Pensions and Poverty (1954)

From the May 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

In April, 1908, a young man lost a bye-election in North-West Manchester. He had been President of the Board of Trade in Mr. Asquith’s government, serving on the cabinet with Sir Edward Grey, Haldane and Lloyd George. A brilliant future was predicted for him. His name was Winston Churchill. He was not out of Parliament for long. In the Manchester Reform Club after the count a messenger brought a telegram from the Liberal party in Dundee, inviting him to contest a pending bye-election. Before Dundee voted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented his budget, with provision for the payment of old age pensions.

The decision of the Liberal government of 1908 to introduce the Old Age Pensions Act was first announced in the King’s speech in January of that year and was met with cries of, “The country can’t afford it!” (The annual cost was £6 million—today it is over £275 million.) Nevertheless, the year saw the Act passed, granting to people of 70 or over a pension of from 1s. to 5s., subject to a means test. After 1908 many Acts covering sickness and unemployment insurance were passed, including the Widows’, Orphans’ and Old Age Contributory Pension Scheme of 1925— which introduced contributory pensions—and the Old Age Pensions Act of 1936. which allowed non-contributory pensions at 70. Thus when the 1939 war came the Statute Book carried a mass of legislation dealing with national insurance. The system had developed piecemeal and contained many inconsistencies and much overlapping between government departments, local authorities and the Approved Societies.

To unravel this tangle an inter-departmental committee was set up in June 1941, under the chairmanship of Sir William (now Lord) Beveridge, to survey the whole field of social insurance and allied schemes and to make recommendations on their inter-relation. This committee produced in November 1942 the famous Beveridge report. At that time, in the depth of the war, the report appealed widely as a design for a great new world and many extravagant hopes were conceived. Beveridge, himself was, apparently, less sanguine. In the Sunday Times of 14/2/54 he says, “The Beveridge Report . . .  was a model . . .  of financial caution and of moral responsibility, above all in regard to pensions.”

In February 1946 the National Insurance Act 1946 was debated in the House of Commons. Although the Bill was sponsored by the Labour government of the time, the Conservatives gave their support and the second reading was taken without a division. The Act implemented many of Beveridge’s recommendations and covered a wide and complex field. The principle of the “subsistence level”—that is, benefits as of right high enough to command the bare necessities of life—was accepted and a method of adjusting benefits to allow for changes in the cost of living was devised. Minimum old age pensions were immediately raised to 26s. per week, thus rejecting Beveridge’s proposal of a gradual increase over a period of years. Perhaps it was this splash of generosity which moved Mr. Arthur Greenwood to say in the debate on the Bill, “ It . . .  is a contribution to the better life which . . .  the people of this country richly deserve . . . which will enable the people . . . to tread the path of greater freedom with great dignity . . . ”

As laid down in the National Insurance Act of 1946, retirement pensions were easily the most expensive of benefits. It was estimated at the time that in the first year of their payment they would account for half the cost of the entire National Insurance Scheme and by 1976 for two-thirds of the total cost In addition, many people receiving pensions at the new higher rate had only contributed amounts in accordance with the former (lower) pension. Thus it was expected that even if pensions remained at 26s. per week, the expenditure of the pension fund would eventually exceed its income. But the rise of prices since 1946 has reduced the buying power of the 26s., so that in 1951 and again in 1952 it was necessary to apply the principle of the "subsistence level” and increase the minimum retirement pension. Today it stands at 32s. 6d. And old age pensions, whatever the amount will become steadily payable to an increasing number—in the next 20 years the number of people of pensionable age will rise from seven million to 10 million.

These factors have aggravated the problem of balancing the accounts of the National Insurance Fund. The government actuary’s report on the scheme for 1951-52 estimated that only 5 per cent of expenditure on retirement pensions is covered by past contributions: this year is expected to be the last in which the fund’s income from contributions and exchequer assistance will balance with its expenditure. In the future there will be a growing deficit which will rise to about £417 millions by 1978 and which can only be eased by such measures as: (a) reducing pensions; (b) postponing the minimum pensionable age; or (c) increasing contributions. Once again, “. . . the country can’t afford it! . . .” The Manchester Guardian of 10/2/54 commented, “ The problems involved . . .  are such that it could make the financing of National Insurance a main issue at the next election.” So we are nearly back to Dundee, 1908!

Nobody should conclude from this that the life of an old age pensioner is one long spree of riotous extravagance. In fact, the worry of making ends meet presses as heavily today as ever. Both the News Chronicle and the Manchester Guardian have recently published a series of articles on the serious distress of old people. A letter to the editor of the News Chronicle on 4/3/54 told of an unexpected visit on a woman pensioner which found her without a fire, making a dinner of a slice of dry bread and a meat extract cube dissolved in water. In the Manchester Guardian of 11/11/53 appeared the story of a W.V.S. worker who helped to distribute cheap lunches to old people in Poplar. Among those she served was the blind man who lived alone in a room at the top of a lodging house, who never had a fire, a plate or a saucepan. He would sometimes grumble and swear, sometimes smile obsequiously, at the women who brought his food. And there was an old woman who lay in a room congested with dusty Victorian furniture, who never spoke, only glared and spat into a kitchen bowl. These are not exceptional cases. In his report for 1953 the Medical Officer for Brighton recorded some terrible poverty amongst the aged and contended that their lot has actually worsened since the introduction of the so-called Welfare State. The National Federation of Old Age Pensioners’ Associations calculated in May 1953, after a survey of 2,700 pensioners, that the 32s. 6d. per week fell short of a single pensioner's actual needs by 6s. 6d. and that many pensioners were consequently living below the line of subsistence. These facts are hard to reconcile with Mr. Greenwood's promised path of freedom and dignity.

Inadequate pensions have compelled more and more people to apply for National Assistance. In December 1953 nearly one and a quarter million persons who were drawing National Insurance benefits were also receiving National Assistance. About 80 per cent, of these were old and sick. The needs of a single person, excluding rent, are assessed by the National Assistance Board at 35s. per week. In most cases an additional average of 11s. 6d. per week is granted for rent. This payment is subject to a means test. According to the National Federation of Old Age Pensioners, it leaves less than 2s. to be spent on food each day. This, then, is the outcome of the hopes and the promises to care for the aged. We have a pensions scheme, which, whilst fast running into the red, does not provide benefits large enough to keep pensioners on the level of bare subsistence, so forcing them to submit to a means test to obtain assistance which in turn is insufficient. The reformers’ plans have once more gone awry: the means test of so many unpleasant memories is with us again. Lord Beveridge said in the House of Lords on 20/5/53 that “National Assistance, which the experts and I thought would have to continue on a small scale and would gradually diminish, is increasing year by year. Today there are at least twice as many people, nearly two million people, in receipt of National Assistance, subject to a means test, more than there were three or four years ago.”

Old people may well wonder why their burden is always so heavy. Firstly, they are not poor because they are old; but because they are old workers: their poverty is the distilled, concentrated poverty of the whole working-class. It is a condition which only the working-class experience—aged capitalists do not need to apply for National Assistance. Secondly, capitalism is not much interested in old people. Workers live only by their wage, which depends upon being able to work. When working ability is impaired by approaching old age the wage is threatened and eventually ceases. Employers, in their own interests, have most use for young workers—the old, if employed at all, are relegated to such jobs as nightwatchman or doorkeeper. Some firms are generous to their superannuated employees, but they are the exception and have little effect on the problem.

The decline in the working usefulness of old people is reflected in the community at large. They become unwanted, sometimes even by their own families. They are pushed from place to place and increasingly regarded as a nuisance. Some are left to decay in filthy, remote rooms. Others, like the old lady and the blind man in Poplar, maintain a fierce, abusive independence; perhaps they are the most pitiful of all.

It is fear of coming to this that makes workers support pension schemes in our workplaces and pay into the old age endowment policies which the insurance companies organise. The advertisements of these schemes aim to excite response by playing upon the dread of aid age. “ If it hadn’t been for him I should not have been provided for,” says the widow-like lady of one advertisement. The benefits of these schemes may ease old people’s poverty, but its abolition is well beyond their scope.

