Blue bloods for progress? (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many noble eyebrows must have arched in astonishment and indignation, when the House of Lords was congratulated by Red Ken Livingstone's County Hall on their resistance to the government over the abolition of the GLC. This uneasy alliance between blue blood and left wing bogeys was another example of the Lords' changing reputation, from a home for senile aristocrats to a crucible of incisive debate and defence of democratic freedoms. Whether this reputation is deserved or not, the Lords press on; now they have dared to experiment with live TV coverage. Perhaps we shall have a show to rival Game For A Laugh, with a more elegant set and rather wealthier — if more menacing — participants.

The reputation which the Lords seem to be trying to lose, for obstinately refusing to recognise the times. let alone move with them, was set hard in a century of battles with the Other Place, sometimes known as the Lower House or the House of Commons. Joseph Chamberlain in 1884 responded to their obstruction of the Reform Bill with the unoriginal sneer that the Lords represented a class "who toil not. neither do they spin" (he was probably meaning to be offensive). In 1910, at the height of the Asquith government's long crisis over parliamentary power, Lloyd George described the peers as "descended partly from plunderers who came over with William the Conqueror and partly from plunderers of the poor at the Reformation" (he was in favour only of plunderers of the more modern kind).

The Lords have always defended themselves, apparently against the odds, on two main grounds. Firstly, they have asserted that their privileged standing in parliament, free of the need to campaign for the votes of the lower class, enabled them to be more objective and independent; secondly they have been sure that as a vetting chamber they do a much better job than the Commons anyway. Lord Salisbury, speaking in 1907. claimed that the hereditary principle had the merit of "trusting a man because of his sense of public duty", which was like arguing that a few people are rich because they are worthy, and worthy because they are rich. In 1910 Lord Cawdor, referring to some of the issues at dispute between the Lords and the Liberal government, said that the former were the closer to the people's will on Home Rule for Ireland, the Licensing Bill, the Education Bill and the Budget.

Cawdor was speaking at the time of the most important clash between the two Houses, which ended in victory for the Commons when the Parliament Bill of 1911 was pushed through (in theory the Lords could have blocked it) on the threat to ensure its passage by the mass creation of Liberal peers. (When it was all over and the Bill had become law the king, obviously exhausted by the prospect of all those ennobling ceremonies, rushed off to holiday in Yorkshire.) The 1911 Act cut the Lords' power to delay a Bill to a maximum of two years and less in the case of finance Bills. That remained the situation until 1949 when the Attlee government, to ensure the passage of measures like steel nationalisation, pushed through another Parliament Act which reduced the delaying power to nine months. That government, in the overall interests of the British capitalist class, planned a lot of state ownership and they could not tolerate any obstruction by the Lords. Their case was much the same as Lord Roseberry's. in a letter to Queen Victoria in 1894:

  When the Conservative Party is in power, there is practically no House of Lords: it takes whatever the Conservative Government brings it from the House of Commons without question or dispute: but the moment a Liberal Government is formed, this harmless body assumes an active life. and its activity is entirely exercised in opposition to the Government . . .

The Lords' image as a bunch of diehard, crusty Tory backwoodsmen who would travel up from the slaughter of the grouse moors to kill off the policies of a popularly elected government, was potent ammunition for their opponents. Persistent criticism on these lines undermined their own confidence in their superfluous function; clearly. British capitalism could do without the House of Lords. There was irresistible pressure for reform, if not for abolition. The only chance of this happening seemed to be in the Labour Party, which had once stood clearly for abolition but had since then failed to make it a priority in their election programmes. The more impressionable Labour supporters were quite excited by the prospect of abolition, regarding this, in the face of all the evidence about the nature of capitalism in those countries without an hereditary second chamber, as a step towards socialism But as usual the reformists were disappointed; when Labour was in office they did not get rid of the Lords but helped to keep it alive with regular infusions of new blood.

In fact, both the recent significant reform measures have been the work of Conservative governments. The Life Peerages Act of 1958 introduced life peers — and. for the first time, peeresses — so that the Lords became infested with retired trade unionists, business people, university dons and media personalities. A few years later, after a long campaign by Tony Benn, the Peerages Act of 1963 allowed hereditary peers to disclaim their title. It was never quite clear how Benn could represent this as a step towards socialism even if it was a step forward in his political ambitions. It also came in the nick of time to help two prominent Tories Lords Home and Hailsham — in their bid to win the party leadership and so to succeed Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister. Unlike Benn. these two were not opposed to the hereditary principle. When it suited them, they took their title again and now sit again in the Lords. Home inclined wearily beside the frail form of Lord Stockton and Hailsham slumped pompously on the Woolsack.

These two Acts also did a lot to avert the abolition of the House of Lords which was a great boost to their lordships' battered morale. Nowadays there is no certainty that the Lords will tamely fall in with the Conservative line. Instead, the House is populated with bodily testimonies to the impotence and confusion of the men and women who have tried to control and modify the capitalist system. There sit. or have sat. so called economic experts like Balogh and Kaldor, who bore so much responsibility for the economic policies of the first Wilson government — as well as Lord George Brown, who so enthusiastically and rashly took on the job of showing how futile those policies were. Who now, apart perhaps from someone writing their thesis on Great Confidence Tricks Of Our Time, remembers the Department of Economic Affairs and what it promised to do for us? There sits the centurion Lord Shinwell. who travelled politically from pacifism to being Minister of War. but whose opinions are nevertheless listened to with awe. There also can be seen Lord Thorneycroft, one of the monuments to the Age of Supermac, who resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer because he thought we were having it too good and that government spending should be cut. Somewhere on the Labour benches rests ex-TUC chief Len Murray, exhausted by his adoption of something called the New Realism, which was actually no more than an appreciation of the fact that there is a slump on and that it will weaken the unions' bargaining power.

Exposing themselves to the TV cameras is likely to do the Lords no harm. Indeed, it has already given a lot of publicity to Stockton's patronising of the miners and to Scarman's call for a Bill of Rights (people who have already been denied their "rights" in police cells and prisons will wonder what difference another law will make). Parliament has always needed the media, whatever form it takes, but it has always tried to control how and when the media reported on it. The objections to live TV reporting were the same as those used against radio and. a long time before, against the presence of newspaper reporters. Such publicity, it was said, would encourage demagogic speeches aimed at a wider audience outside, it would lead to ministers taking up too much debating time, it would reduce spontaneity and emphasise the theatrical elements of parliament at the expense of the workaday. These objections were usually put most strongly by those members who feared that they would fail to get into the limelight; as far back as the 1950s slick parliamentary performers like Ian Macleod. Jo Grimond and Aneurin Bevan were in favour of allowing the TV cameras into the Commons.

Parliament's readiness to compromise with the media has been ensured by the Members' need to win votes for their party. It was in the late 19th century that the parliamentary timetable, which had hitherto been set by seedtime and the harvest, began to take account of the requirements of the press. This was encouraged by the rise of the popular newspapers (the Daily Mail was launched, as a halfpenny newspaper, in 1896) and the decline of the morning provincial papers (between 1900 and 1940 their numbers fell from 52 to 25). In 1850 a separate press gallery was first set aside. In 1902 Arthur Balfour, conceding that "We must arrange our proceedings. I presume, so that they may be reported in the newspapers that have currency all over the country", brought Question Time in the Commons forward so as to meet press deadlines.

