Economics (1968)

Book Review from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Economics and Ideology and Other Essays by Ronald L Meek, (Chapman and Hall, 40s.)

Meek’s essays were originally written over the past twenty years, during which he changed from an orthodox supporter of the so-called Communist Party to the more ordinary kind of reformist, believing that the tendencies Marx saw for capitalism can, and have been, overcome by "social legislation, trade union activity, State intervention, etc.” But he still thinks there is somewhere a “socialist sector of the world”. 

Nevertheless, Meek knows his Adam Smith and Ricardo as well as his Marx. Classical Political Economy, on which Marx built, started its analysis from the relations men entered into when producing wealth and saw the distribution of the social product as between the classes of landowners, manufacturers and labourers. This led them to a labour theory of value. Meek, in his essay on the Scottish Historical School (of which Adam Smith was a member, for he was not just an economist) shows how they had evolved a materialist conception of history, similar to Marx’s, which saw productive and property relations as the basis of societies.

After Ricardo, by about 1830, bourgeois economic thinkers turned away from this approach and began to see economic activity from a businessman’s point of view. Why was this? Meek, following Marx, suggests that this was because the Ricardian labour theory of value implied that capitalism was based on the exploitation of the workers. This indeed was the conclusion drawn by men like Hodgskin and William Thompson. Marx ironed out the inconsistencies in their theories (chiefly by distinguishing between “labour” and “labour power”) and showed how the source of rent, interest and profit was the unpaid labour of the workers.

Meek claims that “it is obvious that the particular 'laws of motion' " developed by Marx can no longer be used today as a guide to what is actually going to happen as capitalism develops further". He takes these laws to be: the falling rate of profit, the increasing severity of cyclical crises, the concentration and centralization of capital, and the increasing misery of the working class. Only the third, he says, has been proved valid. However, it is open to question whether Marx expected the rate of profit to go on falling in practice (remember that it had been falling, and Marx was only trying to solve a problem which Adam Smith, Ricardo and others had already had a go at) and whether he even held that crises would get worse and worse (in any event this view has been rejected by Socialist Party of Great Britain). As for increasing misery, Meek argues that this means that the standard of living of workers would grow worse and worse. We cannot accept this and refer those interested to the discussion of the matter in the Socialist Standard of January 1957.

Though socialists cannot agree with all he writes. Meek is a Marx scholar worth reading.

Adam Buick

Without Comment (1968)

A quote from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

A minute gesture or item, such as the pencil reproduced in actual size on this page, can sometimes acquire great value. That is just what happened when a voluntary organisation asked G.I.s in Viet Nam what their most-wanted items were. Those needs were modest—such things as a pair of dry socks and some writing material. Time provided the tiny pencil, which the Christian Reform Laymen’s League included in 200,000 packets to Viet Nam. Surprisingly, the mini-pencil is serving purposes far beyond postcard writing. Its wooden shaft, wrote one Marine, is being used to clean the hard-to-get-at rifle sights, while the graphite helps sliding parts of the M-16. Hearing of this, the volunteer group asked Time for more of them to be included in a second shipment. This week another 200,000 pencils are going to the men.

Time, April 26, 1968

Activities in Wales (1968)

Party News from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Swansea branch had an unofficial literature stall at the annual conference of the National Union of Mineworkers which was held in Swansea at the beginning of July. Many pamphlets [and] a few Socialist Standards were sold to the delegates and visitors.

Debate with Young Liberals

The merits and demerits of capitalism and Socialism were discussed on 16 July when our Swansea branch debated the local Young Liberals. Our comrade Buick, for the branch, said that as capitalism was the cause of workers' problems, a Liberal government would no more be able to solve them than Tory and Labour governments had been. Capitalism was based on the exploitation of the workers and could not be made to work for the good of all. The Liberal policy of co-partnership would not work as there was an irreconcilable conflict of interest between workers and their employers, which could not be bridged by giving workers shares or putting a few on the board of directors. The Liberal party was a capitalist reform party. The solution in fact lay in Socialism, a world community, without frontiers, based on common ownership, with production solely for use, not profit.

David Davies, for the Young Liberals, said that Liberals supported capitalism as this system was in the interests of all. Socialism was all very fine but it wouldn’t work because there would be no incentive to produce. Abundance for all was not possible. Capitalism accepted scarcity and that human beings were motivated by self-interest. The profit motive ensured that the maximum amount of wealth was produced. There were inequalities in sharing out this wealth as some people were more able than others. But the Liberal Party did not believe in complete laissez-faire. Their policy could be summed up as controlled capitalism.

Obviously, Jeremy Thorpe has nothing to fear from Swansea YLs!

Caerffili by-election

The voice of Socialism was heard, if not heeded, at the by-election at Caerffili on 18 July at which the nationalists reduced Labour’s majority by 19,000. Over 60 copies of the May Socialist Standard (which puts the Socialist view on Scottish and Welsh nationalism) were sold mainly to members and supporters of Plaid Cymru.

Liberate Technology. Liberate Ourselves. (2018)

From the February 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Technology has evolved to the point where there is no reason why food, clothes, housing, medical care, education, transportation, computers, books, cell phones, digital connections, cannot be freely available to all human beings on the planet. We have the technology to liberate our lives, yet we find ourselves working more rather than less for the privilege of a few. Our amazing technology is rapidly developing into the future, yet our social organization based on working people and employers, buying and selling, money, and nation-states, belongs to the past yet is still around today.

There is no technological reason we cannot have all the food and clothes and other important things we require to live absolutely for free – if the whole community owned the farms, food plants, clothing factories, and all other workplaces where wealth is produced. The only reason money exists is so that the owners of these places of work can generate profit to live off, the value above our wages and all other production costs from the revenue obtained from sale.

It would therefore be true to say that money itself prevents us from having what we need.