Despite the years of legislation since 1908, to grow old can still be a catastrophe. Pensions, allowances, cheap subsidised tobacco come and go—the pensioners’ poverty goes on, seemingly for ever. The history of old age pensions is one of despair, makeshift, futility— and distress. It is a fair sample of the history of reformism itself. This lesson must be learnt. Said Henry V to his reluctant soldiers before Agincourt, “Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot . . . " A melancholy phrase. Yet somewhere there must be hope. Is it too much to ask that old men should for once remember? We will settle for that. As a beginning.

Ivan

The Roma - Someone to Kick (2017)

From the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not that long ago, before the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees seeking safety and sanctuary, the target of the populist media and opportunist politicians was the Roma who were fleeing discrimination and persecution in their home countries. To the frustration of many, the Roma were EU citizens and therefore were entitled to go where they pleased within the EU. They were, also to the annoyance of many, largely non-Muslim, being mostly Christian and little threat to European 'culture'. So for the purposes of vilification the Roma were instead stereotyped as anti-social criminals. And just to make sure, in many places local anti-begging ordinances were passed to turn many of the Roma into law-breakers. Campaigns were initiated by central government and city authorities to evict and remove the Roma from the streets. They were even deported by some countries. In 2008 Equal Opportunities Commissioner Vladimír Špidla said 'Roma are one of the largest ethnic minorities in the EU, but too often they are Europe’s forgotten citizens. They face persistent discrimination and far-reaching social exclusion.'

Europe’s Roma were driven from northern India between the 11th and 12th centuries by invaders of the Ottoman Empire. The first laws against 'Gypsies' were passed in Germany, and then Hungary, in 1476 when King Matthias of the latter country ruled that all Gypsies be employed as slave-labour. Within a century, anti-Gypsy laws had been introduced in most of the other countries of Europe.

Most people do not realize that the Nazis were just as intent upon the genocide of the Roma as they were on the extermination of the Jews. 'Many groups were victimized [by the Nazis], but only the Jews and the Roma were victims of the Final Solution, victims of genocide', said Prof. Ian Hancock, the director of the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin. About 1.5 million Roma lost their lives and some countries such as Germany, Austria, and the Baltic states lost their entire Roma populations.

Compensation for Roma survivors of the Holocaust came many decades after the Jewish survivors began receiving their compensation. Petre Matei, a researcher at the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, said that one of the reasons that the Roma began to receive pensions decades after the Jewish survivors is because there is still a lot of discrimination against the Roma.

'The authorities said, ‘The Roma had nothing anyway, so what should they be compensated for?’' said Mirjam Karoly, the senior advisor on Roma and Sinti issues at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 'They were second-class victims' (tinyurl.com/yc4jtydp).

The compensation for Roma survivors has varied from country to country. For example, a year ago, it was announced that Roma survivors in the Czech Republic would get a one-time payment of 2,500 euros. In Romania, survivors began to receive monthly pensions from Germany two years ago. Because the compensation came 70 years after the end of the war, very few of the survivors were still living. Of the 300 Roma Holocaust survivors in Romania who applied for German pensions because they were deported to concentration camps, 200 survivors received the pensions which average approximately 200 euros monthly plus a sum of approximately 12,000 euros which is supposed to make up for the money that they should have been paid in the last 10 years. The other 100 Roma concentration camp survivors did not receive the pensions because they were younger than 11 years old during the war, so the German authorities decided that they were too young to perform forced-labour.

According to Ion Duminica, a Roma researcher at the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, at the so-called 'work-camps,' the Roma perished from hunger, typhus and from the cold. There were cases of cannibalism, with parents trying to save their starving children by feeding them dead family members. 'The Roma said, ‘We wished that we were executed like the Jews'', said Duminica, who interviewed survivors.

Marin Alla, the director of the Voice of the Roma Coalition, explained 'None of the Roma Holocaust survivors in Moldova currently receive German pensions', although Jewish Holocaust survivors in Moldova who were in camps, ghettos and labour battalions have been receiving a pension of 336 euros per month since 1998.

'They mistreated us then and they still mistreat us now,' said Artur Cerari, the Roma Baron of Moldova who is regarded as the most respected Roma leader in the former Soviet Union.

Has the victimisation and maltreatment of the Roma ended or lessened? While the average European says he is very comfortable with having someone from a different ethnic origin as a neighbour (with an average result of 8.1 on a scale of one to ten, where ten represents ‘totally comfortable’ and one ‘very uncomfortable’), the situation is completely different when it comes to having a Roma neighbour.

In the Czech Republic and in Italy, almost half of respondents would feel uncomfortable (average Czech score 3.7; average Italian score, 4.0. Slovakia 4.5, Bulgaria 4.8. This is also the case in Ireland at 4.8.Travellers and Roma people remain the most shunned groups by the Irish general public. While two percent said they would 'avoid' Polish people, and nine percent would avoid Africans, 37 percent would shun Roma people. The findings on attitudes to Roma were the 'direct result of entrenched, institutional and societal racism and oppression', said Maria Joyce, co-ordinator of the National Traveller Women’s Forum.

The continuing open discrimination against the Roma is a stain on several European nations. EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova recently singled out Bulgaria’s Vice-Prime Minister Simeonov for making racist remarks against Roma people. The current Czech President Miloš Zeman, when asked by a Romani woman for his opinion of Romani people, answered: ‘Romani people should stop destroying apartments and should go to work, and then I will consider them normal people’.

80 percent of Roma people in the EU are at risk of poverty, the European Commission has stated. In Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria, more than 60 percent of Roma children are segregated from other children in schools, according to the Commission's data. Slovakia is still discriminating against Roma children by placing them in segregated schools, despite the threat of fines from the European Union. Romani children in Slovakia are routinely assessed as having ‘mild mental disabilities’ and are then sent to special schools where they receive an inferior education. Researchers found a pattern of cultural bias among those responsible for placing children in special schools, which resulted in the misdiagnosis of dozens of Romani children.

'Romani children in Slovakia are being failed by a discriminatory primary school system which continues to segregate them and seriously hinder their education, condemning them to lives of poverty and exclusion,' the report said. Slovakia’s ingrained prejudices meant Romani children stood less of a chance from the moment they step in the classroom and became trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, marginalisation and despair.

130,000 children do not attend school in Bulgaria, and the majority of them are Roma. 22 percent of the Roma are illiterate and only nine percent have a secondary education even though it is compulsory, a recent study showed. The government has now organised teams to go around the country to convince Roma parents to send their children to school. But the ruling coalition of conservatives and ultra-nationalists is threatening to impose fines and suspend benefits for parents who fail to enrol their children. And those further to the Right seek to criminalise school non-attendance.

Aidan McGarry in 'Romaphobia' (tinyurl.com/y827f6wy) identifies the exclusion of the Roma as part of the nation-building in European countries. McGarry describes how the new nationalist states needed to point to populations who did not belong to the mythical nation-state so that by contrast, they could exalt their preferred subjects and create a national unity. Fomenting Romaphobia (and anti-Semitism) allowed nascent nation states to find the outsiders against whom these exalted subjects could unite.

An article at the Telesur website (tinyurl.com/yaqjr678) explains that Roma people have always been part of the fabric of European societies, but have been allowed to remain on condition of fulfilling the role of the least favoured in society, lower than serfs and in some instances, legally enslaved. The exploitation of Roma labour was used to amass great wealth for the Crown, the Church and the landowners, while the Roma people were kept in degrading conditions and brutalised so they didn't rebel against their lot in life. This ensured that whatever your station in life, there was always someone lower to look down upon and who could be exploited further, in much the same way that the wealth of the ruling class in the UK and the US was built upon the backs of black people through colonialism or enslavement.

