings. Titled The First International and After, it contains much of Marx’s work between the founding of the International Working Men's Association in 1864 and his death in 1883. Two themes that occupied Marx during this period seem particularly worth commenting on: the making of socialist revolution, and the nature of socialist society.

Marx made it quite clear that the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class. In his Provisional Rules for the International, he stated:

That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves: that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies. but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule.

A letter circulated jointly by Marx and Engels in 1879 reiterates this view:

When the International was formed, we expressly formulated the battle-cry: the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. We cannot ally ourselves, therefore, with people who openly declare that the workers are too uneducated to free themselves and must first be liberated from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois. 

Years of writing and activity had taught that the workers cannot be liberated by leaders or vanguards, but only by their own efforts.

And what would be the nature of the revolution bringing about this emancipation? Here there is no doubt that, while Marx considered that force would generally be necessary, he did envisage the possibility of a peaceful revolution in certain circumstances. In 1872, Marx made a speech in Amsterdam at the Hague Congress of the International:

   The workers will have to seize political power one day in order to construct the new organisation of labour . . . We do not claim, however, that the road leading to this goal is the same everywhere.
   We know that heed must be paid to the institutions, customs and traditions of the various countries, and we do not deny that there are countries, such as America and England, and if I was familiar with its institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means. That being the case, we must recognise that in most continental countries the lever of the revolution will have to be force; a resort to force will be necessary one day in order to set up the rule of labour.

To a journalist who interviewed him in 1881, Marx said:

 In England. for instance, the way to show political power lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work. In France a hundred laws of repression and a mortal antagonism between classes seem to necessitate the violent solution of social war.

In the last hundred years, the circumstances which favoured a peaceful capture of political power have expanded at the expense of "laws of repression", so that Marx’s emphasis on force is now outdated.

Developments since Marx’s time have also affected the relevance of his remarks on the nature of socialism continued in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. This is the work relied on by leftists for their claim that socialism and communism must he distinguishable. But the text provides no justification for any such distinction; rather Marx speaks of two phases of communist society, in the first phase, distribution might be on the basis of the amount of work done by each producer, while in the "more advanced phase", the precept to be followed would be: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" Our insistence on Marx's exact wording here is not mere pedantry, but is intended to make it clear that the distinction he is making is not between two different types of society, but between two phases of a single society, both phases being characterised by common ownership and abolition of wages, prices and profits.

This point is also relevant to what Marx says in the Critique about the dictatorship of the proletariat:

  Between capitalist and communist society lies a period of revolutionary transformation from one to the other. There is a corresponding period of transition in the political sphere and in this period the state can only take the form of a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Marx, then, envisaged three stages: the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into communism (= socialism), the lower phase of communism. and the higher phase of communism. The leftist distortion is to call the lower phase "socialism", and then to identify this with the dictatorship of the proletariat. For Marx, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat was not a type of society at all but a type of state, as the above quotation shows. There is no warrant in Marx for the view that the dictatorship of the protetariat means the kind of society which has existed in Russia for three-quarters of a century. As for the two-phase conception of socialism, technological advances mean that it would not take long till “all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly”, and free access could be introduced.

Paul Bennett

Packaging breaks (1982)

From the July 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

What sort of picture is conjured up in your mind by the thought of foreign travel? The travel agents are working their hardest to whet your appetite: in their brochures the sun shines every day, the grass is greener than anywhere else, the sands are pure golden and the sea a lovely clear blue with no hint of any oil slicks or bits of sewage, wreckage or plastic beakers. Then there are the hints of sexual pleasure. These pictures of people on package holidays on the Costa del Sol or Corfu, or wherever it is, usually show them cavorting happily in their swimming trunks and bikinis. And if you wanted to be really naughty, there are holidays on offer to famous towns where, in addition to soaking up the history and “culture” on offer, you can indulge yourself a little after dark by visiting the Red Light area—if, that is, you have any cash left by then.

One of the arguments frequently used by those who tell us how much better off we are than our forefathers is the number of workers nowadays who go abroad for their holidays. It cannot be denied that many more do so than was the case even 25 years ago, and before World War II it was difficult to find a worker who had been out of the country other than on military service or in connection with his work and even that was uncommon. By far the biggest factor however is the cheapening of the holiday. When Edward VII was on the throne, continental holidays were expensive affairs which only the wealthy could afford. Cheap holidays for workers had only just come in. The excursion platforms at Blackpool Central station were built at this time to receive the traditional exodus from Glasgow during the annual holiday week. (Those with a little more money would go to the neighbouring, posher, resort of Lytham St. Anne’s.) Even to-day this is the only holiday for many Glaswegians. The changing pattern does not mean that the masses have risen to the level of a holiday abroad: it is the latter which has descended to the level where workers can afford it. Enjoyment, recreation and travel are all businesses now. Just as Blackpool is shoddy (or workers could not afford to go there) so cheap hotels and holiday flats are mushrooming on the Costa Brava so that the holiday trade can reap its profits.

The multiplicity of travel firms with their gaudy brochures and television commercials testify to the cut-throat competition in this business. What Winston Churchill once described as “terminological inexactitudes” abound, and many hopeful workers have been shocked by facilities which do not live up to their billing, and in some cases are nonexistent. The ruthless competition has led to a high degree of instability in the trade. Workers who have been saving, often for a long period towards their break from routine, have found themselves stranded and embarrassed when the firms they booked with have gone bust. The financial structure of these companies is often as ramshackle as the holidays they offer if they do stay in business. The collapse of Court Line in 1975 and Laker Airlines earlier this year testify to this, although Sir Freddie’s breakfast, like the kippers and champagne of the swindler Horatio Bottomley before him, will still come out of surplus value extracted from the working class.

What awaits these travellers when they reach their destination? How different will things really be from what they have left behind at home? In William Morris’ News from Nowhere the narrator wakes up from a dream to find himself in the twenty-first century. Capitalism has been abolished and common ownership is in operation. On going into what he took to be a shop, he is most surprised to be told that he can take all he wanted and that no money was required. He was told that England had become “a garden where nothing is wasted and nothing spoilt”. If only we could come back from our holidays, if we can afford them in the first place, with such a talc to tell!

Even on the cheapest, most rushed of package tours, no-one could get by without some foreign currency to satisfy essential needs. Everywhere in the world goods are produced for sale, not for use. The overwhelming majority are compelled to sell their labour power for wages while the minority who buy this labour power live off their backs. In fact, so completely is the rationale of the present economy accepted, so impossible do most workers still find it to consider living in any other manner, that attention is automatically fixed right from the start on small local variations which become magnified out of all proportion.

As I occasionally travel abroad on “firm’s business”, I find that examination of the apparent differences between countries actually reinforces the essential sameness of capitalism everywhere. For instance in Athens, Paris, Hamburg and New York—cities where I have been in the last three years—public transport costs are much less than in London. In New York there is a 60 cents charge on subway and buses, irrespective of distance. This was useful to me when I managed an afternoon’s sightseeing, but that is not why these cheap fares operate. The operation is effectively subsidised by capitalists who exploit New York workers in order that lower wages can be paid. As long as these employers believe they are getting value for money, the cheap fares policy can be expected to continue; but different policies will be pursued if it is felt that the scheme is not operating profitably. Los Angeles—apart from inner city ghetto areas such as Watts—has virtually no public transport at all. These differences are of emphasis only and the arguments involved are of concern to the capitalists. It is they who foot the bill.