Although our culture likes to think of itself as possessing many classes (e.g. the middle class, the lower upper class or the upper lower class), that is really a lot of nonsense. There is only the class of people living off rent, interest and profit, and the class (most of us) which lives by working for wages or salaries. While there are always failing businesses whose owners fall into the working class, the capital class tends to make the most money, while the working class tends to make the least. That is always how it is going to be, as long as money exists. No politician can do a thing about that. Even in the countries our media incorrectly call 'socialist' or 'communist' like the old USSR, or the UK under the Labour government, or China or Cuba today, the laws of monetary value and capital accumulation still apply. Most people in those countries are working people who are paid wages that they must budget all their living expenses out of, while a small clique lives in abundance.

The truth is that real socialism or communism has never existed. It means a society in which the means of producing wealth is owned 'socially' or 'in common.' Obviously if the state owns the railroad that does not mean all the people do, unless they get to ride it for nothing. The government owns the Post Office in the United States but you still have to pay for stamps, don't you? Government ownership in countries such as ours merely means that the capital class decided that there were industries that they could all benefit from or share the expenses for as a class, like the Post Office, most roads, state hospitals or the military. But in countries like China where the government owns most of the industries, there is a whole class of bureaucrats who lives off the hog of the land, just like here.

The time is ripe for us as a species to finally own the means of producing wealth collectively. In such a society we would no longer need money. Everything really would be free, but that obviously doesn't mean it would work if we were all hoarding ten times more than we needed. But we believe that hoarding behaviour is more likely to occur in an economy of scarcity rather than one of abundance. For example, in today's American economy, most of us can afford basic foodstuffs like bread, so we don't store 600 loafs at a time in our freezer. That is because we know we can always get more in the supermarket. Real socialism or communism will be like that. Knowing that we can get what we need for nothing, we will likely store much less (if anything at all) than we do even now in our cluttered homes, where today we keep every piece of rubbish just in case we need it again and would have to pay dear money for it a second time.

A society based on private or state property is also divided into nations. It causes war, terrorism, starvation, child labour, ecological devastation, racism, sexism, inferior quality goods, and totally useless industries that squander our planet's resources while not producing anything, such as those that revolve around advertising, selling, buying, ticketing, investing, taxing, brokering, insuring, militarizing, policing, managing. Think of the millions of wasted buildings, or the vast supply of wasted energy, resources and human lives that go into operating these useless occupations (useless from the point of view of producing wealth, of course the market system requires them, and that is one reason they are so wasteful). When we own the means of producing wealth as a community, we won't need those industries anymore because goods and services will be free. So we will require far less resources and energy than we do now to produce much, much, more. We will probably only need to work about a day or two at most per week to produce a lot more wealth and get everything we need. But since we are not a lazy species (except when forced to work or to do anything else), we will probably choose to work more. We will probably want to spend the remaining five days of the week in athletic, creative, intellectual, social, sexual, scientific or other pursuits, depending on our talents and interests.

It is time for such a change. And we are urging our fellow humans to organize to bring about this new world, which is no pipe dream, but a logical outcome of our technological progress as well as our desire to live a fuller, freer, life.

(from a World Socialist Party of the US leaflet)

Scandinavian Tour (1968)

Party News from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

During a recent tour of Scandinavia four members—our comrades Assirati, Cox, Garnham, and Zucconi —came upon a ‘Free Speech Tribune’ in the concourse next to the Central Station in Stockholm. Needless to say, they required little encouragement to take advantage of this opportunity, newly provided by a considerate City Council, and Dom Zucconi eagerly mounted the raised pulpit.

Introducing the Party to the groups of bystanders, who quickly reformed into a solid audience of 200, our speaker was able to present our case—in English. It was soon apparent that there was no language barrier when the all too familiar, questions and objections were raised.

Although a five or ten minute speech is usual for this democratic innovation, Dom ably upheld the party traditions in resisting one vociferous objector “. . . why don’t you go back to your own country?” and another who actually joined him in the box to insist he’d spoken enough. With the support of the audience, indicated by an overwhelming show of hands, he continued his exposition of the Party’s attitude for an hour.

The four members subsequently engaged in discussion with a number of those interested One promised to pass around, as he finishes with it, the considerable amount of literature sent to him.

It is to be hoped that this outdoor facility, so convenient for our purposes (no lugging around of the platform), will be used by any other Party speakers visiting the delightful capital city of Sweden.

We should also mention the other 'aid to democratic practice’ provided at the same spot—a large expanse of white painted wall on which can be written or stuck slogans, messages and political statements. Another of our group took advantage here of a prominent space to mark up a concise statement of what Socialism is and is not. But the message should be renewed as the authorities periodically re-paint the wall, presenting a 'fresh page’ to cater for the sloganeering of each new spate of alliances, protests and 'immediate demands'.

Although these 'outlets’ may have overtones of civic paternalism and don't compare with Speakers’ Corner, they have their uses and are certainly better than nothing in a country previously devoid of such recognised speaking spots.

Louis J. Cox

Party Names Swindle (1968)

Party News from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Should party names appear on the ballot paper? This has been much discussed in recent years. There can be no objection in principle to it as it might clear up some confusion, but in practice problems would arise over registering parties and over who should use what name. A group of Labour MP's, led by Denis Coe, recently brought in a private members Bill on this subject which was discussed in the House of Commons on 22 March. However, their remedy was worse than the disease. Had it not been talked out it would have discriminated against minor parties, and in particular against the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The Bill provided for a register of political parties in which the Registrar of Friendly Societies shall "register any political party or association which applies for registration and has a paid-up membership in excess of 1,000 members”. Candidates of non-registered parties would, as all are today, in law be regarded as "non- party”. This would not have presented us with an unsurmountable problem, but another clause was more disturbing. It gave first choice of names to those parties with members in the House of Commons: they register their names first, other parties after a month. This would seem to have allowed the Labour Party to register its own name, and perhaps all variations on "Labour” and "Socialist”. If this was so, and the Labour Party took advantage of it, when after a month we came to register our name we would be refused. Further we would also be barred from using our name on any leaflets and posters we produced for any election in which we had candidates.

