Jottings. (1921)

The Jottings Column from the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Commenting on the ridiculous demands of the French and British plunderers in connection with the reparation clauses the "Hamburger Volkzeitung" (31.1.21) says: "Let those pay who can. Let the conscienceless bourgeoisie of all countries settle their accounts between them. It is their concern that is going bankrupt. The workers can renounce the inheritance. Their account is on another page." Very nicely put and very true. We have been saying this for years.

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Mr. Gilbert Frankau, a person addicted to writing novels, is, despite his name, a British patriot 100 per cent. pure. So much so that he gets quite frantic about it. Loving his country as he claims to do, he is bound to see a menace in almost everything. Writing week after week in the "Sunday Herald," he has covered almost every phase of human activity, and sees in each and every one a menace to the British Empire. But writing on politics and economics is not like writing novels Even his colleague, Robert Blatchford, has had to remonstrate with him as to the accuracy of his statements. But apparently he is not particular as to his facts so long as space is accorded him in which to let himself go. Of course he had to lash himself into a fury when dealing with Karl Marx and Lenin (who, for some strange reason, he couples together), but his knowledge of both must be very scanty indeed if what he has told the "Sunday Herald" readers is all that he knows. In the issue for Feb. 6th he deliberately states that Marx was a lunatic and that he died in a lunatic asylum. This absurd lie Marxists can, of course, afford to laugh at as emanating from an ignoramus, but for the fact that a great portion of the working class bases its whole philosophy of life on the contents of the Sunday papers. This being so, it often falls to the Socialist to correct the erroneous views disseminated by such papers. Karl Marx is accredited, even by capitalist historians, with having written a masterly analysis of capitalist society in which he laid bare the whole system by which the workers are robbed and kept in subjection. It is admitted that "Das Kapital" had the influence that Darwin's "Origin of Species" had, and this from a lunatic ! It is a scientific study of industrial conditions, and from these investigations the theory is maintained that materialist conceptions have guided the history of man. The theory of surplus value is also deduced, that the workers' wages tend to fall to the minimum of subsistence and that all profits, etc., are part of the value the worker has produced but hasn't got—are, in fact, surplus value.

Karl Marx died in 1883, at 8 Maitland Park Road, London, in full possession of his faculties, though he died in broken health, probably accentuated by the death of his wife, whom he loved dearly. Like others of his kind, he was persecuted to his dying day by the Frankaus of his time. But it says much for his teaching when, nearly forty years later, people can work themselves into a fury simply because what he taught has been verified over and over again.

"When the tool arose the tool-less men became the slaves of those who owned the tools." That was stated by Marx, and was never more applicable than at the present day in this glorious new England of ours—or rather, Frankau's—where men and women who fought and worked that the British Empire might be extended to accommodate a lot of gluttonous robbers, are waiting day after day in long queues for a dole of bread and soup from their masters who own the tools, and upon whose permission they must wait before they can use them. If these lines should be read by any of Frankau's readers they may perhaps stimulate them into enquiring a little further into the writings of Marx, when they will easily be able to distinguish which is the lunatic—Marx or Frankau.

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The impression that Liberalism and Labour possess identical aims seems to be a pretty general one. During the anxious times of a bye-election when Coalition meets Liberal there is a dread on the part of Labour that Coalition might win. If the candidate opposing the Coalition happens to be Labour similarly Liberals are agitated lest their favourite be beaten. Sir Hamar Greenwood couples Liberals and Labour in his denunciation of those who would besmirch "the fair name of England." Greenwood's opponent, Joseph Devlin, appeals to Liberals and Labour to arrive at some modus vivendi to clear the "fair name of England." Mr. George Lansbury, the spotless champion of the British proletariat, likewise appeals to Liberals and Labour to combine. "Let us all— Liberals as well as Labour men and women— work together to throw out this Government which is a disgrace not only to England (that fair name of England, how useful everybody finds the gag!) but to the world " (Albert Hall. 15.2.21). Finally an examination of the new economic and industrial policy issued recently by the Executive of the National Liberal Federation discloses hardly any point of difference from the policy of the Labour Party. Indeed, the "Manchester Guardian" claims that "the new Liberalism has stolen not a little of the Labour thunder, and has even taken some hints from the Guild Socialist" (28.1.21). Thus all bourgeois-loving Labourites can—and no doubt will—give the new Liberalism their full acquiescence and support without in any way endangering their status.

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We have been repeatedly told by those who profess to be our leaders in matters industrial and political, that we, the workers, and constituting the largest portion of the community, bear the largest share of the burden of taxation. If this be true, then obviously any reduction or relief in taxation should redound to our benefit. When Mr. Will Thorne asked the Minister of Transport who would reap the advantage of a reduction in railwayman's wages consequent on the fall in food prices Sir Eric Geddes answered the taxpayer would. He meant by this that the increases of wages to railwaymen—and presumably those of other industries where "control" has been exercised—have been borne by the taxpayers, and that therefore any reduction should revert to them. If we, as workers, are also taxpayers, we should expect to find the sum total of all these reductions, or nearly all of it, spread out over the whole of the working class. What I want to know is, if a reduction in wages is going to find its way back into our pockets, will any Labour leader now come forward and discourage any resistance on our part to wage reductions ?

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Even if the worker be not sanguine that he will experience a return of the suppressed portion of his wages indirectly there are yet many who believe that there is some justification for the complaint of the master class that high wages are responsible for high prices. At any rate the bluff appears to have done its work. At Roubaix and Tourcoing in France, where the same gag was tried, the workers in all the mills, including those whose wages were not immediately threatened, decided to cease work as a mark of their resistance to any reduction. If any protest is offered in this country the plan seems to be to stop the job for a week or two on some pretext or other, and then in the interval put up a notice inviting those who are prepared to start back at a reduced rate to give their names in. The real facts, of course, are that owing to the vast numbers of workers looking for jobs and the prospect of destitution staring them in the face, they are compelled to accept. Apart from the quick realisation of profits there is nothing more desirable to the master class than to have a decent-sized army of unemployed always on hand. This it is that tends to keep wages low.

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All the same, it is rather pathetic to find some workers anticipating the wishes of their boss and asking for a reduction ! It marks a very low stage indeed in the development of knowledge of the factors governing industry. One such case has been extensively advertised in the Press recently, presumably to encourage others in a like course. It occurred at a mill in Manchester, and the method of approach was something like this: "Your employers have decided to approach you with the suggestion that our wages be reduced by 10 per cent. We hope that this offer will be accepted, as it is felt that the present high cost of living exists primarily owing to the very high cost of production." Needless to say, their hopes were quickly realised, along with the satisfaction of knowing that a strike was not necessary in order to enforce their demands.

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Enforced leisure, as a rule, is not exactly pleasant to think about when applied to the case of the worker. But I often wonder if a thought is given any time to the way in which our "betters" spend their leisure time. Do they (the workers) ever read the reports of "our special correspondent in the Riviera," who appears to be having a posh time recording the doings and the latest fashions in vogue among the wealthy Britishers out there? Just now Nice, Monte Carlo. Mentone, and the other places are simply packed with people who have gone to escape the rigours of the English climate. Back here at home those who look after interests are busy trying to dope us with the tale that unless wages are reduced they will have to shut down because they simply cannot carry on!

Judging from the reports, there doesn't seem to be any shortage of money on the Riviera ; and all this, mind you, represents profits wrung out of the toil of the workers. Other things remaining equal, any increase of wages must come out of their profits. Consequently if they can get the workers to accept less wages, they will have more profits to spend in the Riviera and elsewhere. Whilst the workers here are walking the shoes off their feet looking for jobs and wondering how their children are going to be clothed, or even where the next meal is coming from, these parasites are promenading in straw hats or minx coats, or magnificent sables costing a thousand pounds apiece. One lady appeared at a ball in a dress made up of feathers of humming-birds obtained at "stupendous expense."

Think of this, you ex-warriors, when next you or your wife take up your position in the queue waiting for your dole of bread.

The latest report says that black is de rigueur—which means no class—probably because it is a colour affected mostly by the working class —when they can get it. They need it most. What are described as "wonderful" silk stockings at £4 a pair are very fashionable. It is wonderful—why it is allowed to go on.

