Editorial: Conscripts or Volunteers? (1915)

Editorial from the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freedom, we are told, is the birthright of an Englishman; but of what Englishman other than the English capitalist? Capitalism, as we know, was inaugurated in the sacred name of freedom. Free competition, free speech, freedom of the Press and freedom of contract wore once holy objects of its worship. And where those have been deposed it has only been to promote a higher freedom—the freedom of the ruling class to do what it likes with those it rules.

The capitalist class has been accused of falling away from the cult of the goddess of Liberty, but a moment's thought will show this to be more apparent than real. For whose benefit were the graven images of Freedom ever raised up by the burgher class to be worshipped? Never for the advantage of the workers. These have always been excluded as far as possible. The supreme god of which the fair-faced goddess is merely the symbol, and which alone is worshipped with a whole-souled devotion by the capitalist class, is their own recognised material interests, their own narrow class liberty. This, their real deity, is only occasionally identical with the goddess of freedom as recognised by common humanity today. Yet, when it is clearly to their profit to do so, the ruling class never hesitate to do homage. They are, indeed, ever full of a lip service to ideas of liberty which they identify with their interests. What, in fact, is more characteristic of them, or more to their advantage, than the dissemination among the toilers of the idea that capitalism is the embodiment of freedom? Do not they even assert that the worker benefits by the glorious right of freedom of contract? The worker, they say, is under no compulsion to labour for a master. If the terms offered by employers are not good, he need not accept. These are not the days of chattel slavery. Should he honestly prefer to be starved to death with bis family rather than accept bad terms, he is quite free to do so—or rather, we should say, he was free until recently. But even if Orders in Council and Munition Courts now deny this freedom to the worker, it is only being done in the cause of freedom itself. Are we not officially informed that the great war that is the pretext for these restrictions is a War for Freedom? And since the rulers of both Britain and Germany proclaim this from the heights of their wireless stations, it is doubly vouched for by the world-renowned reliability of both German and British official news.

But where British capitalism scores heavily over that of the continent of Europe is in the vital matter of the freedom of military service. Whereas other countries fill the ranks of their fighting forces by the crudest methods of compulsion, Great Britain raises a huge army upon the glorious principles of freedom. Under the voluntary system, an official poster informs us, Britons fight for freedom with the strength of free men. The freedom of contract overcomes all obstacles. Men whose very least desire was to abandon the arts of peace, find themselves, by the judicious operation of liberty, drawn willy- nilly into the maelstrom of military service. Official committees issue appeals, in the name of freedom, to employers urging them to “release for service" men of military age. The free men thus “released,’’ on applying for another job, find themselves confronted with the notice, “Men of military age need not apply." The result is a great triumph for the voluntary system. Thus is the birthright of an Englishman saved the contamination of compulsion.

But this is not the only factor called in aid of the freedom to enlist. The freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press are carefully manipulated in order to influence eligible men for the good of the ruling class. Awkward facts are made to disappear. Encouraging facts are spread in the sun or manufactured to order. The generosity of the pensions or lack of them provided by a grateful country for its disabled warriors, is not commented on. The prospect of many war-broken “saviours of their country" hiring to sell matches or bananas for a livelihood after the war, is a subject that is taboo. We are even told by Arnold Bennett, in the London "Daily News," that the Government have instructed newspapers not to publish cases of hardship among discharged soldiers. And it is, of course, obvious that the open discussion of such matters would be a serious interference with the freedom of enlistment.

And what a tribute it is to national courage to find well-to-do men over military age, and even weak women innocent of the hardships of either work or war, among the bitterest denouncers of the Germans and the firmest in their demands for the ruthless prosecution of the war to the very last fit man! Even old men and idle women nurtured in the lap of luxury do not flinch from informing young men what they would do in their place; indeed, their courageous endeavours to force other people to sacrifice themselves are beyond all praise.

The part played by strident women has been of immense service to the cause of militarism. A great and influential meeting of women at Queen's Hall (boomed by the "Daily Mail”) lifted up its voice as one woman in its demand for immediate conscription for men. The Suffragettes also are doing their bit. None were, before the war, more bitter against man-made government. They showed conclusively that women really ruled the world both in ancient days, and from the cradle upwards in our own times; the only drawback was that tyrannical man would not let her. They burnt churches, slapped burly policemen, harried nervous statesmen. spoilt letters and championed the right of women to blackleg male labour; and in short conducted a bitter sex warfare against mere man. To day, however, their tactics have altered. The sex warfare has taken a new form. The government they once hated is now supported through thick and thin. The country they once endeavoured to destroy is now the object in the preservation of which they deem the utmost male sacrifice to be needful. Despite their change in tactics, however, it does not appear that their attitude toward man has changed. The active males, egged on by challenge to their courage which they have not the pluck to withstand, are being decimated. The dearth of men is opening innumerable avenues of employment to women who, in nearly every case, accept worse conditions and depreciate the proletarian standard of living; all endeavours to maintain this standard being characterised by Suffragettes as attacks on the rights of women. None, indeed, are more unselfishly active than these Suffragettes in urging their competitors, the males, to go away and get shot and leave the women to manage the country.

Private firms, public corporations and authorities all over the country are particularly keen, for economical purposes and to aid voluntary enlistment, in replacing males by cheaper female labour. Even the London County Council is still endeavouring to “release" its few remaining tramwaymen by the employment of women. Its education department is also withholding scholarships and appointments from pupil teachers and others of 18 years and over, until after the war in order to “enable” them to enlist. The railways also are not behind in this despite the semi military nature of their work. In the "Daily Chronicle" of Nov. 2nd the following paragraph appeared:

  The Midland Company has also decided that "all clerks of military age must be spared." Steps are being taken to ascertain the number of men who come within the category, with a view to their positions being filled by females and men above the requisite age.

The sudden stoppage of much Government work co-incident with the commencement of Lord Derby's scheme is by no means a negligible factor in the great recruiting boom. The Post Office is bringing increased pressure to bear on enlistable employees, who are, indeed, marked men: and a growing and almost irresistible pressure is being felt by eligible members of the employed class up and down the country. Certainly the difference in the attitude toward the army, of a man in a normal job, and the same man faced with the alternative of enlisting or starving, is directly conducive to the success of voluntary service.

So great is the pressure brought to bear upon the working class in order to make them join the army of their own free will, that some working men are saying that conscription would involve fewer hardships and be more equitable. However this may be, it is certain that the voluntary system is admirably calculated to promote the traditional freedom of members of the capitalist class. The present pressure to enlist falls almost exclusively upon the workers. Only an employed person can be discharged and faced with the alternative of either starving or voluntarily enlisting. The scions of the ruling class completely escape. The workers are compelled to join in overwhelming numbers.