A visit to Hamburg directs attention to the way capitalists of various countries tackle the problem of prostitution. The Daily Telegraph (27/11/81) devoted some space to comparing British, Dutch, French and West German practice. In West Germany brothels and soliciting are legal only in special controlled zones. In the St. Pauli district of Hamburg about 2,000 prostitutes operate in an area of one square kilometre, where there are also striptease clubs and other sexual stimulus. The rest of the city, where all this is illegal, seems to be largely free of these “sins”, and a police spokesman who is quoted as seeing advantages in the system because it means less work has got a point. But so too does the more “moral” type of capitalist who argues, much as Mary Whitehouse, that if brothels are licensed they will acquire an aura of respectability. Despite the apparent differences these viewpoints are in basic agreement in concern for capitalist values, and the only question again is one of emphasis.

The contrast in housing standards between the two classes in society is just as clear wherever you go. The modern trend towards high rise flats in place of the earlier back-to-back terraced houses (of which there are still plenty in industrial towns such as Leeds and Bradford) is obvious, with only a few local variations in style. In Hamburg, because of wartime devastation, older buildings can be seen only in a small area near the centre— which may deceive the casual observer—but this was the only apparent exception to the rule.

Attending meetings at foreign firms and using their facilities such as workers’ canteens has given me every opportunity of observing the essential world-wide similarity of paid employment, or as it is better described, wage slavery. Indeed, what differences could there be? When on a package holiday there are factors operating which may cloud this basic unity. The tourist will not be going to work, which in itself can make things look better than they really are. And, although the local people will practically all be workers, the fact that they are employed in the holiday trade and their living depends on making the tourist as happy and relaxed as possible means that holidaymakers’ experience and impressions are not likely to form a representative picture.

It is not easy to obtain figures on the distribution of wealth and property in various countries which can easily be compared. This is due to considerable differences in definition and the way the statistics are compiled. It is clear however that the basic fact of class monopoly of the means of wealth production is the same all over the world, irrespective of whether governments admit to being capitalist or claim to be socialist or communist. The use of money means that the wages system is in operation. In turn this shows that the majority have no stake in the means of living and, in order to survive, must sell their talents to the owning minority. However some comparative figures were published in The Times (14/3/78). These concern post tax personal income of households, which is a gross understatement of the wealth of the wealthy because it excludes permanent wealth in the form of capital and land. On the other hand, it also excludes incomes in kind such as school meals and subsidised housing, but these items are virtually infinitesimal in comparison. The survey encompassed eight countries: Australia, Britain, Sweden, France, Ireland, Canada, Japan and the United States. The share of the top twenty per cent surveyed varies from 39 to 46 per cent of the total, while the share of the bottom twenty per cent varies from 4 to 6 per cent.

You cannot run away from capitalism by taking a trip abroad, as the system is basically the same everywhere. There is a way out however. Socialism will work in the interests of everyone. While we may still wish to see how others live in different climates, none would feel compelled to travel anywhere to “get away from it all”.

E. C. Edge

Who needs social security? (1982)

From the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Forty years ago, at the time of Beveridge, the modest aim of social insurance was to guarantee to every citizen in the event of unemployment, sickness and old age "the minimum income needed for subsistence”. When National Insurance was introduced in 1948 the Attlee government expected that as it developed means-tested supplements would become unnecessary. Socialists knew that plans for National Insurance would not end the poverty of the working class.

Now nearly 1 in 10 of the population gets at least part of its income from supplementary benefit. The social security system, which includes national insurance and supplementary benefit, has become a kind of monster. It accounts for 28 per cent of public expenditure. Yet poverty and insecurity are still part of working class life. There are dozens of different benefits, some administered by central government and some by local authorities, with many different procedures to get them.

Over the years changes have been made in the scheme; other plans, especially for pensions, have been studied. The graduated pension scheme which was wound up in 1975 was used at times by Conservative and Labour governments to raise money in the present without improving pensions in the future. The latest pensions scheme has earnings related contributions for an eventual two-tier pension and will, it is hoped, reach maturity in twenty years  . . .  Retirement pensions amounted to 50 per cent of the total social security bill for 1978/79. The position of pensioners illustrates the complexity of the system. The basic weekly retirement pension for a married couple of £47.35 (plus 25p if aged 80!) is inadequate to live on without supplementary pension to help with housing costs. Those who qualify for this supplement are then entitled to claim additional allowances.

Some who qualify for supplementary pension may be a little better off claiming s rent and rate rebates instead, while others outside the limit for supplementary pension may still get rate and rent rebates. About 50 per cent of pensioners have occupational pensions which, with their state pensions, are just sufficient to take their income above the supplementary level and disqualify them from additional payments. Many pensioners claim to manage tolerably well — membership of the working class has given them years of practice — but it is the breakdown of health or other disaster that underlines their vulnerable position. The system of supplementary payments and the small amounts disregarded when assessing allowances, means that pensioners and all those who depend on the state have varying incomes. Schemes which would pay enough to remove the need for all kinds of allowances are more expensive than means-tested benefit paid to those "really in need".
Pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits under the heading of National Insurance have entitlement related to contributions. It is Supplementary Benefit which causes most controversy, for those struggling to live at or near subsistence level and for others who imagine the recipients of state “handouts” are scroungers who live in luxury. Supplementary benefit is a small part of the social security system. In 1978/79 £2.500 million were distributed, nearly 15 per cent of the total social security bill. (In 1979/80 the net value of tax forgone in respect of mortgage interest amounted to nearly £1.500 million.)

Benefits that are means-tested are calculated as a matter of arithmetic. Only 6 per cent of the money handed out by the Supplementary Benefits Commission was within their discretion, but this is the area which gives rise to the myths about special treatment and prejudice. The system of "discretionary allowances" gives a few claimants an "exceptional circumstances addition" which might be for extra fuel, or a single payment perhaps to replace footwear. If this sounds like a caring state looking after every need of its poorest citizens, the discretionary system "is one of the most arbitrary and meanly operated parts of the entire Welfare State (J. C. Kincaid. Poverty and Equality in Britain). These payments must not be looked on as a right but are reserved for those particularly "deserving". David Donnison was Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission from 1975 until its dissolution in November 1980. In The Politics of Poverty he points out that if every client asked for every discretionary payment available, and then appealed, the pressure of work on local offices would cause the system to collapse. Staff had to deter claims. The "rules of thumb" invented by local offices to replace the book of rules which had "grown into several massive volumes", were kept secret; they varied in different offices and for different claimants. There was prejudice against the unemployed who tend to be among the poorest claimants (losing entitlement to national insurance benefit after 12 months and not eligible for the long term rate of supplementary benefit) and are least likely to win appeals.

During his time with the SBC Donnison set out to review and change its principles and practices. The dilemma of reformers is put neatly by him, when he wonders if half a loaf would be better than no bread (the result is usually crumbs). The Commission decided to support the Social Security Bill (1980) even though the resulting changes would be made without spending more money or increasing staff. Improvements they had sought for the unemployed, and a twice yearly lump sum grant for all claimants which would "make a drastic reduction in discretionary payments tolerable". would not be made. The system has been simplified and its rules made clearer. There is less discretionary benefit, and a Specialist Claims Control adding to the misery of the poor by zealously testing the validity of their claims. (Is this the "special case officer" Donnison was expecting to have more time to help claimants "sort things out"?) Working for reform meant gaining the sympathetic interest of the right officials, MPs and Ministers, regardless of party.