The result of the publicity has to some extent been as predicted. The parliamentary exhibitionists, the specialists in newsworthy subjects and the headline-conscious Members have been encouraged at the expense of the heavy, soporific speechmakers. It has also, more crucially, given an opportunity to the listeners and the viewers, who have the power of the vote at their disposal, to see how the people they vote for do the job of running capitalism. The voters can now witness. as it happens, all the sound and fury of Neil Kinnock shadow boxing with Margaret Thatcher over some trivial difference in their policies for British capitalism. They can view the political cast-offs in the House of Lords reviewing the state of British capitalism as if their own failure to operate the system in the interests of the mass of people had never happened. They can watch mature people playing games in archaic dress, except that they should beware that behind this seeming tomfoolery lurks the awesome power of the state machine.

There can be no doubt that it is progressive and encouraging, that workers should be able to observe all of this. The important thing is how they absorb it — and how they interpret what they absorb. Will they conclude that titles and rituals are of little account; what matters is that it is by the overwhelming preference of the working class that the power to monopolise the means of life is given to a small parasitic elite? Will they see it as further evidence of the decadence of capitalism and of the urgent need to act on the issue of who controls the state machine and for what purpose? Or will they miss the whole point and regard it all as just another soap opera, even if it is one which they can't switch off when they've had enough?

Ivan

How many die of famine? (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are two short answers to this question. One is that we don't know and the other that it depends what you mean by "die of starvation".

Obviously in those parts of the world affected by hunger the last thing doctors and government officials do is fill in death certificates setting out the cause of death, and even if they did there would be no guarantee that they would be using the same criteria from country to country. So we are dealing here not with accurate information but with informed guesses based on what statistical evidence there is.

The word "starve" in English has two meanings: it can either mean to die from lack of food or it can mean to suffer from lack of food. An ambiguity can easily arise here: when we say someone dies from lack of food, do we mean that they literally die from not eating (as Bobby Sands and other hunger strikers did) or that they died as a result of some disease from which they might not have died had they not been suffering from lack of food? Clearly the figures for the former are going to be much lower than those for the latter.

Some absurd figures

In the course of the 1981 presidential election campaign in France, Mitterrand went on record as saying that "50 million human beings die from hunger each year" (La Croix, 18 May 1981). It is not too clear how this figure got into circulation but it came to be widely quoted by charitable organisations in France. It was not until a year later that an expert in the field. Professor Joseph Klatzmann of the Institut National Agronomique in Paris, showed how absurd this figure was by pointing out that the total world deaths in 1981 were about 48 million (Le Monde, 24 March 1982)! This refutation of the claim of 50 million deaths from hunger was also incorporated in the second edition of his book Nourrir Dix Milliards d'Hommes? ("Can Ten Thousand Million People Be Fed?") published in 1983. in which he argued that using existing agricultural techniques world food production could be increased two or three times so as to be able adequately to feed every single man. woman and child on the planet and if necessary more, up to the 10.000 million mentioned in the title of his book. So Klatzmann is no defender of the existing capitalist status quo where millions suffer unnecessarily from hunger and malnutrition.

On 5 August 1981 the Guardian claimed in its Third World Review that:

  Every year 30 million people die of hunger, more than half of them children under five.

  Every year 780 million people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

  By the end of this decade these figures will have doubled.

At first sight this seems more reasonable since the number of deaths claimed to be due to hunger is at least less than the total number of deaths from all causes. But on closer examination it too turns out to be absurd.

If 30 million of the 50 million deaths in 1980 were due to hunger this would leave only 20 million for deaths from other causes. If this figure of 30 million deaths from hunger were true, it is logical to assume that all these deaths would have occurred among the 780 million suffering from hunger and malnutrition (the one figure quoted here by the Guardian not open to challenge, if anything it is probably on the low side). If we also assume that the death rate among the remaining 3,650 million of the then total world population of 4,430 million was the same as that in the developed countries — about 9 per 1,000 — this would mean that 33 million would have died in 1980 from causes other than hunger. But this is more than 20 million, so the figure of 30 million can't be right.

As to the claim that by 1990 the number of deaths from hunger will have doubled to 60 million, this is just as absurd as the 50 million figure mentioned earlier, since it too is higher than current estimates for all deaths in the world in 1990.

The basic figures

All estimates of the number of deaths in the world are derived from figures published regularly by the United Nations. These are prepared on the basis of national population statistics. The latest set of figures was published in 1982 under the title World Population Prospects as Assessed in 1980. The following Table has been prepared from the statistics given in this document :

This table shows:

1. That world population in 1980 was estimated at being 4,430 million.
2. That about a quarter of the world's population live in the developed countries, defined as being Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the USSR.
3. That the number of deaths in the world in 1980 was estimated as being 50.5 million, about 40 million of which occurred among the three-quarters of the world's population living in the underdeveloped countries.
4. That nearly 15 million children under ten years of age died in 1980, all but about 300,000 of them in the underdeveloped countries.

Interpreting the figures

The first point to notice is that the figures often quoted by UNICEF (UN Childrens Fund) of 40,000 young children dying a day in the world is correct (40,000 X 365 = 14.6 million). But it should be noted that the Executive Director of UNICEF. James P. Grant, when he first launched this figure in the early 1980s, did not attribute all these deaths to hunger alone. What he actually said was:

  every day of this last year more than 40,000 young children have died from malnutrition and infection (The State of the World's Children 1982-3. UNICEF, quoted in Hunger Project Handout "The "Other" UN", p.5).

So Grant was not saying that 40,000 children die a day from inanition, from not consuming enough food to keep them alive. Most of them died from parasitic or infectious diseases of one kind or another which is what you'd expect in fact, since children under ten don't die from natural causes — but he did strongly argue that the spread of these diseases and their effect were made easier and more devastating by the fact that nearly all the children were already suffering from malnutrition in one form or another.

Thus the claim is that 40,000 children a day die from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease. In this form, and only in this form, is the claim correct. If the "and disease" is omitted then it becomes misleading as this would suggest that 40,000 children die a day simply from lack of food — which, factually is just not the case. This clarification allows us to see how a claim such as the Guardian's "every year 30 million people die of hunger" could have got into circulation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), most people in the underdeveloped countries die of diseases related to inadequate water and sanitation. Thus Susan George in her excellent How The Other Half Dies (first published in 1976) writes that

  in the Third World 70 per cent of the people die of parasitic or infectious disease for which hunger provides the favourable terrain (Penguin edition, p.32).

On the basis of estimated population and death trends in the mid-70s when George was writing her book, this would mean that there were then about 25 million deaths in the underdeveloped countries attributable to these diseases. It is easy to see how somebody eager to do something about world hunger, sincere but not too careful about statistics, could turn George's carefully-worded statement into a full-blown claim that 30 million people actually starve to death each year. George herself makes no such claim and is considerably more cautious. In her introduction (in a passage which is also quoted on the back cover of the book) she writes:

  If it takes you six hours to read this book, somewhere in the world 2.500 people will have died of starvation or of hunger-related illness by the time you finish.