Is it then strange that the master class hesitates to abandon voluntary recruiting in favour of conscription? Voluntaryism guarantees complete liberty to the employing class to enlist or not, as they please; it only acts as compulsion upon the workers. Conscription itself could only with difficulty get more men from the working class, though it might get them more quickly; but the numerous exemptions that it would be necessary to make in each a scheme in order to secure the traditional freedom of the propertied class, might create greater difficulties, or open the eyes and arouse the hostility of the workers. It is, therefore, hardly likely that conscription will be readily resorted to by the powers that be, in view of the manifest advantages to them of the present system. The chief danger to the voluntary system would seem to be the failure of employers, in a desire to avoid sacrificing immediate profits, to discharge all fit men. As has already been seen however, such conduct has been condemned as unpatriotic, and every effort is being made to compel the working class to ensure the success of the voluntary system. As a prominent statesman has said: no sacrifice can be too great when freedom is at stake. And the workers will doubtless be called upon to make ever greater sacrifices in order to preserve the sacred birthright of freedom which is the prerogative of all members of the propertied class. A birthright of freedom, indeed, which exists only by virtue of our birthright of wage-slavery, and which is deliberately built upon, and buttressed by, the hardships and lack of freedom of those who labour.

Note On Nationalisation (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the various methods employed by the Government when fixing the compensation to be paid to the shareholders when their industries are nationalised some groups of shareholders do better than others. It looks as if the shareholders of McNamara & Co., the transport contractors who have for a hundred years carried mails for the Post Office, do not do so badly. It is reported in the Evening News (13th August, 1948) that the purchase price paid by the British Transport Commission will work out at about 33s. for the 12s. stock units. Nevertheless the shareholders were expecting more and the same paper reports that when this purchase price was announced the market price of the shares dropped from their recent high level of 33s. 9d. But, says the Evening News, the shares were selling at only 23s. 6d. last October when the negotiations began. 

Another interesting note was published in the Sunday Express (15th August, 1948) on the possibility of the Government nationalising the tobacco industry. Some stockbroker has been calculating how much the shareholders of the Imperial Tobacco Co. might expect to get if nationalisation takes place. If the compensation were to be worked out on the same basis as that applied to road haulage nationalisation the compensation would be 119s. 7d. per share. If the basis is that applied to the coal maines it would be 114s., and if the Government paid the market price of the shares before the General Election it would be 160s. As the shares are now standing at 101s. 3d., the Sunday Express sees that nationalisation on either of the three bases would be a good thing for the shareholders and “it’s bad luck for shareholders that there is no talk of nationalisation yet.” !

Edgar Hardcastle

No Compromise. (1926)

Editorial from the April 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the Socialist Party’s policy can be summed up in a phrase, that phrase is "no compromise”; we are not phrase-worshippers, however, and therefore wish our phrases to be clearly and definitely understood.

The Socialist Party opposes all other political parties without exception, "whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.” The necessity for a party which is out for Socialism arises from the fact that the existing social order, which we call capitalism, holds no prospect of improvement for the majority of the population—the working- class. Parties which openly exist to preserve that social order, with or without modification, are therefore so many barriers to be surmounted before our goal can be achieved.

The simple, easily intelligible, fact is, nevertheless, frequently made the subject of misrepresentation on the part of some of our opponents. "Half a loaf is better than no bread" we are told, and the outsider is sometimes misled into thinking that the Socialist Party has a conscientious objection to accepting half-loaves, and he is seldom slow in voicing his contempt for such (quite imaginary) “pig-headedness" on our part. We have often observed, however, that people who lightly accept this view of the matter are not to be trusted to distinguish between half-loaves and packets of sawdust —between measures that might conceivably benefit the workers for a short period to some slight extent, and measures which merely tighten up the machinery of capitalist administration at the expense of the workers.

We have exposed in these columns times without number the fraudulent character of the reforms advocated by "progressives” of all shades, from the old-age pensioners and insurance schemes of Liberals to the nationalisation projects of the "left wing,” but we still find trustful souls who believe in the possibility of getting "something now.” These good people are simply in a fog. They do not realise that "now" the workers are politically powerless and will remain so until they organise as a class for the establishment of Socialism. To expect "something now" is to expect charity from the master-class. It is to fly in the face of history, which shows that such concessions as conditions have allowed the workers to wring from the masters in the past lose their value with the progress of industry. The victories of Trade Unions in their early days, resulting in shorter hours and higher wages, have been neutralised by the improvement in machinery and productive methods, speeding-up, intenser exploitation and more unemployment.

Not only is this the case, but even the ability of Trade Unions to obtain such concessions grows manifestly less with the increased concentration and international organisation of capital. Yet in spite of this we find individuals, in the name of “Communism,” encouraging the workers to “demand,” from the capitalist state, £4 per week and a 44-hour slavery!

If economic laws could be legislated out of existence, if capitalism could be made to serve the interests of the workers, then there would, indeed, be no case for Socialism. It would long ago have perished, a sterile Utopia. The work of Marx, ignored by the “Communists” who pay him lip-homage, was to emphasise the inability of governments to work miracles. Relying firmly upon political action, he stressed the need for understanding the conditions and essential limitations of that action. It is characteristic of the inverted logic of the “ Communist ” and “minority movers” that in one breath they avow their contempt for Parliamentary procedure, and in the next call upon the workers to send in petitions—to the House of Commons!

The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism. We know sufficient of capitalism, however, to realise that the only way to obtain the smallest advantage is to oppose the enemy, both on the economic and political fields. We do not propose, to give our support in exchange for a mere promise—and the more the enemy concedes the harder we shall hammer at his fortress, i.e., working- class ignorance, apathy and disunity. The political supremacy of the workers will only be achieved by organisation for an object which will unite, inspire, and enlighten them. That object is Socialism—our object.

Other parties may tell you fellow-workers that if is their object also—“ultimately"; but you will, if careful, notice that they do not make it a plank in their election addresses. They cannot find room for it. They have too many requests to make of the master-class to propose to abolish them.

Fellow-workers, we apologise to no one for our existence as a party. We have watched for years the baffled efforts and disappointed hopes of sections of our class, acting in ignorance of important factors in their problems. It is our mission to make those factors clear, and we invite you to study our literature, come to our meetings, ask us your questions, confident that when you. understand our case you will join us.

A Reader Discovers a Mare’s Nest (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Editor,                                                                                                                                                        Tottenham.