Pressure groups work in a similar way. Organisations like the Child Poverty Action Group and Age Concern assemble information, collect signatures and compete with each other for money. Their most successful work has been in taking up the cases of individuals. The SBC had listened to, and even advised, pressure groups, but in 1979 a Cabinet Minister dismissed members of the poverty lobby as " . . . crickets in the field”. They were not leaders of a movement. The Callaghan Government had kept quiet during the May 1979 election about its decision to increase Child Benefit, thinking it would be unpopular. Opinion polls after the March 1980 budget showed an increase in support for the Government: cuts in social security did not invoke mass protest.

Poverty is not a popular cause. Against the background of recession other workers have their own problems, and in any event accept that some of them have better living standards than others. Unions will fight to defend wage differentials. In a competitive society the converse of the idea that those who "get on" do so by their own efforts is that the poor are somehow to blame for their position.

The same kind of reasoning suggests that many of the unemployed choose not to work because of the generosity of benefits. The scale of fraud is also exaggerated. Claimants are more likely to get less money than they are entitled to. Unclaimed benefit is reckoned to have been worth £400,000,000 in 1979 (Guardian 21 June 1982). Less than 4 per cent of workers would not be much worse off if they were unemployed. Put another way "several hundred thousand households are affected” (Guardian, 23 June 1982) by a poverty and unemployment trap which makes families worse off by earning more (because of reduced benefits) and not much worse off if unemployed.

The government is facing opposition from its backbenches over its refusal to restore the 5 per cent cut in unemployment benefit, made last year, before taxation of that benefit starts this month. Two charities object to Norman Fowler’s plan to give allowances for the care of handicapped people priority over restoring unemployment money. Mr. Tim Yeo, director of the Spastics Society said:

Many of the disabled are also unemployed. So by not restoring the 5 per cent cut in unemployment benefit to pay for an increased invalid care allowance would be giving with one hand and taking away with another (Guardian, 5 July 1982).

Successive governments’ intentions to help the "less well off’ (modern euphemism for poor) are inevitably linked to improvements in the economy. The bank of England has forecast only “modest" economic growth and unemployment is expected to stay at the present high level. Far from becoming unnecessary, cuts in insurance benefits indicate more dependence on means-tested supplementary benefit.

The social security system will continue to be amended. Reforms being put forward include ending the married man’s tax allowance in order to finance substantial increases in child benefit. All of the suggestions are made in the context of a social system which always considers cost before need. The aim is still to give the minimum amount necessary to sick, elderly or out of work members of the class whose “normal" way of getting money is through employment.

It must not take another forty years for the working class to discover that the problem of poverty, however defined, will not be solved by reform.

Pat Deutz

Why workers must combine (1982)

From the September 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wealth of society is produced by the class of men and women who neither own nor control the means of wealth production and distribution: this is the great social contradiction of capitalism. Labour is the source of value, but those who labour are destined to relative degrees of poverty, while those in positions of ownership enjoy lives of privilege and luxury and are not compelled to produce anything. To state that capitalism is a system of class exploitation is not to moralise about it, but to define it scientifically.

Wage labour and capital must always be in conflict; the class struggle is inevitable in a society where two classes have directly opposing interests. James the capitalist wants Jack, the worker to work hard, take low wages and be thankful he’s employed. Jack the worker wants to expend as little energy as he can and receive as high a wage as possible. Jack is grateful to James for "giving him a job and a wage" — if he thought about it he would see that he is in fact giving James a free ride in life. Employment is a contract which is only entered into when where is a likelihood that workers will create more than the value of their labour power.

If the working class were half as "selfish" and "greedy” as the propagandists for capitalism claim, there would have been a socialist revolution years ago. Socialists are depending on the self-interest of our fellow workers, for only when they are so inspired will they create a society in which the best things in life are free for all. At the moment, contrary to all the bogus talk about “selfishness”, workers willingly accept inferior lifestyles, die to protect their bosses’ markets and generally regard exploitation as inevitable. The majority support the status quo, not because they are stupid, but because capitalism is well-geared to perpetuate those ideas which defend the position of the capitalist class.

Capitalism's propaganda may divert workers from the socialist solution (although it will not be able to do so forever), but it cannot shield them from the problems which class society throws up. No amount of clever talk and trickery can deny experience. In the early days of capitalism, workers and animals were treated by the capitalists almost indistinguishably; indeed, the British ruling class have always cared rather more for their pet dogs than for their human wage slaves. Lives were casually lost because of the use of insecure machinery, slacking employees were ruthlessly beaten, the hours of labour were so long as to cause physical harm, children were forced to perform filthy, dangerous tasks and any workers who resisted were sacked and left to starve. All of this was experienced by British workers only five or six generations back, and many of the capitalists living in respectable affluence today owe their positions to such ruthless exploitation. The same horror story is, of course, a permanent social feature of many parts of the industrialising world of today.

Experience of exploitation teaches workers elementary lessons about self-defence, the first usually being the value of combination. Many capitalists would like it if workers were unwilling or unable to combine — if they could be kept atomised so that individual "trouble-makers" could be picked out and excluded from employment. The moment that workers combine for the purpose of looking after their interests the long journey to self-emancipation has begun. Trade unions combine two factors: consciousness and organisation. Firstly, trade unions mark the recognition on the part of workers that they produce the wealth of society, that by striking they can stop production and force the employer to take them seriously, and that there is a common enemy: the boss. Secondly, trade unions provide important training in how to organise in a democratic manner. In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx expressed his clear recognition of the importance of industrial combination:

Big industry masses together in a single place a crowd of people unknown to each other. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of their wages, this common interest which they have against their employer, unites them in the same idea of resistance — combination. Thus, combination has always a double end. that of eliminating competition among themselves while enabling them to make a general competition against the capitalist. If the first object of resistance has been merely to maintain wages, in proportion as the capitalists in their turn have combined with the idea of repression, the combinations, at first isolated, have formed in groups, and in face of constantly united capital, the maintenance of the association became more important to them than the maintenance of wages. This is so true that the English economists are all astonished at seeing the workers sacrifice a great part of their wages on behalf of the associations which, in the eyes of these economists, were only established in support of wages. In this struggle — a veritable civil war — are united and developed all the elements necessary for a future battle. Once arrived at that point, association takes a political character. (Kerr edition. p.188.)

If Marx was unduly hopeful in seeing trade unions as ‘training schools for socialism’, he was quite correct in realising that only experience of conscious solidarity can provide workers with the kind of self-awareness necessary to turn them into a revolutionary class. Because they were not mere idealists who painted pictures of socialism in their heads. Marx and Engels did not attack trade unions as non-revolutionary organisations; they realised that only from their experience of self-defence could workers learn to take political action to end exploitation itself.