ALJO

About Books (1954)

Book Review from the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

“William Thompson (1775-1833), Britain’s Pioneer Socialist, Feminist, and Co-operator,” by Richard K. P. Pankhurst (Watts & Co. 15s.)

Is it possible to establish Socialism in one part of the world whilst the remainder stays predominantly capitalist? That question is right in the forefront to-day. One hundred and thirty years ago the topical question was, "Is it possible to establish Socialism in one part of the country whilst Capitalism prevails in the remainder?” The change in the form of this question since the early days of the last century, gives a clue to its answer. The development of Capitalism, with the close knitting together of all the corners of the earth, has caused men to leave behind the parochial outlook of the 1820’s as they will ultimately discard their present nationalist one.

The Socialism of first half of the nineteenth century was a different proposition to the Socialism that we expound to-day. Marx and Engels labelled it “Utopian Socialism.” The amount of literature that the Utopian Socialists turned out and the general extent of their propaganda was astounding. They developed some fantastic pictures of a future society and planned to set up Co-operative communities in various parts of this country, anticipating that these communities would eventually squeeze capitalism out of existence. Such ideas were the product of the early days of industrial capitalism and denote the immaturity of the working class of the time.

But the propaganda of the “Utopians” had a very useful critical element. They attacked every principle and institution of capitalist society and the ideas they propounded were instrumental in forming and clarifying the thinking of their successors, including Marx and Engels.

The foremost names amongst the “Utopians” are St. Simon, Fourier and Robert Owen. But one of the most able and energetic propagandists of the time was William Thompson, an Irish landowner, who devoted his life to the movement.

“William Thompson (1775-1833), Britain’s Pioneer Socialist, Feminist, and Co-operator,” by Richard K. P. Pankhurst, has been published by Watts & Co. at 15s.

Mr. Pankhurst traces the life of Thompson from his birth in Cork in 1775 to his death on 28th March, 1833, at Rosscarbery and in doing so he introduces us to the personalities, the arguments and the struggles of the first co-operative societies. Thompson is shown to be an outstanding thinker of his day and the evidence is presented in the numerous and illuminating quotes from his works that sprinkle the pages of this book. Thompson’s main writings were four books, “An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth ” (1824), “Appeal of One Half of the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretentions of the Other Half, Men, to Restrain Them in Political and Thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery” (1825), “Labour Rewarded—the Claims of Labour and Capital Conciliated; or How to Secure to Labour the Whole Product of its Exertions” (1827) and, finally, “Practical Directions for the Speedy and Economical Establishment of Communities, on the Principle of Mutual Co-operation, United Possessions and Equality of Exertions and of the Means of Enjoyment” (1830).

The extracts from these works indicate that Thompson was in advance of other prominent economists and philosophers of his time—such as James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Robert Owen. He was the only one of the “ Utopian Socialists ” who clearly saw the class division of society, the need for the abolition of property and, especially, the need for political action on the part of the workers.

The final chapters of Mr. Pankhurst’s book are devoted to showing the influence that Thompson had on his contemporaries and successors, in particular on Karl Marx. The author quotes many sources from individuals who have claimed at one extreme that Marx absorbed Thompson’s ideas, lock, stock and barrel, to the other extreme that Thompson had but a fleeting influence on Marx. Probably the most level statement is one attributed to Schumpeter:

  "The Socialist thinkers of the nonage provided many a brick and many a tool that proved useful later on. After all, the very idea of a Socialist society was their creation, and it was owing to their efforts that Marx and his contemporaries were able to discuss it as a thing familiar to everyone. Many of the Utopians went much farther. They worked out details of the Socialist plan, thereby formulating problems—however inadequately— and clearing much ground. Even their contribution to purely economic analysis cannot be neglected. It provided a much needed leaven in an otherwise stodgy pudding and stood Marx in good stead.”

We can commend Mr. Pankhurst’s book. It has involved a lot of research and is interestingly written, presenting a heap of information in a pleasurable style. We would suggest that a preliminary reading of Frederick Engels, “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific” and “The Communist Manifesto” by Marx and Engels will ensure that the reader gets this life of William Thompson in perfect perspective.

W. Waters

Leaders and Led (1954)

From the July 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

In capitalist society the workers may find themselves short of many things but they are never short of “leaders.” The business of becoming a leader is an art which is followed by many for reasons which range from a mistaken sense of service and guidance to those who desire power solely and consciously in their own interest. Whichever the category to which the prospective leader belongs, his actions have the same result as far as the working class is concerned. The quest for places in professional leadership circles is a cunning and often ruthless task, the accent being on the cunning and ruthless method in countries openly dictatorial in form, while in the more democratic countries the method is more varied and subtle but none the less successful. In any case, we get our leaders either born great, having achieved greatness, or having greatness thrust upon them.

Our educational system is a vital part of the machinery for maintaining the idea of the desirability of leadership. The recent conference of the National Association of Head Teachers was treated to an address by its president. Miss Armstrong, in which she waxed eloquent on the leadership idea. She states that leaders are chosen for their “ability to lead” and she extolls democracy as being a situation that opens a way for the “humblest born to attain high prominence in the State as leaders.” We cannot but deplore and condemn such a view on democracy.

Miss Armstrong believes that one of the duties of teachers is to produce leaders though she does qualify this by saying that some teachers may disagree with this view. She, however, is full of hope that “brilliant children in Grammar Schools should be educated for leadership.”

In conformity with her leadership views she clinches her argument with reference to the teaching of religion in schools and its importance in bringing about the kind of society she wants to see (obviously, the leaders and the led). In this context she does not mention those teachers who disagree.
While on the subject of leadership in the religious sense, one finds that it has gone to extraordinary lengths in that home of strange causes, the U.S.A. where, we are told, the 1936 Convention of the followers of a Mr. George Baker, alias “Father Divine,” established by unanimous vote, that he (George Baker) was God Incarnate. Since 1936 this particular God enterprise has gone on from strength to strength and is now a full scale profit making enterprise. Perhaps “Father Divine” had the good fortune to have been educated by one of Miss Armstrong’s “teachers of faith and sound conviction" ?

Finally, to come to a more “earthly” kind of conference—that of the British Legion, held recently, where once more the question of pensions arose.

Disabled ex-servicemen know more about leaders and leadership than most; they have their medals and their disablement to prove it. Sir Ian Fraser, Tory leader of the disabled, as usual raises his voice on their behalf, supported by other “lesser leaders" of Churches, T.U. branches, Co-ops’, etc.

Examples, given in the press, of the budgets of some of our disabled, are indeed heart rending. It is more so to the Socialist who finds the aim of the “great attack" against a niggardly government is to increase the present miserable amount of pension to something only a little less miserable. Our view, of course, is that workers, fit and unfit, would be better employed in struggling for a world where everyone—barring accident and natural causes—will be able to keep his health and limbs intact during his natural span of life.

To sum up: Socialists have no use for leaders; leaders imply the led. Socialists are people capable of doing their own thinking. Thinking people will not require leaders rather than administrators. Just as at the moment sons and daughters of the workers are bought and employed as administrators for Capitalist enterprises both State and privately run. This is the meaning of the Head Teachers’ leader’s plea for education in leadership—to perpetuate the prevailing system. Socialists want to change the prevailing system.

The chief reason for people supporting the continuation of Capital, even whilst grumbling at its deficiencies (as the Disabled Men’s Organizations are doing) is because they are led to believe that there is no alternative. Socialists know otherwise and want others to know too.

W. Brain

Editorial: The Labour Party seeks a Programme (1954)

Editorial from the August 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

For political parties dependent on leaders it is much better to travel hopefully than to arrive. The leaders' promises to remove some present evils at a not too distant date keep members and voters united and enthusiastic. The led are willing to accept with a great deal of trust the belief that the reforms they are working for will produce the desired beneficial results. It is with achievement that the testing time comes and the party’s cohesion or even its existence is imperilled. A case in point is the long struggle waged early this century to give the American people the benefits of prohibition. When it came the beneficiaries decided that it was more of a curse than a blessing and there followed a much shorter struggle, to get rid of it This of course, shattered the prohibition organisations; but, if things had gone differently and prohibition had turned out to be even half-way up to expectations and had become permanent this too would have ended the organisations for their work would have been completed.