Dear Sir,

Being a regular reader of the Socialist Standard I observe the continual change of its policy towards Marxian Socialism and can only come to one conclusion, that there is a mental mix-up of those who form the Editorial Committee of the Party. To state a definite case for Socialism in previous Socialist Standards and then to contradict it in a following issue certainly needs an explanation, for to continue such tactics is certainly not in the interests of the working class.

Having made my charge I will now proceed to substantiate it. Firstly, in the Socialist Standard, March, 1925, page 297, after criticising the Minority Movement and condemning its reformist policy, it states: “To appeal, therefore, to Capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation, is to support the present system and those who rule it.” This is the policy that Marx always advocated, and never did he modify his views in favour of accepting capitalist reforms. This cannot be said for the S.P.G.B., who—as I will prove—now show a complete disregard for Marx on this point.

For in the Socialist Standard, April, 1926, page 122, there appears the following: “The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism.” Thus we see that after criticising both Communist and Labour Parties for advocating and accepting capitalist reforms, the S.P.G.B. are doing exactly the same thing. I wonder what Marx would have said and whether he would recognise the S.P.G.B. as a genuine Socialist movement?

I could continue giving examples of the inconsistency of this party from more recent issues of the Socialist Standard, but I consider that the above facts are quite sufficient to warrant a justification for the S.P.G.B.’s criticism of other political parties, if such is possible.

Finally. I shall look forward to a reply in the Socialist Standard.

I am,

                    Yours, etc.,

                                  H. Timmins.

Reply.

Our correspondent describes himself as a “regular reader," but his letter could not have been written if he had read the two articles with reasonable care. Had he done so he would have seen that there is no contradiction whatever. The two articles express exactly the same viewpoint. This can easily be made clear by giving some further quotations.

The first article (March, 1925) dealt with the fallacies underlying the so-called Minority Movement. The article pointed out that a minority is in the hopeless position that if it demands something which the capitalist ruling class do not wish to give, then its demands are ignored and the minority is helpless to enforce them. This would apply to a demand for Socialism made by a minority. Consequently, minorities which wish to appear effective (the Minority Movement, for example), put forward programmes which the capitalists may be willing to agree to and able to agree to without injury to capitalism. In other words a majority movement can enforce its demands, while a minority movement can only appeal to the Capitalist Government to do something.

The article runs as follows: —

   The fact that they call themselves a Minority Movement damns them from the start, for, on the economic field, numbers count when a contest is on for obtaining some advance. Not minorities, but majorities, are then required, and a minority left to fight for some demand is doomed. The mass of the workers must be united in support of a national advance before we can expect them to obtain it.

After criticising the specific demands put forward by the Minority Movement, the article continues:—

  The political proposals of this movement could only be carried out if those in control of Government passed the demands into law. To appeal, therefore, to capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation is to support the present system and those who rule it. It is to ask the workers to prolong capitalism by voting for those politicians who have a programme of properly selected reforms. 

The other article referred to by our correspondent (April, 1926) puts forward precisely the same argument. Our correspondent by quoting three lines and ignoring what goes before and after discovers an entirely imaginary difference.

This is the whole relevant passage:—

   It is characteristic of the Communist and “Minority Movers” that in one breath they avow their contempt for Parliamentary procedure, and, in the next, call upon the workers to send in petitions to the House of Commons.
   The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism. We know sufficient of capitalism, however, to realise that the only way to obtain the smallest advantage is to oppose the enemy, both on the economic and political fields.

It will be seen that the two articles are identical in condemning the policy of petitioning or appealing to the capitalists, and identical in urging the very opposite policy of coming out in complete opposition to the capitalists.

So much for the the first of our correspondent’s mare’s nests. We await the others he promises.

Before concluding, we cannot pass over the inaccurate and illogical references to Marx.

Our correspondent quotes the passage beginning, “To appeal therefore to capitalists . . . .” and says (quite correctly), “This is the policy that Marx always advocated,” i.e., the policy of opposing the capitalists instead of appealing to them.

Then our correspondent concludes his reference to Marx with the words, “Never did he modify his views in favour of accepting capitalist reforms.” Now the first statement about Marx is correct. The second is false. Our correspondent, however, seeks to convey the impression that the two statements are really identical, which they are not. What he has done is to use the word “appeal” in the first, only to replace it by “accept” in the second.

So far from telling the workers to refuse to accept reforms (how they could do so our correspondent does not explain), Marx welcomed such reforms as the shorter working day and valued them highly (probably more highly than they deserved). But he never advocated the useless policy of appealing to the capitalists for such reforms.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: The Socialist Party and Reforms (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answer to a Correspondent

H. Timmins (South Tottenham).—Your letter of 1st September received. As we find that it covers almost exactly the same ground and uses (and fails to understand) the same quotations as the letter from you that we published and replied to at length in the issue for October, 1933, we are not prepared to publish it again. We refer you to that reply and suggest that you try to make up your mind what is the precise nature of the charge of alleged inconsistency you wish to make. In brief it is correct, as you know, that the Party’s Declaration of Principles has never been changed. From time to time the Party has discussed the application of Socialist principles to particular issues and did so about 1910 on the question of reforms. The attitude defined then has never been altered and was reaffirmed at Conference this year. There is no inconsistency whatever in being opposed to having a programme of reforms, opposed to reformist parties and opposed to the policy of appealing to the capitalists for reforms, and at the same time being prepared to obtain anything that can be obtained by opposition to the capitalist class both on the economic and political fields. If you could show us that we have ever advocated the former or departed from the latter there would be a case to answer, not otherwise.

In your letter of October, 1933, you charged Marx with advocating the policy of appealing to the capitalists for reforms. You do so again and now you also say that in that issue of the Socialist Standard we published “the glaring statement that 'Marx welcomed reforms'." You seem to be confusing your own argument with our repudiation of it and you were quite right to say in your present letter that no doubt we would accuse you “ of just using small extracts,” except that the term should be not even using but “misquoting.”

You say, for example, that we wrote “Marx welcomed reforms.” What we actually did write, as yon will see if yon look it up, was:

  “Marx welcomed such reforms as the shorter working day and valued them highly (probably more highly than they deserved). But he never advocated the useless policy of appealing to the capitalists for such reforms.”

You make one new point: “In view of the recent new Health Insurance Act, it brings to the fore the question of Reforms, of which even members of your Party will receive some benefits in different ways.”