Tom Sala

Bread Cast Upon The Waters. (1921)

From the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the midst of the terrible want, disease, and stark misery that the workers of to-day are getting inured to, that they are generally acquiescent in as being a condition of things utterly inseparable from the existence of their class, it is interesting to notice how much money is being spent on various forms of education, and by whom it is spent.

For some time past, prominence has been given in the columns of the "Daily Telegraph" to an appeal for funds, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, to effect general improvement in the organisation of the Boy Scout movement.

A casual glance down the lists of subscribers of sums of £5 and over, as published in the "Daily Telegraph" of Feb. 5th and 7th (to take two days at random) will reveal the fact that roughly three out of every four subscribers are large business firms.

Now this is rather startling, for it is a rare thing to find these "captains of industry" falling over each other to give money away, but astonishment evaporates when the inevitable reason for this "generosity" is disclosed.

Investigation shows that the various sums donated to this movement are, briefly, investments. They are expected to yield a profit.

No doubt a good many people would wonder how on earth a subscription to the Boy Scout movement can be called a profitable investment for these capitalists, but the words of the investors themselves, in fact the words of the Chief Scout, Baden-Powell, himself, will remove any doubts on that score.

Appealing for funds at a large gathering of business men at Manchester, "B.P." said: "We will find from experience that the boys who cultivate the ideas and habits of the Boy Scouts prove more useful to employers of labour." — ("Manchester Guardian," 1.7.14.)—A cogent and potent reason, which resulted in substantial subscriptions from those interested in increasing the "usefulness" of future workers.

To-day, nearly seven years after the meeting and speech referred to, we find the "educating" of embryonic workers through the medium of the Boy Scouts has proved so valuable to employers of labour that they "part up" with subscriptions with an alacrity positively staggering to those unacquainted with the reason for such "free-hearted" stunts.

Another kind-hearted man by the name of "The Lord Dewar" (what a smell of whisky !) delivers himself of this :

  Sir,—I have pleasure in enclosing cheque for £1,000 towards what I consider a national cause of first importance, believing, as I do, that the Boy Scout movement is a sure foundation upon which to build the best ideals of citizenship, and the best medium to inculcate into the minds of the rising generation courtesy, discipline, courage, and resource. The results of this movement will be of inestimable benefit to the British Empire in future generations.—("Daily Telegraph," 5.2.21.)

This is a letter which reads at first sight as though £1,000 was a very casual and common gift, but which is pregnant with meaning to those who care to find it.

The "best ideals of citizenship" from the point of view of this purveyor of lunatic broth combine in the worker a keen intelligence in making the wheels of production run smoothly and prolifically, an unquestioning acceptance of dire poverty when further production is stopped by the master class because it does not pay, and a deadly dull and apathetic lack of understanding of the worker's true position in society.

That Lord Dewar thoroughly appreciates the benefits that he and his class enjoy as a result of cheerful endurance and unquestioning obedience to authority on the part of the workers is shown by the magnitude of his "gift."

There is every reason to believe that the brutal plainness of expression contained in the following extract from a letter is the cause of the writer's desire to remain anonymous under the horribly suggestive and admissive pen-name of "Lone Wolf," who writes thus :

  There is only one class in the scout movement, the best. That is what makes it so enormously superior in its results to trade unions and middle-class unions and leagues of nations. And the underlying secret? It is, I honestly believe, practically the only great movement of the present time which has realised the practical necessity of subordinating the personal interests of its members to the needs of the community. . . Most people who do not want other people taught to think for themselves have some very good reason for it,—that it is easier to prey upon ignorance, for instance."—("Daily Telegraph," 5.2.21. Italics mine.)

Well, we know who the "community" is. Lliar George did his best to teach us at the times when the railwaymen and miners, besides several other combinations of workers, were doing their best to maintain the already poor standard they "enjoyed" by means of strikes. It was dinned into our ears incessantly that these men were fighting the "community."

Apparently this bare-fanged "Wolf" is one of the "community" and is desirous of having the thoughts of the rising generation trained in the way he indicates.

And yet we find that, through some tortuous and peculiarly kinked up process of "reasoning," the vast majority of workers fully believe that they are members of the "community" that the Welsh twister speaks of so glibly. The Georgian community is composed of people who matter in the present system of society, and the worker of to day who thinks that that includes him is indulging in a pretty but suicidal conceit.

Those capitalists who have not previously taken a long enough view of the enormous power that can be wielded through the Boy Scout organisation, in the manufacture of complaisant wage-slaves are shown where their interests lie in the following extract from an article published in the "Daily Telegraph" as part of the appeal for funds :

  No expression of approval is more welcome to those at the head of the Boy Scout movement than that which comes from business men (28.1.21).

Mr. Wilde, headmaster, Blakely Municipal School, Manchester—a gentleman not prone to making wild statements, writes, concerning the average Boy Scout:

  He subordinates his own desires to a sense of honour and of loyalty and obligation to authority. He perseveres, and does not slack off. . . Surely a movement that is worth developing (38.1.21).

Which is a strong recommendation—from the point of view of any exploiter of labour!

What a game !

In these days the close observer sees that no movement that is in the interest of the workers generally gets a free advertisement in the columns of the Press like this Boy Scout business does. It is not to be expected that the owners and controllers of the profit-seeking (yet "free") Press will allow any thing to appear in their columns that is in any way detrimental to the interests of themselves as a class. That things do happen, too great to be ignored, yet against the interest of the capitalist class, is true.

Then subtlety gets full play, sometimes taking the form of bare-faced distortion of truth, sometimes "damning with faint praise," again deliberately suppressing vital facts, and in ways scarcely discernible, the capitalist class guard their own interests all the time, even making their position stronger by spreading plausible misconceptions which ultimately take the aspect of absolute truth.

A worker who used his intelligence on his own behalf and has become class-conscious, that is, realises that the interests of the workers and the interests of the masters, or capitalists, are diametrically opposed, smells a rat as soon as ever he sees a thing boosted in the Press as this Boy Scout movement has been, and a short search soon discloses the object of the boost.

Penny-a-liners, journalistic place-hunters, religious and lunatic sufferers from "scribearrhoea," soon have the grim features of their works laid bare by the worker of normal mind who has used his intelligence in discovering his own true position in the present terribly cruel system of society.

Then does the Boy Scout movement, shorn of all its ribbons, badges, and sentimental trappings, stand out in its true light as a highly developed organisation for the production of wage slaves whose minds will have been moulded to such a degree of complaisant obedience to authority that the woes suffered by the capitalists of to-day (as a result of the workers trying to think for themselves in even the vague, groping, inadequate way that they do) will be entirely eliminated from their scheme of things, and labour troubles will be practically unknown.

We, as Socialists, know to our bitter chagrin what a hard task it is to dislodge ideas that have been grafted into people during their earlier years, and to day we are face to face with a most successful effort to still further influence the minds of the young against their true interests, a fact hidden from the children and their parents with unscrupulous subtlety.

The prosecution of the Boy Scout movement has in view the cultivation of all the "virtues" in the minds of the boys, but never a word is breathed to them about the abominable evil of a system that ensures the whole of their future being insecure until death.

Selim.

Forward! (1921)

Editorial from the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are on the threshold of a new propaganda season. It has been a remarkable winter, with weather conditions that have permitted us to employ our scanty forces to the full in outdoor effort, and much valuable work has been accomplished ; but after all, winter is winter, and it is not only those of heroic minds and hardy constitutions that we have to deliver our message to. Hence with the coming of the season of longer days and warmer suns there is a quickening of life in field of Socialist endeavour, as in most other directions.

The opening season is likely to be one of exceptional importance. It is the first season in which the adverse economic backwash of a stupendous war comes flooding in upon the workers of this country. We have had bad years before and in plenty, but there is this factor about the present period of depression. It follows on years of terrible suffering from the ravages of war, and eloquently belies all the capitalist promises and assurances. Those who have suffered so much to make "a land fit for heroes to live in" will have the real meaning of such phrases borne in upon them with ample force, and will have to ask themselves who the world really belongs to.

In addition, the capitalist have now obtained just those conditions which are necessary to enable them to beat down wages—a clamouring unemployed army—and the next few months will undoubtedly see gigantic struggles over wage and hours issues. Let us strive to take full advantage of the opportunities thus offered.