We can say then that, in its present form, this Bill would have penalised at least one bona fide political party. Our experience over broadcasting time suggests that this would not unduly worry the larger parties. Nevertheless we take this opportunity to make our views known. 

Nobody can deny that we are a bona fide political party. We have been called "the Socialist Party” or "the Socialist Party of Great Britain” or "S.P.G.B.” since our foundation in 1904. We are not a breakaway group from the Labour Party. Indeed we were formed before them and have been in continuous and active political existence for over sixty-four years. We are a nationwide party and have had branches, at one time or another, in all the major urban and industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales. Before 1914 we put up candidates in local elections in London and Burnley. Since 1945 we have stood for parliament eleven times and have contested local elections in Hackney, the old LCC, 14 in the GLC last year, many times in Glasgow and again this May in Haringey. We think this is proof enough of our genuiness.

At the end of July the government announced that they agreed that in principle party names should be shown on nomination and ballot papers. 

Confusion (1968)

Party News from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ted Crawford, business manager of the Socialist Worker, spoke on August 7 at our Westminster branch on “International Socialism”. After tracing the origins of the group in Bolshevism and Trotskyism, he went on to explain the “permanent” arms economy and what IS was trying to do. He confessed that he was dissatisfied with the “class composition” of the group; there were too many lecturers, teachers and students and not enough workers.

Pressed to define Socialism, Crawford said “democracy”, “man in control of his environment”. Asked if this was compatible with the existence of banks, he said he could not give a blueprint but he expected that there would have to be some credit facilities in a “socialist state”. One of his supporters, coming to his rescue, pooh-poohed the idea of a society without money or government.

Socialists present pointed out that his concern about the class composition of IS showed that he did not know what the working class was; as lecturers and teachers were, and students soon would be, forced to work for wages they too were members of the working class. Discussion also centred on whether democratic institutions could be used by the working class to achieve Socialism (we said yes; they said no and thought there would have to be a civil war—but then they don’t aim at Socialism) and as to whether the ruling class could suspend democracy and unleash fascism at will (we said no; they said yes). The Chairman pointed out that there was not enough time to discuss our differing views on nationalism.

Another Lot of Insurrectionists (1968)

From the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the Labour Party and the so-called Communist Party become discredited and workers become more and more disillusioned with these parties in their futile efforts to run capitalism, it is vitally important to clearly present the socialist alternative. The emergence of self-styled leftwing groups is as dangerous to workers as that of their right-wing counterparts. If workers get bogged down with these organisations another generation could be wasted in the futile pursuit of petty issues and in swapping leaders.

One such organisation operates under the unwarranted title of "International Socialism". Their errors are basically the same as those of the Bolsheviks fifty years ago.

During the general elections of 1964 and 1966 they were urging the return of the "biggest possible Labour majority". For them this was a tactic because they knew that a Labour government would act "against the organised working class movement", but they argued that out of the struggles against the attacks made by the Labour government "can and will come the development of a powerful force for socialism". After four years of Labour government we are witnessing 17 per cent swings to the Tories in by-elections. Far from developing socialist ideas the confusion and despair resulting from Labour-run capitalism has helped to foster racist attitudes.

In 1966, even though they knew what the Labour Party's policy was, they lamely suggested:

Every Labour candidate should be pressed to give commitments on at least the following four points:
1. All out opposition to shackle the unions through new laws.
2. Total opposition to the leadership’s support for the Americans in Vietnam.
3. Opposition to the Immigration White Paper and its support for controls.
4. Full support for workers fighting a coercive incomes policy in defence of their living standards.

They knew there would be laws to shackle unions. They knew that Labour supported the American government in Vietnam. They knew there would be race laws. They knew there would be a coercive incomes policy. Now we have all these things and IS are helped to give the Labour government its big majority to be able to enforce them.

How naive they were to ask Labour candidates to give "commitments". Labour candidates are already committed to party policy and vetted by Transport House. If the working class are prepared to vote Labour they vote for official policy. Any undertaking outside this is worthless. IS admit that Labour candidates are controlled by Transport House as they give instances of two whom the party executive refused to endorse because they would give no "written undertakings to make no public criticism of any aspect of government policy until after the General Election".

Referring to racist attitudes, they say:

  If Enoch Powell has done one thing he has revealed just how little socialist consciousness exists today. We have to go back to square one and argue the ideas and theories of socialism to the people in the factories, the docks, the offices and on the vast council estates.

F or socialists it did not take Powell to reveal the lack of socialist consciousness among workers. This has been evident all along and voting Labour has been one aspect of it. As to arguing socialist ideas this is just what IS consistently fails to do. Despite the admitted lack of socialist consciousness they claim, in the same issue of their journal, in a reference to France "revolution in the advanced countries is the order of the day". But the first lesson to be learned at square one is that there can be no Socialism without Socialists. 

During the last election in discussing war preparation they said

   The Defence Review follows the pattern of the whole Labour policy, complete subservience to the most reactionary capitalist interest. Despite the fact that one in six of the population of this country live in poverty, the government like its Tory predecessors has callously decided that defence should continue to be the largest single items of government expenditure, over 26 per cent.

Knowing this they still urged the suicidal folly of voting Labour. They also stated quite clearly, on the penal clauses of the Prices and Incomes Act, that these involved fines of up to £500 and possible imprisonment for trade unionists who threaten to strike while a pay claim is in the hands of the Prices and Incomes Board. And yet, confronted with this outrageous piece of anti-working class legislation, they still worked and voted for Labour's return.

So far as IS are concerned, all this support of Labour candidates is just so much mockery and make-believe anyway as they have only contempt for political democracy and contempt, therefore, for the workers’ ability to understand Socialism. Socialist Worker, for June 1968, looking at the local council election results declared:

  It is clear that working class voters who have probably never voted for a Tory in their lives before consciously crossed the party line last month. Socialists now have a major battle on their hands if they are to recapture these working people for Socialism—for a real socialism that goes beyond the ballot box and the empty ritual of parliamentary elections and poses the question of workers' power in Britain.