Problems like these are responsible for the present doubts, dissensions and struggles for leadership in the British Labour Party. In their six years of power after the war, they carried out much of the programme that had kept them going for half a century. They nationalised basic industries, elaborated the national Insurance schemes, introduced the Health Service continued war-time arbitration in industrial disputes gave independence to India and other countries in the Empire and put into operation their plans for bringing peace into international relationships through the United Nations and their "new approach” to foreign governments. Then they sat back waiting for the applause that did not come. According to the book a grateful electorate should then have rallied to Labour and spurned the Tories. Instead, disappointment with Nationalisation and the utter failure of Labour’s foreign policy had the result of dividing the electorate about evenly between the Labour and Tory parties. To the extent that they approved the insurance schemes and the Health Service they decided that these were as much Tory schemes as Labour ones, as indeed they were, for the Tories were astute enough to adopt them and not leave them to figure as a Labour Party monopoly. In the meantime Labour’s experience of running capitalism in a world beset with peril for the British Empire capitalist group had made them as safe for the preservation of the interests of that group as the Tories themselves. So now the hopes and the fire have departed from Labour ranks and they are trying to find how to regain what has been lost. They are seeking new leaders and new programmes that will carry them back to power.

The problem has been surveyed by Professor G. D. H. Cole and by Mr. Donald Chapman, formerly secretary of the Fabian Society; by Mr. Cole in a pamphlet Is this Socialism? and by Mr. Chapman in the Political Quarterly.

Mr. Cole is certain that if the Labour Party at the 1950 and 1951 elections had come out boldly for more of the old programme—as some Labour leaders thought they should—they would have lost votes not gained them. And Mr. Chapman finds that the workers, no longer spurred on by mass unemployment, have largely lost what desire they had for seemingly radical changes. And it is certainly true that the quite unprecedented nine year period of unemployment averaging less than two per cent has robbed the Labour Party of the asset it had when mass unemployment constantly stirred the workers to discontent with Tory governments between the wars.

Their analysis of the troubles of the Labour Party are convincing but it is when we look at their suggested remedies that we see how little they have to offer. Mr. Cole suggests that inheritance should be virtually abolished, that dividends should be limited, and that part of profits re-invested as capital should be taken by the State. This assumes, of course, that nationalisation by a back-door method could be foisted on electors who have become less enamoured of straight nationalisation, and that having got complete State capitalism they would like it

Mr. Chapman does examine another proposition, that goes by the misleading title of "workers control” in industry, but decides that by and large the workers are not much interested in it.

It would, however, be a mistake to conclude, because Messrs. Cole and Chapman cannot find issues likely to put new life into the Labour Party, that the problem is insoluble. We can be sure that capitalism itself will go on producing evils at home and abroad around which the Tory and Labour parties (or other capitalist-reformist parties in their place) can build up rival programmes to form the basis of electoral battles.

There is, too, the real alternative—the one propounded by the S.P.G.B. None of the disappointments that gnaw at the supporters of the Labour Party are unforeseen. Fifty years ago the S.P.G.B. foretold that nationalisation would solve no working-class problem—at present the capitalists think that it isn’t much use to them either—and that however much capitalism is reformed and bureaucratised the world would still find no solution for social problems except Socialism.

When, therefore, the Manchester Guardian (1 July. 1954) asks “How can we make British politics —and parties—live again?” the Socialist knows the only worth-while answer.

Pathfinders: Global Warning Fatigue (2017)

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

Professor Stephen Hawking, darling of the physics community, seems of late determined to tell us that we’re heading to hell in a handcart: ‘(Space travel) may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth’ (phys.org/news/2017-07). In recent years the professor has repeatedly offered Cassandra-like prophecies of impending global destruction, as if he’s auditioning for the part of Private Frazer in Dad’s Army: ‘We’re doomed, I tell ye, DOOMED’.

No doubt Prof Hawking assumes, as does every reasonable teacher, parent and political activist, that dire warnings are what make us act to change things. But what is the evidence for this assumption? If the people who elected Donald Trump are anything to go by, dire warnings may have precisely the opposite effect.

It is already known that confronting a world view with contradictory facts can perversely help reinforce it, a phenomenon known as the backfire effect [LINK]. It is possible that a diet of relentlessly negative news has a similar effect, so that instead of motivating change it is more likely to disable, depress and demotivate us into apathy and torpor.

There’s no question that bad news sells. Humans have a well-documented negativity bias which makes us take notice of bad news more than good, in the same way that we fear loss more than we covet gain. Explanations vary, though the simple logic of evolutionary survival may suffice. We devote less attention to earning dinner than we do to avoiding becoming dinner.

But our bad news bias is arguably being overloaded by a news media diet composed almost entirely of the stuff. It’s not just that there is a lot of bad news out there. News media, in hot competition for attention, preferentially select it. For example, one study looking at how news media treated various reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that the report detailing the threats received around three times the coverage of the report dealing with practical solutions. If this is supposed to encourage us, indications are that it doesn’t. A small study of news-reading habits across the US, UK and India identified ‘news fatigue’ among participants leading to a ‘hope gap’ which created a desire to ‘tune out’. As the study authors put it: ‘Perceived threat without efficacy of response is usually a recipe for disengagement or fatalism’ (LINK).

Journalists themselves are not immune either, and those exposed in the newsroom to extreme images or footage of violence have been known to develop PTSD symptoms including anxiety, depression, physical distress and alcoholism (LINK).

Perhaps it’s not surprising that some commentators advise us to stop following the news altogether, on the grounds that it doesn’t explain anything, its fragmentary nature inhibits concentration, it doesn’t help you make practical decisions, it grinds you down into a state of desensitised cynicism and passivity, and then it helps lock you into this worldview through your own confirmation bias. Swiss writer Rolf Dobelli is an exponent of this view, arguing that news is not information for the mind, it’s a toxic diet of sugary titbits that corrodes your ability to think straight (LINK).

But what about bad news leavened with good? The order of presentation might be important. One interesting 2014 workplace study looked at how people react to receiving good news before bad, and vice versa. The researchers reported that participants who elected to hear bad news first, followed by good, tended to display less anxiety and better moods as a result, but proved to be less interested in doing anything about the bad news. Conversely, those who chose to get the good news first tended to be more motivated to take positive action to address the issues that had been identified (LINK).

And there are different types of motivation at work. Research into workplace motivation since the 1950s has shown that while demotivating factors tend to be external and environmental – bad pay, stupid boss etc - correcting for these factors – even offering more money - does not by itself increase motivation. Instead, successful motivators tend to be intrinsic and to do with a need for interesting and challenging work with increased responsibility. Yet despite this managers continue to rely on the external ‘carrot and stick’ motivators (LINK). This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who understands that employment is essentially an exploitative practice devoted to making a profit for the boss, in which such intrinsic motivators can rarely if ever be accommodated.

Today it’s possible, through techniques such as blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) imaging, to study the processes of memory formation and its motivational drivers directly in the brain. This is useful because self-reporting is notoriously unreliable. One conclusion is unequivocal: ‘you can’t be afraid, you can’t be anxious—because anxiety systems really clamp down on curiosity and produce stereotyped, rapid, simple responses that short circuit [...] curiosity’. The research has also turned up some surprises. Not only do people react very differently to the same reward stimuli – ‘some people responded like we were threatening them with an electric shock when we promised them money’ – there is also a wide variation in why and what people remember – ‘if we alter the motivational state of the brain, we see that emotion and motivation are not just filtering memory to say what’s remembered and what’s not. They also shape the structure, the form of the memories, to enhance behavioral responses (LINK).