"The Case for Capitalism." (1921)

Book Review from the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Case for Capitalism' by Hartley Withers (Eveleigh Nash company)

Socialists have been searching for years for a representative statement of the case for Capitalism, and at last it turns up. It is a champion mix-up of truth and error, misrepresentation, and all-round confusion.

To quote the items of interest to us in the book would mean practically repeating the whole work, however, we will deal with a few of the most important passages.

The parts which contain the truth are mere sentiment, and even then are condemnatory of Capitalism rather than favourable to it. Thus on p. 16 Mr. Withers tells us that "the test of an economic system is its success in providing us with a good world to live in "—a piece of daring whose very impudence, in view of the sort of world capitalism has provided for most of us since August 1914, compels admiration.

We are told on pp. 13-15 that under capitalism each one

  can choose what work he will try to do and what employer he will try to serve; if he does not like his job or his employer he can leave it or him and try to get another. He cannot earn unless he can do work that somebody wants to buy, and so he competes with all other workers in producing goods or services that others want or will pay for. . . Whatever money he earns in return for his labour he can spend as he chooses. . . . Whatever money he earns by labour or investment he can, after paying such taxes on it as the State demands, hand on to any heirs whom he may name. . . It is thus very stimulating and bracing, and might be expected to bring out the best effort of the individual to do good work that will be well paid so that he and his may prosper and multiply. IF ONLY EVERY ONE HAD A FAIR START and began life with an equal chance of turning his industry and powers to good account, it would be difficult to devise a scheme of economic life more likely to produce great results from human nature as it now is ; by stimulating its efforts for gain and rivalry to a great output of goods and services and by sharpening its faculties, not only for exercise in this purely material use, but also for solving the bigger problems of life and human intercourse that lie behind it.

Here we have a crushing indictment of Capitalism, mixed with a gross misrepresentation of the facts. True, the worker can leave his job— much more easily, generally, than he can retain it. True, he can leave one employer—much more easily, as a rule, than he can find another. True, he cannot earn unless he can do work that someone wants to buy—a million starving unemployed bear witness to the truth of this statement. And just as the worker can leave his job if he don't mind being out of work, and can leave one master if he cares to take his chance of getting another, so he can spend whatever he earns in whatever way he chooses (within the limits of the law, of course). He needn't buy food with it if he don't mind being hungry ; he needn't buy clothes with it if he can go naked and unashamed ; he needn't keep his wife and kids with it if he hasn't any. Oh, there is a wonderful foundation of truth in much that our author writes, but it is travesty all the same.

Mr. Withers says on p. 51 :

  Labour is frequently used in different senses . . Adam Smith apparently used it as covering all the activities of mind and body required for production. In this sense it covers, of course, the work of the unskilled labourer, and the organising capacity of the manager.

Well, what about it ? Adam Smith's definition is the true one, because it is the only scientific one. As a matter of fact Socialists have always stressed the fact that the labourer, "skilled" or "unskilled," the office boy, and the manager, are all members of the working class, that is to say, wage slaves.

On p. 54 Mr. Withers makes use of the old example of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. He shows Crusoe while fishing with a hook on a line, meditating various methods of improving his economic position. We are told that if Crusoe takes action for this purpose he must run the risk of something happening to render such action useless; e.g., he makes a boat in order to enable him to fish further out, but his boat may be unseaworthy, or the fish further out at sea may be inedible, and so forth. Mr. Withers finds here an analogy to the capitalist investing money. But whether the capitalist runs a risk or not, in investing his money, the fact remains that under capitalism production is carried on for profit, that all profit is unpaid labour, and that therefore any profit the capitalist does get (and there is no doubt about him getting it in the long run) is wealth stolen from those who produce it.

Our author quotes (pp.65-71) G. B. Shaw's imaginary case of a pioneer cultivating a patch of land. Other "Adams" come along, and the first lets his land to a later arrival. The tenant tills his own land, and also his landlord's, but in his turn lets patches to other newcomers. Mr. Withers argues that the first "Adam" and the others who let the land are entitled to the rent they receive by virtue of the work they put into the land previous to letting it, and applies this argument to the capitalist class generally, ignoring the fact that they (the capitalists) have received the equivalent of their original many times over, yet their investment is still there, and so long as they let it remain they will continue to draw dividends for it, generally speaking.

Our author on p. 80 quotes Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald (''The Socialistic Movement") as saying : "A man can go into the forest and tear boughs off trees with his hands for his fires, but he cannot fell trees without an axe of some kind, which is capital." An old saying runs : " One fool makes many." Capitalists like Lord Leverhulme, and their henchmen like Ramsay Macdonald and Mr. Withers, are very fond of this yarn that the primitive woodman's axe (Macdonald), the savage's first stick (Leverhulme), the allotment-holder's spade (Robert Blatchford), are capital. They all have the one object—to lead the workers to believe that there is no class division in present-day society, that all who own any simple tool are by virtue of that capitalists. What none of them will face is, what is the distinctive character of the means of production which leave the product of the workers' toil not in the possession of those who produce them, but of those who own the instruments of labour ? That is the rocky point the Artful Dodgers anxiously try to steer their boat clear of.

Another pseudo-Socialist, Mr. Philip Snowden, is dragged forward to bear false witness on p. 93. Mr. Withers quotes from "Socialism and Syndicalism" :

   But to admit the truth of the doctrine of surplus value does not involve an acceptance of the doctrine in the crude form in which it is expounded in the "Communist Manifesto," where the idea is conveyed that manual labour is the sole producer of wealth. In his later writings Marx seems to express that view at times, . .

This is a deliberate lie, and we challenge Mr. Snowden or any other capitalist hack to find any such statement in any part of the "Communist Manifesto," or in any writing of Marx, Engels, or any other exponent of Socialism.

Our author defines capital as "stored up work," and argues that without "stored up work" the product of labour would be a ''miserable subsistence." Whose work is it that is "stored up" ? And for whose benefit is it so stored ? These are the questions that matter. And if it is true that without this "stored up" labour the product of labour would be a miserable subsistence, that would chiefly affect those who stole the "labour" of others and stored it up, for a "miserable subsistence " is already the lot of those others, and without the "stored up labour" by means of which they are exploited they could not produce a margin for capitalists to lob them of.

Mr. Withers devotes a chapter to the "Achievements of Capitalism." On p. 129 he says :

  It is true enough that Militarism could not have achieved a fraction of its destructive power if Capitalism had not provided the machinery and weapons. 'What d'ye lack ?' is Capitalism's cry, and when humanity said 'Weapons for killing one another, and see that they kill by heaps,' Capitalism delivered the goods with a vengeance.

He might have produced a fine dramatic effect by following that statement with a repetition of his previous assertion that "the test of an economic system is its success in providing us with a good world to live in."

There is an enormous amount of wild statement in the book, travestying the actual facts of life as we find them under capitalism, but limitations of space prevent it being further dealt with here. For the most part the veriest schoolboy would see the absurdities which bristle in our author's pages, for there is no thing subtle in the "arguments" put forward. Nor is there anything new in them either. They are the old familiar regiment which have been on duty so long, and have been roughly handled so often. They want a rest, and it is significant that Mr. Withers brings up no new
 forces to their relief. The truth, of course, is revealed in every fresh effort of Capitalism's 
apologists to put "The Case for Capitalism." They have no reserves, and their case must
stand or fall by these.

Hutch.

Letter: The "Daily Herald" Finds Another Defender. (1921)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editors.

Dear Sirs, —As one of the rank [and] file of the Labour movement, and believing as firmly in the principles of Socialism as any of those who produce the Socialist Standard, I must confess to a feeling of despair when reading such articles as the one of attack upon the "Daily Herald" in your November issue. One wonders when we shall cease giving the reactionary forces the cue for attack upon the forces of Socialism. All the more pitiful is it on account of the bitter personal animosity that seems to prevail amongst those who are all at one when it comes to the desire for the dismissal of the capitalist system.

It seems to me it is about time we faced the facts and dealt with things as they are and not so much with what we would desire them to be. We are living in a state of society under which most of us are oppressed ; but even the most extreme Socialist would have to admit that we have progressed during the last decade, and it is also true that those who have been violent in their attack upon the more moderate section of the movement have been willing enough to reap the benefit of any of the stages of progress.