This is equivalent to 10,000 deaths a day. or 3.65 million a year, from "starvation and hunger-related illness"; which is a much more defendable figure for the number of people who die because they literally do not have enough to eat, together with those who die from protein or vitamin deficiency diseases like kwashiorkor and beri-beri (as opposed to the parasitic and infectious diseases mentioned earlier).

People do die of starvation (inanition) in the world today (under capitalism there is always a famine somewhere in the world — last year it was North-East Brazil, this year it is Ethiopia) but nowhere near 30 million. To quote such a demonstrably exaggerated figure is to weaken the credibility of those who do so, and is quite unnecessary since the case against capitalism on this question is strong enough without exaggerating. The knowledge, resources and machines exist to provide enough food for every single human being on the planet yet capitalism, because of its property and profit basis, does not allow this to happen, so condemning millions to malnutrition and diseases and. as we shall now see, to preventable death.

Preventable deaths

The second point that emerges from the basic figures is that, if the same health standards (clean running water, vaccinations, regular medical care) applied in the underdeveloped countries as in the developed countries, then the number of world deaths would be considerably less than they are. Since, from a technological point of view, it is possible both to produce enough food to eliminate malnutrition in the world and to provide adequate water supplies and health care for every man. woman and child on the planet, these deaths can objectively be regarded as being "preventable". They are deaths that can be laid at the door of capitalism in the sense that if society were geared to catering for human needs (as it would be in socialism) they would not happen.

How many such "preventable" deaths can there be each year? A very simple calculation allows us to estimate a minimum figure. As the Table shows, the death rate in the developed countries is 9.4 per thousand while in the underdeveloped countries it is 12.1 per thousand. If the death rate were 9.4 per thousand throughout the world then only 41 million would have died in 1980 compared with the 50 million who are estimated to have died that year.

But this difference of nine million is, as we have said, only the minimum figure for preventable deaths. The death rate depends not only on health and sanitation standards but also on the age structure of the population. Since the population of the underdeveloped countries is on average younger than that of the developed countries the death rate, if the developed countries' health and sanitation standards prevailed throughout the world, would have been lower than 9.4 per thousand. Calculations based on the figures in the 1982 UN population report referred to above suggest that it would have been between six and seven per thousand. This would mean that world deaths in 1980 would have been as low as 32 million. In other words, that preventable deaths will be of the order of 17 or 18 million a year.

A closer examination of the figures show that most of these preventable deaths are those of young children. If the death rate for children under five and for children under ten had been the same in the underdeveloped countries as in the developed countries. then 10 million children under five and 13.5 million under ten (including the under fives) would not have died.

We can now estimate how many people died in 1980, not "from hunger", but from a combination of malnutrition and parasitic and infectious diseases caused by the conditions under which capitalism forces over half mankind to live: about 17 million, of which about 13 million were children under ten.

A final word of warning. This estimate refers to the year 1980 while the basic statistics on which it was based change as the years go by (for instance, the world population is going up and the world death rate going down). In time then these figures will need to be revised, upwards or downwards, in the light of new statistical evidence.

Adam Buick

Obituary: Gordon Beeson (1985)

Obituary from the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Members heard with regret of the death of Comrade Gordon Beeson at the age of 85. who spent a long life working hard and enthusiastically propagating socialism. He joined the Party in 1931 and was a member of Kingston Branch, transferring to Ealing, later West London Branch in the 1950s.

Living in New Malden. Surrey, he was rarely seen at Branch or Party meetings but worked indefatigably in the area of his home. Until recently, when ill-health restricted his activities he undertook literature drives and regularly held meetings. He sold the Standard for many years in New Malden High Street where he and his wife Edna were well known for their work for socialism

We all extend our sympathies to his wife and family.

West London Branch

Telegraph gets it wrong (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Telegraph ran a two-day feature last January putting forward a "cure" for unemployment. This wasn't promoted with quite the same vigour as bingo in the Sun or Mirror, but within the constraints imposed by its upper class image the Telegraph mounted a reasonable advertising campaign. The views expressed were scarcely of working-class origin, yet they are held quite widely, by workers as well as capitalists. So in offering a critique of what the Telegraph says we are in fact examining misconceptions. for it became clear after only a few lines that these articles were not going to live up to their billing, despite the 23 "experts" consulted by the three staff members who did the actual writing. An editorial in the issue of 29 January stated: "While Western Europe as a whole has succumbed to the disease known as 'Eurosclerosis', the United Kingdom has consistently done worse than its near neighbours in terms of either unemployment or inflation and for most of the 1970s in both at the same time".

The inflation question did not figure in the advance publicity and its inclusion hints that the paper's real concern is not unemployment but regret that the British capitalist economy appears to it to have lost out to its competitors over recent years. In such circumstances we can expect unemployment here to rise more sharply than elsewhere. We therefore need not be surprised to find that the solution offered (eight specific proposals were put forward) are designed to increase UK competitiveness in the hope of regaining lost markets. Even if successful in this (and to accept even this would be an act of faith) the most to be expected is a slight decrease in British unemployment at the expense of a corresponding rise elsewhere. This is no gain; the total unemployment problem has not diminished one iota. The gainers are those capitalists able to resume operations.

Reluctantly the Telegraph editorial did at least acknowledge that unemployment is currently endemic across Europe. But the use of the term "Eurosclerosis" indicates that they have not appreciated the worldwide character of the present slump. Despite overwhelming evidence, nowhere is the existence of a similar problem in America noted and part of the presentation of the 29 January entitled US Experience of Employment exaggerated minor differences between American and British economies almost to the point of suggesting that the former had "cracked it”. Similar notions were expressed by the ageing Earl of Stockton in the first televised Lords debate. These were in no way the product of his ninety-plus years for Harold Macmillan was just as confused in his economic thinking when he was in his prime as Supermac.

A further interesting Telegraph comment was that "Many people view unemployment as akin to a natural disaster — we are unwilling to accept the pessimism — unemployment. like inflation is a soluble problem". On the first point, no doubt many workers believe that unemployment is here to stay but it is barefaced cheek for the Telegraph to talk like this. From the end of World War II right up until the current recession was well developed, the Telegraph, and all of Fleet Street, supported by a host of economic "experts", told us almost daily that the “bad old days" were gone, that unemployment was a thing of the past and that we must change our ideas accordingly. Militant trade unionists were told to forget their old "class war shibboleths" and unite with the capitalist enemy to build a new paradise of prosperity, class co-operation and peace. Even in 1985, when the flimsy premises of these arguments have long since been destroyed this claptrap can still be heard and has perhaps had some success in discrediting sound ideas by branding them as out of date.

In saying "unemployment, like inflation, is a soluble problem", however, the Telegraph is right even if for entirely the wrong reasons. Unemployment is soluble, but only by abolishing the capitalist system which spawns it. Under capitalism labour power will be utilised only if more can be extracted from it than is paid out in wages — in Marxist economic terms if the surplus value embodied in the finished product can be converted to actual profit through sale. In contrast the Telegraph has found itself unable even to recognise, let alone tackle, the world wide unemployment problem. Inflation, although also a problem of capitalism — or at least of money economies is different. Inflation is caused by governments increasing the supply of inconvertible paper money (in earlier times debasing the coinage served the same end) without a corresponding change in the total value of the goods in the economy. The remedy is therefore to cease this practice, as has been done successfully on a number of occasions (one was by Lloyd George in 1919-20). The Telegraph however propagates the fairly common myth that there is a relationship between unemployment and inflation, claiming that there is a "natural rate" of unemployment which was at the 200,000-300,000 level in the 1950s and 1960s but has risen significantly since because

  welfare benefits increased by 30 per cent in real terms and the labour market rigidified under the influence of incomes policies and increasing union power.