The earliest records of working class industrial combination stand as clear proof of just how heroically and effectively workers are capable of struggling. At the end of the eighteenth century the British capitalist class was so scared of combination that they passed the notorious Combination Acts, which made it illegal for workers to unite in their own defence. But illegality was no barrier to the dedicated workers who formed underground combinations. They understood that only by uniting could they be strong — just as the workers in Poland did when they defied their state capitalist masters and set up Solidarity. In 1812 the Scottish weavers came out on strike, defying the laws of their masters. In 1816 the South Wales miners came out. . . in 1818 the Scottish miners ... in the same year the Lancashire spinners. Many of these men and women were imprisoned or deported, but the combinations survived them. The north-east miners formed an illegal brotherhood and each worker had to swear “a most solemn oath to obey the orders of the brotherhood, under the penalty of being stabbed through the heart or of having their bowels ripped up”. When the Combination Acts were finally repealed in 1825 the workers responded with a wave of well-organised strikes. In 1826 the Lancashire cotton spinners fought a vigorous, but ultimately unsuccessful battle to resist a reduction in wages. In 1831 the marines and cavalry were used to crush a strike by the Durham miners. The ferocity of that assault, and that of the troops in their barbaric attack upon the Welsh ironmasters in the same year, showed that the capitalist state could and would use every violent tactic, including the killing of strikers, in order to protect the power of the parasitic elite. Although state violence secured short-term gains for the capitalists, in the long-term it only contributed to a greater feeling of hatred by trade unionists against the bosses. As Brontcrrc O’Brien wrote in 1834 :

The great advantage of a strike is that it increases the enmity between labourers and capitalists, and compels workmen to reflect and investigate the causes of their sufferings. . .

Legalised robbery

Many workers over-estimated the importance of trade unions as forces in the class struggle. They did not realise that as long as they confined themselves to struggling over the rate of exploitation — over how much of the values produced by workers shall go to the capitalists and how much shall constitute the price of labour power (wages and salaries) — there could be no way of breaking free from the inherently exploitative nature of the wages system. The economic laws of capitalism demand that workers must be legally robbed of the fruits of their labour in order for the system to run profitably. Trade unions can only provide limited defence against the level of exploitation; they are powerless to eradicate wage labour as such.

Socialists stand for the abolition of the wages system and argue that it is to this end that workers of all lands must combine, politically and democratically. But that does not mean that we arc unaware of the immense importance of industrial combination for the working class. The socialist attitude towards the industrial struggle is necessarily ambivalent; we encourage workers who are organising along sound lines in their own defence; but we recognise at the same time that most trade unionists support capitalism, knowingly or otherwise, and that the trade unionist aim of “fairness” under capitalism is illusory and reformist. Writing in The Labour Standard in 1881. Engels explained the impossibility of establishing “fairness” within the wages system:

But let us inquire out of what fund does Capital pay these '“very fair wages”? Out of capital, of course. But capital produces no value. Labour is, besides the earth, the only source of wealth; Capital itself is nothing but the stored-up produce of labour. So that the wages of Labour are paid out of labour, and the working man is paid out of his own produce. According to what we may call common fairness, the wages of the labourer ought to consist in the produce of his labour. But that would not be fair according to political economy. On the contrary, the produce of the workman’s labour goes to the capitalist, and the workman gets out of it no more than the bare necessaries of life. And thus the end of this uncommonly ‘fair’ race of competition is that the produce of the labour of those who do work is unavoidably accumulated in the hands of those who do not work, and becomes in their hands the most powerful means to enslave the very men who produced it. (7 May 1881.) •

As members of the exploited class, socialists join trade unions to defend their living standards. While a majority of workers support the wages system there is no other action which a socialist worker can take; except, of course, to engage in socialist propaganda. As socialists we support the principle of trade unionism. We do so because we understand where workers would be without unions and also because we see them as providing useful experience in the class struggle. In countries where democratic trade unions do not exist we urge workers to form them; and in countries like Britain, where apparently independent unions do exist, we urge workers to ensure that they are run as democratically as possible and to refrain from allowing trade union strength to be sidetracked into support for capitalist political parties. Much as we support trade unionism, as opponents of the wages system we [also] reject the limited, sterile and ultimately conservative position of most trade unions. So, socialists support trade union action and we seek to establish a system of society where industrial combination will no longer exist because exploitation has been ended.

The Socialist Party exists to encourage our fellow workers to acquire an appetite for something more than the crumbs from the cake which we, as a class, have baked. Put an end to pleading for a little more — to demanding the "right” to be exploited — to seeking "fairness” from a system which is based on the legal robbery of the workers as a class. Having learnt to combine for the purpose of negotiating with the master class, let us now unite to abolish their political power.

Steve Coleman

Material World: Europe: A Whiff of Fascism in the Air (2017)

The Material World Column from the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many of us recognise a rightward swing in British and American politics in recent times and throughout Europe topics of immigration, Muslims and refugees are now dominating election campaigns like never before. In France, Le Pen’s National Front. In The Netherlands Geert Wilders EERT Dutch Freedom Party. In Germany, Alternative for Germany (AfD) has made a strong showing. But all those parties have been rejected in general elections. Some, sadly have been more successful.

Despair and deprivation are fertile ground for the populist demagogue. Political and economic crises bring forth renewed discontent based on old slogans. Nationalist parties have been making significant gains and only too frequently elections in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have become contests between the right and the further-to-the-right. Some call it fascism but it is more accurately described as nativism where scapegoating foreigners offers an increasingly successful tactic for gaining political power. Populist regimes have opportunistically seized on refugees and migrants to promote xenophobia for political gain, tapping into fear and prejudice  

The recent election as Austria’s chancellor of Sebastian Kurz of the Austrian People’s Party and (at the time of writing) a possible coalition with the Freedom Party of Austria is yet another signal of this shift to the right. The nationalist rhetoric of Kurz has given the extreme right FPO no point of differentiation, making the impending coalition more likely.

In Hungary, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party and in Poland, Jarosław Kaczyński ‘s Law and Justice Party (PiS) have openly embraced far-right policies. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban referred to asylum seekers as ‘poison’ and advocates ‘ethnic homogeneity.’ To counter the country’s declining population he announced a housing grant and loan scheme for couples who promise to have babies. Since his election in 2010, Orban has been accused of setting up an authoritarian state, jiggling with electoral laws, placing cronies in the judiciary and media, and squeezing funding for groups critical of his regime. Orban was re-elected in 2014 with more than double the combined vote of the next two candidates. Mainstream politicians are also critical of Orban, but they know that the alternative is even less attractive — the extreme right Jobbik party is Hungary’s second-largest.

The Czech billionaire media-magnet Andrej Babis has also been recently swept into power with his own political party, ANO, ‘Action of Dissatisfied Citizens’, where his anti-immigration policies appealed to many voters who agreed with the Czech president Milos Zeman that the flight of refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan was an ‘organised invasion’.

In 2015 Slovakia’s Interior Ministry spokesman Ivan Metik announced it will only accept Christian migrants when it takes in Syrian refugees under an EU relocation plan. Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, reinforced that message the following year, saying that Slovakia will not accept ‘one single Muslim’ migrant into the country.’ He further stated ‘…Islam has no place in Slovakia… I do not wish there were tens of thousands of Muslims.’

Political factions almost everywhere have turned immigration into a political football. Ruling nationalist party leaders have seldom dissociated themselves from xenophobic racist violence. During the 2015 election campaign, PiS politicians ranted about immigrants and hate-crimes have multiplied six-fold since 2010.