What utter confusion! Workers who vote Tory were never socialists in the first place so cannot be "recaptured". When they start to understand Socialism it will be for the first time. This is the aftermath of their "big Labour majority”. Now. it's back to bloodshed on the street!

Like all who dismiss the idea of a socialist working class democratically organising for Socialism IS go along with the idea of leadership. Despite the experience of generations of leaders of all kinds, and their total inability to solve the problem confronting the working class, IS still maintain that out of the present struggle "a new political-industrial leadership has to be crystallised, a new labour movement created, and a new strategy for working class power forged". Where this “new” leadership and strategy will differ from the old they do not say, and they are equally quiet about what they will be able to do do in a situation where the majority of workers are non-socialist and aspire as yet to nothing more than reforms and leaders.

As is to be expected it is when such people as IS try to apply their false assumptions that they really expose themselves. In the June Socialist Worker they show that they thought Socialism could emerge from what was happening in France. Although they had eye-witnesses on the spot they do not seem to have seen very clearly. They thought that even without a socialist majority revolution in the advanced countries was “the order of the day". They said: 

   factory occupation is a crucial feature of the situation in France. . . . When the plant is seized the means of production are recognised by the workers as social property, as theirs to have and hold.

We can but wonder where de Gaulle’s massive landslide came from if workers wanted “social property". As IS sees it, “what is needed is a decisive thrust from the revolutionary left, providing the initiative to get the workers on the streets and expropriate the capitalists". What dangerous nonsense this is! If workers followed this line capitalist governments would not only use their control of the state against the workers (as they did in France) but could use the chaos as a pretext for making inroads into the hard-won rights of demonstration, assembly, organisation and free speech.

For Socialists the task remains one of expounding Socialism. If one thing emerges clearly from the confusion of the “left”, it is that until a majority of the world’s workers understand and vote for Socialism we are stuck with capitalism and all it implies.

Harry Baldwin

Politics (1966)

Book Review from the July 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Idea of Politics by Maurice Duverger. Methuen and Co. 16s.

The French political scientist Maurice Duverger examines in this textbook such questions as What is politics? What causes political conflict? What form does political conflict take ? In two hundred or so pages is given a clear and concise account of the various answers given to these questions by the conservative, the liberal and the socialist. Regular readers of the Socialist Standard will straightaway be able to sec the word Marxist is used in a way we find unacceptable, to refer to the distorted version officially sponsored in Russia. ,

Duverger claims to be a socialist. However by Socialism he understands public ownership or control of industry, overall planning and the like, i.e.. the watered down state capitalism our Labourites (now increasingly only in private) call Socialism. He advances the theory that “East and West are developing along convergent lines towards democratic Socialism”. The East through liberalization and the West through the growth of planning and through the owners becoming mere figureheads on the economic field, as kings have become on the political. True there is a trend towards political democracy in the East and towards more state control in the West but the end won’t be Socialism. Socialism will only come when workers throughout the world take conscious, political action to get it.

Duverger recognises that the state itself is based on violence: "ultimately it rests upon police, army, prisons, and hangmen”. The state doesn’t suppress violence; it concentrates it in its own hands. “Physical violence is replaced by legal, constitutional violence, violence perpetrated with clean hands". This centralization of the means of coercion makes certain forms of political conflict which were popular in the past, like the street battle and the coup d'état, outmoded. (Even in countries now at the stage Europe was in the 19th century protracted guerrilla warfare has replaced the coup.) The Socialist Party has long realised that the growth of the power of the state has meant that the only practicable way for the working class to get political power in the developed capitalist countries is through the vote backed of course by understanding.

Adam Buick

The "New" Theory of Insurrection (1968)

From the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The French political scientist Maurice Duverger, whose books have been reviewed from time to time in these columns (see, for instance Socialist Standard of July 1966), wrote an interesting article published in Le Monde on 12 July. Duverger would say he is a socialist but, as we have pointed out, he really only stands for a mild form of state capitalism. Nevertheless his comments on the May events in France are very pertinent.

In his article, entitled “Une Révolution Impossible”, he. says that before May 1968 even those who stood for violent revolution had written off the developed capitalist world. Hence the popularity of Mao, Castro and Che Guevara. But after May they worked out a new theory of revolution. Duverger describes it thus:

   The first impulse will be given by the young who are less integrated into the present order than their elders, even those belonging to the working class. Among these the students will play the vanguard role. Their growing number and concentration at certain points, similar to the nascent proletariat in the nineteenth century, gives them a power of intervention which the barricades of Paris and the battles at Flins fully show. Further, their intellectual environment gives them a high degree of political consciousness.
   In the second phase, the detonator of the student revolt will embrace the mass of the workers. By means of a general strike they will then paralyse all activity of the bourgeois State and so reduce it to impotence. At the same time they will begin to replace it with a socialist State, themselves taking over the managements of the enterprises and services and putting them in motion again: this will be the third stage. Thus the old power will become more and more unreal and artificial, while a new power progressively takes its place. Finally, the former will collapse and the latter will completely control society.

Only the second stage was reached in May, they argue, because the Communist Party and its trade union wing, the CGT, restrained rather than encouraged the movement.

Duverger’s comments on this are the same as those we have made and are those which one would have thought were the obvious lessons of May: the new theory ignores the great repressive power of the modern state and fails to realise that most workers don't want violent insurrection. The more extreme student organisations have been outlawed and the Gaullists have won a sweeping victory in the elections by playing on popular fear of civil war.

Duverger concedes, and so would we, that there is plenty of working class discontent which could explode if the students gave a lead. But, he says, this discontent should not be confused with a desire for violent revolution. The absence of this, except perhaps among the young, “is not the result of the reformism of the CGT and the Communist party. On the contrary, the reformism of the CGT and the communist party is a reflection of this absence". Most workers, for various reasons are opposed to violent insurrection.