You have overlooked the fact that the new Scheme is partly financed by deductions from wages (incidentally a reversal of the early Labour Party policy); that it is introduced at a time when prices are rising faster than wages and in place of wage increases; that some workers, e.g. new entrants to the Civil Service, will now have deductions made from wages for old age pensions but will have the pensions deducted from the Civil Service pension they would get in any event; and that the scheme as a whole is so far from being attractive that hundreds of thousands of people refused to enter it and the threat of prosecution had to be made to force them to do so.

Ed. Comm.

The "Unofficial" Strikers (1948)

From the November 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

For months past much space has been taken up in the daily press to condemn the “unofficial” striker. The Editorials vie with each other in vilifying the “Reds” who are behind all these movements. The Daily Mirror, whose contribution to the culture and art for the people, consists of Jane, Ruggles, and Buck Ryan, is among the latest to join up in this tirade. Though their daily slogan is “forward with the people," their sympathies seem to lie more with our masters in their drive for more and harder work for the worker. Accordingly, their Editorial (17/9/48) welcomed “the sign of deep responsibility in the Trade Union movement as a whole that the proposal for a token strike among the engineers as a protest against the recent wage award should have been turned down." It went on to mention how the “respectable” leaders have influenced the majority to proceed in the constitutional manner, and keep on working hard while negotiations are carried on. “Unfortunately there are places where the reasonable view did not prevail”— it goes on—“and despite the ban by the A.E.U. on unofficial strikes, certain men in Glasgow have called token stoppages for Monday.”

“Now what is behind this minority movement? ” asks the Daily Mirror. “ Possibly’’—they think— “some of the men are unaware that the 'rebel policy' within the Trade Union movement is inspired all the time not by industrial but by political motives.” Considering that all the wealth of the world is produced by the application of the workers’ energies, physical and mental, to the nature-given materials, through the use of machinery which he has in the past produced, there is nothing “unreasonable” or ”unofficial” about the use of his only weapon (the strike) for demanding a larger share of what is produced by his energies. Even more so, when one considers that from the total of wealth produced he receives on the average just sufficient to keep him in that physical state to keep on producing more and more wealth with a view to sale and profit. His share, one might say, is just the grease to keep the “machine” going. The Daily Mirror mentions political influence. Well, it is possibly correct that “Communists” wish to gain control in the Unions to further their political line, but to assert that their influence is so much that they can be all over the country at the same time is more likely to flatter them and give them much undeserved publicity. Strange that no one ever mentions a Tory minority in the Union movement out to embarrass the Labour Government! The charge would, of course, be equally ludicrous. With the slow progress of negotiating machinery, and the meanwhile rising costs of living, the worker "feels” the reduction in his standard of living. No "minority" has to tell him that. He organises and discusses strike action, according to the degree of his class-consciousness and militancy. One notices that the deploring of these so-called unofficial strikes always comes from those who are secure in their four square meals a day and in their home, and servants to attend them. Of course the press is always full of the harm to the “public” or the “community,” as if the worker had never known anything but "comfort” and “security” all his life !! What they never mention is that profits are threatened and as they (the press) are supporters of the capitalist system they must needs protect that system and invent all kinds of phoney phrases to keep up that support. As socialists we say that while there is capitalism there will always be strikes, ”unofficial” or otherwise, but at the same time we say the greatest need of the moment is to organise for socialism, a system vastly different from capitalism, and one in which all the means for producing and distributing the wealth of the world will be the common property of all mankind irrespective of race, colour or sex. Then there will be no more need for unions, or strikes, or disputes. Everyone will have free access to what is socially produced. There will be no need then for a “minority" to “rock the boat” (as the Mirror puts it). The "majority” will have sunk the “rotten boat” of capitalism, and settled on the ”new liner” of Socialism.

G. Hilbinger

A Policeman's Club (1948)

Quote from the December 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

"When a policeman's club descends thick and heavy on a worker's skull during a strike if he listens intently he will hear ringing in his ears, the echo of the vote he cast at the last election."
— Eugene Debs

Bavaria Revisited (1948)

From the December 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish the following letter from a reader dealing with conditions in Germany. The writer is an American now studying in Switzerland.—-Ed. Comm.

On the train, rattling eastward from Buchloe, I recalled three previous visits to Munich . . .  in 1925, 1945 and the Spring of 1948. In more than two decades the surrounding countryside had undergone little change. There were still the same rolling meadows, broken by the quilt patterns of crops and dark patches of forest. White-walled, red-roofed villages dotted the landscape and clustered more thickly as the capital approached. The countryside had changed little, but the city was battered by war beyond recognition.

In 1925, despite war, hunger and inflation, Munich was still the German Paris, with its wide, tree-lined avenues, sidewalk cafes, spacious squares and well-groomed parks. The green Isar was a kind of Seine, meandering through the town past villas and heroic monuments. Munich even had its Quartier Latin—the suburb of Schwabing—where artiste and writers from all German-speaking countries (Rilke, the Zweigs, J. C. Heer, O. M. Graf) came to live and work. The Wittelsbach kings had been admirers of the Bourbons, and their capital became a symbol of this admiration.

In the Summer of 1945 we slid slowly into Munich in a U.S. military train. The great arched station had been gutted and wrecked . . . the sky was visible through the girder-skeleton. As an ironic touch, a huge rusty sign proclaimed Munich “The Capital of the (Nazi) Movement.” In 1925 one had to walk half-an-hour from the Bahnhofplatz to see the great Frauenkirche. Now its twin towers, with their onion-domes, were visible from the station steps. Round about was a sea of rubble . . . bricks, plaster, wooden beams and twisted girders, with jagged roofless walls alternating with houses miraculously spared. Gaunt, seedy throngs . . . Germans and a dozen other races . . . swarmed through the littered streets. Jeeps, army trucks and command cars were the only traffic. Shop windows were bare. Munich, 1945, was a skeleton picked clean.

In the Spring of 1948 the rubble had been cleared from the streets. It was now piled up in the empty lots, behind the jagged walls, and grass was growing between the bricks and beams. The great squares were more spacious than ever, lined by hollowed buildings that resembled skulls. The streets were still crowded . . .  the influx of refugees from Eastern Germany had swelled the population to 800,000. There was more civilian traffic. The small, egg-shaped Volkswagen, for which the Hitler regime collected down payments, had appeared at last. The shop windows were a little fuller, but many of the goods were clearly marked “Samples Only.’’ There was some evidence of rebuilding, mainly repairs on the less damaged structures. But thousands of families still lived in air-raid shelters and cellars and would continue to do so for a long time.

