The socialist revolution (1988)

From the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is an age of contradictions in which we live. Millions destined to slums or homelessness while builders are forced into unemployed uselessness because the market has no need for them; police given huge cash bonuses for wielding their truncheons during overtime on the picket line while nurses survive on the pittance which capitalism offers to those who are caring; stockpiles of bombs which will convert us into dust while Church and State preach to kids about the virtues of peaceful behaviour; the cries of millions of starving children who will die this year, as they do every year, in a society which is actually paying farm owners not to produce food.

The objective of capitalism is to make a profit. The recipients of profit are the capitalists who are, and always will be, a minority. The workers, who produce the wealth but do not possess it, are the creators of all profits, and that creation arises directly from the act of robbery which is inevitable so long as the wages system exists. Under capitalism the earth and all of its major resources belong to the few and not the many; production is by the many for the enrichment of the few. The position of the working class is that of wage slaves. Although sometimes the wages are called salaries, the slavery remains the same. The wage slave majority does not own or control the world. We are the second-rate citizens in a world which should be ours.

Class struggle

The socialist proposition begins at the point when you recognise that capitalism must go and the earth must belong to its inhabitants. Socialism has nothing to do with regulating capitalism or equalising social relations within it, or injecting illusory feelings of co-operation into it, or moulding or reforming it in any way. Socialism is not a process of playing with the surface image of the profit system. We are uncompromising enemies of the capitalist system. While it exists, in whatever forms, we fight against it. Socialists are not alone in this fight. Capitalism necessitates class struggle between capitalists and workers. The two classes have opposed interests and live in a condition of permanent tension which frequently erupts into class war in various forms. The difference between the socialist struggle and that of our fellow workers who are not yet socialists is that we know what we are fighting against and what we are fighting for. Too often workers struggle in the dark; they hate the boss, they seek justice, they place faith in reform schemes or other illusions. To become a socialist is to see through the dark and convert blind struggle into a movement for social revolution. The socialist proposition commences, then, at the point of seeing the need for fundamental social change; it proceeds to consciously prepare for revolution. That is the socialist task.

Abolish rulers and ruled

Revolution. Few words convey so many confused meanings. 1789 in France when a king was removed and a new gang of robbing rulers installed. 1917 in Russia when state capitalism was inaugurated in the name of socialism. 1968 in Paris when students imagined that barricade romanticism would transform history. When workers hear of revolution they think of bloody street battles conducted by people in period costumes. Alas, quite a few of those on the modern Left indulge in the same misconception. What is misunderstood by such people is that all previous revolutions were minority revolutions: they were political acts which transferred power from one set of rulers to another. We do not seek to put political power into the hands of new rulers. The socialist revolution will be the first revolution in history which will abolish rulers and ruled — which will end class society. In short, the task of class-conscious workers is not to "take power”, but to end class power by ending all classes. The aim of the working class must be to abolish itself as a class.

The socialist revolution will not be an affair of leaders and led. The concept of "the socialist vanguard", so well loved by arrogant would-be Lenins of the Left, is an idea borrowed from the politics of past revolutions. Workers will not be led into socialist liberation. We shall not, as a class, be told by leaders that they have very kindly emancipated us from capitalism and now we may cheer like grateful masses for being freed. Workers will not be freed, but must free ourselves. To quote Marx. "The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves". The revolutionaries who make the revolution will know what we are doing. That is why the first prerequisite for the socialist revolution is consciousness of what needs to be done.

As the working class is the majority, and as there will be no socialism without a socialist-conscious working class, it follows logically that the revolution must be the act of the majority, not the minority. In short, it must be democratic. As socialism itself will be the most democratic form of society ever experienced by humankind, it follows that it can only be established democratically. A minority could not establish socialism in the face of a non-socialist majority of workers, and it would be folly to attempt such an adventure.

Once there is a socialist majority political action must be taken. The socialist revolution cannot be non-political. Why? Because we are up against the capitalist state and if we do not take it, it will take us. The power of coercion cannot be left in the hands of the capitalist class. Government and the armed forces must be taken away from them in the same way as they are handed over to them: by mandate. At present workers vote the power to rule over them to our class enemies every time there is an election. In the ballot box workers throw away their chance to be rulers over their own lives, offering such power to those who seek to govern on behalf of the bosses. The socialist never votes for anyone to rule over him or her, never votes for any capitalist party, even if it poses as "the lesser evil". The socialist vote is a class-conscious vote which is cast in opposition to the capitalist state in any form. This does not mean that we seek to establish a socialist state. On the contrary, the socialist revolution. in establishing workers' power over the state, will at the same time, put an end to the state. The state is an instrument of class coercion: where there are no classes there will be no state. The socialist revolution will bring about a stateless society.

World without frontiers

The working class is not a national class, but exists worldwide. Our interests internationally are not many, but identical. Workers everywhere are robbed of the fruits of our labour and only by revolution everywhere can the world become the property of all — or, more accurately, the property of no one. So, the socialist revolution knows no boundaries; it will not occur nationally, but internationally. That is why The Socialist Party is not concerned only with the workers of one state territory. In Britain we deal with the conditions here, but we are part of a World Socialist Movement, the other parties of which have the same principles as us. If the number of conscious socialists in one country is larger than in another, then it is the job of those where there are more socialists to offer every support possible to those where the struggle is more difficult. Whilst pointing out this identity of global working-class interest, and therefore the need for world socialist revolution, we do not ignore the many important cultural differences in which different workers find themselves. Also, we are not unaware of different obstacles which history has placed in the way of various national groupings of workers. It is up to socialists in each area of world capitalism to struggle for revolution in whatever way is best for them. It is not for workers in Britain to lay down precise revolutionary plans for our brothers and sisters who do not share our specific conditions. What they do share with us, and what is far more important than those factors which differentiate us, is a need to end world capitalism by means of joining the movement for world socialism. No nation can do that alone: national socialism is a concept to be thrown into the dustbin of discarded dogmas wherein lie the remnants of the Stalinist and Nazi abuses of the socialist label.

How is the socialist revolution to come about? The Socialist Party is in possession of no magic formula. Since 1904 this Party has, in a principled, persistent and uncompromising fashion, used all of the energy and resources at its disposal to make clear to our fellow workers that social revolution is the need of the day. Some workers have responded by joining with us. Others have nodded approvingly, telling us that they will be with us "on the day”. Most have dismissed our message. For some this dismissal is because they are convinced by the lies which prop up capitalism. But most of those workers who have yet to become revolutionaries have failed to be motivated because capitalism makes apathy an easier course than action. Sadly, millions of those politically apathetic workers, who over the years have come across the case for socialism and failed to be aroused, have suffered miserably for their apathy. Such suffering has ranged from the grinding frustration and insecurity of day-to-day wage slavery to the more evident horrors, such as murder in war and long-term unemployment and homelessness. The worker who avoids the call of revolution is a vulnerable worker. It is the job of The Socialist Party to point out, as we do at every opportunity, that socialism is not only a great idea about how human decency could be achieved, but is the only practical and immediately achievable alternative to the intense pain which capitalism is inflicting upon the wealth producers now.