It's not that a bad or negative message never engenders positive change, indeed evidence that it can work was behind the move to place graphic and disturbing images on cigarette-packets (LINK). But while a promotional strategy aimed at a specific behaviour is one thing, an unrelenting barrage of negativity may be something else entirely.

How should socialists respond? The case for socialism is really two cases, one negative and one positive. The negative case, which we tend to focus more attention on, is the case against capitalism and in particular why the system can never work in the majority interest no matter what anyone does. The positive case is for the post-capitalist society, where common ownership, universal democracy, voluntary participation, free access and production for use can create a steady-state and technologically advanced society which is capable of benefiting all its citizens. The negative case, or some bowdlerised version of it, is what people hear ad nauseam from every two-bit leftist demagogue and career politician. The positive case meanwhile is spat upon as ‘utopian’ by those who are too befuddled to think straight or too embittered to care. Socialists are free to choose either case. But there are grounds for thinking that it’s hope that really drives change, and not despair.

Paddy Shannon

Our Principles Stand (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just over a hundred years ago, Marx and Engels, commenting on the drastic changes brought about by the Capitalist system of production, stated in the Communist Manifesto:—

   “The bourgeoise during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceeding generations together. Subjection of nature's forces to man. machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?”

Since then this process has been continued at an ever increasing pace, with progressive acceleration during the past fifty years which staggers the imagination.

Even faster and more complex machinery, together with changes in technique, have brought the belt system and mass production, making the day’s toil a nightmare.

Running parallel, but well to the fore, are the powers of destruction. One horror overshadows another. The high explosive and incendiary bombs of ’39 are dwarfed by the Atom bomb of’45. Terrible as was the destructive power of this weapon, it has become insignificant compared with the Hydrogen bomb, making possible mass slaughter on an unpredictable scale.

Keeping pace with these abominations of destruction, and an accessory to them, is the speed of travel. Nothing is spared in human life and wealth in the mad scramble to outpace rivals in speed, an effort directed today primarily to the purpose of slaughter.

This mad world of ever more rapid changes has had its effect, among other things on the fortunes of political parties. Many that flourished fifty or less years ago are gone and almost forgotten. Others, while retaining their original names, have completely changed their character, while a few survivors are but shadows of their former selves.

The stable character of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its consistent adherence to the principles of Socialism, stands out as an exceptional incident in the political life of this country. This fact is a fitting tribute to the ability of that small body of working men who founded the organisation and drew up its object and declaration of principles.

The clear understanding and unity of purpose which guided their action stands out in every clause of that statement. It draws a clear line of demarcation between the Socialist Party and all other political parties. It stamps the organisation as Marxist, and gives it its scientific basis. The fact that membership of the party has been conditional upon an understanding and agreement with that declaration, explains to a extent its survival through conditions which have and destroyed so many others.

The declaration has proved invaluable as an instrument against opponents, and a sure guide in the settlement of many internal disputes. Time and time again, trained and skilled men in the art of debate have attempted, but failed, to find a weak spot or unsound idea in it. In the conduct of Party affairs it has many times come under severe scrutiny. Often have members set out to improve that declaration, but never have they been able to propose any worth while alteration.

In internal disputes, it has proved its worth. Proposals that have run counter to it have invariably been rejected by a majority of the members, and subsequent experience has always justified their action.

In spite of the many and drastic changes which have taken place during the past fifty years, our D. of P. still stands as a clear, concise and accurate summary of the case for Socialism. This stability is to be explained by a corresponding stable feature in capitalist society, a feature which is present in all capitalist countries, no matter the form of government or degree of development. The condition is the exploitation of the wealth producers under wage slavery.

While capitalism lasts, that exploitation will continue, and until it is ended the Object and Declaration of Principles of the Party, which stem from that exploitation and are directed to its abolition, will remain valid. The problem is the same today as fifty years ago, and will remain the same until Socialism is established. The struggle between the two classes is the natural consequence of that exploitation. In its early stages it takes the form of a struggle over wages and conditions, followed with the growth of understanding, by the struggle to end exploitation.

The way this can be accomplished is dictated by the conditions of Capitalist Society. The private ownership of c die means of life is the condition which enables one class to live by the exploitation of the other. The character of the means of production makes common ownership the only practical method of ending class ownership. As control is an essential part of ownership, and the only way society as a whole can control is by democratic means, we see, therefore, that the Object of the Party is dictated by the conditions of capitalism. That Object is:—

   “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.”

That is a brief definition of Socialism. It is not a scheme or an invention, but a discovery brought to light by the work of Marx and Engels in their critical examination of capitalism.

The important part the class struggle plays in the Socialist movement is self-evident. Exploitation prompts and generates the effort to secure emancipation, and emancipation to the working class can be nothing but Socialism. Socialism is, therefore, the outcome of the class struggle.

Action in conformity with this struggle, as outlined in our declaration of principles, will bring the working class to the dawn of a new social system, the potentialities of which are unbounded. Not only will it free society from the toils of class and national conflict, but will give the human race a larger measure of choice in the conduct of social affairs than it has ever experienced before.

We must not, however, allow the wonderful prospect of a classless society to blind us to the hard realities of the struggle we must face and conquer before the promised land is ours.

Ted Lake

Lethal Young Ladies: The New Zealand Murder Trial (1954)

From the October 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Few topics excite more interest and become stale more quickly than a spicy, spectacular murder. Everyone knows the facts, makes his summing-up and pronounces his verdict; justice is done, and everyone talks of something else. There is rarely much reason for recalling it, except the sorts of reason that prompt “True Crime Stories,” waxwork shows and retired detectives’ memoirs. The case of the two New Zealand schoolgirls is no longer news, but it raised questions which need considering from points of view other than the self-righteous tribalism of the Sunday papers.

Briefly to recapitulate, one girl was 15 and the other was 16, and they killed the older girl’s mother. They had well-to-do homes and were described as highly intelligent; the murder was the culmination of a daydream-world, sex-heated friendship which the mother had threatened to end. The trial revolved round a diary, which recounted their extravagant fantasies and their amorous experiments; they were “insane, incurable and certifiable,” said the defence, “dirty-minded and incurably bad,” said the prosecution. After six days’ trial, the girls were found guilty and, too young for the gallows, sentenced to be detained indefinitely.

It is horrifying enough that two adolescents, through belief in a manufactured world of ideas, should kill another human being in cold blood. But a good deal of the revulsion aroused by murders is in the nature of a conditioned response; for those who are unsure of the amount of horror required, the Press provides helpful guides in the form of denunciatory comments. There is not much indignation over adolescent boys being trained to kill; a particularly lethal air-gunner of 18 is more likely to be decorated than declared either mad or bad, until his own turn comes and they wash him out of the turret with a hose. The writer recalls, too, seeing a war-time booklet on unarmed combat for 15-year-old Boy Scouts and reading what can be done with the rim of a steel helmet. On balance, it seems almost to the diarist’s credit that she felt “very keyed up ” the night before the murder.

Paranoia is the clinical name for the alleged condition of mind of the two girls; it is a form of insanity characterized by delusions of grandeur, persecution and so on. Many of the things tut-tutted over in the reports were not paranoiac at all, of course; plenty of schoolgirls—and schoolboys—keep lurid diaries, create fantasy-worlds and make sexual explorations. The most interesting thing about paranoia is that it can lead to glory as well as the condemned cell. All that was said about these girls can equally be said of some of the most illustrious. For example, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who according to a magazine article was " . . . libidinous as a goat and meaner than a spider . . .  he believed wholeheartedly in witchcraft, magic, spells, the whole bag of tricks, and more than once employed 'necromancers’ to make wax images of his Wall Street enemies."

There is the case, too, of Salvador Dali (“avida dollars,** a Spanish anagrammist called him—“avida" meaning “ he's hungry for them.**) His autobiography is a lot more surprising than the reports of the Christchurch trial. As well as art, it brings in putrefaction, cruelty and coprophilia and accounts of his solitary sexual acts, his morbid fetishes and his desire to kill.