In mid-October, 1948, Munich, along with Western Germany, had gone through last Summer’s currency reform. The new Deutsche Mark, issued for ten of the old, was in circulation. Its appearance had worked a miraculous change in the street scene. Now the shop windows were crowded with goods of all kinds— household utensils, clothing, radios, shoes, leather goods, books, paper, luxury items. Even groceries and butcher shops displayed wares most of their customers had not seen in years. In the midst of Munich’s moon-crater landscape it was possible to sit down to a meal of eggs, meat, fish or poultry. For a slight increase in price the food coupons were waived on rationed items. A correspondent for the Paris Herald-Tribune wrote an enthusiastic article about the success of the “Währungsreform,” pointing out that a duck dinner cost less in Munich than in New York or Glasgow, that a German Leica camera, which costs 450 Dollars in the U.S.A., can be bought for 175 in Bavaria. Surely the western occupation powers had worked a modern miracle.

There is only one thing wrong with this glowing picture. The German masses, having lost over 90 per cent. (the frozen bank deposits were recently reduced again) of their savings, cannot afford to buy most of the goods so temptingly displayed. Our Herald friend forgets that his 175 Dollars, at 15 Marks to the Dollar, represents seven months’ pay to the average German worker. His duck dinner, at six or eight Marks, is a days’ wages to a German clerk or carpenter. Once again, as in the early Twenties, Germany will be a playground for the well-heeled tourist. But what of its citizens? Recently the American consul at Munich announced he would accept applications for visas. He got over two million replies.

We had missed Munich’s famous “Oktoberfest,’’ which, we were told, was celebrated this year with something of the old lavishness. (Among other things, there were fried chickens at 12 Marks apiece.) As a partial compensation we visited the annual Fall Fair at Memmingen, a western Bavarian town of 20,000 near the foothills of the Alps. The old streets and squares were lined with booths and jammed with farmers. People rode in on hay wagons, buses and tractors to this post-currency Jahrmarkt, to feast their eyes on the pottery, cloth, dishes, toys, farm implements and luggage. Laughing children and young people rode the chutes, swings and merry-go-round. This was almost back to normalcy. But here, too, high prices and empty pocketbooks put a damper on gaiety. With a toy ballon at 2 Marks, a “Lebkuchen’’ heart at 2.50, a 100-gramme bar of inferior Czech chocolate at 5.50, a set of dishes at 30, many a youngster and housewife had to be content with “window shopping.’’

Like all other attempts to patch up a rotting system, the West German currency reform will be a long-term failure. Repercussions are inevitable. At this writing the workers of Heidelberg are on strike against high and rising prices. As Winter comes, signs of discontent will grow. With them will grow a knowledge on the part of the German proletariat (now truly have-nots) that the road pointed out by their old teachers—Marx and Engels—was the right one, after all. There is no substitute for Socialism.

W. Weber.

Agriculture in Capitalism and Socialism (2018)

From the January 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

After discussing some possible features of a socialist society, Colin Skelly contrasts how agriculture is carried out in capitalism with how it could be transformed in socialism.

'[The] technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly – centralised productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time – which, looking back, seems so idyllic –  is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption', Albert Einstein ‘Why Socialism?’, Monthly Review, May 1949).

Einstein’s view of socialism as utilising and continuing the ever more extreme division of labour prevalent in capitalist production is a logical one. As Marx pointed out, a major contradiction at the heart of capitalism is that the working class has access to a relatively decreasing proportion of the value produced by their labour (despite often also being absolutely better off materially than preceding generations). It makes complete sense then, that some socialists would see the immediate goal of our global revolution as being to enable the equalisation of the vast productive output of global labour.

Yet contrast Einstein’s view with that of William Morris in his vision of the socialist future, News From Nowhere (told as the story of how the socialist revolution had occurred by the character Old Hammond):

'…he [Old Hammond] had a detailed record of the period of the change to the present state of things, and told us a great deal about it, and especially of that exodus of the people from the town to the country, and the gradual recovery by the town-bred people on one side, and the country-bred people on the other, of those arts of life which they had each lost; which loss, as he told us had at one time gone so far that not only was it impossible to find a carpenter or a smith in a village or a small country town, but that people in such places had even forgotten how to bake bread... He told us also that the townspeople who came into the country used to pick up the agricultural arts by carefully watching the way in which the machines worked, gathering an idea of handicraft from machinery; because at that time almost everything was done by elaborate machines used quite unintelligently by the labourers. On the other hand, the old men amongst the labourers managed to teach the younger ones gradually a little artisanship, such as the use of the saw and the plane, the work of the smithy, and so forth; for once more by that time it was as much as –  or rather, more than –  a man could do to fix an ash pole to a rake by handiwork; so that it would take a machine worth a thousand pounds, a group of workmen, and a half a day's travelling, to do five shillings' worth of work' (Chapter 27, The Upper Waters).

Today, with stories abounding about the displacement of human employment with robots, such a view is highly relevant. Now we in the Socialist Party know that robots will not end our role as wage slaves – we need to do that ourselves – but with the technical possibility of displacing many forms of human labour, how would we choose work in the socialist future? Marx made a distinction between immediate and developed communism in his Critique of the Gotha Programme; socialism as established on day one would not be the same as socialism 5, 10, 20, 50 years later.

Day One

Socialism on Day One would surely involve, to borrow some phrases from Engels, the replacement of the government of persons by the administration of things and the anarchy of production in capitalism by the conscious direction of the processes of production. The working class would be in the driving seat politically and socially meaning that the productive potential of the Earth’s resources combined with human technical potential would be at our collective command. Equality would be established in terms of our individual and collective relation to the means of production. We would be at a point where we no longer worked for money wages but one in which each of us would put in our mental and physical labours to social production and each of us would take out what we need from the surplus of production destined for immediate consumption. To borrow from Marx this time, labour would be given according to the abilities of those giving it and the products of collective labour taken according to individual needs.

But the point of socialism is more than a striving for equality for its own sake. There is much more to socialism than arguments about what will be produced and how it will be distributed. In fact, equality of access to means of production is merely a means to an end, the social and political expression of a deeper need, the need, as Morris expressed it, for our labour to be ‘set free’. Marx was very clear in Capital and elsewhere, that socialism would be the conscious management of production for the first time in human history. It would give us, both as individuals and as a global society, the means to shape our own lives, ‘the pursuit of the universality of needs, capacities, enjoyments, productive powers etc., of individuals, produced in universal exchange.’  Socialism will surely not involve us going to work as normal, not even on Day One. It will surely be about more than having a say in what is produced and taking only what you need. It will involve a massive change in how you work, how you relate to what is produced. Because you wouldn’t have to work. To borrow from Marx yet again, the free development of each of us would allow the free development of all of us. In other words, although compulsion will be removed from work, our new free relation to it will ensure that, in fact, more productive work will happen. Which is why, although Einstein was right that socialism will continue to be ‘a planetary community of production and consumption’ and not a move to self-sufficiency, his vision of a highly centralised world with extreme division of labour is, for this socialist at least, further from what socialism will look like than that of William Morris.