Time and again I have listened to Socialist speakers deploring the apathy and lethargy of the workers; time and again listened to the urge for educating the workers up to the realisation of the power they do really possess. Assuming that the writer of the article "To Heel" believes this, the attitude is surely inconsistent, for it is certain if you cannot get the masses to support a paper that even the writer admits tells a little more of the truth than the ordinary capitalist paper, you are not going to get them to support a paper that believes in more drastic measures for bringing its aims into being.

Again, some of the left wing Socialists that I know and have spoken to believe quite definitely that holding that the Materialist outlook is the only logical one, one must work for the material well-being whilst in the flesh and reject the idea that there is something to follow the physical life that shall be a reward for labours that have been put forth here. Following these statements there come others to the effect that much as we may work and strive we cannot hope to see much if any of the ideals of a Socialist State during our time. Those statements surely suggest that it is essential that we all enjoy to the fullest what there is to enjoy whilst we are in the flesh. My contention is, then, that much as we may deplore the shortcomings of the "Daily Herald"—and I am aware she has many—it is a weapon that all of us who have the Cause at heart should support. I do not need to go over the many things the paper has done to bring to light the intrigues and deceptions of the governing class: they should be well known to all readers of the "S.S." Neither am I or many other readers of the "Daily Herald" concerned so much about whether the directorate knew about the intention of Mr. Meynell's wanderings in Russia. What I am certain about is that the thing was put quite democratically before its readers and turned down on their disapproval. Neither am I concerned so much about the paper's lack of criticism of Smillie during the recent strike—that is a concern of the miners themselves. What I am concerned about is the fact that in a movement such as ours there should be such a lack of human co-operation.

I suggest it is time such writers as "D.W.F." realises that whilst he spends his efforts attacking Lansbury and the "Herald" there are hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children lacking the necessities of life, and it is no use going to those thousands with a handful of Socialist Ideals and the capitalist class firmly rooted in the departments of Whitehall. Men need bread to-day, and much as we all desire the incoming of a Socialist State, we only retard its incoming by such wanton attacks. Will D.W.F., I wonder, openly advocate that Socialists should buy the "Daily Mail," etc., rather than the "Herald," or would he advocate that Socialists hold aloof from the purchase of any dailies that keep one in touch with the affairs of the world, because there is no paper that is no paper that is clean cut Socialist ?

In conclusion, I appeal to those Socialists who believe that you cannot have a true Socialist State until you have made men and women realise to the full the corruption of the present system, that to do this we need a live Press, and since the "Herald" is a thing in being, let us work for its perfection.—Yours faithfully,

M. H. Barton.

Reply:

Impersonally I must confess to my sorrow that any member of the working class should be moved to a "feeling of despair" by such criticism as were offered by me—it provides yet another instance of clinging to the shadow in mistake for the substance. Why my critic accuses me of "giving the reactionary forces the cue" passes my comprehension, as I certainly had no intention of giving the cue to the "Herald," and did my best to make it clear that that journal is one of the units of the reactionary Press, and, as such, was engaged at every conceivable opportunity upon anti-Socialist propaganda.

That Socialists are "all at one when it comes to the desire for the demise of the capitalist system" is admitted ; but that does not admit that all who mouth that desire, or who call themselves Socialists, are such—in fact, a great part of the Socialist Party propaganda has to be directed to clearing from the minds of the workers the effects of the work of all varieties of political imposters and frauds.

One can be in complete agreement with Mr. Barton when he says "it is about time we faced the facts"; but it is to be assumed that he was speaking for himself and those who think like him, and the question naturally arises—why do not he and they for whom he speaks do this ? That is the whole trouble—they will not face the facts. And when we of the Socialist Party endeavour to make them do so they do not like it and deluge us with sentimental clap-trap about "personal animosity" and the like. We are not concerned with individuals, whether they are worshipped by the "poor in spirit" or not. We are concerned with the working class and its straggle for emancipation and we shall continue to expose all the political mountebanks and time-servers that come before our notice to the best of our power.

Does our correspondent really imagine that the progress made during the last decade is due to such propaganda as he feels called upon to champion, because if be does he must be unable to comprehend the rudimentary law of capitalist development, and as for being "willing enough to reap the benefit," even were there any benefit, the capitalist class would see to it that we reaped it, otherwise they would not waste time and money putting the "benefits" on the Statute Book.

What my critic does not appear to understand is that under capitalism what suits the capitalist goes, and the activities of all self-styled Socialist societies, publications and individuals are quite to his liking and merit and receive his support.

The whole point, which Mr. Barton misses is that the "Daily Herald," like "John Bull," tells the truth on occasion, as do all the other organs of the Press. The rest of the time they are all contributing to the chloroforming of the working class and making it more difficult to propagate Socialism, which is the only concern of the Socialist as such. As for the ''Herald" being "a thing in being," so is the "Daily Mail" and the Socialist Standard, and the last being the only Socialist periodical published in this country, calls for and should receive the support of all Socialists, and no Socialist should concern himself with upholding the "Daily Herald," but would merely regard it as a daily newspaper from which he would gather some idea of what is happening from day to day.

D.W. F.

The Slump. (1921)

From the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most newspapers are advocating the cutting down of Governmental administrative expenditure and continually criticise Government schemes at home and abroad. These papers say the Government must economise so as to relieve the taxes upon the merchants, landlords, and so on. Mr. Lloyd George has soon taken the hint and delivered his cheese-paring speech to the Chambers of Commerce. It does not require a Solomon to see that the world's markets are glutted—the "produce more" stunt has come to fruition. The next step to producing more is to consume less—and that is quite logical in a system of wealth production which belongs to the few in society. The capitalists could do with a few of the millions who have been slain in the trade war now to buy back what has been produced.

What a vicious circle ! Terrible war, awful armistice, horrible peace ! Whatever is claimed to be the solution—whether it is producing more, consuming less, economising, going dry, being wet, praying long or short, tariff on goods, tariff off goods, dumping goods, profit-sharing, nationalisation—all, all lead to poverty in the midst of plenty.

We think that the only solution is the common ownership of the means of life, and that all this misery and poverty on the one hand, and affluence on the other, will punish the working class until they see the road to their economic emancipation.

A while ago a datum line was fixed for the miners, and our bosses made out that it was imperative that at least the miners should turn out so much coal, so that industry generally may flourish and make for good trade. But in spite of the miners producing more than the desired quantity, the discharging of workers has been continuous, and it has been computed that there are 1,500,000 workers unemployed. Really, if the situation were not so serious it would be comical to note the "directive ability" of those who strive to maintain capitalist conditions. "Produce more," was the cry; "the workers are not producing enough."—and then thousands are discharged so that they can produce nothing.

In this connection the Labour Party has done dirty work. Most people must have seen the placards with the portraits of five Labour leaders, with the urge to produce more thereon. It would be quite in keeping with their trickery to advise the workers to work short time.

What hope can the working class have of a party that has not the common ownership of the means and instruments of wealth production as its main political objective ?

The problem now before the rulers of this chaotic system is to keep a vast army of unemployed as cheaply as possible—until the time trade revives.

Think of it ! The workers, according to capitalist ethics and economics, are entitled to wages while they are producing. That implies that they have no further claim than what their wages will buy. A regiment of soldiers, a squad of police, should make us know who owns and controls our lives and destinies.

All that follows is charity—and we must not forget the pride of those who have learnt a trade, and the proud boast that they are free.

The slump is come, and now millions of the workers have a miserable time to drag through —a Slough of Despond—with the knowledge that plenty has been produced, but the markets are too poor to buy.

What a madhouse it is! The newspapers are yelling to the unemployed and others: "Are Dreadnoughts out of date ? Stop waste; support the Anti-Waste candidates and so make the Government economise." The Dover election was a good test of whether or not the workers have learnt anything by war experience and poverty in the midst of plenty. Two gentlemen, labelling themselves respectively Coalition Unionist and Independent Anti-Waster, have had a fine game with the electors, and it is remarkable how the old stunts bamboozle the workers time and time again—and the result: over 24,000 votes for capitalism to carry on.

No slump there, but just a vigorous support of the system that causes such horrors as we see around us.