Journalists are free with the word “paranoiac” when writing up Dali; George Orwell in “Benefit of Clergy," commented shrewdly enough on the peculiarities which have made him a lion and a wealthy one, too.

Mental conditions like the one in question can and do lead to inhuman and anti-social acts. It is all too easy, however, to about: “Paranoiacs! Lock 'em away!" and overlook the honour which society accords to other paranoiacs. Easier still, to forget—or not to know at all—that even anti-social actions have social causes, and to believe that some people are simply "incurably bad." Let us dispose of that last piece of nonsense before going any farther. Leave out “bad"—it can be “good, according to the time and the place and the morality; apart from some who have diseased or disordered brains, there are no incorrigibly anti-social people.

Man is a social being, fending always towards co-operation and order. Each man is dependent on other men for existence, for fee satisfaction of his physical needs, and his emotional and mental ones, too (it has been suggested that even his fear of death is the fear of isolation); he has an interest in good relationships wife his fellow-men. The human concord that is churned as the heart of almost every religion and philosophy in the world is no more, and no less, than what human beings have tried to attain from the beginnings of social life. It is true that the property structures man has erected in his social development have continually frustrated his striving; the fact of the striving remains. All men are social by nature—that is, by the fact of being men.

There is a good deal to be said about the disordered brains, too. The incidence and causes of mental deficiency were investigated by the Wood Committee in 1929 and the Departmental Committee on Sterilization in 1933. Their strongest conclusion was that environment—poverty, ignorance, bad conditions—had more than anything else to do with producing minds “incapable of independent social adaptation." It seems obvious that a feeble-minded person cannot be called anti-social, even though he lacks responsibility; it is truer that society has not much use for the feeble-minded, because they are “inefficient."

Mental disorder is a different thing from mental deficiency—it happens much more frequently, too. Modern living creates a host of anxieties, tensions and frustrations (including, in fact, the frustration of man's social instinct). That is why mental and nervous disorders have spread so rapidly in recent years; it is also why the chief task of psychologists is to alter (if they can) the immediate circumstances which have led to strain. Mental disorders are curable, in the sense of treating and relieving individual cases; in the wider social sense they are not being cured at all because their causes are intensifying.

Anti-social behavior, when it is not the product of a disordered brain, is the reaction of a person to a situation. Not everybody has the same reaction because the circumstances that shape behaviour are not exactly the same in all of us; whatever the reaction, however, it is something learned from society. Jealousy and its resultant crimes can only happen in an environment where possession is important; malice, only where society engenders conflict. The social body, indignant over somebody's wickedness, is too often Caliban enraged with his own face in fee glass. The two girls in New Zealand were said to be morbidly obsessed with sex: has anybody enquired the state of mind of the people who packed the court to hear, or crowded the street for a glimpse of their faces?

There is no more virtue in whitewashing crimes than in condemning them. The important thing is to see them in the right perspective, understanding why such things happen to people. Some crimes are directly economic, because anything is done for money—and has to be—in our world; men and women steal, cheat and kill because they need it or think they do. The matter is not always so simple; more often crime involves emotions which are the responses of people, as society has made them, to situations, in which society has put them. Even the hard-boiled criminals—where are they boiled so hard but in the rancid social stewpan? The logical answer is to establish a social situation which does not promote anti-social reactions. Marx put it best by speaking of “human society" instead of “civil society."

The environmental nature of crime is recognized to quite a large extent by those who deal with it (leaving out Justices of fee Peace, who are required to have no knowledge at all of what they are dealing with). The reports of counsels' speeches in the News of the World show that plenty of them are aware that a prisoner’s life history— his education, housing, wages, health—stands with him in the dock. The fact remains that fee treatment of criminals is based mainly on retribution. The only example of an organized attempt at rehabilitation is the Borstal training of young offenders, which has a certain amount of success —because youth is easily moulded—in disciplining them to society’s requirements.

More humane and rational attitudes to many things have become established since the days of public hangings. Nevertheless, most people still accept that it is right or necessary to inflict retributive punishment on those who break the laws. The popular Press, which butters up public opinion so as to guide it all the more firmly, supports the view that retribution is the only socially practicable answer. Probably under this system it is—even though it doesn't really work; the main effect of prolonged or repeated imprisonment is to make its victim unfit for any life except one of crime. It is worth remarking also that punishment degrades those who inflict it, as well as those at the receiving end.

It is true that there has been talk at various times about reforming fee criminal law to “humanize" it and provide that unfortunates like the two schoolgirls should be rehabilitated instead of punished. The sentiment is admirable, but most of those who want to rehabilitate criminals never question the sort of world into which they would be rehabilitated. And many of them—presumably, at any rate—object to retribution for crime but agree to it when it is the motive for war.

Why are there crime and delinquency, and the states of mind which lead to them? Crimes against property and its coercive morality are inevitable while private property exists; crimes against people, too, are part of an unhealthy condition of society. There can be little solution of these problems in the social order which breeds them: "human society" is the only real answer. Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme may have been mad or just malicious. Either way, the diagnosis is of the world of which they are part, and underlines the need for speedy, efficient cure.

Robert Barltrop

The Myth of National Self Determination (2017)

From the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent events in Catalonia demand a restatement of a basic socialist principle.

The word ‘we’ is one of the most powerful words, all the more so because its use often passes invisibly. Every time we speak of a ‘we’ we are also creating a ‘them’, an other, we are identifying ourselves as a group and placing others outside it. ‘We’ could be the people that live in our neighbourhood, it could be those with whom we share a common language or accent, or it could be those that go to the same clubs, pubs or places of worship as us. In daily life we can easily think of ourselves as belonging to a variety of different overlapping communities. But which of these groups is the most important? With whom are you most loyal? To which people do you belong? 

Many people will see their national identity as being the most fundamental. After all we have to identify ourselves as a member of a particular nation state when we go abroad, when claiming benefits or applying for a job. What nation we belong to determines what rights and privileges we have, if we find ourselves in a nation other than our own we may find our rights restricted or denied. Our nationality can often form an important element in how we act with the world and how we are placed within it, it can often seem to be as natural and integral a part of us as our gender or hair colour.

A people with a shared culture, language and history, who live in the same place over time naturally develop a strong sense of belonging together. This sense of belonging together and of being tied to a certain geographical place is what constitutes nationhood. A nation is a group of people that has a history of doing things together in a certain geographical area. And just as an individual has a right to choose and to freely express their will so too do peoples who form nations have the right to self determination.

Or at least that is how the myth goes. However, does it really make sense to think of a nation as a homogeneous 'people' sharing the same interest and expressing its ‘will’ in the same way as an individual?

Behind the supposed unity of a national identity we will find a whole manner of divisions, class distinctions and unequal power relations. In nation-states based on capitalist property relations, which is all of them, there is a fundamental divide between owners of capital – the factories, land, raw materials, means of transportation – and sellers of labour-power. The vast wealth of the minority, the class of capital owners, comes from the labour of the majority, the sellers of labour-power – the working class. Market competition compels the capitalist to seek to extract the maximum from the worker. The need to preserve and improve their living conditions drives the worker to resist. This sets up irreconcilable class struggle at the centre of society. To think of a nation as a homogeneous block with all members sharing the same interest is to ignore the real conflicts that arise from the unequal economic power relations that exist within all nation-states.

Nations can be thought of as imagined communities. The majority of the population will never meet or know each other yet in their minds they imagine each other as being and belonging together. These imaginings will be both semi-mythical and semi-factual in nature. The historical stories told for the purpose of nation building are always ones that have been sanitized and moralized, glossing over all the splits, conflicts and discontinuities that occur within and between the populations that have lived in the same space over time. History taught in a truthful and unpolished way does not have the effect of national building – the history of any one particular area is as fractured as any other.