The May Day message of The Socialist Party is no different from its April message or its December one. Our style is not that of the annual rabble-rousing exhibition which is all puff and no substance. Our message is that if you are a worker — namely, any person who needs to sell their mental and physical energies in order to live — you have an obligation to give the most serious consideration to the case for a revolutionary change in society from capitalism to socialism. This consideration requires an understanding of what capitalism is and why it can never run in the workers’ interest, and what socialism is and why a revolution to bring it about is the urgent requirement of our time. To ignore that obligation is to leave oneself open to the most awful risks of dangers created by the present, outdated social system. To face up to that obligation and join The Socialist Party is the most historically intelligent and dignified act that you could take. The movement for revolution demands your consideration and support.

Steve Coleman

The Poll Tax and the workers (1988)

From the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The government decision to replace rates with a "community charge" has sparked off furious controversy. The government claimed that the new system will get rid of existing anomalies and inequalities, and the opposition parties argue that it will destroy democratic local government and create new burdens for the poor. The new system is to begin in Scotland in April 1989 and a year later in England and Wales, starting with some London boroughs.

At present local authorities get their revenue from four sources: 40 per cent from central government through the Rate Support Grant; 20 per cent from local householders paying rates; 25 per cent from local industrial and commercial rate payers; and 15 per cent from council tenants paying rent. Domestic rates are payable only by the householder, not by other adults living in the house.

Pressure for the new system has come largely from the industrial and commercial rate payers. They complain that only 34 per cent of local electors pay full rates, and 57 per cent of those entitled to vote in local elections have no rates liability at all, due either to the rebate system or to the fact that they are not householders. The consequence is, they say, that local councils are elected by people who have no interest in keeping expenditure down — high rates are of no concern to them.

Under the new system everybody over the age of 18 will have to pay Poll Tax, except the mentally ill and elderly people living in homes and hospitals. Low paid workers and students will not have to pay the full amount. Business ratepayers will pay a standard Unified Business Rate pegged to inflation.

The Westminster Bank magazine, Money Care (February 1988), says that while many millions of individuals and householders will lose money another large group will gain:

  The people who will generally pay less are homes with only one adult and people living in large homes. Households where the total bill will be higher will be ones with more than two adults, small homes and those excused rates at the moment. Everyone will have to pay at least 20 per cent of the community charge.

The government has already acted to keep rates down. Councils raising rates unduly are penalised by a reduction in the amount of the central government grant. Mrs Thatcher, in a speech reported in the Financial Times (7th March 1988) said this about the new system.

  This will transform inner cities. No longer will they [the councils] be able to spend, spend, spend, putting it on owner-occupiers and businesses. It is being specifically designed so that the same degree of efficiency will result in the same community charge all over the country.

The new system has come under criticism from professional bodies interested in taxation and local government on the ground of its complexity and the difficulty of enforcing it against the large numbers of people likely to evade payment if they can.

There is nothing new in one group of property owners, in this case the business rate-payers, trying to unload some of the burden of the rates on to other groups. Professor Cannan, in his History of Local Rates in England (1912) showed that it was going on throughout the 19th century. Then, as now, one of the issues was how much of local authority expenditure should be paid by central government and there were then, as now, complaints about the "extravagances and mismanagement" of particular local councils. The business rate-payers naturally wish to reduce the burden of rates and most of them can count on doing well out of the change.

But what about the working class and the assertion by the Labour Party and others that the Poll Tax will, on balance, make the workers worse off?

At its formation the Socialist Party rejected the popular theory that rates (and taxes) reduce the workers’ standard of living and that they therefore have an interest in keeping them down. They are. in the long run. a burden not on the workers but on the propertied class. The argument against rates is that they are an addition to the rent workers have to pay for accommodation and that any increase in the rates makes the working class worse off.

Examination of what actually happens in the matter of rates and rents shows that the argument is not valid. High rates do not increase the amount the workers have to pay but reduce the rent the landlord gets. If rates are higher in one district than in others, businesses and tenants of houses avoid these districts if they can, compelling landlords to accept less then they would otherwise be able to get. Professor Cannan gave evidence of this. He wrote:

  The high rates of a highly rated district undoubtedly tend to deter population and businesses from settling in it, and this means that they will not settle in it unless the owners charge less than they would if the rates were lower. If the rates were reduced the owners would be able to charge more for their properties.

Examples of this were quoted in the Socialist Standard (October 1904). One was West Ham, at that time the most heavily rated district in England: "rents are falling, while rates are rising, owing to the decreased demand for houses". At the present time a shift of this kind is taking place between Camden, where the average rate charge is £752 a year, and neighbouring Wandsworth where it is only £327.

Since 1938 there has been a huge increase, in real terms, in the amount of rates collected by local authorities (as in the amount of taxes collected by central government) but it has not had the effect of lowering the majority of workers' standard of living, which is in fact very considerably higher than it was in 1938. The point is that the workers, through organisation on the industrial field, can take advantage of the favourable phases of capitalism when production and profits are rising, to get higher wages. In most of the years since 1945 the average wages of workers who are in work, have risen more than the rise in their cost of living. It is going on now. Since 1982 when production and profits began to rise again, average real wages have been rising continuously and are now well above the level of 1979.

It has happened in defiance of the regular pleas by government ministers that the unions should modify their wage claims and employers should not agree to large claims. Chancellor Nigel Lawson said, for example: "It is very important for businessmen to keep firm control of their pay costs" (Financial Times, 18th March 1988). Trying to keep wages down has been the line taken by every government, Labour as well as Tory.

Edgar Hardcastle

Between the Lines: A dull ache ceases (1988)

The Between the Lines column from the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

A dull ache ceases

Back in 1964, when Macmillan was telling the workers that we'd never been done so good, there was wage slavery for nearly all (we were supposed to be grateful for this "full employment") and the welfare state was working to plan, meaning that every worker in dire need of help who could not afford to buy decent aid was entitled to a third-rate service provided by the state. There was a feeling amongst certain capitalists that life was becoming too good for the proles. It was in that year that Crossroads was invented: a direct invention, it is argued by some cynics, to create a dull ache in the minds of millions of workers on a daily basis. There then followed fourteen years of cultural agony, with ever worse acting, less credible plots, greater insults to our class as the motel employees were depicted as hapless prats, culminating in the character who was the most ideal human work-horse ever invented: Benny, the unskilled skivvy who they love to love and love even more to exploit like hell. Crossroads existed as a standing monument to the cultural poverty of a social system which treats the wealth-producing masses as creatures in whom minds are an impediment to proper functioning. It was dinner at The Ritz followed by Beckett for them and fish fingers in front of Meg Richardson and Sandy for us.