Here the Telegraph in effect says that if unemployment is below a certain level workers are more easily able to increase real pay. This is of course often the case. However they come close to admitting that when this situation arises governments often react by deliberately increasing inflation in order to steal back these gains through higher prices. This is certainly a plausible explanation of the inflationary policies pursued by many governments, particularly since the last world war, although it is not the sole motivation. Here the reduction of real wages emerges as the main plank in the Telegraph's "solution", the argument being that if wages and other costs were lower employers would see more potential profit in expanding production. The example of America is cited, where real wages have been falling for some time and unemployment has fallen slightly. However the net effect is small, especially remembering the falling standards of those in work.

Clearly we cannot expect any sensible analysis to come from such sources, but for the record here are the Telegraph's eight suggestions. We have heard such ideas many times before and expect to hear them a few times yet. possibly as part of the 1985 Budget Speech.

1. Cutting the tax on jobs. This is merely cosmetic and very old hat.
2. Easing the Unemployment Trap. The unemployment trap means situations where the going rate is so low that the worker is nearly as well off on the dole. As the idea is to reduce real wages there are no prizes for guessing that the suggestion here is to cut "benefits". To a large extent this proposal is post-dated, as the authors themselves point out that benefits have been cut since 1979 so that the "trap" is much less common nowadays than in the 1950s or 1960s.
3. No Penalties for Part-Time Work. Yet another way to shove wages down. The idea here is to encourage the jobless to take cut rate part-time work to the disadvantage of those who still have jobs.
4. Reforming the Unions. This offers further ideas to back up those already embodied in actual or projected legislation with a view to weakening the unions' efforts to protect living standards.
5. Training to the age of 18. An extension of the old idea of raising the school leaving age. coupled with complaints that young workers' wages are too high.
6. Community Work. Another cheap labour scheme. In the 1930s a few swimming pools and similar projects were carried out at cut-price rates in this way.
7. New Work Patterns. More of the same. Wage rates to be reduced by encouraging existing trends towards part-time and more flexible working arrangements generally.
8. Profit Sharing. A hoary old chestnut. The idea this time is to cut employers' costs and make staff more profit-conscious. What will shareholders (the real ones) say about this, as there will be less profit for distribution among them.

A last example of the Telegraph's lack of perception is that they recognise only two explanations of economic crises. Firstly, the neo-classicist, where the cause is believed to be excessive real wages as seen from the employers' viewpoint as part of production costs. Secondly the Keynesian, which contends that the cause is insufficient demand and the cure increased government spending. Although the Telegraph's experts are able to point out the shortcomings of these two theories, they are quite unable to offer any alternative.

The true alternative model is the Marxist which has been in existence for about 120 years but unfortunately for the Telegraph and its allies it tells us that these problems cannot be solved within the framework of capitalism. However it also gives us genuine cause for optimism. The Marxist model also shows us how society can be re-shaped on a co-operative basis so that all the present social ills will disappear.

E. C. Edge

50 Years Ago: The Peace Ballot and the League of Nations (1985)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Others preach peace, but steadfastly defend the property basis, which means war. Socialists preach the abolition of the private ownership of the means of life. That is the only way of ending the war of classes.

As it is at home, so it is abroad. Capitalism gives the ruling class the incentive to protect vested interests bound up in trade routes, sources of raw materials, and areas of foreign investment. Control of the machinery of Government gives them the power to wage war. The only sure road to peace is the road which leads to Socialism, conquest of the powers of the Government by a politically organised Socialist majority While Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere. and the rest of the capitalist class, own and control the means of life, they are the enemies of the working class and a danger to the human race. Their pious oath that they are not interested financially in this or that armament, or aircraft. or any other particular company, is of no significance They have the supreme vested interest, a vested interest in the maintenance of capitalism. They can be expected, therefore, to sacrifice the interest of society to the interest of themselves and their class.

The Socialist who examines the Union's five questions has no difficulty in seeing their futility. The real position boils down to one question: "Are you in favour of depriving the capitalist class of their control over the machinery of Government, including the armed forces?" "Yes", says the Socialist. "No", says the capitalist and his avowed supporters. "Yes and no. but only gradually, and not unless the capitalist agrees". says the Labourite, with his muddled conceptions of capitalism and Socialism.

It will be seen, therefore, why the Socialist does not share the enthusiasm over the ballot expressed by the League of Nations Union.

(From an article "The Peace Ballot and the League of Nations' Socialist Standard, March 1935.)

Questions and answers (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

  The following is the text of our new introductory leaflet. which is available from Head Office on request.

WHAT IS THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN?

It is a political party, separate from all others, Left. Right or Centre. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a social order based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed in this introductory leaflet were adopted by the Socialist Party in 1904 and have been maintained without compromise since then. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles, and they too remain independent from all other political parties.

WHAT IS CAPITALISM?

Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices. transport. media, etc.) are monopolised by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us, the majority working class, who sell our mental and physical energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold on the market at a profit. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but, as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.

CAN CAPITALISM BE REFORMED IN OUR INTERESTS?

No: as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers, but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such promises are like offering to run the slaughterhouse in the interests of the cattle.

IS NATIONALISATION AN ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM?

No: nationalised industries simply mean that workers are exploited by the state, acting on behalf of the capitalists of one country. rather than by an individual capitalist or company. The workers in nationalised British Leyland are no less the servants of profit than workers in privately-owned Ford. The mines no more belong to "the public" or the miners now than they did before 1947 when they were nationalised. Nationalisation is state capitalism.

ARE THERE ANY "SOCIALIST COUNTRIES"?

No: the so-called socialist countries are systems of state capitalism. In Russia and its empire, in China. Cuba. Albania. Yugoslavia and the other countries which call themselves socialist, social power is monopolised by privileged Party bureaucrats. The features of capitalism, as outlined above, are all present. An examination of international commerce shows that the bogus socialist states are part of the world capitalist market and cannot detach themselves from the requirements of profit.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SOCIALISM?

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use. not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self-defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying or selling and money will not be necessary in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet earth.

HOW WILL SOCIALISM SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIETY?

Capitalism, with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future; almost one in four families with children are living below the official government poverty line; many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation — tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment houses stand empty and thousands of building workers are unemployed; yet many people are homeless or inhabiting slums. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more; yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses; yet it is not "economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.

WHAT ABOUT HUMAN NATURE?

Human behaviour is not fixed, but determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. The capitalist jungle produces vicious, competitive ways of thinking and acting. But we humans are able to adapt our behaviour and there is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to cooperate. Even under capitalism people often obtain pleasure from doing a good turn for others; few people enjoy participating in the "civilised" warfare of the daily rat-race. Think how much better it would be if society was based on co-operation.

ARE SOCIALISTS DEMOCRATS?