The nation-state is now the fundamental unit through which political affairs are conducted but despite its seeming antiquity it is a relatively modern invention. The origin of the modern nation-state is tied to the development of capitalism and the demise of monarchical regimes, feudal city-states and principalities. The nation-state came to the fore because it was the form of organisation that most suited the operations of the emerging capitalist class.

If our aim is to bring about a classless society of equals then our attention should be on the real antagonistic relation between the classes not the fake illusions put forward by nationalists. We have to find and create new forms of egalitarian organisation that can supersede the nation-state and capitalism, not help the local capitalist class in the creation of new and ever smaller states.

DJP

The Task Ahead: Bringing Socialism Nearer (1954)

From the November 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 50th Anniversary of the founding of our Party is a time for looking back over the years—and forward to the years to come. How will the next half-century compare with the last, and what will it have in store for the Socialist movement? The details, even perhaps the general outline, of how things will work out must largely remain matters for speculation. For our part, we can sum up what we would like to see at any time in one word—Socialism. But a more practical consideration is: how can it be brought about?

We know that the propagation of Socialist ideas must go on, and that these ideas must gain far wider acceptance than they have gained so far. The introduction of Socialism cannot be the work of a few hundred or a few thousand. It must be the work of the overwhelming majority.

At this point it is not uncommon for our critic to remark “so it’s taken you 50 years to get 1,000 Socialists —how long will it take to get 2,000 million?” If he is mathematically minded he may offer his own estimate of the time needed. It cannot, of course, be proved that this estimate is either correct or incorrect. We can only challenge the assumptions on which it is based. If the people we address are favourably disposed towards Socialism they will want to know how to help to bring it about. It is to such readers that this article is directed.

One of the secrets of success in the business of capitalist politics is the promise of immediate delivery of the electoral goods—even though their shoddy quality soon leads to bitter disappointment. So long as there is Capitalism it is always apparently more “practical” to reform it rather than to get rid of it.

When the Socialist advises abstention from supporting any of the parties of Capitalism he is often dismissed as being "unpractical." Yet how much more practical is it to go on asking for slight variations of something you don’t like anyway?

The inevitable disillusion that awaits supporters of all parties that offer to run Capitalism (and promise to solve its problems) paves the way for people to consider Socialism as a real alternative. At first, they may question the possibility of it ever coming, and may voice all kinds of doubts about it—doubts which, in view of the novelty of the idea to them, are understandable. Eventually the answers to our sympathiser's questions are more or less accepted by him. He then reaches the point of thinking “Socialism is the answer all right. But what can be done about it?"

What can a Socialist do to bring into being the world he wants? Why, make other Socialists, of course! Talk to them about it, explain what it means, challenge the prejudices that stand in the way, correct the misunderstandings that confuse the issue. It is not just a case of waiting until someone attacks the S.P.G.B. or Socialism and then jumping to the defence. If, for example, someone says “it’s human nature to fight wars" then he can be given evidence that it is no such thing. All ideas that oppose Socialism must be persistently and strongly challenged, and followed up where possible with a positive Socialist point of view.

The sympathetic newcomer to the S.P.G.B.’s case will probably find that he needs to get more knowledge to back up his arguments. Accordingly he will want to read about various aspects of the Socialist case, and maybe discuss them with others who share his outlook. If his feeling of agreement with Socialism is strong enough he will, in due course, consider applying for membership of the Party.

Think of the ways in which the Socialist movement is handicapped now. Think also of what more Socialists could make possible We need more literature—and in particular a bigger and better Socialist Standard with a larger circulation. Last month it was an enlarged special number, which required much more preparation and much more money than we can usually afford. But with more help we could have a journal of this size every month—or more frequently. We could also publish more much needed pamphlets on various aspects of our case.

There are many other things that need to be done on a larger scale. In addition to actually producing the literature (writing, editing, etc.) it has to be distributed and advertised. The number of public meetings we are able to hold is now limited by our meagre resources. When we launch an electoral campaign its success depends on the amount of work members and sympathisers put into it. And remember that all these are very practical ways of bringing our object nearer.

To our sympathisers we would say this. The Socialist movement will never flourish just on sympathy It needs action—your action. If you agree with most of what we say but are doubtful on some point then let us hear about it. Attend the meetings advertised in this journal, and make contact with your local branch of the Party (see back page). If, for one reason or another, you are unable to make these visits you can always write to us.

Stan Parker

A Slight Christmas Carol (1954)

A Short Story from the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scrooge buttoned his overcoat and picked up his Chronicle, said goodnight to the office and left. This was not the Ebenezer Scrooge who said “ Humbug ” and disliked Christmas but later had a change of heart and died in the workhouse through giving all his money away: this was Stan Scrooge, who travelled on the Northern Line.

He walked home briskly from the station, pleasurably noting seasonable signs everywhere; the inviting tins of pudding and turkey in the grocers’ and the sprigs of mistletoe round the price-tickets, dear old Santa Claus in the Coop doorway, Frankie Laine singing “Silent Night ” in the radio shop in the next street. There was a fresh, crisp layer of snow, and at the corner by the loan-office it was patterned with innumerable converging footprints, as though a pageant of sainted Wenceslases had passed, full of optimism and inspiration. For it was Christmas Eve, the time when men the whole world over feel the warmth of peace and goodwill towards one another. Scrooge passed a paper-boy. The lad, with his glowing cheeks and bright eyes, was the incarnation of the Christmas spirit; his voice fairly rang with it as he shouted, “Thirty more terrorists killed! Read all about it!”

Yes, it was a season of enchantment, Scrooge thought as he let himself into his lodgings. Three Christmas cards, and toad-in-the-hole for dinner; then he put on his slippers and sat by the fire to read his paper. The fire made him drowsy. He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. In a few moments he was asleep.

When he awoke, the fire had burned down. Scrooge looked at his watch; it had stopped. At that very moment, the clock in the hall began to strike. He counted the chimes—twelve o’clock! Fancy sleeping all that time! Scrooge would have leaped from his chair in dismay, but another sound caught his attention. It was the sound of clanking chains.

Scrooge did not immediately think of ghosts. He had read books published by the Rationalist Press, and therefore despised superstition. In fact, he wondered why his landlady was up so late, and what she was doing. His emotions asserted themselves, however, when the noise ascended the stairs and entered his room. The chains were attached to a shrouded figure which pointed at Scrooge. He suddenly remembered something.

“This happened to someone in my family,” he said. “ Heard my grandfather talk about it. You’re the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

The ghost inclined ils head.

Scrooge sniffed. “Well, I’m nothing like him, you know. Not much to unearth from my past. A girl or two and that’s all.”

As far he could judge, the ghost shrugged its shoulders before it beckoned him to the window. To Scrooge’s surprise, the window was open; to his greater surprise, the two of them floated out. Astonishment over, it seemed a quite natural way of travelling—certainly a satisfactory one, because in seconds they descended several miles away, at a place Scrooge recognized immediately. The biggest football ground in London; broad daylight, 60,000 people, and one team breaking away down the centre. The ghost pointed to a spot in the crowd and drew Scrooge towards it. Half a dozen young men, enjoying one anothers’ company as well as the game.

“Why,” said Scrooge, “ that’s me! And old Johnny Dunn! And—why it’s that match against the Germans: those are the German chaps we got talking to! My word, that’s a few Christmases ago! Before the war, that was.”

The ghost put a finger to its lips. The game was nearly over. They watched the lively conversation, listened to the warm farewells at the end and the two young Englishmen talking as they went off together. They heard Johnny Dunn praise the Germans as decent fellows, and Scrooge saying well, they were human beings just the same, weren’t they? Johnny said that if you thought about it you could see the ordinary people of the world wanted to live in peace. And Scrooge said that was it; the politicians began wars and the common people had to fight them.

It was pretty to hear them. The older Scrooge, slightly puzzled, was led away by the ghost, over rooftops again until they came to a red brick building in a main road. A lot of young men were walking in and out of the building, or talking on the pavement. Among them, Scrooge saw himself.