On Monday 4 April the dull ache ended. Crossroads is no more. Now we are in a new era of world history, no more to be blighted by such evils as Adam Chance's phoney smile (it is rumoured that he is now in the running for the SLDP leadership) or Benny's inane caricature of what a good-hearted mug ought to look like. Central TV, after years of falling audience ratings, has taken this foul little cultural blemish off our screens. But beware of false confidence. Just as you sit there doubting the wise words uttered over the years by the Socialist Standard when we told you that the quality of life under capitalism will not improve, but will get worse. Just as you entertain the hope that the dull ache has gone for ever, be warned: ITV has announced that it certainly does not rule out the possibility of bringing Crossroads back in some new form. And remember, they said in 1918 that there would never be another world war.

A hidden item of news

Over the Easter weekend, as the news broadcasts reported on where the royal funsters were going on their next avalanche-causing expedition and how the government is taking the National Union of Seamen to court for the subversive act of holding a strike ballot, few of you will have noticed the following news report. You will not have noticed it because it was not broadcast. We shall alert you to it all the same:

  "This weekend delegates from various parts of England. Scotland and Wales met in the old Chiswick Town Hall for the 84th annual conference of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. The leader's keynote speech was notable for the fact that it was not given as there is no leader, although there was a ten-minute standing ovation when lunch was announced on the third day. The conference began by debating changes to its rule book: these are determined by all members, so no rules are imposed over the membership, but only by members if needed. It was decided to set up a committee to consider re-structuring the Party's executive committee and plans were also set in motion to establish a more scientific national strategy for the Party's various activities. The Conference affirmed its opposition to The Socialist Party becoming involved in the running of a printing co-operative, and a new document from one branch on 'The Road to Socialism' was discussed critically, with various worthwhile perspectives being stated. The Conference agrees to begin preparations now for contesting the next general election, and also agreed upon the importance of concentrating on local election activity at present. It was agreed that in future the Party shall in nearly all circumstances make itself known by its abbreviated title, The Socialist Party — although this does not mean that its official name has changed. Conference carried a resolution to write to Channel Four calling upon them to allow it time to state its grievance regarding the exclusion of The Socialist Party's voice from it. despite the fact that numerous smaller minority interests are allowed on. The Conference was unlike any other political conference. A Socialist Party spokesperson, asked what her main aim for the party was in the long-term, stated I hope to see the day when we fold up and have no reason to exist. Once a majority of workers understand and want socialism they will establish it and parties will be of no use'. Another speaker at the conference told us that he would only join a political party where there are no leaders or led. as he was after a society where there would be no leaders or led. It is quite clear to us that these people are all quite crazy. About as crazy as those subversive eccentrics of centuries past who persisted in the idiotic belief that the earth was not flat something to do with the law of gravity, our scientific correspondent informs us."

Steve Coleman

Voice From The Back: The Class Divide (2011)

The Voice From The Back column from the may 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Class Divide                                            

In a recent issue of the Guardian newspaper there was an inserted leaflet from the charity WaterAid. It was appealing for £52 million in a campaign to change the lives of 884 million people who still lack clean water and the 2.6 billion who have nowhere safe to go to the toilet. According to the leaflet “It’s a fact that around 4,000 children die every day from diarrhoea because they lack clean water and sanitation.” If  £52 million seems like a lot of money it should be noted in that same newspaper there was an  article that reported the sale of super luxurious flats in London. “The property tycoons behind London’s most lavish residential development are £62 million better off after fresh details emerged of sales at One Hyde Park. The Candy brothers, Nick and Christian, and their backers have pocketed the sum after selling one sixth floor property for £22m, and one on the second floor for £21.6m …. A penthouse flat in the development is understood to have been sold for £135m, but Land Registry documents have yet to be filed.” (Guardian, 16 March) WaterAid’s appeal for £52 million seems modest compared with these sums, but that is how capitalism works. The poor die young and the rich live in luxury based on the misery of the poor. 4,000 kids are dying every day, are you going to do anything about it?

Comic Book Capitalism                                     

Capitalism is an insane society that values things much more than human beings. The following news item should be read with the knowledge that millions of people are trying to exist on the equivalent of $1.25 a day. “A comic collector has been caught in Spider-Man’s web, paying $1.1 million for a near-mint copy of “Amazing Fantasy” No. 15 that features the wall-crawler’s debut. The issue, first published in 1962, was sold Monday by a private seller to a private buyer, ComicConnect.com chief executive Stephen Fishler told The Associated Press on Tuesday. It’s not the highest price ever paid for a comic book, an honor that goes to “Action Comics” No. 1 with Superman on the cover, which went for $1.5 million.” (Yahoo News, 9 March) Millions of dollars spent on nonsense while real human beings die of hunger. It is not funny, it is not comic. It is disgraceful.

Another Day, Another Disaster
                    

Newspapers are quick to cover a story like the miners rescued from the cave-in in Chile, but mining disasters are so common that they hardly register in the media compared to important events like a Royal wedding. So it should come as no surprise to learn of the following event only being covered by a few lines in the national press. “At least six workers were killed and 46 trapped by a methane explosion in a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan. An official said that the mine was declared dangerous two weeks ago, but the warning was ignored.” (Times, 21 March) The reality inside a capitalist society is that coal and the profits that can accrue from it is much more important that human lives.

Rich and Poor in the USA                                    

In a recent newspaper debate about the growing inequalities of wealth in the USA  entitled “Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care? Why do Americans seem unperturbed about the growing gap between the rich and the poor?”, Michael I. Norton an associate professor at the Harvard Business School, who is  currently co-writing a book on money and happiness, made some interesting observations. “In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.” (New York Times, 22 March) It may have escaped the professors’ notice, but all the media is owned by the rich and it is in their interest to spread the false notion that capitalism is a fair and equitable society.  

Those Lazy Workers Again                                 

“Almost every NHS nurse works more than their contracted hours and one in five does so every shift, a new poll shows. Some 95% of nurses say they work longer hours than they are paid for, according to ICM research for the Royal  College of Nursing. . .Many nurses say they have to skip meals and rarely or never get the breaks at work to which they are entitled…” (Observer, 10 April)

Family Values

“British families are facing the biggest peacetime squeeze on their finances since 1921, according to a leading economic consultancy. Soaring inflation and weak earning growth will leave the average family £910 worse off than two years ago, according to analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).” (Sunday Times, 10 April).

Pathfinders: Round in circles (2011)

The Pathfinders Column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Round in circles

Ever since a gaggle of mushroom-intoxicated neolithics first got the idea of piling a big flat stone on top of two uprights people have been having creative ideas about the living spaces of the future. Over the length of social history living spaces have evolved, from medieval all-purpose pens containing bed, hearth, toilet, animals, humans, rats and plague, to the Victorian taxonomic mania for cataloguing and categorising, putting every human function from snoring to shitting to snooker in its own walled chamber. Now things are changing again as central heating and double glazing, as well as a pressure of space and cost, drive a return to more open-plan knock-throughs and multipurpose domestic environments (‘The Story of Our Rooms’, BBC Online, 12 April).

With the high priority now being placed on low-carbon living and low-impact building methods and materials, science is increasingly being designed into planning models. As old structures age and have to be replaced anyway, what if – say the scientists – whole cities could be redesigned to factor in all the known elements necessary to make them virtually self-sustainable?