Capitalism both unites and divides workers. The system compels our fellow workers to unite in order to defend their interests, but it also imposes upon us the necessity to compete individually for jobs. This rivalry creates animosity between workers of different nationalities, regions and religions, by endeavouring to bind the workers of one nation to the idea that they have a common interest with ‘their’ nation’s employers. The only way to overcome these divisions is to strive for the solidarity of all workers, regardless of their nationality, language or faith. Native-born workers may think that excluding migrant workers will help them. But if the employers can hurt one section of the working class, it is easier to hurt the other.

Our fellow workers in Central and Eastern Europe have nothing to gain from the return of nationalisms which ravaged this part of the world several times.  Our class is clearly international. We are all interdependent. The Socialist Party maintains that workers must free themselves of patriotism and any concept of national superiority, for without discarding these ideas of the ruling class they will never themselves be free.

‘We have to fight against nationalism,’ said Jean Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, ‘We have the duty not to follow populists but to block the avenue of populists,’ adding, ‘Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians…’.

We can only agree. Instead of nation-states (or transnational trading blocs), we could have instead a worldwide socialist cooperative commonwealth as an alternative way of life.

ALJO

Cooking the Books: Free is Cheaper (2017)

The Cooking the Books column from the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1964 a group of American liberal intellectuals calling themselves the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution submitted to President Johnson, on their own initiative, a set of proposals to deal with the impact of what was then called 'cybernation'. They argued that the coming of machines that didn't require a large labour force to operate them would lead to increasing unemployment and so less paying demand for goods and services. To remedy this, they proposed to break the link between income and having a job by instituting a guaranteed income for everyone, employed or not.

The socialists of the time saw the 'problem' the Committee perceived of industry being able to provide plenty for all with less living labour as reinforcing the case for socialism, making possible the application of 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs' on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. They regarded what the Committee proposed as pitifully inadequate and impossible under capitalism.

Now, over fifty years later, another group – University College London's Institute for Global Prosperity – has come up with a similar proposal to deal with the same drop in employment and income they expect to result from growing automation. Their proposal is in fact more radical: that 'free housing, food, transport and access to the internet should be given to British citizens in a massive extension of the welfare state':

 'The recommendations include doubling Britain’s existing social housing stock with funding to build 1.5m new homes, which would be offered for free to those in most need. A food service would provide one third of meals for 2.2m households deemed to experience food insecurity each year, while free bus passes would be made available to everyone, rather than just the over-60s. The proposals also include access to basic phone services, the internet, and the cost of the BBC licence fee being paid for by the state ' (Guardian, 11 October).

 This 'universal basic service' is offered as an alternative to the 'universal basic income' that others have proposed to deal with the same perceived problem of the impact of advancing technology of employment and incomes. From a socialist point of view, it is more attractive as it would reduce rather than pander to money-commodity relations. There were some members of the Socialist Party members in the 1950s who saw extending free services as the way to socialism (they left).

 The trouble is that, as a reform of the 'welfare state', it is envisaged as being implemented under capitalism to deal with the problem of how to deal with people without an income from employment. Its proponents claim that it is 'fully costed' as all reforms have to be these days. They say that 'the value for an individual using all services would represent £126 of net weekly earnings' which could be funded by reducing the personal tax allowance; in other words, by reducing net weekly earnings. Which sounds like the 'redistribution of poverty' that the 'welfare state' has been all about.

 A weekly saving of this amount would have the same effect as a weekly basic income of the same amount. It would be a wage subsidy to employers and so would exert a downward pressure on wages. Much better to go the whole hog and abolish the wages (work for money) system through making the means of production the common property of all, so that everyone can have free access to all of what they need.

Those Reform Patches. (1909)

A Short Story from the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scene: the spacious offices attached to the large works of that well known firm, The International Industrial and Financial Co., Ltd. Several clerks are busy with the usual office routine. under the suprvision of the chief clerk. Mr. I. L. Peert, who looks spick and span and has a habit of casting covert glances at the large mirror over the mantle-piece, just to reassure himself that his appearance is respectable. Enter through door leading from workshop, the fitter and engineer of the works, S. P. G. Britten, who carries a piece of oily waste and a smell of grease about with him. as well as a grimy face.

Definitions: Old Boiler - Capitalist System ; Directors — Capitalist Class; Patches — Reforms; New Boiler — Socialism.

Britten : Good Morning, Mr. Peert.

Peert : Er —morning Britten. Do you wish to see me ?

Britten : Well, yes. I must see you or somebody about that Old Boiler.

Peert : Boiler ! What, again ?

Britten : Yes, Mr. Peert, again. It is rapidly falling to pieces; it is awfully hard work trying to keep any fire in at all, and as for steam, why, it does not supply the “hands” with a third of their requirements, work they ever so hard. 

Peert : Ah ! it is a waste of good material even from the employers' standpoint, not to meet the people’s wants. I must look up some statistics on the subject and elaborate them.

Britten : But you understand the urgency —

Peert : Oh, yes. I was going to say that meantime our Directors will be round this way I hope, and I will ask them to kindly consider the advisability of conferring with their friends, Messrs. Muddlem & Co., with a view to having another Patch or two put on the Old Boiler. Messrs. Muddlem will doubtless report in due course, and if we can only induce you to keep your demands within moderate limits, possibly we shall manage to keep things going —

Britten : Mr. Peert! What is the good of talking about more patches? I am continually telling you that nothing less than a New Boiler is of any use whatever. The old one is quite worn out; it has served its turn and done very well—for the Directors—but is now only fit for the scrap heap. It has been patched to such an extent that there is little room left for another, indeed, you have to keep Patching previous Patches, and as fast as you try to make good one defect it breaks through in one or two other places. I repeat that the thing is quite rotten, and it is useless and futile to mess about with it any longer. You know quite well that our men are in a bad way owing to its present condition.

Peert : Ah, yes. I quite agree, the Old Boiler is worn out and the men are suffering accordingly. But we must do nothing rash, Britten, or we shall spoil our ease and not get even another Patch, and so long as the thing will hold together we must accept the Patches, if offered, as the directors will not order a new machine. I really dare not approach them with such a request. As regards the men, you know that 1 do my best for them as secretary of the soup kitchen and bread fund. 

Britten : But what in the world is the good of that? It is only tinkering with the effects and does not touch the cause of all the trouble. Here is a machine that is quite worn out and unsafe, and the only remedy is a new one. You have been Patching the Old Boiler for generations, and all the time it has been getting worse. The people have been so blinded with Patches that they are unable to see the defective and dangerous condition of the machine, but you, Mr. Peert, profess to see the defects and agree, in the main, as to the only real remedy, and yet you talk “Patches” like the rest of them. Its, folly. Sir, absolute folly. 

Peert : No, Britten, you are wrong in not being more expedient in your methods. You will never get anything if you ask for it all at once ; you must learn to lx* more judicious. 1 have to be judicious or I would very soon lose my job and only ask for a part, and then you will possibly get some. Now every Patch is a step in the direction of a New Boiler.

Britten : What ! How on earth can the Patching of the Old Boiler, with a view to making it last longer, be a step towards a new one? 

Peert : My friend, you are really too impetuous. If you only knew our Directors well as I do you would talk more reasonably.

Britten : I believe 1 know enough about the Directors, but possibly I know more about the workers and Boilers. Besides, Mr. Peert, do you not think that if you were more insistent in asking for a New Boiler you would then get your beloved but useless Patches far easier and in more often? Now just come along with me and have another look at the old crock, and you will see for yourself that— 

Peert : Oh, I know it is in a bad way and I admit that you understand these things better than I do. But when one has to deal with influential men like our Directors, who cling to their constitution, which, by the way, you must admit is a better one than any foreign firm can boast of, why, one has to be careful. 