It is this that makes the new theory dangerous:

  The student movements cannot by themselves overthrow the present order. But they can sufficiently threaten it—or give the impression of threatening it—to sustain and increase a feeling of insecurity amongst the mass of society, which will push society towards authoritarian regimes when they can see no other way of avoiding anarchy.

Thus the new strategy could serve to undermine established democratic institutions and to strengthen the repressive powers at the service of the state.

Duverger says that some students are beginning to realise this and

   are today trying to work out a long-term strategy for the transformation of society, keeping their revolutionary ends, but using means better adapted to the conditions of the developed countries.

We are pleased to hear that some lessons have been learned from May (we only wish they would get through to some of the arm-chair insurrectionaries in Britain who want to repeat the French débâcle here). Duverger does not say on what lines they are thinking but he himself points out that nothing can be achieved without the support of the mass of the people.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has something to say on this since, following the lead given by Engels towards the end of his life, we have worked out a policy for social revolution suited to modern capitalism based on the revolutionary use of democratic institutions. Given the growth of the repressive power of the state, insurrections with barricades and street fights are useless. However, thanks to past struggles (including France in 1848 and 1871) in which the workers played a prominent role another way to political power has been opened up: universal suffrage. It is customary in some student circles to dismiss this as a trick, to talk about “parliamentary rubbish" and to call for a boycott of elections. People who speak in this way are refusing to face up to the fact that the great majority of workers do not at present want a social revolution. It is not universal suffrage and the other democratic institutions that are at fault, but the use to which they are put. As long as workers are not socialist-minded (as they are not at the moment) they will use their votes to elect supporters of capitalism, including social democrat and “communist" reformists, and so in effect will hand over political power to the capitalist class—a power, we might add, which can be used to crush student uprising. Elections are the best gauge there is of popular opinion and, unfortunately, they clearly show that only a handful now want Socialism. The task of those who are socialists should thus be clear: not to try to provoke violent clashes with the state in the hope of triggering off a more general uprising, but to carry out an intensive programme of socialist agitation and education. This will involve denouncing the “new" revolutionary theory as dangerous as it could undermine the very institutions which will allow a socialist workers' movement to win power.

We are not advocating that parliament be used to pass a series of social reform measures which are supposed gradually to transform society. We are as opposed to reformism as to insurrection. Compromise with capitalism can be avoided by the socialist party only seeking support on the basis of a socialist programme. In other words, in having no programme of reforms or “immediate demands" to be achieved within capitalism. For such a programme would attract the support of non-socialists and so lead the party towards compromise and reformism. 

We suggest that the twin dangers of insurrection and reformism can be avoided by building up a socialist party composed of and supported by convinced socialists only. When a majority of workers are socialist-minded and organised into such a party they can use their votes to elect to parliament and the local authorities delegates pledged to use state power for the one revolutionary act of dispossessing the capitalist class and converting the means of production into the property of the whole community. This is the long-term strategy for the transformation of society suited to the conditions of modern capitalism that Duverger's students would do well to consider.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: The Invasion of Russia (1968)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nor is this by any means the worst. Fearful that if the Bolshevik enterprise should meet with success it might prove contagious, they have determined to crush it and restore their friends and allies, the Russian capitalists, to dominance. So we have a “league of nations” in being against the Bolshevik Government. Under the plea that f they are going to save Russia from the Germans they invade the country at various points. “We come as the friends of Russia." they declare, and disown any intention of interfering with “the internal politics of the country.”

Now with regard to the ludicrous statement that there is no intention of interfering with Russian internal politics. Everyone knows that it is openly admitted that one of the main objects of the Allies in invading Russia is “to save Russia from the Bolsheviks.” The capitalist Press has made no secret of it. Capitalist agents, both here and in Russia, have striven for it. In particular one may instance Dr. Harold Williams, when special correspondent to the “Daily Chronicle" in Petrograd. and since his return to this country. His filthy diatribes against the Bolsheviks leave no doubt as to their object — the overthrow of those against whom he inveighed.

What sort of game has been played is unwittingly revealed in an eulogy of Capt. Cromie which appeared in the “Daily Chronicle" on Sept. 14th. wherein after retailing some of Cromie’s activities in favour of the capitalist interests, it is stated that he went to Petrograd and strove to hold the forces of “sanity and reason" together. Needless to say, in the capitalist view, neither sanity nor reason can reside in Bolshevik craniums, and to scheme their overthrow is not interfering in internal politics, of course!

From the "Socialist Standard", September 1918.

Thalidomide Crime (1968)

From the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every so often capitalism commits one of its more colossal crimes against mankind. A recent example is that of the Thalidomide Babies.

The Sunday Times of 19 May discussed this matter fully under the headline of “The Thalidomide File”. The public first knew of this in 1961. Nine men from the firm of Chemie Grünenthal in the little town of Stolberg are at this moment on trial charged with placing on the market a drug which even when taken as instructed caused the human body an unacceptable degree of harm, for advertising the drug as completely safe when they could give no such guarantee, and for brushing aside and then deliberately suppressing the adverse reports from doctors that it caused those who took it to itch, shake, vomit and lose the power to stand. The charge is made that this same drug, which the sales department called “the apple of our eye” because it was so profitable, caused a large number of monstrously deformed babies. The trial is expected to last some ten years. It is obviously in the interests of the defendants to spin it out as much as possible so that some of the hot feeling may have died down.

The drug was exported to about 11 European, 7 African, 17 Asian and 11 American states. There are in Germany alone thousands of victims and roughly five thousand babies have been born there with appalling deformities. The discoverer of K17, as he named it, was a qualified chemist and doctor who had served at the Institute for Typhus and Virus Research at Cracow in Poland which was under the control of the German Army High Command during the war. His name was Dr. Heinrich Muckter. His precise role at the Institute was not clear but no charges were made against him at the Nuremberg Nazi doctors’ trial. We can anticipate that — especially in view of his past — many people will blame Muckter for this crime.