Agriculture under capitalism

So, how might agriculture look in a socialist future? To start, we might contrast in broad strokes what global agriculture in capitalism looks like compared to a reasoned guess at what it might look like in a socialist society. Agriculture in capitalism is one dominated by production of plant and animal crops for sale in a global market in which import and export occur on a massive scale and in which more industrialised countries import food (where obesity is literally a growing problem) and less industrialised countries export food (even where populations may be malnourished). Intensive production is pervasive, trying to squeeze every last bit of plant or animal out of every square metre to the exclusion of all other considerations. Animals destined for meat are kept indoors in the smallest possible unit of space and dosed on antibiotics and given dubious food inputs in order to keep them alive and growing at the optimum rate for the earliest possible harvesting. Mechanisation is constantly developing under pressure of competition, squeezing human labour out of the process of production and making the machinery ever more complex and expensive. Production is finely specialised, individual farms concentrating on a very narrow range of plants or animals to the exclusion of all other crops. Agriculture is ecologically unsustainable, denuding soils of ecological health due to reliance on chemical fertilisers, pesticides and monocultures leading to further negative impacts on biodiversity, soil erosion and human health. Agriculture in capitalism is industrialised and exclusively rural, sharply delineated from urban life. Relationships are dependent – between food importing and exporting countries, between agrochemical companies and growers, between town and country.

Agriculture in socialism, whilst involving the widespread transfer of foodstuffs around the world, would not involve the imbalance between imports and exports that currently reflects global economic imbalance. It is likely that food production in a given geographic area would be planned to maximise the amount and variety available locally and regionally rather than dominated by one crop destined for export. An amount of surplus, perhaps of particular speciality crops, would probably be made available for exporting globally. Production would likely be more extensive than intensive as collective decisions about land use would replace the competitive pressure to maximise per unit yields of a narrow range of crops. The need for the routine dosing of animals grown for meat would disappear with the end of the compulsion to keep them in the smallest possible unit of space with the least inputs. Mixed farming would probably replace monoculture with multiple types of crops, enabling a total larger yield of crops per acre across the year. The drive for mechanisation would continue where dull, monotonous tasks were desired to be eradicated but the increased variety and range of work would make the need for machines that would run with minimal human input across of acres of monoculture a thing of the past.

Mixed farming would remove the need for reliance on chemical fertiliser inputs, replenishing soil fertility with animal wastes and, over time, restoring the ecological health of soils. The need for pesticides would be reduced as a greater range of crops would remove the risk of catastrophic crop failure and greater resilience of total crop yields. In turn, this would allow for a far greater biodiversity on farm land leading to a further drop in reliance on chemical inputs as a more balanced ecology replaced the ecological desert that is monoculture. The economic pressures leading to the rural and urban divide would cease to exist and the distinction between town and country would probably give way to a more balanced use of land, although doubtless population distribution would reflect the physical characteristics and productive potential of the land. Local, small scale and part-time production of food would probably increase because of free access to land alongside larger mixed farms. Interdependent relationships in food production would replace dependence

No one wants to grow in the way that food production is carried out in capitalism. In fact, farmers in capitalism do not want to farm in this way but are compelled to do so under the competitive pressure of the market. Freed from this burden, the range of people engaged in producing food would increase and land use patterns alter drastically. The productive potential of the land combined with the scientific and technical knowledge developed during the course of capitalist production will enable social production on a new economic basis. Consciously planned production, probably at local, regional and global levels, would replace production for the market. This planning would reflect local, regional and global needs but, as importantly, what those engaged in agriculture might want to produce and how they might choose to produce it.

Colin Skelly

Self-Service (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The self-service store, with which most of us are now familiar, has developed of recent years in response to the needs of Capitalism to reduce costs and increase sales. More people can gel into the shop and out again, and at the same time buy more goods with less staff assistance than before. At the same time the high-powered retailing methods of modern Capitalism are used to the full. Everything is laid out to extract the maximum purchases from each buyer who enters the shop, right down to the little “likely to be forgotten extras" that are hung round the all-essential cash register as you pay your way out.

The purgative effect of sweet canned music on the pocket is used to release that loose change. If your memory is not so good, the psychologically timed repetition of a tape-recorded voice will remind you that whatever it is you are in dire need of, may be had at the toss of a coin. And so off.

What has this to do with Socialism? Let us get back to that cash register. Next time you walk into your local self-service store, imagine that Socialism is here. You walk in, take up one of the little wire baskets provided and put into it the things you want. Nothing could be easier or more logical. Now try to walk out. Not so easy. The check-out counter is guarded by the owners’ protection machine—the cash register.

This is where our little game ceases: no us: imagining it is Socialism now. The act of paying for the things you have collected round the store, is the all-important factor that brings us back to reality, and makes the difference between Socialism and Capitalism.

The means for organising “free access” are here. All you've to do is remove that formality at the check-out.

Ian Jones

Branch News (1962)

Party News from the February 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the absence of the full report of the activities of Glasgow Branch, it is good to note that great activity is taking place and the Branch members are co-operating to ensure that the series of meetings are as successful as possible. Their full report is on the way. but has not arrived in time for this month's issue. No doubt there will be more to add by the time we go to press for March.

Wembley Branch members turned out in torrential rain on December 29th to visit the Young Liberals for a discussion on “Immigration". They were most courteously received by these young people, and although talk started off on the official topic, it was not long before it had broadened into a thorough examination of the whole Socialist case. The standard of questions was very high and our comrades were kept busy answering them and points of discussion until the end of the evening. A most gratifying result, and amply repaying the efforts of those who were able to attend. Comrades are hoping for a return visit from the Young Liberals in the near future. By the time you read this, the second of the public meetings will have been held at the Branch rooms, when Comrade Hardy will have told the audience just “Why we Stand Alone". Another, (and possibly more ambitious) meeting is planned to round off the indoor season, probably at the end of March. Details later.

Mitcham Group reports continued activity during the Autumn/Winter indoor season. Regular discussions have been held monthly in their meeting room at the ‘White Hart.' The principal activity of members has been in taking issue with our opponents in the correspondence columns of the local papers. Each letter sent has been published and as a result a number of people have had their attitude corrected by reading the Socialist view. In fact, it is considered by members of the Group, that owing to their efforts in this direction, they are responsible for one Mitcham paper no longer referring to the Labour Party as Socialist.