Britten : Damn the constitution! The Old Boiler is rotten; the people are starving and degraded in spite of your bread and soup funds, and at the risk of losing my job, I tell you plainly, Mr. Peert, you are acting the goat in order to keep your already insecure place, and you are already currying favour with the powers that be, with one eye on the chance of your becoming one of those powers yourself. You are well aware that the Patches are a delusion and a fraud, and I for one, will have nothing more to do with them.

Peert : Well, there are plenty more who will attend to them, Britten.

Britten : Unfortunately that is so at present, but there will be fewer who will attend to them before 1 lay down my tools for good.

Exit Britten into the workshop to have another dig at the Old Boiler, while Mr. I. L. Peert turns to meet the disconcerting glances of his fellow clerks, muttering something about “a troublesome chap.”

Cuffey.

That's Different. (1909)

A Short Story from the September 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A man with an ax flew by Socrates, chasing another man:

"Stop him ! Stop him !” cried he of the weapon. "He’s a murderer! ”

But the old sage wasn’t taking any chances, and jogged on imperturbably.

"You fool! ” quoth he of the ax. "Why didn’t you stop him ? He’s a murderer, I tell you! ”

"A murderer! What’s a murderer ? ”

"Fool! One that kills, of course.”

"Ah ! a butcher.”

"No, idiot! That’s different. One that kills a man.”

"Oh ! Ah, a soldier.”

"No! No! That’s different altogether. One that kills a man in times of peace ! ”

“A hangman! ”

"No! No ! No! That’s different. One that kills a man in bis house ! ”

"A doctor, then! ”

"No! No! No! No! No! That’s different.” 

Running along after him (2,000 years after) comes another man with flaming eyes: ‘‘Stop him! Stop him!” he cries, pointing to something he sees, or thinks he sees, ahead of him. "Stop him! He’s a Socialist! "

"A Socialist! What’s a Socialist? ”

"Why a believer in state industries, of course.”

"Oh, I see ? The railways, post offices, customs, drains, and all that.”

"No, that's different! I mean competing against private enterprise.”

"Oh ! schools, universities, and the like.”

"No! No! That’s different. 1 mean state trading . The fellows that expect everything done for them by the state ! A loafer that wants to share the earnings of the industrious workers! ”

“Ah ! Ah ! A nobleman who has inherited land.”

"No ! No! That’s different. I mean—.” 

From the Sydney Bulletin.

An S.D.P. Curio. (1909)

From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A surprising discovery has been recently made in an old, old Roman camp at Elslack, near Skipton. It was a volume shaped like an exercise book, made of that inferior kind of paper which stamped it at once as reminiscent of the twentieth century. In some strange way it had become mingled with the potteries and coins of the old camp, perhaps left there by some twentieth century explorer. A thorough examination proved it to be an old minute book belonging to the Burnleigh Branch of the Social Democratic Party, and as luckily a specialist in things historical is now investigating the wobbling and bewildering policy of this one time well-known party it will perchance be of valuable historical interest. I write a few extracts culled at random from this mysterious volume.

The Secretary, Mr. I. Dirving, read the minutes of previous meeting. Twenty-five members present. Queetons were invited on the minutes. Tertullian inquired about the antics of Mominsen, who had recently joined the Tariff Reformers (these being one of the side-tracking sects of that time). Was it true that this Mominsen had been cheekily saying that ha had as much right to advocate Tariff Reform as a palliative as other Socialists had Free Imports? Another member remarked that Mominsen was gulling the workers by a deliberate distortion of the word “palliative,” for was not Socialism itself a palliative?

Arising out of the minutes Euselrius enquired as to the truth in the report of a member mentioned having tried to form a suicide club, consisting of those members of the branch who were Conscious Pessimists,and uttered in unison an amount of commonplace pseudo-philosophic pessimism anent the impossibility of cultivating the working class—not including in the phrase “working class,” of coarse, the members named. He was informed that the allegation was an S.P.G.B. calumny, and that one S.P.G.B. firebrand in particular was persistently commenting on the alleged indifference of certain S.D.Peers because they had, after a few years’ experience of reform agitation been “fed up” with it. Many other members of the branch had also been charged by the same clique with holding a foolish fatalism and with being like those Eastern philosophers mentioned by Gibbon who “sat motionless year after year absorbed in the contemplation of their own navels.”

Celsus questioned about members of the branch sitting on the directive board of the Co operative Society, whether the Society was a revolutionary body, and could members improve working-class conditions by being on the picnic or library committees of the society. He was told that fine work had been done by our members, that margarine was being bought shillings a cwt cheaper owing to the exertions of one of our members, and that Mr. H. G. Wells' great work, “New Worlds for Old," had been placed on the library shelves.

Origen asked the secretary if they could not obtain more uniformity in their speakers, that one week the speaker would condemn palliatives and the four following weeks perhaps the lecturers would speak of reforms with laudation. It was pointed out that the action of a certain organisation made it imperative that occasionally we have speakers who would put the straight position, but it would be seen to at election times that the more extreme men were silenced in some way.

Arising from the correspondence a member said it was sad to think the Sunday morning discussion class was to be abandoned, and what was the reason? Answered that the previous year had seen a successful choir and cycling club, but that for some incomprehensible reason the discussion class had been a complete fiasco. Besides, a discussion class attracted a certain sententious type of individual not possessed of the sweet reasonableness of the choir members. They saw the dilemma. The wreckers or blackleg Socialists would attend and argue indefinitely, while their own members were apathetic toward politics. It had, however, been definitely decided to form a class for the study of botany; a dart club was also to be originated. He believed, said the secretary, their comrades at Sarle Hyke boasted the finest dart team in the Kingdom.

Augustine questioned on the matter of Socialist councillor Harry Lee Henry being on the committee of the Guild of Help, an organisation formed for the economic distribution of alms. The secretary said that the Guild of Help was a non-party organisation, witness the fact that both Liberal and Tory were connected with it. The larger a material platform, remarked the chairman, the more it would accommodate, but the larger a mental platform the smaller the number it would hold. As an organisation they must be tolerant so as to attract all and sundry to the fold.

Epictetus said: arising from this point, had their candidates come to any agreement on the reform question? It was answered that one was opposed to secular education, another to compulsory evening schools, another to proportional representation, but they had united on the common ground of a complete abolition of the smoke nuisance, and incidentally on the question of Socialism.

Lucian asked could they not amalgamate with the I.L P. in the town and thus prevent confusion in the minds of the workers. They had a common aim, Socialism, and agreed on the desirability of working with the trade union forces. Why not present a united front to the enemy? Answer: the S.D.P. as an organisation refused to join the National Labour Party, but locally individual branches had a free hand. Just as a general on the field of battle must adapt his tactics in different parts of the field to varying requirements, must sometimes practice contradictory tactics at one and the same time, may both be traitor and patriot, cautious tactician and daring fighter; just as in logic a thing can both be and not be—

Here the manuscript ends.