Socialists, however, whatever the outcome of the trial, will not give Muckter and his associates the sole blame for this incident in medical history. This does not mean we condone the actions of the men concerned.

Under capitalism some people are capable of doing anything for personal gain; others are not. Our view is that, given certain conditions, society will produce people with no scruples who will do whatever suits them no matter what the cost in human life and welfare.

The “business mind” is well illustrated by this extract from a letter written by the Sales Director of the firm which marketed Thalidomide to a sales manager in Essen :

  “We must realise above all else that such a quick rise in the turnover of a sedative must lead to certain apprehensions in the minds of doctors and chemists. Not all members of this clientele can keep their ethical attitudes within the limits of the market economy. There will certainly be doctors conscious of their responsibility, who in view of this trend, will start speaking about addiction.”

And a report from the Sales Office in 1960:

    “Unfortunately, we are now receiving increasingly strong reports on the side of this preparation, as well as letters from doctors and chemists who want it put on prescription. From our side, everything must be done to avoid putting it on prescription, since already a substantial amount of our turnover comes from over-the-counter sales.”

Even the Sunday Times was prompted to ask “Was the fault that of society, of a set of attitudes to profit and the responsibility that it entails?” They use the word “society”. We would say rather “capitalist society”. Our answer to their question is: yes, it is the fault of society, capitalist society.

Capitalism is an obsolete system of society; it long ago outlived its usefulness. It fetters production; it distorts production so that hitherto unimaginable horrors like this become realities. The “set of attitudes to profit” is thus the reaction of men to the relations of production in which they find themselves. When men convert the privately owned means of production into the common property of all, classes will disappear. Wealth will be produced simply as products to be distributed according to wants and needs, and not as now as commodities to be exchanged on a market with a view to profit. Socialist production and distribution would mean that technical development would hold no threats to human welfare, as it does now, with its sales propaganda nuclear “deterrents” and so on.

J. MCL

Human Rights (1968)

From the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

A couple of months ago, twenty-four prisoners in the maximum security wing at Durham Prison barricaded themselves in their cells in protest against a new work system. They were, they said, only sticking up for their rights. On March 5 last, forty-one young soldiers protested against Army bull and red tape by marching in good order out of barracks — and back in again later. Sticking up, again, for their rights.

The same week, Emil Savundra and Peter de Quincy Walker appealed against the heavy sentences imposed on them after the collapse of Fire, Auto and Marine. They were only demanding their rights. The February issue of The Seaman, journal of the National Union of Seamen, invites all NUS members to exercise their right to apply for a place in the union’s national one-week educational course.

Get the point? The word "rights” means almost anything that anyone wants it to mean.

Governments talk about "rights”. The French constitution of 1946 proclaims that all men have the right to work, to strike, to take leisure, to enjoy culture, to take part in joint management and to have society’s help when they are unfit to work. These "rights” sound desirable enough— but dig a little deeper, and ask in whose interests some of them are proclaimed.

Nineteen sixty eight, for anyone who has been too busy campaigning against political prisoners, racial persecution and dictatorship, is Human Rights Year. This is a United Nations idea; it goes back to May 1946, when the first meeting took place of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the late President of the United States, was in the chair.

The Commission was expected to draw up two documents: a Declaration of Human Rights and an International Covenant (how these words roll off the tongue!) defining the principles of human rights and making them legally binding on all signatories. At the second session, at Geneva in November 1947, the Commission decided that three stages would be necessary — Declaration, Covenant, Implementation. The third session added a Preamble and eventually, in December 1948 in Paris the Declaration, and only the Declaration was accepted. The Covenant had to wait until 1966 for its adoption. And the Implementation?

Before anything can happen on that there must be some thirty-five ratifications and the UN admits there is little chance of that even though, it says, the Declaration embraces all the rights and freedoms essential for the dignity and development of the human personality. 

These are some of the rights covered by the Declaration: freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile; the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of peaceful association, opinion and information; freedom to leave or enter a country.

Now any well-intentioned humanitarian like, say, the Duke of Edinburgh—who is a patron of the U.K. Committee for Human Rights—would readily pay lip service to these rights for the working class. So would a lot of Labour lefties, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Soper and the Communist Party, who are all in it as well.

The U.K. Committee, supported by 140 organisations, will be campaigning all this year and a very impressive programme they have. One of the high spots is the International Seminar on Freedom of Association, in London this month. The campaign has four main objectives: to publicise the Declaration; to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination; to end all discrimination against women; to help the peoples of Britain’s dependent territories to realise their human rights. Not bad. It’s only taken them twenty years to think up four objectives. And what chance have they of being achieved?

Lena Jeger, Labour M.P. for Holborn and St. Pancras, in the New Statesman (31/12/67) gave a run down on some of the fine-sounding articles, for example: “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. The right to leave and return to any country.” And what did the Labour government do, a couple of months after she wrote that article, to the Kenyan Asians’ right to leave and enter any country?

The world situation was summarised in the UNESCO journal Courier of January 1968, in an article by Rene Cassin, former president of the UN Commission on Human Rights:

   Repeated violations of the rights to life, killings and massacres left unpunished, the exploitation of woman, mass hunger and starvation, the perpetuation of slavery, lack of proper education, disregard for freedom of conscience, opinion and expression, widespread racial discrimination and segregation, arbitrary government—all these and many other abuses are far too frequent to be denied.

In this sorry situation it would be better if the UN, instead of bewailing the fate of human rights, were to ask why they are so often violated. Sometimes it is simply a case of capitalism being unable to satisfy those rights. Thus although Article 25 of the Declaration states that everyone has the right “. .. . to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and of his family including food, clothing and housing”, the November 1965 White Paper on housing stated that in Britain some three million families still live in slums, near slums or in grossly overcrowded conditions and the 1966 Annual Report of the Ministry of Health told us that "Of the 12,411 people in hostels for the homeless on one night last year 8,160—just under two thirds — were children.”