Yes: the Socialist Party has no leaders. It is a democratic organisation controlled by its members. It understands that socialism can only be established by a conscious majority of workers — that workers must liberate themselves and will not be liberated by leaders or parties. Socialism will not be brought about by a dedicated minority "smashing the state", as some left-wingers would have it. Nor do the activities of paid, professional politicians have anything to do with socialism the experience of seven Labour governments has shown this. Once a majority of the working class understand and want socialism, they will take the necessary step to organise consciously for the democratic conquest of political power. There will be no socialism without a socialist majority.

WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP?

Many workers know that there is something wrong and want to change society. Some join reform groups in the hope that capitalism can be patched up. but such efforts are futile because you cannot run a system of class exploitation in the interests of the exploited majority. People who fear a nuclear war may join CND, but as long as nation states exist, economic rivalry means that the world will never be safe from the threat of war. There are countless dedicated campaigns and good causes which many sincere people are caught up in. but there is only one solution to the problems of capitalism and that is to get rid of it and establish socialism. Before we can do that we need socialists; and winning workers to that cause requires knowledge, principles and an enthusiasm for change. These qualities can be developed by anyone — and are essential for anyone who is serious about changing society. Capitalism in the 1980s is still a system of waste, deprivation and frightening insecurity. You owe it to yourself to find out about the one movement which stands for the alternative.

Leaders : Are they really necessary? (1967)

From the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

This, as the newspapers never tire of telling us, is the age of progress and enlightenment; which means, among other things, that every little girl and every little boy in the schools is taught that to worship idols is evil. Of course, this applies to only one sort of idol. Those same little girls and boys are also taught, in those same schools, that to worship leaders is virtuous.

The leadership principle is one of the pillars of property society. The vast majority of people are convinced that the world is so full of complex and dangerous problems that only a few can be expected to have the knowledge, the ability and the courage to deal with them.

This select few are the leaders. There is even something called a “born” leader, although when we consider the properties leaders are supposed to have it is reasonable to wonder whether they can be said to be born like the rest of us.

For the most part, the working class accept it all. The nearest they come to criticising is to complain about the quality of the leadership they suffer, and to pine for stronger or weaker, or abler, or some other type of leadership. Just see how enthusiastically they react whenever a great man drives through the streets. Study their smiles, a mixture of joy and amazement, when he proves that he is human by getting out of his car and coming across to clasp hands with them.

No shadow of doubt can be seen on those happy faces. None of them is asking what a leader is supposed to be, to do, to be worth. So let us, the minority who do not accept the leadership principle, ask the questions.

A leader, first of all, is supposed to be someone who does things which are good for us. His intentions are supposed to be of the best and under his wise and humane guidance we should flourish into prosperity and happiness. But it is at once obvious that, to put it at its mildest, this is not always so. To take the plainest of recent examples, whatever intentions lay behind Hitler’s rages, or Stalin’s level eyes, they were not inspired by the greatest good of the greatest number.

Of course when it was convenient for them, the allied leaders made great play on the evil results of the Hitler and Stalin tyrannies. This propaganda was acceptable to those workers who console themselves with the notion that all evil leaders are foreign. It ignores the fact that, at the same time as the British leaders were condemning the Nazis’ savagery, they were themselves indulging in delicate operations like arguing about which of them had correctly calculated the number of houses the RAF could destroy in their attacks on German cities.

Now the whole point is that if it is possible for a leader to be a murderous tyrant, if a leader can act against human interests, the case for having a leader is severely damaged. If leadership is a sort of lucky dip, with a good chance of coming out with a Hitler, then there is a strong argument for not sticking our hand into the bran tub.

Whether a leader is “good” or “bad”, one quality he should have is to know more than his followers. Some leaders, of course, assert that this is all done by intuition. There is no argument in favour of leaders unless they know better than anyone else. How do our leaders match up to this?

Harold Wilson is a leader who, if anyone, should know almost everything about economics. If anyone can control capitalism’s ups and downs it should be one-time economics don Wilson. Yet ever since he came to power he has been bleating about the uncontrollable, unpredictable surprises which capitalism keeps giving him. The ship, Wilson told us last July, had been suddenly blown off course which was an admission of his impotence to control events. Is there any point in having leaders, if they have to make such confessions?

We can get an idea of how much at sea Wilson the leader is, in what should be his specialist subject, by what he said in the House of Commons on February 7 last:

  Mr. Heath: What is to be the rate of growth this year? Mr. Wilson replied that he would not like to forecast that, any more than any other Prime Minister has done. (Daily Telegraph, 8.2.67.)

Here is Wilson admitting that he cannot say what the rate of economic growth, a matter which he is tirelessly telling us is one of his government’s first concerns, is going to be. In other words, that no matter what sort of a leader we have capitalism is unpredictable, that it can blow up sudden storms or settle into unexpected calms. Leaders can amass all the facts possible, they can adopt what pretence they like. When it comes down to it they have to admit that events are beyond their control.

This is what provokes what are sometimes called leaders’ “mistakes” but which might have other descriptions. Indeed, history is littered with examples of politicians’ broken promises, misguided calculations, discredited forecasts.

Consider, for example, one of our present leaders' favourite brainchilds—the Selective Employment Tax. This tax was carefully worked out by the economic experts—those men who have all the knowledge humbler people cannot hope to absorb—to have certain effects. One of these was clearly to rake in some of the profits from a sector of industry—the service trades—which had escaped heavy taxation. And as a result of this, it was expected that the service trades would unload a lot of their employees, who would find their way into manufacturing industry.

But, according to the Guardian’s Labour Correspondent (13/1/67), the opposite has happened:

  Full time employment in the service industries has increased. . . . Employers have tended either to employ part timers for less than eight hours a week and thereby avoid the tax or to seek better value for money . . . by hiring more full time workers.

Perhaps one day soon SET will be written off, as other favourite schemes have been, as a simple mistake. But we should remember that leaders ean err in other fields. Edward Heath, for example, has for a long time been under fire within the Conservative Party because some Tories think he is constantly making mistakes in leadership. It is fair to ask if leaders are worthwhile if, apart from anything else, we are liable to get one who does not even know how to lead.

Heath, of course, is likely to stay loyal to the Tories, who have a reputation which many a Labour man might envy for keeping up appearances in public whatever is going on behind the scenes. It is not taking things too far to say that the Labour Party, such has been their history, have developed a veritable neurosis about treacherous leaders.

Ramsay MacDonald is long dead but his ghost still walks. Since he double-crossed his party, every other Labour leader has been closely watched for signs of his doing the same thing. Nervously, Labour M.P.s are always on the lookout for symptoms among their leaders of MacDonald's vanity, his contempt for his followers, his taste for high society. Many a Labour leader since 1931 has been compared to the arch traitor.

But no M.P. has ever wondered whether, if it is possible for a leader to damage his party by being a traitor to it, it is worthwhile having them. None has ever asked himself if he would sleep the easier for knowing that he was no longer in the hands of someone who might turn over to the other side. (And how MacDonald damaged the Labour Party by his defection!) The Labour Party prefers to keep its leaders, to watch and worry and, when the betrayal comes, to wail.

The case against leadership in principle, then, is formidable. Leaders can be ruthless and inhumane; they can be as ignorant as anyone else; they can make massive mistakes; and they can betray what their followers have always thought of as their principles.