John A. Dawson

Proper Gander: Nutters and Putters (2017)

The Proper Gander column from the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Television programmes (and magazine articles) about Donald Trump are rarely in short supply, thanks to his knack for being a symptom of just about everything wrong with society. The upcoming anniversary of his presidency starting has given another opportunity to try and explain how on earth he got where he is. For starters, Channel 4 have broadcast an epic four-part account of his life called 'Trump: An American Dream', although 'nightmare' would be a better description. Other shows have focused on particular aspects of his rise, such as who his supporters are and his relationship with Scotland.

In 'Angry, White and American' (Channel 4), reporter Gary Younge goes on a road trip through Maine, Pennsylvania and Mississippi to speak with people who aren't ashamed to admit on camera they voted for Trump. Younge wants to learn what experiences and mindsets led people to wave the flag and cast their vote for the dangerous demagogue. He's interested in the extent to which economic deprivation has undermined the sense of identity which many white working class (by which he means blue-collar) Americans have had. In places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania, heavy industries used to provide local employment until the markets turned and they stopped being profitable. As factories closed down and jobs were lost, the little financial security felt by many communities fell apart. Trump found support from those struggling financially who believe that he'll revitalise industry back to some mythical golden age. But, as Younge points out, most of Trump's supporters are white, so if economic deprivation was a main driver for his support, then why didn't poor black and Latino people tend to vote for him? Younge speaks with Erin McClelland, a Democrat congressional candidate who suggests that non-white Americans have always felt dissatisfied by the system, but dissatisfaction among white people is a new thing: black people haven't had wealth and prosperity taken away from them, as white people have. While McClelland is obviously wrong about white people not being alienated by capitalism up to now, it may be that expectations have changed and this has led some voters towards Trump and his allies on the far right.

Trump and the far right have a reciprocal relationship. His most rabid supporters can be found here saluting and chanting 'Heil Trump', and in turn his rise to power has emboldened the movement. According to Younge, the far right and Trump's advisers 'swim in the same pool'. Prominent white supremacist Richard Spencer (who coined the term 'alt right', an odious attempt to rebrand fascism) is visited by Younge at a rally. Spencer's sharp suit and fixed smile can't disguise his abhorrent views, such as promoting a 'white only' ethno-state. Other opinions rattling around inside his tiny brain are just as vile and ridiculous, like 'Africans have benefited from their experience with white supremacy' and 'if Africans had never existed, world history would be almost exactly the same as it is today'.

Those who voted for Trump to 'make America great again' seem to fall into two types: those who explicitly connect him with the narrow-minded racism of the far right and those who choose to ignore the bigotry which comes with nationalism. The latter, when interviewed by Younge, downplay America's slave-owning history and the connotations of the confederate flag.

Over in Britain, we're sadly not immune to Trump's influence. In 'Donald Trump: Scotland's President' (BBC1), reporter Glenn Campbell looks at the links (including golfing ones) Trump has with Scotland. His mother was born on the island of Lewis before leaving its rugged tranquillity for the bustle of 1930s Manhattan. According to those interviewed by Campbell, she taught Trump the value of getting attention, as well as traits like respectability and a sense of community which may have transferred less well to his adult life. When Trump visited Lewis in 2008 he reportedly spent 97 seconds in his mother's birthplace before jetting off to Aberdeen for an inquiry into his plans for a golf resort north of the city. This inquiry was held after local councillors had turned down his proposal, fearing that two golf courses, a hotel and conference centre, 950 holiday homes and 550 houses would ruin the area's natural habitats. The then-First Minister Alex Salmond stepped in and following the inquiry the Scottish government granted the planning application. A few locals have stoically refused to sell their homes to make way for the development, including one who flies a Mexican flag in solidarity with others threatened by what Trump wants to build. Those who agreed the development thought that the promised billion pound investment would justify an area of special scientific interest being built on. However, five years after the project opened, the second course and houses haven't been built and an area which used to be a wilderness now looks manicured. Many regret the decision.

The development of Trump's golf course ('the greatest golf course ever built', according to him) shows that if you wave enough money at something, you tend to get your own way in the end. His rise to power highlights other features of our capitalist society, such as how economic struggles and finding scapegoats in other groups fuel support for the far right, as it did in 1930s Germany. Far from being the trailblazer which his supporters want him to be, Donald Trump represents capitalism at its worst.

Mike Foster

Waste Paper and Old Tin. (1909)

From the November 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Capitalism, with all its attendant evils of poverty and distress, is doomed. The dawn of the Cooperative Commonwealth is even now at hand: be it yours to vote and work to hasten the noontide of the happier day it promises for us all. .  .  . I have, as you know; always stood as a Socialist, in favour of a definite programme and policy on Socialist lines, because I am convinced that by the realisation of Socialism alone can the many injustices and inequalities of social and industrial life be redressed."

The above is culled from the election address of Mr. Dan Irving, issued this November to the electors of Burnley. It is the theoretical, the word-stuff specifically coined to catch flats. Now for the real—and the anti-climax.

The "Burnley Express” of October 9th contained a report of a Council meeting, the star turns “Socialist” councillors Irving and Lees being present. A question of vital importance to the worker was under discussion, not one of your puny palliatives, but a knotty administrative, collective ownership, municipal enterprise problem. “To institute a system of collecting waste paper and cardboard, apart from other refuse, from tradesmen; and also to recommend the purchase of a tin-crushing machine” (to smash with lightning celerity dilapidated salmon tins). Harry Lees mentioned paper collecting systems at Bury and said that this method kept the streets tidy and the tips sightly; and the tin-crushing machine took up very little room and would cost but £100. and the saleable value of the tins would be increased four or fivefold. Liberal councillor Race suggested that the tins might after all be crushed by the steam roller, but ridiculous! responded Lees, who pointed out that Nelson (which boasts a Labour council and mayor) made a profit of £25 a year by tin crushing. Dan Irving submitted that if they collected waste paper from shops less would get into the streets. But by a vote of 18 to 8 it was decided that a tin-crushing machine was not required, and another example of municipal "Socialism” was ruthlessly crushed in the bud. £25 profit in a year! Could it not have been used to lower the rates, or to cover the expenses of a deputation to Guernsey to investigate the market building scheme?

And this is what the Social Democratic movement in Burnley has culminated in. Men and women who have been in the thick of the fight, who have been victimised by ruthless employers and compelled to seek fresh fields and pastures new, or have given gratuitously time and energy to street corner agitation and converse with their mates in the workshop, those who have canvassed and paid and worked and borne obloquy—all receive their reward in such laughable and petty administration. Those who have worked and remain S.D.Pers, those who have worked and ratted, those who have worked and tired.—we ask one and all, is this what you have worked for? If not, come outside and join the only Socialist organisation in Great Britain.

John A. Dawson

Obituary: Robert Stroud (1909)

Obituary from the December 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to learn that the Cause has lost an earnest and efficient worker by the death of Comrade Robert Stroud, of Toronto, Canada. Taking "the worker's risk" at his employment recently, he met with a severe accident and, after a hard struggle for life, died. Comrade Stroud had taken great interest in circulating the "Socialist Standard" in Canada, and in other ways had been very active for the Cause. We send heartfelt condolence to his bereaved family and friends, associating with ourselves, as we are sure we may, every member of our Party.

Capitalism's crisis cycle (1982)

Cartoon by George Meddemmen.