But what about the other violations of human nights—of human liberty? The plain fact here is that a ruling class which suppresses opposition does so because it sees that opposition as a threat to its own position. In Russia, for example, the state imprisoned the writers Daniel and Sinyavsky because it is afraid to allow too free a criticism of Russian state capitalism. This sort of event is not unknown in the so-called democracies of the western world. In wartime, for example, the British government assumes all sorts of dictatorial powers—and so it does in peacetime, when it considers the stability of British capitalism to be seriously threatened by, say, a strike.

If the history of Human Rights proves anything, it is that they cannot be achieved within a property society. The private property system is itself a matter of privilege and therefore a denial of the right of equal standing to the vast majority of the world’s people. Even more, a privileged class will always struggle to keep its privileges—often by force and suppression.

We have had World Refugee Year, which ended up with more refugees than it started with. We have had World Hunger Year — and we still have devastating famines. If Human Rights Year does as much for us. there will be a lot less freedom at the end of 1968 than there was at the beginning.

Joe McGuinness

Letters: Should Immigration be Controlled (1968)

Letters to the Editors from the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Agreed that the new Commonwealth Immigrants Act, passed in March, is racialist even more than the previous ones, I cannot fully agree with the complete freedom of labour movement in the existing structures.

You say that “economics demands free immigration”. This is opinion, not fact. Asians are prepared to work long hours, weekends, in order to send home money to families left in the move. If by a strenuous (as it is) effort, disregarding leisure time completely, an Indian or Pakistani can earn a large wage, this holds back any claims for higher basic wages and/or a shorter working week. Labour becomes ‘cheap’ — or cheaper — whether this is economically true or not, it will seem to native factory workers who will feel resentment. This leads to prejudice in other matters.

Make labour available cheaply and one makes automation unnecessary. Already Japan, USA, etc. have managed, by increased technical efficiency, to increase industrial productivity. Thus it can be argued that allowing free immigration—especially of unskilled workers—holds back efficiency. I am no economist. There are perhaps faults in my reasoning, but surely you are aware of these arguments. Why not then deal with them in your article? Or is it that the above arguments are sound?

What is abhorrent is the limitation of entry into a country because of race, or religion, etc. Commonwealth citizens have no more right to come to Britain than we have to go to their countries—and yet they all impose strict control on immigration. It was all very well to cling to the 19th century ‘mother country’ idea when the influx was small and the immigrants, like the Hugenots, Poles, etc., seemed to be 'refugees’. Their numbers were small and they were assimilated with few pains. But now if it is a source of economic or social instability some control seems necessary. But anyone who comes to Britain should be subject to the same rules regarding entry—whether European, Canadian, South African or Indian. And if any check is to be made on entry, it should take place in the country of origin, to avoid disappointment when in a strange environment.

I am sympathetic to the immigrant, especially to the Asians whom I have taught. They represent a real problem, and frankly our education service is so understaffed and under-equipped that we cannot hope to teach our language and customs to an unlimited number. Uneducated immigrants cause greater prejudice than those who have overcome the language barrier and understand English attitudes and customs.

D. Green, 

14 Ena Crescent,

Leigh, 

Lancs.

Capitalism brought our Blacks to create the racial hatred and colour bar to crush all resistance of the natives of this island, and to cheapen labour and force up the cost of living. Most of our unemployed are Whites and poorly housed in hostels like the Salvation Army, Church Army and Rowton Houses (on Board and Lodging Vouchers) who are making fortunes out of our homeless and half-starved workers. Blacks have created mass unemployment for our workers. Blacks are selfish and grab everything then can get for themselves. Capitalism is cunning as a rattlesnake and apparently cannot be beaten by small groups like the SPGB, who while you print a load of twaddle, have no real policy and favour Blacks before the English who have supported you from the start. Socialism! but National it will be! It’s on the way now! At least the SPGB gives an easy living to its leaders — that's all.

S. J. Deal, 

London, SE1.

Your article on Race Relations makes one think that you are in favour of the white man having to work, live and feel at home with coloured people. Such a thing is impossible. Our tradition and outlook is totally different from anything the coloured people have ever known. I agree with your assertion that a coloured man is every bit as capable as a white man given the chance and the conditions.

Socialism does not mean a free for all will take place when it comes. Black and While will not be forced to earn a living in a strange land. A free and full outlet will be the right of mankind to express the best that is in him without having to go to another part of the world to get a job. Marx’s declaration “Workers of the World Unite” meant politically and not nationally.

This country is too small for a larger population. In many parts there is no place for the native white people to live and the seeds are already being sown by the enormous number of coloured workers buying houses in an already overcrowded country. Already the dockers are supporting the criticism of their overcrowding here and those responsible for their coming here will have a lot to answer for before many more years.

W. Harding, 

London, E17.

Reply: 

Prejudice is defined as an opinion formed without proper consideration of the facts or arguments. Both Mr. Deal and Mr. Harding are prejudiced.

There is one simple reason why most of the unemployed in Britain are “white" and that is because 98 per cent of the population is.