A programme has been drawn up for the Mitcham Group to discuss both topical politics and political theory. They held a successful meeting in January which dealt with the implications of the European Common Market scheme.

Phyllis Howard

Obituary: Ray Kellar (1962)

Obituary from the March 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ray Kellar, an old member in years and party service, died at the age of eighty on the 27th November 1961. He was an active member from the early twenties and, in spite of several illnesses necessitating hospital treatment, he remained as active as his health permitted until the late forties. After that time his interest in the Party had to remain, of necessity, almost entirely academic. He corresponded as vigorously as he used to speak at Branch meetings and never lost that perennial optimism which is the hallmark of the Socialist.

Members of the Birmingham Branch fortunate enough to meet him during his active period remember with affection his fiery and uncompromising adherence to the hostility clause, his profound hatred of hypocrisy and, in happy contrast, his old world courtesy and his unfailing patience with those of us who, as newcomers, were struggling to master the concept of socialism.

Howard J. Grew

We are all Socialists now (1962)

From the April 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was back in the 1880’s that the Liberal politician and sometime Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir William Harcourt, coined the phrase “ We are all Socialists now." It has proved a shrewd blow in the defence of capitalism.

If Socialism meant solving capitalism's administrative and taxation problems, Harcourt’s Finance Act stepping up death duties and his plan to unify the government of London, qualified him to call himself a Socialist. But as Socialism did not and does not mean anything of this kind the phrase is untrue, absurd and misleading—particularly misleading because it prevents clear thinking about Socialism.

It had a surprising success, being instantly blessed by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. Like many habits and fancies of his, it became the fashion. It helped the Tories and Liberals to give a new slant to their propaganda and deceived many simple-minded “Labour’’ reformists into thinking that the capitalists were being won over to Socialism.

While the phrase is no longer used, the idea behind it has spread all over the globe and all countries now have their politicians trying to protect capitalism while calling it Socialism. Apart from the U.S.A., where some politicians still defend capitalism under its own name, it has become almost the universal rule for capitalist parties and leaders to clothe themselves in Socialist-sounding slogans. Marx wrote that one country should learn from another, but instead of the workers of the newly formed countries learning from the older ones how to guard against the deceits of capitalist propaganda it has been the leaders of the new countries learning the trick of capitalist propaganda to mislead their own followers. In gratitude they ought to put up statues to Harcourt who first thought of it.

So as capitalism digs itself in in the old countries; or struggles for world supremacy in the case of State capitalist Russia and China; or progresses towards industrialisation in Africa, India, and Asia; more and more it is done under the leadership of men falsely claiming that they are building Socialism.

Of course, it has its variations of detail and emphasis. The new President of Syria declared that the new Syrian way of life was to be “conservative Socialism." He had just thrown out the troops of another “Socialist," Colonel Nasser. Nasser doesn't have to descend to vulgar disputation about the merits and demerits of Syrian “conservative Socialism” because his own variety of capitalism called Socialism traces back to Mohammed. “The State established by Islam and founded by Mohammed was the first Socialist State. Mohammed was the first to apply the policy of nationalisation in those days.” Daily Worker. 24/7/61.)

Nkrumah of Ghana is another “Socialist ” who clings like a leech to capitalism. He promised “new, challenging, bold and dynamic” measures to build “complete Socialism” and rather outshines Nasser and the Prophet because he has got himself known as the “Messiah” already. Of course, the “complete Socialism” is only eyewash for the voters, and according to a report in the Observer (2/7/61) the so-called “Socialism” towards which Nkrumah is moving was “defined by one of his most brilliant lieutenants as ‘Roosevelt’s New Deal'." What a laugh Roosevelt would have had at the thought that his masterly strokes to keep American capitalism functioning tolerably were really designed to do the opposite and destroy it!

One of the absurdities of those who seek to represent capitalism as Socialism is to say that nationalisation—which is State Capitalism—is not capitalist but Socialist. So every politician who ever sponsored governmental interference in business or nationalised an industry to help capitalism generally, from Disraeli to Attlee and Bismarck to Kemal Ataturk, thereby becomes a “Socialist.”

If this were really so, the brotherhood of capitalist "socialists" can get ready to welcome a new member, because it is reported that Franco's government is going to nationalise the Bank of Spain.

Edgar Hardcastle

What Makes a Thug? (1962)

From the May 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

They are still worrying over the young, violent criminal. It is easy to sneer at them, in their conferences bending anxious eyes over statistics. But a young thug is, apart from anything else, a socially ugly person so perhaps it is as well that there is somebody to worry over him and to try to find out why he moves around in his own little nightmare of violence. But the worriers—and this is no sneer never come up with the answer. They hammer away at parents, at schools, newspapers, television. They experiment in methods of treatment and punishment. Yet after this the young thug is still with us, coshing and slashing, and sometimes killing.

Last month, we remember, there was something of an uproar about the television portrayal of Bill Sikes murdering Nancy in the serialised Oliver Twist. Even the Postmaster General criticised the episode in the strongest language. There is some evidence that young people like to try and imitate death scenes which they have seen on T.V. Many adults were uneasy that some youngsters might try to do a Bill Sikes on their girl friends. Perhaps this was being rather unfair to the poor old BBC. At least, the Bill Sikes episode showed passionate murder as it is a messy and obscene business, with human beings behaving like dull beasts. That might put potential thugs off. But it is a different matter with the westerns and some of the crime serials. These make violence seem so much sweeter, less damaging, less violent, in fact. At least, when Bill Sikes throttled Nancy she went out spluttering and struggling. The cowboy or detective hero, on the other hand, can take a thunderbolt on his head, shake himself, blink and smile and recover in time for the next episode.

If this teaches anything, it is that violence is sent to test our manliness. Any influence which television might have upon the criminal figure should surely be credited (if that is the word) to the cops and robbers type of programme.

Yet even when we have said that, we are still a long way from the bottom of the matter. Some months ago a reader of The Guardian wrote to that newspaper criticising the BBC's choice of plays as laying too great an emphasis upon sex, gangsterism and crimes of violence. This letter brought forth a sharp reply from a Reverend Jones, who wrote from The Vicarage at Appleby. There was, said Mr. Jones, another sort of programme in which these things were given prominence: “I refer to the general news." The reverend thought that the broadcasting companies should do their best to play down these aspects or to broadcast them only when adults were likely to be tuned in.