So why keep them? The simple answer (although this may seem presumptuous) is that the existence of leaders reflects the ignorance, the apathy, or the delusions, of the people who follow them. Since we have mentioned MacDonald we may as well take him to prove the point.

For a long time MacDonald has been the Labour Party's Satan but at one time he was its God—and the faithful are not expected to criticise the Almighty. Even before MacDonald formed the National government, he had denied all his party had ever stood for; what was the attitude to this, among the Labour Party at the time? This is how Michael Foot, in his biography of Aneurin Bevan, describes it:

   . . . the authority of 'the Big Five’ remained to the end unshaken, almost undented. A few in minor offices, the Attlees and the Daltons, might utter their doubts behind cuffed hands, but at the party meetings they played loyally in the team and pledged their support to the irreplaceable captain.

Now these people who were either being duped, or were allowing themselves to be duped, by MacDonald, were all themselves Labour leaders. They were all experienced—some of them hardened—politicians. Yet until MacDonald himself walked out on them they supported him. This is a perfect example of a leader living off the political ignorance of his followers.

One aspect of this, ignorance is the confusion over the meaning of leadership. Many people think that anyone who has a special knowledge and who applies it to the rest of us— like a doctor—is in that fact a leader. We don't know enough to treat ourselves, runs the argument, so we have to rely on the doctor to do it for us. That makes the doctor a leader which proves that we cannot exist without leaders.

Yet there are limits beyond which a doctor's special knowledge cannot be applied, because our knowledge makes us question him. If, for example, we went to our doctor with a poison toe and he started preparations to lance our finger we would probably get in touch with a couple of his colleagues to have him certified. (Perhaps it is no coincidence that Harold Wilson once said his favourite image of himself was as the people's family doctor.)

For some reason, the working class do not apply these same standards of judgement to politicians. A doctor who sometimes murdered his patients, who confessed to a lack of medical knowledge, who kept performing the wrong operation and who ended up working for the undertaker would soon get what he deserved. Yet political leaders who carry on in the same way remain on their pedestals, in their offices.

All that is needed to end this is some basic knowledge. Not very much; only the equivalent of knowing that the doctor is treating us for the wrong complaint; only enough to tell us that the society we live in now does not work in our interests and that to get rid of its evils we must fundamentally change it.

With that knowledge, workers are impervious to the promises, the deceptions, the mistakes and the treachery of leaders. They have no need of leaders to tell them what to do; they have the essential equipment to build the new society where people count.

Ivan

Finance and Industry: Labour Hangs Itself (1967)

The Finance and Industry Column from the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Hangs Itself

There was a time when the Labour Party used to promise that, if elected, they would use the power of the state to help the trade unions get higher wages. They used this one right up until 1945 but the wage freeze of 1948 reduced its effectiveness and they have not dared use it since. Indeed, many of the Labour leaders spent their years of opposition working out plans to control wages. Returned to power in 1964 they straightway tried their incomes policy which was soon exposed for what it was when it became a legal wage freeze last July.

Unlike some of Labour's other plans the wage freeze has worked. Since July wage rates have stayed the same, while prices have risen 1.5 per cent. So the working class became worse off, as the official Ministry of Labour figures show:

Further, between April and October the average weekly earnings of men in manufacturing (a figure, the misuse of which the Socialist Standard has often exposed) fell for the first time since 1945.

Labour speakers tried to create the impression that there was a price freeze too, arguing that in gratitude for this the working class ought to put up with the wage freeze. But this was just a lie to cover up their aim of cutting our standard of living. Aubrey Jones, boss of the Prices and Incomes Board, was a little more frank when he gave evidence to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions on October 4. As reported by the Financial Times (the official report is not out yet), he admitted

  What was annoying trade unionists and others responsible for wage claims was the apparent disparity between the freeze in pay while prices increased, mainly on account of the selective employment tax. The object of the tax was to cut back the country’s living standards because they were rising too fast. It was, therefore, the Government’s policy to some extent that prices should rise relative to wages, Mr. Jones said.

How otherwise could they cut our standard of living?

Earlier (on August 22 last) the Financial Times exposed the price freeze as a myth. “There is no price freeze", it declared and went on:

  It is quite true that the White Paper speaks of ‘a general standstill on prices and charges until the end of 1966’. But the qualifications —quite rightly introduced — are so many that most businesses will be able to find a good reason for putting up their charges. The biggest gateway is the reference to Government action ‘such as increased taxation’. On the very day of the squeeze announcement, indirect taxes, except on tobacco, were put up by 10 per cent by the use of the Regulator. The impact of the Selective Employment Tax is still to be felt . . . ‘Government action’, moreover, has not been confined to taxes. Higher interest rates will provide a potent excuse in many cases. There are other gateways, too: ‘market increases’ in imported material prices, changes in supply, and increased costs of components which cannot be absorbed.

Finally, the very resolution supporting the freeze, which the Labour Party Conference passed, mentioned “tax increases and import price rises" as exceptions.

So there’s no doubt about it. There was no price freeze; nor was one intended. But even if there had been, that would be no argument for the workers giving up the conscious and organised struggle for higher wages and salaries.

The Labour Dole

The wage freeze cannot have been too much of a shock to Labour supporters, since their party had tried one before. But take a look at the third column in our table—the number of unemployed. Surely after years of anti-unemployment propaganda a Labour government would never welcome and encourage the growth of unemployment? Surely this could not have been cynically used to cadge votes?

Whether the Labour leaders are sincere or not, it does not make much difference to the way they are forced to act. But we must speak out against the cynical exploitation of working class misery by vote-gathering politicians. And, with specific reference to unemployment, it is hard to acquit Wilson on this charge.

On March 26 last, a few days before the election, Wilson told a Labour Party meeting in Manchester (quoted in The Bad Package, a pamphlet put out by five technicians’ unions):

  The only method the Tories knew of fighting the crisis they brought on the country was deflation to unemployment and short-time working. These financial technocrats who dominate the Tory Party had no thought, no compassion, for the families driven to live on the Tory dole. Nor did they think of the large number of families whose standard of living fell because of the drop in their earnings caused by deliberate policies which could only lead, and did lead, to short-time working.

Note the skilful combination ’Tory dole". Yet, four months later Wilson was talking in the House of Commons of “a tolerable figure of unemployment" of “between 1½ and 2 per cent", that is, a little over 400,000. When Wilson spoke there were only some 264,000 on the dole. Thus, in effect, he was coolly declaring that he was prepared to see another 150,000 thrown out of work. But this is not all. When by October the numbers began to approach the “tolerable" level Minister of Labour Gunther rushed in to explain that Wilson regarded two per cent as the tolerable figure after so-called redeployment. In other words this was not the limit. Pressed in the House of Commons on October 27 to give “a categorical assurance that the Labour government will not stand for a level of 500,000 unemployed under any circumstances", Wilson refused. At the last count there were some 600,000 unemployed.

Unemployment is inevitable under capitalism and governments, despite Keynes, have very little control over it. Perhaps Labour’s failure to tame capitalism will lead people to see the futility of Labourism. Already many trade unionists are discussing breaking with the Labour Party and, for the first time for many years, there are resolutions down for their conferences calling for just this.