If one were really to rebuild whole cities from scratch, imagine the energy savings. A city like Los Angeles, a chaotic urban mega-sprawl, is a huge energy sink which forces most people to drive miles to their nearest supermarket, and even more miles to work. Rational planning might have optimised all utilities and transport networks into the very crown joules of ergonomic design. And big cities have their own form of economy of scale, with smaller environmental footprints and higher standard of living per capita than small ones. If one were to pull them down and start again, one could build modular urban centres that were carbon-efficient, pedestrian-friendly, accessible and navigable.

Some planners promote designs for just this (New Scientist, 26 March). Zeitgeist’s Venus Project is another, 3D rendered attempt. The trouble is, even on the page these symmetrical designs look soul-destroying, like laboratory mazes for lobotomised rats. It’s no wonder many Zeitgeist supporters are reportedly in two minds about the idea of self-sufficient circular cities. Somewhere in the debate about efficiency the human element gets left out. What is beautiful about old cities is their riotous and labyrinthine irregularity, forced on them by the constraints of city walls and overbuilding, as well as their elaborate and artistic but ‘inefficient’ construction. The more planned a cityscape is, the more dreary it tends to look and the worse it is to live in. Well-meaning but paternalistic experiments in 1950s urban planning gave rise in the UK to the horrors of high-rises and disaffected concrete council estates, with all their attendant social problems, as Lynsey Hanley documents in her entertaining book Estates: An Intimate History (Granta, 2007).

Could planners ever plan efficiency to look like Venice or Rouen or York? Does the future always have to look like a plastic Thunderbirds set? Nowadays there is the potential of wiki-citizenry to offer collective input so as to avoid planners imposing antiseptic structures on our aesthetic sensibilities. But this just might mean a committee-designed camel instead of a geek-planned horse. Sometimes there is something human and endearing about organic inefficiency. In socialism there will no doubt be plenty of people calling for large-scale ‘social engineering’ projects. Let this be the first salvo fired in opposition to such notions.

A Poor Motivator

Interestingly, given all the hoo-ha about ‘obscene’ bankers’ bonuses, not many ever question the apparently self-evident truism that money is a great motivator. Socialists have always gone against the commonly received wisdom by claiming that, conversely, money is actually a poor motivator and in many cases no motivator at all. As evidence we cite the voluntary sector, so large that it is known as the ‘third sector’ of the economy, but then we might be biased given that we propose a social system composed entirely of volunteers. Support however comes from studies which suggest that not only are external motivators like money decoupled from internal ones like interest, commitment or curiosity, they may indeed be inversely related, so that an excess of one can lead to a deficiency in the other (New Scientist, 9 April). It is perhaps surprising and counter-intuitive to learn that financial rewards actually reduce the incentive to work hard, but “the facts are absolutely clear”, says one long-time researcher. “In virtually all circumstances in which people are doing things in order to get rewards, extrinsic tangible rewards undermine intrinsic motivation”. Next time you hear some know-nothing blather on about how money drives progress, you might point out that the science says otherwise. People are not spurred on by money, they are simply whipped on by fear of poverty.

Capitalist Priorities 

‘Owing to unfavourable economic conditions the search for the ultimate explanation of life, the universe and everything has been suspended.’ Perhaps this is pitching it a bit strong, but with the Large Hadron Collider due to close for a year for extensive repairs you would have thought that this was precisely not the time to be shutting down its nearest and dearest rival, the Fermilab Tevatron. The Tevatron, named because it can accelerate protons up to energies approaching a trillion electron volts or 1 TeV, is supposedly obsolete now because the LHC can manage energies up to 7 TeV. Of course that’s in theory. In reality the LHC has only once reached half this energy, has already broken down twice and now is due for another extended pit-stop. Most notably, of course, it hasn’t found anything, unlike the Tevatron which last month announced the discovery, to within 3 orders of certainty, of a new particle that may be evidence of a ‘fifth force’ of nature (‘Tevatron accelerator yields hints of new particle’, BBC Online, 7 April). Meanwhile the famous Higgs, as well as mythical dark matter ‘neutralinos’ could be lurking out there in any eV range, so even with two colliders operating it would be like two explorerers searching for penguins, one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south. Keeping the Tevatron going would cost a measly $35m – peanuts by their standards – and there’s no engineering problem, but the beancounters have given it the thumbs down. Any socialist comment on capitalist priorities at this point would be as redundant as a Chicago physicist.

Paddy Shannon

Material World: Rare Earth Metals and the Not-So-Clean Energy Economy (2011)

The Material World Column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The extraction, transport and burning of fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – are directly responsible for widespread environmental devastation. The struggle over control of these resources has also long been a major cause of international conflict.

But let’s look to the future. The shift to a “clean energy economy” based on solar, wind and other renewable power sources has finally begun. True, it is too slow and too late to avert some disasters arising from climate change. All the same, surely there is reason to hope that renewable energy will eventually bring us relief from war and pollution?      

Not necessarily. Sun, wind and tides are hardly in short supply, but there are certain areas where conditions are best for harnessing their power. It is conceivable that conflict will arise over control of these areas.

Rare earths

A more immediate issue concerns some of the material resources required to generate renewable energy and produce machines that run on such energy. In particular, our masters are currently very worried about ensuring adequate and stable supplies of the 17 elements known as “rare earth metals”. Due to their special properties, these metals have numerous crucial uses in high-tech industrial, medical, scientific, military and computer equipment. Their “clean energy” applications include the manufacture of magnets for wind turbines, energy-efficient fluorescent lamps, and batteries for hybrid and electric cars.

The metallic elements themselves are not all that rare in the planet’s crust, but they are highly dispersed. It is the soils (earths) containing concentrated mineral ores that are relatively rare, though they have been found in several parts of the world, such as South Africa, India, Vietnam, Australia and North America. Currently, however, China has a near-monopoly on the extraction of rare earth metals, controlling about 95 percent of global supply – and for certain elements over 99 percent.

Potential for conflict

In September 2010, China suspended exports of rare earth metals to Japan after a Chinese trawler fishing in disputed waters in the East China Sea collided with Japanese Coast Guard vessels and its captain was detained. He was soon released and exports resumed. The incident prompted hack Paul Krugman to castigate China as a dangerous and irresponsible “rogue economic superpower” (New York Times, Oct. 17).

More significant is the long-term trend for China to place increasingly strict limits on exports of rare earth metals to all countries. In 2009 it became known that the Chinese government was planning to ban exports of five especially rare elements altogether. Under strong pressure from Western governments and corporations, the ban was replaced by annual quotas.

Despite the accusations that China is exploiting its near-monopoly to bully other countries, its main reason for restricting exports is probably a desire to give priority to satisfying rapidly rising domestic demand, fuelled by China’s own technological development. The US and other countries have responded to the situation by urgently exploring and developing alternative sources of supply. Nevertheless, there is clearly a growing potential here for international conflict (whether involving China or not), especially as the shift to the “clean energy economy” gathers pace.