S. W.

The Alternative. (1921)

From the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The contention that under Socialism a miner for example will not desire to continue as such owing to the dangerous conditions attached to mining work, and many other objections raised in the working-class mind, necessitates a clearer conception of Socialism. Under capitalism danger in the mines undoubtedly exists, and will continue to exist, because the owners are not at all concerned with the personal safety of the miners. Replacements are always available from the industrial reserve. Knowing this, and being only concerned with realising profit, the owners do nothing beyond what they are compelled to do by law to eliminate the element of danger.

There is, however, no matter what conditions of life we find ourselves in, a certain amount of danger to human life and limb, but with the advance of science and its application to the elimination of risk most of the danger will disappear.

Under Socialism the greatest care would be taken of human life; the mines would be scientifically organised and operated, and every safeguard adopted to secure their workers against all threatening dangers.

While coal remains one of the necessaries of the community the knowledge of this will bring sufficient voluntary miners forward to produce all the coal that is needed. Why not ? Will not the fact force itself upon the workers' own intelligence ? No man is a miner because he is enamoured of mining! He follows his occupation in order to live, and because he was born and reared in the districts where the industry predominates. He understands, dimly, perhaps, that his power to labour is his only asset; he therefore proceeds to sell that energy at its highest marketable value. This he does without questioning whether he really ought to be a schoolmaster or a chief magistrate, and these remarks apply equally to the workers of all industries. Very few of the present generation of wage slaves have a choice in the selection of their trade—economic conditions and the competition for jobs, even among skilled workers, force them to seize the first opportunity. A few exceptions there may be ; the ruling class do not object to an individual incursion into their ranks : a Lipton here and there is a successful advertisement for the system.

In spite of red herrings of this description, members of the working class seldom rise much above the subsistence level, yet it is from them that criticisms and objections such as the foregoing usually emanate, showing that their knowledge of Socialism is very crude. The cure for this lamentable state of ignorance obviously is more knowledge. Get wiser! Analyse the case for Socialism. Criticise if you will, by all means, but reason the matter as well, fellow worker, for by so doing better understanding, greater knowledge, and a speedier establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth will result.

As the interests of the only two existing classes in society to day are in conflict, sooner or later the conflict must be determined. Therefore it behoves the working class, being the class seeking its emancipation, to be ready with its alternative.

And what alternative have they but Socialism ?

W. A. G.

Our Thousand Pound Fund. (1921)

Party News from the March 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

This being our Special Holiday Number we take the opportunity of issuing a reminder on the subject of our £1,000 Fund. Money is as urgently needed as ever, notwithstanding that we do not make a great splash about it in these pages. Any sympathiser who has a spare shot in the locker should send it to our Head Office, where it will be put to good use in the Class Struggle.

United they stand (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like the man who is going to be hanged in a fortnight, the politician finds that an approaching general election concentrates his mind wonderfully. All over the country, there is a buzz of activity, as envelopes are addressed, supporters canvassed, programmes drafted and speeches written. The great task is to convince the voters that your party is better than the other lot, that your leaders will keep their promises and that in general you possess a greater store of energy, dedication and mindpower which can all be at the service of the electors.

Or at least it was once as simple as that. In the days when the Labour Party was in apparently endless opposition it was possible for them to argue that they had some real differences from the Conservatives. They could put forward programmes which, because there was small chance of them ever being put to the test, could be suitably adventurous. They could even, in a controlled and qualified way, talk about something they liked to call socialism. A substantial number of workers were impressed by it and voted, for or against Labour, under the notion that they were making an active choice between two basically differing points of view.

But now that we have had a substantial experience of Labour government, under a selection of Prime Ministers who have been left wingers in their time and who have “changed” just at the moment when their panting followers were rejoicing that at last the Promised Land had been reached, the task of the propagandists is rather different. Now, it is not so much to convince people that it is worth making a choice between Labour and Tory as to get them to think that there are any differences to make the choice about.

So we might expect to witness, over the next few months (assuming, as many political observers are, that the Callaghan government will not be able to hang on much longer than this autumn) an intensifying effort to find, and then emphasise, the smallest of points of dispute between the two big parties.

Customary campaign

In fact this has started already; the direct attacks on Margaret Thatcher by Denis Healey, in the Ilford North by-election and by Callaghan soon after the Labour defeat there, are part of the customary campaign all capitalist parties wage, to convince us that their leaders are better than the others. In this case, though, there were pointers to a possible trend in Labour Party propaganda in the election.

Both Callaghan and Healey accused Thatcher of stirring up trouble on the issue of race (Healey said she was acting as a recruiting sergeant for the National Front). The inference we are invited to draw from this is that the Labour Party would never fish in such dangerously muddy waters, that they are unsullied by the slightest touch of racism and that on this issue—emotive, explosive, destructive as it is—there is a genuine difference between the two parties. And the inference we are invited to draw from this, again, is that the Tories stand for a compromise (or perhaps even agreement) with racism and the Labour Party stand against it.

But this would only deceive a Rip Van Winkle, someone who had been unconscious of the recent history of British politics. It was, of course, the Conservative government who introduced the first Immigration Act, in 1962, in an effort to assuage the racist ideas which were growing as the early immigrants came to this country, to settle in places like Brixton and Smethwick and Southall. At that time the Labour Party thought the Tories had delivered to them a golden opportunity to scoop up votes and Hugh Gaitskell, who was then the leader of the Labour Party, immediately launched into a fierce assault on the Act, on the grounds that whatever excuses were made for it, it was a piece of racist legislation.

Well Gaitskell did not live to see the results of his campaign but it was pretty clear that they were not at all what he had hoped for. In the next general election, in 1964, the name of Smethwick was written into British political history when the Tory candidate overthrew Wilson’s prospective Foreign Secretary—Patrick Gordon Walker—largely by playing on the prejudices of the workers in the constituency who objected to the inflow of immigrants.

Readjustment

This, and the even worse blow when Gordon Walker failed to get into Parliament at his second attempt at a staged by-election, was enough to persuade the Labour Party that a little readjustment was needed in their policies. Naturally they would still mention things like the brotherhood of man and equal rights for all whatever the colour of their skin and so on. But at the same time they worked to implement, and to tighten up on, the Immigration Act which they had previously condemned in such forthright terms.

It was predictable, that they would eventually come out in the open with their own racist laws and sure enough, in the panic over the Kenyan Asians in 1968, frightened for their miserable lives at the polls by the rabble rousing of Enoch Powell and Duncan Sandys and the hysteria of the moment, Labour gave birth to its own Immigration Act which, to all intents and purposes, finished the argument that they had differences with the Tories over the matter.

The situation, as the military are fond of reporting, has now stabilised. Both the big parties, in their concern to hang onto their votes, are now ready to introduce further discriminatory laws and, as the hysteria grows, to think up new variations on them. These laws have nothing to do with easing pressure on resources like housing, social services, available employment; there were problems in these fields long, long before the first West Indian walked the streets of Brixton or the first Asian gazed at the gasworked landscape of Southall. They have everything to do with a desperate attempt to stop the sliding away of votes to the more openly racist organisations like the National Front.

Both Labour and Conservative Parties are trying to pre-empt the National Front, to undermine its progress by appearing almost as discriminatory as the discriminators. At the very best this is a dangerous gamble, as the Nationalists found to their cost in Nazi Germany. And it leaves the all-important question: when Labour or Tory have got power by pandering to racist prejudices, what do they do with, how do they control, those prejudices?

The essential unity of Labour and Tory over immigration controls will not prevent them, when the time comes, pretending to the voters that they have differences in principle on the issue. This should deceive nobody with any kind of memory for recent history and there are plenty of other examples to remember. It has long been a point of Conservative propaganda, that the Labour Party is a revolutionary party which, knowingly or not, would be responsible for overturning capitalism and substituting something like the state organised society of privilege (in fact, a variety of capitalism) which exists in Russia.

Myth

Part of this myth is that the Labour Party is dominated by the trade unions and allows them to have a decisive say in the government of British capitalism. And runs the argument, capitalism run under the influence of the likes of Hugh Scanlon and Joe Gormley is almost like capitalism in the Kremlin.

The reality is a lot more sober. By a mixture of threats, force, determination and negotiation this Labour government have shown that, far from the unions running riot under them, they are the party with the most hope of controlling wage claims. And all this without a head-on confrontation like the pitched battle of 1973 and 1974, between Heath and the miners or even the clashes which have marked the history of previous Labour governments. Perhaps Labour has learnt, since the days when they prosecuted striking dockers, the facts of life and economic power under capitalism—and have done a deal with them.