Tory Sense

In a recent speech to a branch of the National Union of Bank Employees Enoch Powell told them, according to the Financial Times of 13 January, that “unions were harmful not only to the community but also to their members: there was a net loss resulting from their existence”. A year ago, in an address to some Young Conservatives, another Tory MP, Nicholas Ridley, declared:

  I think we have got to look at the situation if there were no trade unions after the war. And if there weren't I believe wages today would be higher. The net effect of trade unions is that probably they tend to keep wages down, although their members don't know it. (Marylebone Mercury, 3.12.65.)

That unions keep wages down is surely something they ought to tell the Labour government; it opens new possibilities for their incomes policy after the period of severe restraint!

Seriously, though, this is an old one. Trade unions, the argument goes, keep wages down by' restricting production; if there were no unions with their restrictive practices production would go quicker and we would all be better off. The answer is simple: workers must combine in order to get the best price for their ability to work. Without any unions, without any organised means of resisting the ever-present pressure of employers to reduce their “labour costs”, workers would be at the mercy of their employers and soon reduced to a sorry state. Besides production does not go up in a steady line under capitalism, restrictions or no. It goes up and down and with it go employment and wage levels. At times, unions can push up wages at the expense of profits. This has tended to happen since the war. Which is what the Tories are really worried about.

Adam Buick

GLC Elections: 13 April 1967 (1967)

Party News from the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Monopoly of Wealth (1967)

From the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The basis of present-day society is the class monopoly of the means of living, that is, the land, factories, railways and so on. Accumulated wealth is monopolised by a privileged minority. The rest, separated from the means and instruments of labour, are forced to work for those who own them. This inequality, poverty and slavery is capitalism.

In Britain the capitalist class own the means of production through having paper titles such as bonds or shares which are backed by the law and enforced by the state. So that from these titles an estimate of the concentration of wealth ownership can be made. One of the results of the 19th century struggle between the industrial and landed property-owners was Estate Duty, a tax levied on the wealth of those who died. The figures of the collections from this tax are published every year in the report of the Board of Inland Revenue. The various figures in this report, together with mortality rates from the Registrar General, have provided the basic data for all the estimates of the concentration of wealth that have been made over the years.

It so happens that one of the first of such estimates was made at the time the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain was founded. For 1905 Sir Leo Chiozza Money came to this conclusion in his Riches and Poverty:

  About one-seventieth of the population owns more than one-half of the accumulated wealth, public and private, of the United Kingdom.

Money's calculations were no doubt crude by modern statistical standards. Yet every study since has shown a similar inequality, despite the reign of two governments committed to redistribution in favour of the poor—the Liberal of 1906 and the Labour of 1945.

Take a few of the recent estimates: On 8 April 1962 the Economic Editor of the Observer spoke of “this fantastically unequal distribution of wealth”:

   Judging by the latest Inland Revenue estate duty figures, fewer than 200,000 people (about ½ per cent of the adult population) own a quarter of total personal wealth, worth over £50,000 million. Nearly half of this total personal wealth is held by the top 2 per cent owning more than £20,000 each.

On 15 January 1966 the Economist, using amended investment income figures from the Inland Revenue report, estimated that in 1959-60, fifty-five per cent of personal wealth was owned by 2 per cent of taxpayers, while 88 per cent owned on average just over £100.

On 13 January 1967 the Financial Times wrote of figures showing that in 1960 the top 1 per cent owned 42 per cent of personal wealth (the top five 75 per cent and the top ten 83 per cent), that although there might be some exaggeration “it still remains true that the bulk of the population own very little personal property”.

A more scholarly study for 1945 appeared in the Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Statistics in February 1961. The authors, H. F. Lydall and D. J. Topping, noted that “Personal wealth is very unequally distributed in this country”. They wrote of one of their tables:

   In broad outline these figures suggest that total personal net capital in early 1954 was about £40,000 million. Of this nearly £31,000 million was owned by three million persons possessing over £2,000 each; and the remaining £9,000 million was owned by the other 32 million aged 20 and over. In the top capital group there are 20,000 persons with more than £100,000 each and an average holding of over £250,000; in the bottom group there are 16 million persons with less than £100 each and an average holding of less than £50.

And, of another table:

  These estimates suggest that in 1954 the top one per cent of British adults owned 43 per cent of total net capital and the top 10 per cent 79 per cent.

Comparing their figures with those for previous years, they wrote that “over the past twenty years there has been some reduction in the inequality of personal wealth in Britain”.

Not all who have studied the figures agree with this conclusion. For one of the disadvantages of using the death duty figures is that they miss those who manage to avoid paying them and, over the years, the wealthy have evolved quite sophisticated ways of doing this. J. R. S. Revell, in an address to the British Association in 1960 (discussed in the Socialist Standard of November 1960), mentioned a few: distribution within families and especially the discretionary trust:

   Under that form of property the trustees had the discretion to pay income to any of a specified class of persons and to distribute the capital when they thought fit. When the person who had been receiving the income died, the trustees merely nominated another person from the specified class, and there was no passing of capital which could attract death duties.

R. M. Titmuss, in his Income Distribution and Social Change (1962), studied the supposed trend towards equality of incomes and showed how the Inland Revenue figures were not a reliable guide. Titmuss explained in detail some of the dodges to avoid surtax and estate duty. While pointing out that there were no really accurate and reliable figures he suggested:

  There is more than a hint from a number of studies that income inequality has been increasing since 1949 whilst the ownership of wealth, which is far more highly concentrated in the United Kingdom than in the United States, has probably become still more unequal and, in terms of family ownership, possibly strikingly more unequal in recent years.

Whichever way you look at them, these figures bear out the validity of the first clause of our Declaration of Principles. What, then, do Socialists suggest? In the past we were accused of wanting equal sharing and to divide up amongst the poor the wealth of the rich. This, of course, was a lie. What we do advocate is the social ownership and democratic control of the already socially-operated means of living. Ironically, it is the open defenders of capitalism, the Tories and Liberals, who talk of a “property-owning” or a “share-owning” democracy. Which is as much an illusion as is the Labour promise to redistribute wealth more equally through taxes. All such attempts have failed, and will fail, because the very basis of capitalism — the system they accept —is the concentration of the ownership of the means of living in the hands of a few and the resulting poverty and degradation of the rest.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: Ideas of Class Supremacy (1967)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

While it is true that the ruling ideas in a society concerning matters of social significance are always of such a nature as will tend to keep stable the society and preserve it from internal and external disruption, and that they uphold the interests of the ruling class, it must not be imagined that they are deliberately manufactured with this end in view. They are largely the legacy of past social development, built upon and remodelled as the interests which dictated them changed.

The average member of a dominating class is firm in his belief that those ideas are true. His class environment, associations and traditions are all favourable to this result. Here we come up against that curious phenomenon which has confounded so many philosophers, social and historical students—the manner in which ideas and actions which really are based upon and in line with material class interests are draped in fantastic ideal coverings and are given a moral justification which is actually taken to be their root cause instead of merely the superficial trimming.

The man of the ruling class sees that the condition of things obtaining is good for him and good for his class.