Toxic sludge

The mining and processing of rare earths is an extremely dirty process. Refining them to extract pure metals requires the use of toxic acids. Ores are often radioactive due to the presence of uranium and thorium. The disposal of toxic waste is an enormous problem.  

Almost half (45 percent) of the current world output of rare earth metals comes from a mine in the town of Baotou Obo, part of the larger mining district of Baotou in Inner Mongolia. Baotou is right on the Yellow River, on which much of North China depends for water. The Baotou section of the river is already contaminated with copper, lead, zinc and cadmium (Fan Qingyun et al., Chemical Speciation and Bioavailability, June 2008).

The waste from the rare earth metal mine in Baotou Obo – a radioactive sludge laced with toxic compounds – is pumped into a reservoir (10 square kilometers in area) surrounded by an earthen embankment. If (when?) there is an accident similar to what happened in October 2010 in Hungary, where another reservoir of toxic sludge burst its banks, this mass of poisonous goo will engulf local residents and pour into the Yellow River, further enriching its chemical composition.

Not so clean

On close examination, therefore, the “clean energy economy” turns out to be not so clean after all. Renewable energy may still be a big improvement on fossil fuels, but in itself it will solve neither the problem of war nor that of environmental devastation.

What will be the policy of socialist society regarding the use of rare earth metals? What will be done with the waste? Or will people somehow manage without these substances?

Socialism will mitigate the problem in a number of ways. Less material will be required because there will be no built-in obsolescence: equipment will be made to last for very long periods. And, of course, there will be no production of military equipment. Without the imperative to maximise profits, much higher priority can be given to protecting the environment.

Yet mitigating a problem is not the same as solving it. What if the supply of a certain material is essential to the satisfaction of human needs, but no technical means can be found of extracting it without serious harm to the environment? Even the people of socialist society are likely to find themselves facing hard choices.

Stefan

Profiting from ill-health (2011)

From the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The coalition government’s plan to allow more profit-seeking enterprises to provide health care has stirred up controversy and opposition. But despite the NHS huge profits have long been made out of health provision.

In 2002 it was estimated that the joint profits of $35.9 billion amassed by the ten pharmaceutical companies that featured in the Fortune 500 were $2.2 billion more than the profits of all the other 490 businesses put together. So there’s plenty of money in drug-dealing. Here’s what some of the top dealers pocketed in earnings in 2007 (source FiercePharma):

1. Miles White – Abbott – $33.4m
2. Fred Hassan – Schering-Plough – $30.1m
3. Bill Weldon – Johnson & Johnson – $25.1m
4. Bob Essner – Wyeth – $24.1m
5. Robert Parkinson – Baxter – $17.6m

The sale of drugs has a relatively short history when it’s compared to our own history. For tens of thousands of years we experimented with the raw materials that are freely found in nature and form the basis of the modern day pharmaceutical industry. It is recorded that pharmacists in Baghdad opened the first pharmacy in 754. This spread throughout the Islamic world and into feudal Europe. As capitalism developed out of feudalism so too did the health business. By the early 20th century the strong had been gradually eradicating the weak leaving the nucleus of today’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.

The mass production of drugs arose from the discovery of insulin in the 1920s and later of penicillin. Wealth, through surplus value, was accumulating in to the hands of the capitalists who owned and controlled these companies. Trade was well on its way to becoming global, and capitalists in Europe and North America must have realised that they had found their own gold mines.

The minor companies that entered the market were continuously swallowed by the major ones via mutually beneficial partnerships, corporate buyouts, mergers and takeovers. The City as ever eased the way, greasing its own palm in the process, so that the global manufacture of drugs is now dominated by a handful of cartels.

IMS Health (7 September 2009) estimates that the value of the global pharmaceutical market in 2010 is expected to exceed $825 billion, and is expected to expand to $975+ billion by 2013. Capitalism’s drug dealers will salivate in anticipation. Only the naive and the ideologically handicapped believe that trade under capitalism is not synonymous with corruption. Once money enters into any transaction, principles, no matter how well-meaning, get undermined. And the drug trade is no exception.

Theft: Israeli bio-technology company Nogdan Immunochemicals Ltd patented a technology that can almost immediately detect any current disease and forecast the probability of disease in the future. The sharks circled Nogdan in September 1995, through the agency of Biosite and Epimmune. And, with the active complicity of an Israeli attorney and two leading academics, conspired to steal the patent. They went on to sign deals with the top drug cartels such as Monsanto, Novartis, Merck and Co., Searle GD, Elan, Pharmacia, Human Genome Sciences, IDM, and others, for the use of the patent. Billions of dollars in profits have already been generated by these companies. And it has been estimated that over the next ten years hundreds of billions of dollars more will be added to their balance sheets (chemeurope.com/news).

Bribery: Remember the scare stories that flooded the media in 2008/09 about H1N1; a global flu influenza. A report published by the British Medical Journal, reveals the hidden links that made the World Health Organisation [WHO] declare H1N1 a pandemic. The result was billions of dollars in profits for vaccine manufacturers. “Several key advisors who urged the WHO to declare a pandemic received direct financial compensation from the very same vaccine manufacturers who received a windfall of profits from the pandemic announcement… All the kickbacks were swept under the table” …the “ WHO somehow didn’t think it was important to let the world know that it was receiving policy advice from individuals who stood to make millions of dollars when a pandemic was declared” (jmbblog.com/2010/06/h1n1-and-who-scandal).

Murder: “During the meningitis epidemic in Niger in 1995, over 50,000 people were inoculated with fake vaccines, received as a gift from a country which thought they were safe. The exercise resulted in 2,500 deaths. Of the one million deaths that occur from malaria annually, as many as 200,000 would be avoidable if the medicines available were effective, of good quality and used correctly” (WHO, 2003 FS 275).

On 9 March 1983, a Peter Lumley, spokesman for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), was pleased to inform Guardian readers “that drug companies now average a 22 per cent rate of return from the NHS”. Twenty plus years later that figure has hardly fluctuated. Between 1988 and 2008 according to; Prescriptions Dispensed in the Community, England: Statistics for 1998 to 2008. Prescription items increased by almost two thirds. In 1998, the net ingredient cost of all prescriptions dispensed was £4,701.5 million. In 2008 The net ingredient cost of all prescriptions dispensed was £8,325.5 million.

Unsurprisingly, Daily Telegraph readers discovered in 2004 that “The Royal College of General Practitioners has accused drug companies of ‘disease-mongering’ in order to boost sales… says the pharmaceutical industry is taking the National Health Service to the brink of collapse by encouraging unnecessary prescribing of costly drugs  . . . The college lists hypertension, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression as examples of common conditions that, in mild forms, are often inappropriately treated with drugs” (29 August 2004).

Conflicts emerged when Richard Ley, a spokesman for the ABPI, said: “It seems odd for this criticism to come from the Royal College of all organisations, because a decision on when and how to treat a patient is the doctor’s.” And the conflict continues according to the same article: “Some observers are also worried about “hard-sell” methods applied to general practice. Last year, a survey of 1,000 GPs published in the British Medical Journal found that those who saw drugs-company representatives at least once a week were more likely to prescribe drugs that were not needed.”