One of the important facts of capitalist life is that it is a class divided system, in which two groups of people, between them making up the population of the developed world, face each other in conflict over the ownership of wealth. The parties of capitalism try to hide this fact, by talking about a unity of interests, about everyone working for the national good as if the interests of the coal miner are the same as those of the stock holder.

But while they are saying this those same parties are themselves fighting the class war, but on the other side of the line. They stand for the interests of the ruling class, for the propping up of a social system in which a minority own and control the means of living with all that follows from that in terms of poverty against privilege, freedom against repression.

Any differences they may have are over the tactics to be used in that propping up and in fighting that class war. At times, as in 1973, a government may decide on the tactics of confrontation; at others they may use the policy of conciliation, of trying to persuade the workers on the other side of the struggle not to use any power they may have, to negotiate rather than use force in the sense of a strike or something similar.

And when it comes to an election they are again united, in their respective appeal to the political naivety of the working class who are open to be convinced that minor differences on issues like immigration or trade unions are worth voting for or against. One result of this is that race is now in the forefront of British politics and promises to be a dominating factor in the next general election. This should be a lesson to anyone who thinks it possible to make progress towards Socialism with a policy of compromise with political ignorance or of winning support on day to day issues.

Labour or Tory, capitalism rules and that is not O.K.

Ivan

Name and number (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

We all have a National Insurance Benefit number (as distinct from a National Health Registration number!). In prisons, as in the Armed Forces, you become a number; the Nazis tattooed numbers on their prisoners’ hands or forearms. Science fiction tells of horrible regimented ways of life in the not so distant future when we have all become digits in the ordering of things; no name—just a number. The intention in each case is to regiment, sort, file (and, in the process, dehumanise) human beings into so many units in the system.

It is with amused puzzlement therefore that one read an item in the Daily Telegraph of 15th February 1978. It appears that, in reverse to the majority of us, Michael Herbert Dengler of Minneapolis, Minnesota, wants to be known as a number—1069. He feels so strongly about it that he is fighting his case through the Courts. To date he has been refused permission because, as the Judge said “It would be an offence to basic human dignity”, although the North Dakota Supreme Court did give him permission to call himself “One Zero Six Nine” (a fine distinction!). Mr. Dengler on the other hand argues that his Social Security card shows him as “1069” and the Bank accepts cheques signed in this way.

Obviously this man feels he has to fight the system, although from the newspaper item we cannot tell what his purpose is and what winning his case would indicate to him. The personnel officer of one Corporation told him “you come here with a name and we’ll give you a number”. From this it is obvious that, like the majority of us, Mr. Dengler is a member of the working class. Whether or not, in the end, the Minnesota Supreme Court allows him to call himself “1069” will make no difference to his position as a member of that class. In ruling against him Judge Barbeau said: “I cannot in good conscience add to to-day’s inhumanity by giving you the stamp of judicial approval.” The Judge objects to the “inhumanity” of Michael Dengler changing his name for a number. However, he actively upholds a system based on the exploitation of the vast majority, including Mr. Dengler, to produce profits for the few, “entitled” to reap the benefits of their labour by virtue only of their ownership of the means of wealth production. While Michael Dengler continues to work for it, and Judge Barbeau helps to administer it, the inhuman system of capitalism will continue for all of us—whatever our name or number.

Eva Goodman

The Future is Socialism (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Throughout history, man has sought to increase his power, that is, his ability to act. The successive stages of social development have corresponded to the development of human powers and, the last four hundred years, the era of capitalism, have seen the greatest and most dynamic expansion yet of those powers. Now, as previously, mankind is progressively extending what it can do, but, with the exception of certain rare instances, man’s past development has been more or less in step with technological possibilities. At present, however, there is generally a vast gulf between what is technologically and humanly possible and what is actually realised and the contrast between the two and the question of how to reconcile them is the most pressing problem that confronts man today.

Concrete examples of this problem can be found daily in newspaper reports. They inform us amongst other things: —

• that food is not produced in a sufficient quantity to relieve the starvation of millions—despite the fact that it is technologically possible to feed the world;
• that schools, hospitals, factories, homes, etc., are not built in sufficient numbers to satisfy the need for them—despite the necessary materials and manpower being available;
• that not enough of the many other items that are necessary for a pleasant human existence are produced—despite the existence of the requisite powers for their production;
• that artistic and intellectual development, and scientific and medical research is limited—despite the vast human potential for such development;
• that millions of people in the world (whether officially unemployed, or employed in uncreative jobs) are deprived of creative activity and the opportunity to usefully employ their talents—despite their desire for creativeness.

The news reports, however, are largely superficial—they record the effects of the problem but they do not generally look at its cause. The cause of the problem is not technological or human but social: it is the result of the way people relate to each other.

A society is an association of people for the promotion of a certain common function or purpose. These social functions are conducted within the context of a definite social organisation, that is, certain fundamental relationships between society’s members. Today’s society is organised on the basis of the minority ownership of the means of living (the factories, the land, the railways, etc.) while the majority of society’s members are deprived of such ownership and are therefore dependent for their livelihood upon the minority who own.

Because of their ownership of the means of living, the minority have an advantage over the majority and can generally use this advantage to promote their own interests even when they conflict with the interests of the majority. Thus while it might be in the interests of the majority for more food to be produced, more buildings to be constructed, more medical facilities to be provided, etc., it is not necessarily in the interests of the owning class—and if it isn't, the development of these things is limited. The main criterion for whether or not something is in the interests of the owning class is whether or not it will create them profits. Today, profits are made in the process of commodity production and are realized in the sale of the commodity (an item of wealth produced for sale) on the market. Thus where there are not the market conditions to make the production of a commodity profitable, that commodity will not be produced. It is for this reason that man's potential for abundance and development is not fully realized, as progress is restricted by the present social organisation and its market in which the general rule is NO PROFITS, NO PRODUCTION.

It is therefore class division, which is basic to the present form of social organisation, which today causes the great gulf between what is possible and what is actually realized in the field of wealth production. The solution to the problem of how to realize man’s full potential lies therefore in the replacement of the present social organisation with a new social organisation in which everyone owns the means of living in common—that is, Socialism.

As the means of living will be owned in common, so too the produce of society will belong to everyone. Each person will have equal rights of access to the social produce, each will determine her/his own needs and take freely from the common stock of wealth produced. This concept of wealth distribution is termed “free access”, and it means precisely that. For in Socialism wealth will not be bought or sold on a market, it will not be exchanged for money, but rather it will be made freely available so that anyone who needs it can take it.

Abundance

Because it will not be restricted by the market and the profit motive, production will be able to realize the abundance that it is technologically capable of. Production in Socialism will be of useful and necessary items, to satisfy society’s needs, not for profit. Further, because there will be no market, the work currently done by millions of people will become unnecessary. Socialism will not need the services performed by those who work in the vast finance departments of governments and businesses, or those who work in banks, insurance companies or building societies (after all, there will be no money!). Nor will it need the many policemen, security guards, ticket collectors and shop assistants whose essential task it is to ensure that wealth is only possessed by those who have “legally” acquired it. Also, Socialism will not require armed forces, legal and judicial systems, nor the vast propaganda organisations (e.g. the church) whose main tasks are the maintenance of the dominant position of the minority owning class in each national territory and the subjugation of the majority. Instead of doing these socially useless jobs, the people presently undertaking them would, in Socialism, together with those who are now unemployed, be enabled to be creative. They would be so enabled because they would own the means and instruments for such creativity which the present social organisation denies them. Thus Socialism will mean the liberation of mankind from such useless and uncreative work and the mobilisation of all human abilities for the extension of human abilities.

Work in Socialism will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation and the democratic administration of society. The production and distribution of wealth will be controlled by the whole of society. Just as at present there exists in Britain a national grid system for electricity, which, under a central board, assesses market demand for the product nationally, and maintains supply in all areas, so too, in Socialism there will be a sort of worldwide grid system for all wealth, which will assess people’s needs, regulate production accordingly, and maintain the requisite supplies to all areas. Socialism will also involve the rational use of resources and areas, using those resources and areas for the activities to which they are best suited.