From the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is a system of society in which the means of production take the form of “capital” or wealth used to produce other wealth with a view to profit. It is a system where wealth is produced to be sold profitably on a market. For capitalism to have come into existence (and to continue to exist) certain conditions have to be met, in particular the separation of the producers from the means of production. The producers must have been reduced to the status of a propertyless proletariat compelled to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary to the minority who monopolise (own and control) the means of production. The essential features of capitalism are then: production for profit, buying and selling, wage labour, class monopoly of the means of production and distribution.

Capitalism differs from other systems of society by the fact that under it production is not carried on for use. Even under another class system like feudalism most production was for use; the peasants produced their own subsistence needs, the rest going in kind to maintain the barons, the church and other exploiters. It was the same in ancient slave society. Capitalism is different in that goods are no longer produced to be directly used but to be sold on a market with a view to profit.

Decisions about production — what to produce, how it is produced, where it is produced, and soon — are no longer simple decisions to produce what is needed, either by the producers or by their exploiters. Decisions about production become decisions to produce those goods which, at any moment, appear most likely to procure a profit when they are sold. In other words, production is governed by the search for profits, by the impersonal forces of the market which express themselves in the minds of the individual capitalists (or of their hired managers) as the "profit motive”.

As a matter of fact the situation is even more impersonal than this simplified description might suggest. For the individual capitalist does not seek profits just to satisfy their own personal needs. To stay a capitalist they are obliged to reinvest. rather than consume in riotous living, the greater part of the profits they make — in other words, to accumulate capital. It is this in fact — the accumulation of capital — rather than simply making profits that is the object of production under capitalism. The individual capitalist, just as much as the wage and salary earner, is a mere cog in this economic mechanism which is beyond human control and which operates independently of human will.

The accumulation of capital is not the mere amassing of greater and greater sums of money; it reflects itself as the expansion of the means of production, the growth of the stock of machines, factories, means of transport and communication and other means for producing wealth.

This growth, however, does not proceed smoothly and in a straight upward line. The general trend is upward — capitalism has immensely increased the stock of means of production since it made its historical debut in the 16th century and particularly since it entered its industrial phase in the 18th century — but this growth is in fits and starts. Illustrated graphically capitalism’s growth pattern would be an alternating series of peaks and troughs, with each peak normally being higher than the previous one. Or, more accurately, as a series of upward moving waves. Traditionally of course the metaphor that has been used is of a cyclical movement, the ups and downs of growth under capitalism being described as "the business cycle”, the "trade cycle” or the “economic cycle”.

Marx’s explanation, in a nutshell, is that growth under capitalism is cyclical due to the unplanned nature of production — what he calls the “anarchy of production” or the fact that production decisions are taken by a host of independent, profit-seeking, competing firms. This anarchy of production coupled to the search for profits, said Marx, leads to one sector of the economy over-expanding in relation to the others, so provoking by a chain reaction a more general slow-down or halt to growth.

Marx, towards the end of Volume II of Capital (published after his death by Engels from his notes and thus not a form Marx would necessarily have regarded as ready for publication) divides production into two main sectors, or departments:

Dept I: producing means of production or what academic economists today would call "producer goods" or "capital goods”.
Dept II: producing means of consumption or "consumer goods”.

If there is to be steady growth then these two sectors must grow in proportion. The necessary proportion is quite easy to work out. Thus Ernest Mandel in his Introduction (not at all bad apart from the occasional nonsense about Russia being "non-capitalist" or "post-capitalist") to the new Penguin translation of Volume II:

. . . the equilibrium formula of expanded reproduction . . . implies an identity of the rate of growth of demand for consumer goods generated by department I. and a rate of growth of constant capital in department II (p.67).

In a sense this division of production into only two sectors is a gross simplification but its logic lies in the fact that it brings out that capitalism is not a system of production for use and that the output of Department II is restricted in the end by the need to limit the consumption of the producers at the expense of profits and capital accumulation. All the same, there are in fact as many sectors as there are industries and, if growth is to be smooth, all these sectors, or sub-sectors, must expand proportionately. It is thus easy to see how, given the anarchy of production, crises are possible, in fact inevitable, under capitalism. As Mandel puts it:

the very structure of the capitalist mode of production, as well as its laws of motion, imply that the "conditions of equilibrium" are inevitably destroyed; that “equilibrium" and "harmonious growth" are marginal exceptions to (or long-term averages of) normal conditions of disequilibrium (“overshooting” between the two departments) and uneven growth, (p.31)

Crises are due not to simple disproportionality but come about because this happens in the context of a society where production is for profit and where consumption is restricted by the majority being exploited by a minority class. A crisis, as a more or less sudden stop to growth, is in fact only one phase of the capitalist economic cycle. In Volume I of Capital (which he did himself see to the press) Marx speaks of the “life of industry" being a "series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity, overproduction, crisis and stagnation" which are “recurring cycles whose successive phases cover a number of years and which always end in a general crisis, which is the end of one cycle and starting point of another".

The key factor governing the move from one of these phases to the next — from moderate activity to prosperity to overproduction and crisis to stagnation — is profits, short and medium term variations in the rate of profit.

In the period of moderate activity, which is the period of recovery just after the stagnation (the period Tory ministers have been saying for the past year or so is just round the corner!), industrial activity is beginning to pick up. This means that more workers are in employment and have more money to spend. More money to spend means a larger market for consumer goods, which means that capitalist firms in this sector will expand production ordering new factories, machines and raw materials from the producer goods sector. This interaction between the two sectors eventually leads to the period of prosperity and boom, with relatively full employment, rising wages, full order books. So it is the confirmation of the confidence that capitalist firms had in being able to sell profitably what they produced that leads from the period of "moderate activity" to that of "prosperity”.

But this period of prosperity does not last for ever. It inevitably ends in "overproduction", as capitalist firms become over-confident. This is because the competing firms in an industry all assume that they will sell their goods profitably on the expanding market. As a result the total amount produced comes to be more than enough to satisfy the market. In this sense, there is “overproduction” in one industry. This leads to lay-offs and cutbacks of production which affect other industries, and so to a generalised "overproduction” and an end to the boom.

In Marx's day, when most industry and trade was financed by trade bills, this led to a loss of confidence in credit and to a financial crash — or crisis in the sense Marx used it in this context. Then followed the period of stagnation: a fall in industrial output, mass unemployment — which is what we today more usually mean by crisis.

The evolution from "stagnation” to "moderate activity" is once again governed by a change in the rate of profit. As a slump continues the conditions are eventually created for a restoration of profit levels and a gradual recovery of economic activity. Profit levels are restored by a number of factors: (1) depreciation of capital, through bankruptcies, write-offs, takeovers, fall in the value of stocks and so on: (2) a fall in real wages; (3) a fall in real interest rates as the supply of capital for lending comes to exceed the demand. These three factors all work to increase the rate of industrial profit and eventually bring about a recovery, and so the cycle recommences.

This is our analysis of the current slump. It is one phase of the economic cycle which is repeated under capitalism and will in time give way to the next phases: moderate activity, prosperity and then another crisis and stagnation. In other words, capitalism will eventually recover from the present crisis.

So, to sum up, growth under capitalism is not smooth and steady but cyclical. Crises occur because of the uneven development of the various sectors of the economy which is inevitable given the anarchy of production which reigns under capitalism. The present slump is not the final crisis of capitalism, nor the beginning of a permanent depression, but simply one phase of the economic cycle which will sooner or later come to an end — even if this turns out to be later (say, the 1990s) rather than sooner.

Adam Buick