“I know that,” he said. “ It’s the first Christmas of the war. Just before Christmas, really—when I went to register for the army. And look—that’s just what happened! That fellow talking to me outside the Labour Exchange—I remember him well. Wouldn’t go in the army—just said he wouldn’t kill other working men. Bit queer, he was.”

They drew near. Scrooge saw that he was talking excitedly. "Ordinary people like us? Don’t talk rubbish!” he was saying. “Nothing like us, the Germans aren’t. Arrogant and domineering, that’s their national character. Didn’t you hear on the wireless last night . . .” The other man looked sad rather than angry, and Scrooge felt rather uncomfortable. He felt the ghost was looking at him oddly too, and was glad when they passed on.

A recent Christmas, and Scrooge again condemning a nation—quoting books as well, sitting in his penultimate fiancee’s parlour. This time the Russians, and Joan was full of admiration as he explained about Pan-Slavism, the Russian character, and the menace of Marxism. The spectator Scrooge felt rather proud of himself.

“There,” he said to the ghost, “nothing unreasonable about that, anyway. And you can’t see me fraternizing with any ruddy Russians!”

The ghost took his arm. A few moments, and they were in a theatre. Christmas 1943: Scrooge, on leave, was in the stalls. A fat comedian in lounge suit and panama was speaking solemnly from the footlights. Our gallant allies; their courage, the bond between our two nations; in their honour, and by special request, he would sing “My Lovely Russian Rose.” Scrooge watched himself applauding enthusiastically. As the scene faded, he turned to the ghost.

“You’re too clever," he said indignantly. “ I’ve a good mind . . . ” 

The ghost held up its hand, and again took him by the sleeve. He did not know the time of the scene he was now shown. It was a street of houses, almost totally enclosed from the light, the sky like a strip of faded bunting. The people were ill-clothed and wretched, their children underfed and joyless; dankness and grime so pervaded the whole surrounding as to form a grey texture on the hopeless faces. Scrooge had never known hunger, and he was horrified. He turned to speak to the ghost. It had gone. He turned again, and the narrow street, too, had gone. He was in his own room, standing near his chair. Bewildered, he sat down and, without intending, fell asleep almost at once.

He was awakened again by the clock. As he opened his eyes, he saw that someone was standing there, huge and jolly, holding a flaming torch.

“ Ah! Awake at last!” said the ghost paternally.

“ Christmas present?” asked Scrooge.

“The very same.”

“ More levitation?” said Scrooge.

It shook its head. “A view from the window, that’s all: a mere glimpse of the world around us.”

The window was open again. With the ghost at his elbow, Scrooge looked out. He saw a church hall, drab and bare as those places are. It was snowing slightly, powdering the people who stood in a shuffling, shabby line at the door. Most—not all—of them were elderly. Inside the hall, they advanced one by one to a desk where a man was giving money away. A card said: “ Welfare Officer.”

“What’s this?” said Scrooge.

“ Ah,” murmured the ghost, “you don’t recognize the name. The Welfare Officer—otherwise known as public assistance, the R.O., and even—disrespectfully, of course —the bunhouse.”

“I thought you were showing me Christmas Presents?” said Scrooge.

“Indeed I am.”

“Get away” said Scrooge. “This is what your silent partner was showing me last night. Years ago, this. You don’t hear of people being on the R.O. nowadays.”

“My word,” said the ghost heartily, “ you don’t know much, do you? Thousands of ’em—thousands.” 

“Really?” asked Scrooge. “ But I thought things had improved.”

“You’d be surprised” said the ghost “ A good hundred thousand still call at the R.O. You’d better see this, too.”

It flashed its torch. For a moment Scrooge was dazzled. When he recovered, he saw a bleak, sombre group outside a bleak, sombre building. He asked the ghost if it were a workhouse.

“Dear me, no,’ said the ghost. “ These are free men with money—a little, at any rate—in their pockets.

“ I don’t know it,” said Scrooge.

“ Of course you do,” said the ghost. “ Ever hear of good beds for working men? This place is full of ’em.” 

Scrooge stared. “ Do you mean . . . ” he began to ask. 

“Sure,” said the ghost. “ And the firm which owns this lot pays very handsome dividends, especially .nowadays. . . . We’ve hardly started yet, though. ’ I’ll show you something else.”

He did. He showed Scrooge poverty he never knew to exist, housing he never knew to stand. Sordidness, wretchedness, degradation—Christmas Present could show them all. Scrooge felt in turn horror, incredulity and anger. Finally he forgot the ghost’s presence, and was scarcely aware when the window closed and he was led back to his chair. Before he fell asleep, he saw the ghost beaming at him and heard it saying: “If it gets you like that, you ought to find the cause, you know . . .” But Scrooge was too tired to hear. He fell asleep.

He dreamed that he talked with the Ghost of Christmas Present What was the point of this harrowing panorama? Scrooge demanded. Because you’re going to change it, said the ghost. By myself? said Scrooge. You and millions more, replied the ghost. But what causes all this? Scrooge asked. You tell me, said the ghost. A lot of it’s’ human nature, said Scrooge. Human nature changes, the ghost replied. I suppose part of it’s the system, Scrooge said. What do you know about the system? asked the ghost. Not much, said Scrooge; was me and the Germans a part of the system? Your nationalism, yes, said the ghost And the bunhouse, the squalor and the wars; you don’t know it yet, and things won’t change much till you do know it. All right, said Scrooge, maybe you’re right: what can I do about it? You must first understand, said the ghost. Scrooge repeated himself: What can I do? Understand, said the ghost Understand, understand, understand . . . 

The clock struck twelve, and Scrooge awoke from his dream. Before him stood the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come. It moved aside, and Scrooge was alarmed. His room had gone, and he, his chair and the ghost seemed suspended above a crowd of people. The ghost’s touch reassured him, and he looked down.

The people looked different, strikingly yet in a way that Scrooge could not identify for a time. His final realization came so suddenly that he burst out: “ Why, don’t they look happy!”

“They do, don’t they?” smiled the ghost.

“ Look as if they've all become millionaires,” Scrooge went on.

“ Strangely enough, they have no money,” said the ghost.

“No money?” Scrooge was disbelieving. “Get away—they’re not poor.”

“Indeed they are not. But they have no money.”

“Go on with you,” said Scrooge impatiently.

The ghost pointed, singling out a man. Scrooge watched him. "Why,” he said indignantly, “he’s pinching a pair of shoes. He walked into that shop-place and took them—bold as brass, too!”

 

“They are his,” said the ghost calmly.

Scrooge sat open-mouthed with bewilderment. The ghost pointed to a place where a few men and women were working. “ Ah,’” said Scrooge, “ that’s good stuff they’re making. Taking their time, though. Which one’s the foreman?”

“Everyone makes good stuff,” said the ghost firmly. “ And there’s no foremen.”

“No foremen? But they'd do what they liked!” cried Scrooge.

“They are doing what they like. They are making good things.”

Incredible, Scrooge thought. He wondered if everyone had sufficient, but the evidence was before him. Nobody was opulent, but everyone was prosperous; nobody superior, but everyone satisfied. He asked question after question of the ghost; the answers were shown, not told him. The language itself had changed through the disuse of innumerable words. Worship, sell, steal, envy, profit—hundreds of words that Scrooge heard every day were archaisms to the people he watched now. Others, like war and business, were preserved only for the convenience of historians and word-spinners, as are chariot-racing and alchemy in Scrooge's day.

He realized suddenly that the scene began to fade. Clutching the ghost’s sleeve, he begged an answer to only one more question. They began to descend through space, and the uprush of air made speech difficult. Shouting, leaning on the ghost, Scrooge demanded: “What Christmas Present said—something I can do to bring it nearer?”

The ghost’s voice was becoming distant, but still was clear. "Understand—first you must understand,” it said. Scrooge pressed closer. “What can I do—do?” he bawled. The voice floated back, as the floor of Scrooge’s room rushed towards him.

“Understand . . .  understand . . .  understand!”

Robert Barltrop