Organisation

The social organisation of Socialism will be under the complete control of society’s members. There will probably be delegate assemblies and all administrators will have their functions delegated to them by society. However the exact form which democracy in Socialism will take, cannot be stated here, for that very form must itself be the result of a great and serious democratic debate. Further, the development of technology which could aid democracy is progressing; for example, in a relatively short time it might be possible for society to produce powerful computer devices in suitable sizes and in sufficient quantity to make them widely accessible, thus enabling a potentially vast expansion of readily-available information as well as facilitating mechanisms for the frequent registration of opinions. One thing is certain, however, Socialism will be the most democratic form of society possible, and, as the means of living will be owned in common, no minority will be able to enforce its will upon the majority by threatening to withhold their livelihood.

Because no one will be in a position to coerce others, all work in Socialism will be voluntary. Obviously in order to live people will need to produce wealth, but such production will not take place in coercive or exploitative conditions. Instead, each person will contribute to society as much of their talents and abilities as they are willing to give. Due to the fact that the producers will no longer be exploited (robbed of the full fruits of their labour) in the course of production; nor forced to work in conditions which are sometimes detrimental to their health; nor deprived of creativeness in work; nor forced to compete with one another for pay and promotion; nor forced to labour in circumstances which they don’t fully control; nor forced to divide their activity between employment and “leisure” (neither of which are fully satisfying)—work in Socialism will be a pleasure, a definite end and need in itself. Mankind will, for the first time, be in complete control of its circumstances, it will create and recreate its circumstances, it will venture to the very limits of its potentiality, it will continually extend itself to an extent that could never be achieved under the present social organisation. Mankind, in Socialism, will be revealed as the supreme creative artist, we shall constantly beautify and redesign our world, we shall perpetually increase our power, we shall continuously acquire more knowledge. In the future, having liberated itself from the restrictions of the present social organisation, mankind will mobilise all of its abilities for the extension of its abilities.

That future is Socialism, but it is no more inevitable than anything else which requires human action for its achievement. What is needed, is for all those who have an interest in introducing the new society (the vast majority) to realize that interest and to unite and organise with likeminded people for the purpose of taking the requisite action to change society.

Brian Philips

Marx and Crises (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked for the source of the quotation from Marx that "there are no permanent crises" on page 187 of the October Socialist Standard. It is from the Theories of Surplus Value. In the Lawrence and Wishart edition (Theories of Surplus Value, Part two, 1969, p. 497) the passage is translated as "permanent crises do not exist".

Rising prices and the EEC (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before January 1973, when Britain joined the European Economic Community, and again in 1975 at the time of the Referendum, the interests in favour of joining and those opposed to it marshalled ail the arguments they could think of to influence the electorate one way or the other. Many were so flimsy that it is surprising anyone troubled to make them. Like the argument that entry into the EEC would mean more exports for British companies and more jobs for workers because it opened up a big new market: simultaneously people already in the EEC were being told that they should welcome British entry because it would open up the big British market to their exporters. It was obvious that while some British companies might hope to gain others were as certain to lose by the change.

There was, however, one consideration that appeared to have more substance. It was that entry into the EEC would push up prices in this country, especially food prices.

Opponents said that Britain would no longer be able to import food from non-member countries at the lower, world market price levels. The New Statesman's “Case Against Entry” used an estimate that this would raise British food prices by between 18 per cent and 26 per cent, this being the gap between world food prices and EEC prices.

The supporters of joining the EEC met this with two arguments. One was that British wages would rise to the higher levels of some EEC countries, notably Germany, and that workers would then be able to pay the higher prices. Whatever force there may be in such a trend towards common European wage levels, the onset of the depression and the Labour Government’s policy of checking wage increases put paid to it for the time being.

The second argument was put by the Conservative Party in their Guide for the 1975 Referendum Campaign. It was that as this country has to import half its food as well as much fertilisers and fuel it was important to have the dependable source of food represented by the EEC.

  It may not always provide us with the very cheap food available at any given time, but recent experience has shown how dramatically world food prices can fluctuate above and below Community levels, and how reliance on world supplies can leave us with shortages in time of need. It is therefore far better for us to rely on secure food supplies from our Community partners than to gamble on insecure supplies from the volatile world market.

The reason entry into the EEC was said to raise food prices was the changeover from the former British policy for keeping farming profitable to the different system used in the EEC.

The British system had been to fix guaranteed prices for lots of farm produce, and if farmers were forced to sell at lower prices because of cheap imports, the difference between actual and guaranteed prices was paid to farmers as subsidies. This kept food prices in Britain in line with world levels.

The system introduced in the EEC in 1962 was to set relatively high food prices for the whole EEC, reflecting costs of production, and to impose levies on imports from non-member countries. If actual prices fell below fixed “intervention” levels the Community bought the produce at the “intervention” prices, and stored it until prices rose, or sold it outside the Community, normally at a loss: or, as sometimes happened, destroyed it.

But this system had its problems. One was that costs of producing food are higher in some EEC countries than in others and a price level high enough to satisfy the least efficient farmers came up against the objections of factory owners and other employers who saw their costs being pushed up by wage demands to keep up with the high cost of living.

Another was that each EEC country controls its own currency. (It will be years before the aim is reached of one centrally controlled currency for the whole EEC.) So whenever one country, say Germany, up-valued its currency or another devalued its currency the whole European food market was disrupted, exports from low-currency countries capturing the market from high currency countries such as Germany.

To offset this and protect those farmers who would have been badly bit by it the system was devised of requiring the countries with depreciated currency to make compensatory payments on food imports and to levy charges on food exports; with the reverse arrangement for countries with up-valued currencies. But this would have called for drastic adjustments following the fairly frequent alterations of currency exchange rates. It was therefore modified and made less drastic by using, for converting Community payments into the currency of each country, not the actual currency exchange rates but agreed artificial rates which, for example, over-valued the pound but under-valued the German mark to the advantage of German farmers. These artificial rates are called green pounds, green marks, green liras, etc.

It is a complicated system but its practical effect can be seen in the recent 7½ per cent devaluation of the green pound forced by Parliament on the Government in place of the 5 per cent that it had proposed to ask for from the Community authorities.

This reduced by about 3p a lb. the subsidy received by Danish and Dutch exporters of bacon to Britain. The purpose of seeking the reduction was to help British pig farmers who had long complained that they were being ruined by cheap imports. If the Danes and Dutch actually raised their prices by the full 3p a lb. all bacon prices in the British market would go up by some such amount with a corresponding increase of the incomes of pig farmers. (Beef was also affected by the devaluation of the green pound).

It now remains to look at the original argument about British food prices being forced up by membership of the EEC.

In the first place it is questionable whether the New Statesman's forecast of an 18 per cent to 26 per cent rise actually took place. The Conservative Guide for the Referendum Campaign, quoted Shirley Williams the Labour prices minister as saying that “the overall level of food prices in the UK is not at present significantly affected one way or the other by our membership of the EEC”. She was not saying that food prices had not risen but that this reflected world price changes, not membership of the EEC.

But even if the New Statesman's forecast had proved correct what does it amount to? They had not risked claiming that if Britain remained outside the EEC no price rise would take place. They could hardly do so because between 1966 and 1972 (when Britain was outside the EEC) British food prices had risen by 47 per cent.

But those who still maintain that British food prices have risen because of membership of the EEC can point to the fact that between 1972 and 1976 British food prices rose by 100 per cent (up to date the rise is nearly 140 per cent). Does this not prove that membership of the EEC was responsible for the rise?

It is only necessary to look at the experience of other countries in the EEC to see that it cannot be the explanation. While British food prices rose between 1972 and 1976 by 100 per cent, the rise in Germany was only 27 per cent and in Denmark 53 per cent, both of them in the EEC. (For USA and Switzerland both outside the EEC, the percentage rise was 46 and 21.)

The major cause of the unduly big rise of British food prices, and British prices generally, is not membership of the EEC but the inflation policy operated by the Government (much speeded up after the Labour Government came into office in February 1974), in the mistaken belief that it would provide “full employment”.

Marx showed that an inflationary rise of prices inevitably follows from an excess issue of inconvertible paper currency. Though the level of production now is actually lower than it was in 1974, the amount of currency in circulation with the public has increased from £4,620 million to £7,830 million, a rise of 69 per cent.