The interesting thing about this letter is that its writer realised that the real world is in parts just as violent and intimidating as any script writer's nightmare scenario. It is not surprising that Mr. Jones missed the point that in real world capitalism violence is unavoidable. To say the least of it, anyone who sets out to teach a child that violence is socially useless has an uphill battle ahead. There is a constant pressure upon all of us to believe that the violence used by capitalism's heroes is glorious and commendable. A battle of Britain fighter pilot can be as violent as he likes. So can a Lovat Commando or a detective roping in a bunch of bank robbers.

Capitalism, in fact, is a violent society, in which war is as much a part of our life as milk is of cheese. And what does war mean? Admiral Jackie Fisher, who it better known as an austere, belligerent sailor, once spoke his mind on the matter. “It's perfect rot," he said, “to talk about Civilised Warfare. You might as well talk about Heavenly Hell! " (Fisher also said, at another time, " . . .  we can only have community of interests in the masses of people always being on the side of peace, because it is the masses who are massacred, not the kings and generals and politicians." which was a strange comment from a man whose job was to send some of the masses to be massacred).

We all grow up now under a cloud of socially organised violence. Our newspapers scream black headlines about fall out and missiles and anti-missiles and anti-anti-missiles. Nobody can feel secure when the world itself staggers from one crisis to another, always with the horrible feeling that the next might be the one to push the fingers down upon the buttons marked FIRE. This is a potent cause for despair and cynicism. Here is one of the roots of criminal violence. Do the worriers, then, speak out on this at their conferences? They are stuck with capitalism, and their hopeless efforts to reform it. They do not, therefore, speak out.

We should not forget that the ground in which capitalism's criminals take root is always well tilled and fertile. Why do people turn to crime? Most of us get our living by going out to work for a wage, which is often a precarious business. Even in boom time we need never be far off a recession which means short time or redundancy. Going out to work can be a boring business. Men can stand all day on the same spot, going through the same simple action time and again. Or they may sit at a desk shuffling the same dull paperwork, with their only prospect of excitement the chance of finding a miscast invoice. Young girls type endless letters and forms or fill up endless boxes of sweets. Yes, going to work for a living is often a precarious, boring, unpleasant business.

Small wonder that so many dream of the big pools win to take them away from it all. And no wonder either that a few decide that the chances against climbing out of the rut by keeping within capitalism’s laws are stacked high enough to justify them trying some other way. Such people are criminal material. Indeed, some criminals have coldly worked it out that they would spend a large part of their life in gaol, rather than give it all up to the nine to five-thirty routine with only a shiny trouser seat to show for it. The criminal, like any law abiding worker, dreams of the easy touch, the job that clicks. Usually it doesn't come off; that is why so many ol them lose their gamble and end up as shambling old lags.

Property rights stand between the criminal and his objective. To get what he wants he is prepared not only to break capitalism's laws. To clinch a Job he will beat up a watchman or cosh a messenger or even kill a cashier. Then if they catch him there is the macabre process of trial and sentence and execution. There is no lack of newspapers, fighting for sales, to give us all the juicy details. And what effect is this supposed to have upon potentially violent criminals? Victor Terry shot down the bank guard at Worthing on the very day that a friend of his was executed for murder. A member of the last Royal Commission on Capital Punishment put it on record that he was finally convinced of the need to abolish hanging when he read the letters, which regularly arrive at the Home Office. applying for the job of public hangman.

We can see that the matter of violence in society is more complex than simply trying to assess the effects upon a young child of watching Bill Sikes do Nancy in. Like so many of the other unpleasant aspects of capitalist society, it is all something of a shambles. But it is a shambles which can be sorted out. The first need is to have a world so organised that human welfare is at the top of the list of social priorities instead of being, as it is now, somewhere near the bottom A world like that would get rid of most violence by simply not having wars and poverty and criminal farms like the slums of the big cities.

When we have done that we can get down to finding out why some (if any) people may be violent. We can look at it for what it is — or should be — a human problem. That will be better than beating or hanging or punishing. It will be better than fussing the kids away from the television set. It will even be better than worrying over statistics in muddled, if well meaning, conferences.

Ivan

If Words Could Build Houses (1962)

Editorial from the June 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month saw yet another debate in Parliament on the housing problem—the fourth in three months. If words could build houses we would now all be living in splendour.

Labourites, Tories, Liberals—all went over the same well-worked ground. There were the usual graphic descriptions of the state of housing at the present time; the usual statistics about the number of slums and of people on waiting lists; the usual recriminations between the Labourites and Tories over what they had and had not done; the usual high-sounding promises of what was intended for the future.

In ten, twenty, fifty years time—as long as capitalism lasts—they will be telling the same tale and making the same promises, just as they have been doing for the past hundred years and more.

“There are about five million houses in the country at present which are over sixty years old,” said one Labour M.P. “ There are the same number without a bath,” said another, telling us as well that I.T.V.’s Coronation Street was named, not after George V's coronation, but Queen Victoria’s way back in 1837, and that in Salford they had just got round to pulling down Waterloo Place, built in 1815 to commemorate Wellington’s victory over Napoleon.

In the realm of statistics, we were told that in Oldham one house in four was unfit to live in; that in Liverpool there are 88,000 houses beyond any prospect of repair; that in Birmingham 50,000 families are on the waiting list for houses for which the average waiting time is eight years; that in the country as a whole there are more than a million houses reckoned to be unfit for habitation and that this may well be an under-estimate. Figures galore for those who like them.

Then the recriminations. The Labourites went through their well-thumbed list of Tory deficiencies, countered for the Tories by Dr. Hill with the usual devastating account of the housing record of the Labour Party when they were in office. The Labour speakers had been reproaching the Tories for building only 300,000 houses a year, he said, but they had conveniently forgotten that when they were in power they had only once built more than 200,000 in a year. During the same period, he reminded them, the Labour Government built schools at only half the present rate, constructed hardly any roads, provided no hospitals, and made no effort at all to tackle the slums. He went on to quote several of their past statements which must have made those Labourites present squirm in their seats. “We shall build four or five million houses and knock down any amount of slums and rebuild our country in a very quick time”; “We will get the houses as we got the guns, by planning and control ”; “ Labour will organise a new approach to housing and organise the industry as a national service ” were some of his choicer examples.

After the old Labour promises, came new Tory ones. “This is a social disease which we have to cure and which we intend to cure “ The Government intend to see that every family has its home, and a decent home, that is the pledge.” If words could build houses, indeed!

Way back in 1872, Frederick Engels wrote three articles, later made into a little book called The Housing Question. An extract from it appears on our front page this month. In his book, Engels was concerned to show that the reformists of his day could never, and would never, solve the housing problem.

Would he find anything fundamentally changed if he was to come back today?