Then there’s the Observer (29 June 2003) quoting Glasgow GP Des Spence who “had started an advisory post, which meant he influenced prescribing practices for half a dozen local practices, when he started receiving invitations to meetings abroad, ‘endless’ lunches and dinners and offers of substantial fees for lectures and chairmanships – and felt he was finally getting the recognition he deserved. That is until his wife made him realise that he was ‘just being used and manipulated by big pharma, that it was the patients they were interested in, not me’.” He underlined this by claiming that “GPs who see drug reps at least once a week are more likely to prescribe drugs for conditions that will probably clear up on their own”.

Even if your GP has the best of intentions and closes the surgery door to the drug rep (pusher) the drug cartels still influence events, the Observer reported, because: “around half of postgraduate education for doctors is funded by industry. And around two-thirds of clinical trials in Britain are funded by the pharmaceutical Industry. A new study shows that such research is four times more likely to be biased in favour of the product belonging to the sponsors than independent studies . . . Equally worrying, medical experts featured in press coverage of the latest pharmaceutical breakthrough or disaster could well have been ‘recruited and trained as opinion leaders to speak on behalf of the sponsoring company.’ says the BMJ.”

The state has devised new roles for doctors in line with their ideological aims. In March last year Yvette Cooper, then Work and Pensions Secretary under the Labour government, notified us that more than 500 doctors are to be mobilised to assess whether the 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit are capable of work. That’s 500 doctors removed from the work that they swore by the Hippocratic oath to undertake. And later in the year that the Coalition’s Health and Social Care Bill will allow doctors to take control of a huge slice of the NHS health budget in England, which for 2010-11 is forecast to be just under £110bn. A bait that will have the drug cartels smiling confidently. Or perhaps it is being too cynical to ask a couple of pertinent questions as Michele Bohan did in evidence to a parliamentary committee in February 2011:

  “Why is £80 billion pounds of public money to be handed over to GPs with no experience of commissioning health services and why are GP’s to be awarded cash bonuses for running the consortia?”

and

  “How are we to prevent unscrupulous companies like United Healthcare (an American firm bidding to run services here) – which has been fined millions of pounds over a number of years for defrauding the American healthcare system doing the same thing here in the UK? Their offences involved ‘cheating patients out of money‘, ‘denying treatment’ and ‘overcharging’”. (LINK)

Good questions Michele, but don’t expect a lucid answer.

Here’s a tip for survival under capitalism borne out of experience: don’t get ill. Unemployment is one quick way to penury. But getting ill compounds that situation. In 1989 Dr Iona Heath, a North London GP drew attention to capitalism’s ultimate answer to the problem of ill-health: “How can we escape the logical conclusion of the market-place that for the elderly and the chronically sick the most economic solution is death.” (quoted Socialist Standard, January 1990).

So would healthcare be any different if socialism were established? Yes it would. Why? Because from day one money would disappear. And that means the market would cease to exist. Take one or two minutes out and just think how the non-existence of wages, profits and budgets would change the present situation. Then think about the end of the hierarchies that dominate healthcare at present. No more capitalist ponces, and no more layers of useless bureaucrats skimming their share of the kitty.     
Instead healthcare would be conceived and administered, democratically by us, the people who brought socialism about. Globally, doctors, nurses, scientists and everyone at present involved in healthcare at the human level would act as guides. Informing people as to where healthcare is capable of going once the artificial barriers of money had been eliminated. It’s up to you. Use your imagination and join us. Or sit back on your sofa and hope that you don’t get ill.

Andy Matthews

Production Values: the laptop (2011)

The Production Values Column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

A sideways glance at capitalism through some of its products.  This month: the laptop. 

One of the more vociferous cheerleaders for capitalism and the wonders of the market system (though he seems to have been a bit quieter on that score in recent years) is Thomas L Friedman. Most famously he is the author of the spurious Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention. This is the theory that no countries which both have a branch of McDonalds have been at war. (That this unlikely theory has – on numerous occasions – in fact been found to be false does not seem to have caused him to review the theory).

In his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman exalted in the very piece of equipment he was typing his book on. His laptop then, was held up as the epitome of all that is wonderful about capitalism. After all, it comprised hundreds of different parts and sub-components – themselves the product of highly complex production processes and resources from five continents – all magically transported around the world and assembled together in a dozen countries before finally pitching up at his local store when he went to buy it to write his latest masterpiece.

The laptop I am writing on however is no less amazing. While opposed to capitalism, we socialists shouldn’t be afraid of acknowledging how massively complex, sophisticated and impressive is global production and distribution inside capitalism. Indeed it is thanks to the increase in the productive forces of capitalism that we can even consider socialism and production for use to be a practicable next step is human social organisation.

Many ideological defenders of capitalism (and not just Friedman) extol the wonders of the market system as it (apparently) enables all the right bits and pieces to be brought together with just the right timing, to be assembled and placed onto the store shelves. Indeed many members of the working class – who otherwise may have no real enthusiasm for capitalism itself – can feel daunted by the argument of socialists that we should do away with the market system as a means for matching supply with demand.

Of course this fear is to a large part a consequence of the great big convenient untruth that has underpinned debates about capitalism and socialism for almost a century now: specifically that the centralised planning of the Soviet Union is the only alternative to the market system, and somehow has something to do with socialism.

In fact, World Socialists have no time for central committees or 5-year plans. We are opposed to the market system whether it is supposedly “free” or restricted, and whether it is regulated or not. In many ways socialism will be far more responsive to real human needs and genuine preferences. Production decision-making inside socialism – both qualitative (ie how will this be produced?) and quantitative (how much?) – will be far less centralised than the soviet version of capitalism and arguably even “western” capitalism.

We would argue that we can retain much of the (apparently) chaotic, networked decentralised production decisions that are present within capitalism. We should not be daunted by the complexities of industrial production. We can do away with the overarching profit logic of the market, and at the same time have confidence that individual human beings will still express their self-defined needs by going to the local store and taking what they want without the rationing system of money and price. And thereby they – not some planning committee – will enable the dauntingly complex production arrangements that end up in the laptop I am writing this on. Rather than a tribute to the mysterious work of some “invisible hand”, the laptop – like so many products – is a testament to the ingenuity of real, co-operative human hands.

Next month: we shine a light on the crazy world of diamonds

Putting the Heart into a Heartless World (2011)

The Halo Halo! column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists understand why people accept religious ideas. What can be hard to understand though is the irrationality of some of the beliefs, or what they will do to back them up.

The idea of sin for example. As far as Christianity is concerned we are all sinners. By design. We’re born with it, whether we want it or not. We were created, apparently, by a god who wants us to be good, yet programmes us with ‘original sin’ at birth.  It’s all to do with Adam and Eve eating that apple in the Garden of Eden.

(But if god is all-knowing he must have known that Eve was going to eat the bloody apple – even before he created her. Why didn’t he create her with a bit more will-power?)