Has “coloured immigration” cheapened labour, i.e., depressed wage levels? Alan Day, in an article in the Observer on 28 April, suggested that immigration had held back, rather than depressed, the wages of certain sections of the working class: those in the unskilled jobs that immigrants tend to do. He reckons that, without immigration (and this is the argument put forward by Mr. Green in the previous letter) employers would have been forced to introduce labour-saving machinery. It is quite true that one of the factors under capitalism which decides whether or not machinery is used is the level of wages. A labour shortage forces up wages and so could make machinery profitable. It is true also that London Transport in a bid to overcome an acute labour shortage did recruit workers in the West Indies. The hospitals, too, have had an acute labour shortage. But even if we concede that by restrictions on immigration certain workers could have pushed up their wages and that therefore immigration has harmed them, is this a reason why Socialists should support immigration control? Of course it is not. Socialists stand for the interest of workers all over the world. All who work for a wage or salary, no matter where they live or work or what language they speak or the colour of their skin, have a common interest; in working together to protect living standards while capitalism lasts and, more important, to replace capitalism with Socialism. One section of the working class may for a time improve its lot by keeping out other sections. But Socialists are opposed to sectionalism, whether it is by trade, nationality or colour. It hampers effective united action and spreads the pernicious theories of nationalism and racialism. We state frankly: we would not support immigration control even if it would maintain the living standards of some workers in Britain.

Has “coloured immigration" forced up the cost of living? We confess we are unable to fathom this one. It seems to be a prime example of the working of a prejudiced mind. Take something you don't like (rising cost of living) and blame it on some scapegoat (immigrants).

Has “coloured immigration” created mass unemployment? Unemployment there is. and will be as long as capitalism lasts, but at the moment there is not “mass” unemployment. Immigration is not the cause of unemployment. Rather the post-war immigration is itself the result of a relative labour shortage, as the Confederation of British Industries has pointed out.

Is it impossible for “white” and “coloured” people to work and live together? Mr. Harding says it is, on the grounds that the tradition and outlook of the two are completely different. Let’s clear up one point first: different peoples do have different traditions but it is not true that all “whites” share one common tradition and all “coloureds” another. If you are going to argue from different ways of life you must throw overboard arguments based on colour and so-called race, unless you are prepared to argue that a man's skin colour and other physical features determine how he must behave. All human beings are members of the same animal species, homo sapiens. All human beings are capable of learning and of absorbing the culture of the society in which they live. Such differences as exist between the peoples of the world are not the result of different natures, but of living in different environments. All peoples are quite capable of absorbing modern culture in a comparatively short time (see for instance, New Lives for Old by Margaret Mead). Obviously, people born and bred in a capitalist-industrial society are better equipped to live in it than people who have recently come to it from backward agricultural villages. This does not mean, however, that such immigrants must remain ill-equipped for ever.

Is Britain overcrowded? This is a big myth. In any event the figures for population per square mile do not allow us to say that an area is inhabited by too many people because it cannot sustain them. There is another factor which must be taken into account: the man-made means of production. In 1801 there were 12 million people in Britain, in 1851 22 million, in 1901 38 million and today about 54 million (of whom less than one million are “coloured”). Britain has been able to sustain an increasing population because of the ever-increasing productivity of the man-made means of production. In fact, of course, it does not make sense to take one part of the world in isolation from the rest. Britain, through the international division of labour, is part of the world economy and the earth could sustain many times its present population. If the politicians who talk about Britain being overcrowded really believed it they would also be advocating increased emigration, birth control, abolition of family allowances, the end of tax discrimination against single people and childless couples, and so on. They would also be instituting internal migration controls (giving us all “passes” as in Russia and South Africa): if Wolverhampton or London were overcrowded then they would be trying to stop people moving there from Glasgow and Wales as well as from overseas. But they are not, are they? This “overcrowded” argument is pure nonsense. It is only in vogue because it appears to be a respectable, rational argument for an immigration colour bar.

Now, for the odd ideas about the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Marx.

Have the English always supported us from the start? First, who are the English, anyway? It is true that till now the bulk of die members and supporters of the Socialist Party (but by no means all) have been what our correspondents would label “white”, but that is not by choice but by accident. Socialism is a system of society which the workers in the industrialisted parts of the world must strive for. The fact that most such workers at present happen to be “white” is irrelevant. We seek the support of all workers and have declared right from the start that we seek the emancipation of all mankind, irrespective of race or sex.

Do our leaders have an easy living? No, we have no leaders, just ordinary workers carrying out Socialist activity in their spare time.

Who said Socialism would be a free-for- all? We are sure that in a Socialist society people will be pleased to travel and work anywhere in the world. Certainly they will be free to do so.

What did Marx mean by “workers of the world, unite”? Perhaps Mr. Harding can tell us how workers can unite politically without workers from all nations joining together. He might also ponder over this one: Why did Marx let his daughter marry a “coloured” man from Cuba?

Editorial Committee.

Morris as a Socialist Thinker (1968)

Book Review from the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Three Works by William Morris. (Lawrence and Wishart. 10s. 6d.)

This paperback contains two of Morris’ important Socialist writings, both novels. A Dream of John Ball, applying the materialist conception of history, shows how an attempt at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt to establish a socialist society was doomed to failure. The establishment of Socialism had to be “the change beyond the change". In other words, society had first to pass through the capitalist stage before Socialism became possible. Morris also well describes the horrors involved in the change from feudalism to capitalism (obviously based on a reading of Marx).

News from Nowhere is a genuine Utopian novel insofar as Utopia is the Greek for “no-place". It is an account of what human relationships could be like (not necessarily what they would be like) in the future moneyless, classless society of Socialism. Morris is not concerned here with the technical basis of such a society and so scarcely mentions machines. This has been taken to mean that he was anti-machine. That Morris was against the use of machinery is a myth. Certainly he attacked the abuse of machinery in capitalist society with production geared to the market to make profits for the capitalists and machinery used to speed-up work and bore and degrade its operators. Morris knew that in a Socialist society, with production for human need, machinery would be used properly as its use would be under the democratic control of the community.

The third work is Morris' narrative poem on the Paris Commune.

Unfortunately, there is an introduction by that well-known second-rate Communist Party historian, A. L. Morton. He sees the electrification policy of state-capitalist Russia as the implementation of News from Nowhere. He denounces Morris’ concern about the dangers of a Socialist organisation attracting non-socialist support and his suggestions for overcoming it as “sectarian" and “rigid anti-parliamentarianism" (not true, Morris always stood for political action). But you don’t have to read the introduction.

Adam Buick