If Britain had not joined the EEC the Labour Government would still have followed the same inflationary policy, with the consequent big rise of prices. (Under the guise of “reflation” they are likely to continue it.) Germany and Switzerland have resorted less to expansion of the note issue, hence their smaller price rises. (In the past two years Swiss prices have been rising at only about 1 per cent a year.)

It only remains to add that the solution of the workers’ problems is not to be found in membership or non-membership of the EEC, or in having inflation or not having inflation, but in getting rid of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

An Appeal For Funds (1978)

Party News from the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been appealing in the Socialist Standard for funds to help us meet the printer’s bill for the new edition of ‘Questions of the Day’.

We find that in addition we need at least £500 per month just to “keep the Wolf from the door’ and we are calling on all concerned to send the very largest donations possible direct to the Treasurer at 52, Clapham High Street. London SW4.

Readers are also urged to favourably consider arranging through their own banks to pay a regular monthly amount into the SPGB Special account No. 02823446 at the National Westminster Bank, Clapham North Branch (50 21 00) and advise the Party Funds Organisers. This can easily be arranged by your local Bank, or we will send you a Banker’s Order form upon request.

Natural and Supernatural (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

While many industries are suffering from the present slump, and their workers live in fear of the sack or short time, one business has never known better days: that is, the large contemporary industry dealing with ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. It includes religion, and also much else besides. It has often proved its usefulness to the state, which means to the rulers of the state. For the more the ruling class can persuade the workers that they have a great time coming, if they can only wait till they’re dead, the less time they will spend thinking about the system which keeps their exploiters rich, or planning to end it. The more their attention is taken up with mysticism and occult tales and supernatural forces, the less energy they will have to learn about the natural forces here and now, which the members of the ruling class will continue to own and control for their own benefit at the workers’ expense. A valuable weapon in this ruling-class campaign is a book just published, Natural and Supernatural, by Brian Inglis (Hodder and Stoughton, £9.95). This first volume speaks up manfully on behalf of spooks of various kinds, plus crafty dodges like alchemy and religious miracles, in the centuries up to 1914. (And very effective alchemy was, too—not in transmuting base metals into gold, of course, but in transmuting the true believers’ money into the pockets of the alchemists.) Volume two will bring us up to date (if that’s the right phrase).

Gnomes Rule — OK?

Bernard Levin, The Times columnist, and a friend of Mr. Inglis, sees how vital it is to inculcate a spirit of credulity among the workers, and he went so far as to produce a column vindicating the book two weeks before it was published (The Times, 6.1.78). To defend a book as yet unpublished, from attacks as yet unmade, in reviews as yet unwritten, requires unusual skills, but Mr. Levin was equal to the occasion. Exercising simultaneously the gifts of clairvoyance and prophecy, he claimed to know what would be said by reviewers as yet unchosen, and he produced at least one argument to confute it (plus some abuse of the phantom army of projected assailants—no one who refused to accept supernatural happenings after reading Mr. Inglis’s book could be “fully sane”, he said in his temperate and judicious way.) This was the argument: the fact that some people reject telepathy and the rest of it “seems to me to go far towards demonstrating the validity of the very argument it rejects”. So there you are. If you reject the belief that cows catch an illness because elves have fired prehistoric flint arrow-heads at them (the disease was called “elf-shot” 150 years ago—it still is, according to current dictionaries—and the poor cow was “cured” by bleeding it), if you are unable to accept that leprechauns cause this disease, you are merely confirming that it does happen.

Mr. Levin gave his testimony for the magical powers of, for example, Uri Geller, and illustrated his article by a picture of the wizard in person, holding some shop-soiled cutlery, and looking inscrutable. Geller is an unfortunate choice as an example of uncanny doings and psychic powers. His pretensions to be anything other than a clever conjurer have long been exploded, both by impartial investigators from outside show-business, and, even more effectively, by equally clever fellow-conjurers who are indignant at the way Geller has hogged the publicity by magical claims for tricks no better than their own (see past issues of the New Scientist and of the American periodical The Zetetic, and also The Magic of Uri, by “Randi”, Ballantine Books, 65p).

All aboard for Paradise

Fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Levin, Geller, and Inglis, in this spiritual onslaught with so much material significance, are the progenitors of the heterogeneous religious sects which have sprung up in the last decade or two and have proved so successful in promoting the prosperity of their originators and the other-worldly passivity of the workers they have converted. Not only have the leaders of the old-established religions deserved well of the capitalist class; so have such men as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon (his name alone must be worth a mint in the religious game) with his various productive schemes staffed by low-paid devotees; the well-built little guru who runs the Divine Light mission, in the intervals of seeing the world in great comfort with highly congenial companions; and Lafayette Ron Hubbard, last heard of cruising in his yacht while his Scientology Church spreads the gospel and organizes the contributions. All of them take full advantage of the mind-shattering boredom in which most workers (inevitably under capitalism) are forced to spend their working lives, a boredom which provides fertile soil for the growth of miracle men.

Another in the same line of business is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (or Veririchi, as unkind critics have called him). His international H.Q. is in Switzerland, and he runs Transcendental Meditation. He has discovered (The Times, 4.1.78) that when one per cent of the people of a town or city meditate transcendentally (and if you don’t know what that is, only £60—for six lessons— stands between you and your finding out), the cumulative effects “will wipe away its urban deprivation, and give it invincibility, peace of mind, prosperity”, and so on; “illness, crime, and accidents, decrease sharply”. This has already been proved (no doubt it depends on your standards of proof) in towns as far apart as Cleveland, Ohio, and Glossop, Derbyshire, to name but two. The same experiment is at this moment being made in Hackney. So now it’s up to 1,925 inhabitants of that hitherto lack-lustre locality, that’s one per cent of the population, if they’ve counted right, to do their stuff. If you’ve been to Hackney recently, to see a place in the process of being transformed by the power of thought, you may well have come to the conclusion that the Maharishi’s thinkers have a lot of hard meditating still to do. Poverty, and crime, and urban deprivation, are not easy to shift; but if the transcendental meditators think they have shifted them (as in Cleveland, Ohio, and Glossop, Derbyshire) it will do the ruling class no harm, will it?

Flights of fancy

Even more to the point, on the subject of Mr. Inglis's second volume; only last year the Maharishi discovered that transcendental meditation enables its practitioners to fly. It’s a real bonus: one crossing to New York under your own steam, and you’ve already paid for your introductory lessons. The faithful practise flying every morning in the front room of the terraced house which spearheads the campaign to transform Hackney; but they modestly declined to demonstrate their powers when a journalist called. “We are not very good at it yet; still a bit unstable in the air.” So New York is out, for the moment. Still, even a few quick flights to the factory or office would avoid those rush-hour journeys, not to mention saving the fare. These revelations are not to be laughed at: the more people laugh and refuse to believe these stories, the more (by Mr. Levin’s argument) it proves that the meditators do fly.

Anyway, Brian Inglis could spread himself on that in his second volume. He might like to hear of another uncanny case of paranormal powers, if he has not already written it up. A couple of years ago Patrick Moore was appearing on Pete Murray’s Radio 2 morning show. He told his listeners that while he was speaking the planet Pluto would pass directly behind Jupiter, thus increasing their gravitational pull, so that here on earth people could jump in the air and experience a floating sensation. Minutes later, “the BBC switchboard was jammed with calls from people claiming the ‘experiment’ had worked. A woman holding a coffee morning said she and her eleven guests left the ground and floated round the room” (Sun, 2.4.76). Another man “said he hit his head on the ceiling”. Patrick Moore thought he was hoaxing people on April Fools’ Day (Jupiter and Pluto could play hide-and-seek all day, and it wouldn’t affect the earth’s gravitation), but there is obviously more to it than that. These witnesses who thought they could fly because P. Moore told them they could on the radio must surely reinforce those other witnesses who thought their spoons were bent because U. Geller told them so on the radio. Or are we to accept the apparent deductions that sometimes people want to believe something so much that they succeed in convincing themselves it really is true? To help divert the workers from the economic and political realities the magical powers of Moore and Geller and the rest have an important part to play, however much scoffers and cynics may sneer. After all, the more people laugh and refuse to believe it, the more . . . Where have we heard that argument before?

Without question, Mr. Inglis is doing a great job for the ruling class. We can only hope he never bumps his head on the ceiling.

Alwyn Edgar