When it comes to wacky irrationality though, few are more irrational than Terry Jones in Florida. Jones is the Christian pastor, you remember, who put a Koran on trial in his church. After an eight minute hearing he found it guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to be executed – by being burnt. He has announced his plans to put the prophet Mohammed (who died in 632 AD) on trial next.

The outcome of this (at the time of writing) was that after 2 days of rioting in Afghanistan by Moslems who, in protest of Jones antics, decided to take revenge on Westerners, more than 20 innocent people have been killed (2 by beheading) and numerous more injured. Hopefully the Christian and the Islamic gods will be satisfied with the blood sacrifices made to them so far.

On a happier note it’s recently been announced that a thorn from Jesus Christ’s crown held at Stoneyhurst College (a Jesuit Boarding school in Lancashire) whose previous owners include King Louis IX of France and Mary Queen of Scots is to be displayed at the British Museum.

We know it’s a genuine thorn because according to the Catholic Encyclopaedia “two holy thorns are at present venerated, the one at St. Michaels Church in Ghent, the other at Stonyhurst College both professing, upon what seems quite satisfactory evidence, to be the thorn given by Mary Queen of Scots to Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland”.

“Quite satisfactory evidence” you see. You can’t argue with that.

The thorn from Stoneyhurst College, which is displayed in its own casket, comes complete with a string of pearls (also once owned by Mary Queen of Scots) entwined around it – well you understand, it’s not just any old thorn –  will be on display at the British Museum from 23 June until 9 October.

If you are unable to get there you may like to console yourself by taking advantage of The Socialist Party’s special offer.  Anyone taking out a subscription to the Socialist Standard this month will be entitled to a free whisker from Karl Marx’s beard. Like the Catholics and their thorn, we “profess upon what seems quite satisfactory evidence” that our supply of Charlie’s whiskers are genuine.

NW

Crisis? What crisis? (2011)

From the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no crisis. That deserves to be said twice. There is no crisis. What happened in Japan was a crisis. Haiti was a crisis. What we have is a failure of mathematics – the mathematics of greed.

We as a society have never been so productive, and we have never had such wealth available to us, as we have today. Our ability to produce has grown faster even than is needed to provide for longer and happier lives.

Think what has supposedly caused this crisis. Too much was produced. In particular, too many houses were produced for poor Americans. We had not yet produced enough for our whole community, but we were doing well – all too well.

What happened? Building workers were stopped from building. People living in good houses were thrown out of them, and the houses left to become derelict. Across the world, workers who were producing wealth for their communities were stopped from doing so, by being thrown out of work; and then we were all forced to live on less.

Why would something so crazy happen? Because production is not for use, it is for a profit. No work is allowed to take place, no houses can be lived in, no food and drink can be consumed, before first one person makes a profit out of another person’s work. The basic matter of producing wealth and consuming it is interrupted until first those who claim to own what we all have made in the past, can profit from what we all make now. We are bought and sold: but whereas once we were bought and sold for a lifetime, now it is by the hour.

As workers we all, if we are lucky, have enough to live on, to tide us over when we are ill or unemployed, and to provide some care for when we can no longer work. That is all. Some are more comfortable; some live on far less, or are crushed by debt. And this brings us to the point: indebtedness. What we produce as a community is taken from us and held by a few. Since we do not own the means to support ourselves, we have to work for these people, in effect paying off the loan of the very things that we and our forebears made. We are like indentured workers, who contract a large debt and are left paying it off for years, decades, except in our case it is our entire lives.

As for students – students are getting indentured servitude for real. Many will retire before ever paying off their debts incurred before even starting work. Slave-owners across the ages would applaud such an ingenious scheme.

The answer to this is twofold. Firstly, as trade unionists, we must resist any attempt to make their problem, our problem. We are able to produce quite handily for ourselves; if the equations of capitalism – the trade in our lives – no longer make sense, then that is a matter for the economists. Our demand here remains a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work – that means at the very minimum the maintenance of pensions as they stand and yearly increases in wages at a minimum in line with RPI – along with compensation for the years of restraint that we have had. At all levels, the workplace, the national negotiating bodies, even government, we should turn round and say that we are producing very well, thank you very much, there is no real crisis, and they should put their house in order at their own expense, not ours.

Secondly, we should take this as an object lesson. There is no fairness here, only the war of a small group of people against the entire community to control all of its wealth and keep us poor unless we do as we are told and hand over the large part of what we produce to them for their own entertainment and to keep us further indebted in the future. It is not a government that needs to be overthrown; it is a new and refined system of slavery, where we are bought and sold by the hour because of the fact that we do not own the things we produce.

All of this will happen again, and again, and again: debt is to us what shackles are to the slave. Capitalism must be abolished, in order for us to do the simplest of things which is to produce and consume in our communities, free from fear and free from exploitation. The equations that hold us in thrall must be overthrown in our minds, and then we must overthrow those who keep us in those mental chains. That doesn’t just mean a new capitalist government, no matter how well-intentioned: it’s not ‘a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’. It’s the abolition of the wages system, not in the future, but now; we already produce more than the capitalists can handle, and we can do far more for ourselves. They need us. We don’t need them.

SJW

What is capitalism? (2011)

From the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some people associate capitalism just with the sort of financial wheeling and dealing that goes on in places like Wall Street and the City of London. Others – supporters as well as critics – see it as private enterprise and a so-called free market as markets free from state interference and regulation. In fact, this is probably the most widespread definition of capitalism.

The trouble with this definition is that it means that capitalism has never existed or has only existed as a policy or policy objective (ironically, to be implemented by the state). But markets have never existed without state intervention.  Capitalism finally triumphed only through state intervention and is maintained by this. Capitalism and the state go together, they are not opposites.

Capitalism is more than financial dealings, a government policy or private enterprise or legal private ownership or private enterprise. It’s a way of producing and distributing wealth which has two key, defining features.

First, that the actual production of wealth is carried out by people hired to do this for a wage or a salary. Capitalism is production by wage-labour. (Which already presupposes a division of society into those who own and control the means of production and the rest of us who don’t.) Another name for capitalism is that it’s the wages system.

Second, capitalism is not just a system of production for sale on a market. It is a system of sale on a market with a view to profit. It’s the profit system.

Capitalism is the wages-and-profits system.

It’s the pursuit of profits by separate competing enterprises that drives the capitalist economy, but this is not just to provide the owning class with a privileged lifestyle. Not even mainly. The economic forces unleashed by the competitive struggle for profits mean that, if they are to stay in the race for profits, capitalist enterprises must invest most of their profits in new, more up-to-date and modern productive equipment so as to try to keep their costs equal to or below those of their rivals.

So, most profits have to be accumulated as more capital. This is why capitalism was originally called capitalism. It’s a system of capital accumulation out of profits made by exploiting wage-labour, an impersonal economic mechanism that in the end is not controlled by anyone (not even capitalists) and is in fact uncontrollable.

Jottings. (1921)

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

The Thames Police Court magistrate believes that the unemployment dole is destroying the morals of the working section of the community. In charging a man for being drunk on the dole, he described it as a scandal and an outrage, and was astonished that decent industrial people (there are such, then !) should permit it to go on. "Really, I wonder that anyone works at all." Apart from the silliness of the remark (since someone must work before doles can be paid) he apparently conveniently forgets that there is, at any rate, one section which does not believe in working—never did and never will—the members of which are maintained on the doles (large ones, too!) they succeed in squeezing out of those who do work, and whose right to appropriate and misuse is not questioned outside the Socialist movement. That same class employs magistrates and others to interpret so-called justice in their own interests. They are the real unemployed.

*       *      *

Mr. Havelock Wilson told a meeting of seamen at Hull the other day that nationalisation was the surest way to slavery. The surest way is to accept without complaint the conditions imposed upon us by another class holding the reins of power and at the same time support the existence of such conditions by voting this class into power, generally with the approval and assistance of "leaders" such as Havelock Wilson.

That condition has long since been reached. We are in the throes of slavery now, not on the way to it, as Mr. Wilson suggests.

"In all big questions it was the duty of the leaders of trade unions to consult the members before taking action. If they did not do so and the workmen submitted to degrading and abominable dictation they deserved to be slaves."

This sounds brave, but coming from Wilson we can estimate its value at once, and that is— nothing. Has not he himself posed as a leader ready to lead the workers anywhere but on the right track? And where is there a greater would-be dictator if anybody took any notice of him? He did not hesitate to support that nationalised institution known as the British Army when it suited his purposes to do so, in spite of the "degrading and abominable dictation" attached to it. All along he has definitely supported the master class, therefore the workers can have no use for him. They can emancipate themselves without the assistance of leaders, and when they have reached a period of full enlightenment due to the spreading of a knowledge of what Socialism is, they will act upon that knowledge and leave the would-be leaders where they belong—in the discard.

 *       *      *

If what Judge Rutherford of New York says comes true, there will apparently soon be no need for Socialism. According to the learned gentleman it seems that in 1925 the world will undergo a complete transformation. No one need die unless he chooses ; there will be no necessity to work, no hunger, no poverty, no unhappiness. Bald men will grow new hair ; toothless gums will be filled with new teeth, and men and women will renew their youth and for ever become beautiful. And all because of a perfect food which will be discovered, and which will nourish and sustain everybody for ever. Altogether it will be a glorious condition of existence due to a process which will be revealed in due course by the Lord—if he does not forget.

*       *      *

After reading the above it occured to me that an item like this ought to command the attention of those members of the House of Commons such as J. H. Thomas, John Hodge, Henderson and Roberts, who have just attached their names to a memorial, along with about a hundred other anti-Socialists, urging the Minister of Health to publish and distribute leaflets "which would spread information about healthy, nutritious and economical foods" for the working class. No doubt Judge Rutherford, who appears to be in touch with the old gentleman who usually gets the blame for creating this ball of misery and madness, would gladly supply them with details in advance which would help to solve their difficulties.

*       *      *

Overheard in the workmen's tram the other morning:

  Is this a free country ?—Undoubtedly.—Who says so?—Those who own it.—Who is it free to ?—Those who own it.—How about the workers?—Being slaves, they only count as such.—Have they no rights?—None whatever.—Not even the right to work ?—Not even that. —How came one class to have all the rights?—The workers made them a present of them and re-affirm it at every General Election.—Then they are in chains !—Absolutely.—Well, then, haven't I the right to get up and say so ?—You have not.—Not even to speak the truth ?—Not even to speak the truth. A man got fined the other day for getting up in Hyde Park and speaking what he declared was the truth.— Then what can be done—Nothing but keep pegging away at them with Socialist knowledge. It is the only instrument that will knock off the chains and shift the rights from one side to the other.

Tom Sala

Communist Consistency. (1921)

From the June 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘The Communist’, April 20th, 1921:

  (Page 2.) “ . . . let us also emphasise the fact that those who come into the real working-class International must come prepared to concentrate on industrial organisation and the freeing of the workers, leaving political and social questions to fall into their proper place for attention after the Revolution.” 

  (Page 3.) “The Communist Party . . . will conduct an unflinching campaign against the power of capitalism; and relentlessly strive by industrial organisation, agitation, and revolutionary political and parliamentary action to urge the working class on towards revolution.”

Same paper, same date:

Report of Chairman’s address to Manchester Conference.
  “ . . . the chairman stated the attitude of the Party to be in opposition to all other Labour organisations.”

This is the same Communist Party which applied for and was refused permission to affiliate to the National Labour Party. It still allows its branches to affiliate locally, has members on Borough Councils who were elected as Labour men and are still members of local Labour parties and has taken joint electorial action with these bodies.

#    #    #    #

This “party of the workers” proposes to teach “the smallholders and farmers  . . . that the Revolution comes as their friend and to relieve them of the unendurable burden of landlordism.” It considers that “the mischievous land nationalisation policy of the (agricultural) unions must be fought and overcome in favour of a policy of socialisation without compensation” (Agrarian Question, p. 7.) It also supports the nationalisation of the mines.” (Communist, 2nd April, 1921.)

#    #    #    #

The “Marxist” Communist Party on wages

‘The Workers’ Dreadnought’, 19th March:

“A Marxian American gives his viewpoint.”

“If too great a proportion of the workers are employed, the effect is to temporarily bring about a crisis of unemployment. Wages continue to rise until they actually catch up with or pass the increases in the cost of living . . . As soon as the increasing wages seriously reduce or threaten to destroy his (the employer’s) profits he closes down his plant.”

‘The Communist’, 19th February:

  “For generations the trade unions have been attempting to improve the status of their members by increased money wages. This has proved futile. Every nominal increase conceded to-day is filched back to-morrow by an even greater advance in the cost of living.”

Asked if this meant that the Communist Party accepted the view that “employers can at will raise the price of their goods to the buyer,” Mr. Francis Meynell, Editor of the Communist, replied (28th February:

  “Because we say that every nominal increase conceded to-day is filched back to-morrow by an even greater advance in the cost of living we do not mean, as we do not say, that this must be so. If the selfishness of the Capitalist class could be destroyed, or that class destroyed itself, probably an easier task, one could happen without the other.”

So now we know all about it.

The capitalist, being selfish, can put up his prices and to whatever extent he chooses, so presumably he doesn’t mind giving increased wages. He also resists increases until he can no longer do so and then closes down. Also in the Communist Millennium, supposing the capitalists have been rendered unselfish, we shall be able to get higher wages without higher prices, but should they be obdurate they will be destroyed and replaced, I suppose, by unselfish Communists.

The real gem of the reply is the concluding paragraph, which refers the enquirer to Wage-Labour and Capital and Value, Price and Profit for further information !

When this interesting correspondence was followed up Mr. Meynell wrote this (March 16th):

  “I was foolish enough to think that your first letter was a genuine enquiry out of a desire for information. As it was no more than a trap for my time and temper, I refuse to put either of them any more at your disposal.”

If Mr. Meynell ever does change his mind and decide to answer will he please tell me too if bad tempers, like “selfishness,” will debar entrance to the promised land.

Edgar Hardcastle