He does not put this down to the impersonal cause of a condition of property relations growing from a historically developed method of living giving wealth and position, with all that they command, to his own class withholding them from the subjected. His natural egotism, supplemented by the class tradition, suggests rather a personal cause to be found in the attributes of his class, such as “blue” blood, military prowess, a “divine right* in medieval times and thrift, initiative and directive ability in the present capitalist era. This gives rise to a contempt for the “lower” class—a contempt expressed either openly or in the thin disguise of a paternal superiority.

From the Socialist Standard March 1917

Aspect: Money for Nothing (1967)

The Aspect column from the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Sunday Times on January 29th, Mr. George Schwartz used his column to put his views about high and low interest rates and about some of those who have theorised on the matter. He recalled the late Lord Dalton, Labour Government Chancellor of the Exchequer, who believed that it was a simple matter for a government to keep interest rates at a very low level, and an American Secretary of the Treasury who shared that view. The idea is not dead: “Even at this moment there is an assumption that the Finance Ministers of the leading countries have only to put their heads together to cheapen money all round. The higher economics refuses to regard the rate of interest as a simple function of the demand for and the supply of loanable funds . . .”.

Schwartz commented on the Bank Rate:

  It is fashionable to talk of the Bank Rate as an antiquated weapon, but the antiquated thinking is in the minds of the critics. Bank rate is not a weapon but an index. It registers the going level of interest rates which is determined by all the forces operating upon saving and borrowing.

Marx long ago described the factors which immediately determine the rate of interest in about the same words as those used by Schwartz. (Perhaps Schwartz had been looking up what Marx wrote?). “. . . the relation between the supply of loanable capital on the one side and the demand for it on the other, decide at any time the market level of interest". (Capital, Vol. 3, p. 430.)

Marx described how capitalist profit derives from the unpaid labour of the working class and how, if the capitalist is using borrowed funds, he has to pay away part of this profit in the form of interest, the amount depending on the prevailing interest rates:

  . . . we shall find that a low rate of interest generally corresponds to periods of prosperity, or of extra profit, a rise of interest to the transition between prosperity and its reverse, and a maximum of interest to up to a point of extreme usury to the period of crisis. . . . It may happen, however, that low interest is found in times of stagnation, and moderately rising interest in times of increasing activity. The rate of interest reaches its highest point during crises, when money must be borrowed in order to meet payments at any cost. (Capital, Vol. 3).

Particular interest rates vary according to the class of security, and the length of the time for which the money is borrowed, but the average rate of interest, like the average rate of profit, shows long periods of stability, apart from the ups and downs referred to above.

  The average rate of interest appears in every country for long epochs as a constant magnitude, because the general rate of profit—in spite of the continual variation of the particular rates of profit, in which a variation in one sphere is offset by an opposite variation in another sphere—varies only in long intervals. 

In our day there is continual argument between those economists who expect the average rate of interest to remain high for many years and those who expect it to fall.

It follows from the way in which interest rates are determined that, as Schwartz points out, a government cannot determine those rates simply by exhortation or by monetary manipulation but would have to control all the economic factors which combine to affect the supply and demand for loanable funds. Schwartz recalled the belief some people held in the years before the war that there was a tendency for interest rates to go on falling till they reached zero. It was at that time that the theories of Silvio Gesell had some vogue, in particular his scheme of “free money” which, he claimed would do away with interest payments.

But the will o' the wisp of very low or zero interest rates on loans was much older than Gesell, whose works were first translated into English in 1929— the year before his death. Gesell had been influenced by Proudhon, and Proudhon had been preceded by John Gray, who was writing in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Gesell proposed that money should be issued in a form which depreciated with every week from the date of issue, his suggestion being that each note should lose one-tenth of one per cent of its face value each week. This, he thought, would deter people from holding on to money, they would want to get rid of it quickly and this would keep the level of investment up and the rate of interest down and would also obviate depressions.

The basic economic fallacies of Proudhon and John Gray were examined by Marx in his Critique of Political Economy and Capital (Vol. 3, chapter XXI). Both Proudhon and Gray wanted capitalism, but not the features which inescapably belong to it. They wanted products to be bought and sold but not to conform to the economic laws of commodity production. Products were to have their price determined directly by a National Bank which would issue certificates related to the amount of labour it required to produce them. Those certificates were then to circulate as money: no-one would need to pay high interest rates for loans or indeed any interest at all.

Gesell’s particular scheme has not caught on although Keynes, who combined a low opinion of Marx with a high opinion of Gesell, expressed the view that “the future will learn more from the spirit of Gesell than that of Marx”, (General Theory of Employment).

But we have had quite a good test of the Gesell theory, even if not in the form he proposed.

For a quarter of a century money in this country has been more or less steadily depreciating but far from interest rates foiling to zero, Bank rate has recently been up to a peak 7 per cent and one of the government’s complaints at the present time is that manufacturers have been slowing down their rate of investment.

As befits followers of Keynes low interest rates have been an article of faith with the Labour Party. Their publication Twelve Wasted Years (1963) had scathing criticisms of the Tory government for failing to keep interest rates down.

In the election campaign in 1964, Labour were promising lower interest rates generally, including the hope of very low rates on house mortgage loans. Events soon overtook them, as shown by the rise in the Bank rate to the same level as under the Tories and by mortgage rates at the end of 1966 more than double their promised three per cent. Like Gray, Proudhon, Gesell and Keynes, Labour are trying to have capitalism without its inherent consequences.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Degrading Relationship (1967)

From the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The man with a black brief case and an aura of the National Assistance Board stood in the doorway . . . “I am looking for a Mr. So & So”, he began, and added . . . ‘I am from the Ministry of Social Security”. . .

The new era of capitalistic '‘Social Justice” had arrived, grandiloquent title and all.

I directed him up the Edwardian staircase to a proletarian attic, and brusquely swinging his case of “social security” he mounted the stairs to dispense it. But behind the new title and the suave officials, it may be timely to enquire whether the old relationship that existed between the National Assistance Board and its applicants has been abolished along with the title?

What was that relationship anyway?

The following incidents, witnessed by the writer in 1965, may serve as an illustration . . .

A long queue of the destitute moved slowly over a wooden bench as their surnames were lustily echoed to the rafters by an NAB. official whose voice would have done justice to a court crier.

The dejected queue moves one by one before a tough looking receptionist who demands of each . . . “Name & Address” . . . which he busily scribbles down. Then . . . “Have you signed on for work”?. . . “Yes”. . . “Then come and see us again in three days”. . . “But I am destitute”. . . “Well, try and hang on for another day or so, we don't pay out any money here before the three days rule”. . . Crestfallen, the majority shuffle out and count the weary days that must elapse for each fresh applicant.

One, however, an immigrant from the Emerald Isle threatens to break all the NAB windows if he does not get immediate aid. Significantly, he is given preferential treatment. This is the set up of bullying and degradation that existed under the NAB. On one side, the power of. the capitalist state machine, on the other, worn out hulks of those who spend their lives on the wages treadmill until they finally reach a bench at the NAB.

Nor can it be said that relations were any better under a previous state department —the Unemployment Assistance k Board . . . that notorious UAB of the Hungry Thirties which incorporated the Household Means Test in its obnoxious administration and under which the present writer received 34/- weekly for himself, wife and two children after the Inquisition had been well and truly applied.

Thirty years later, the NAB scale of 76/- plus rent allowance for each person has to be viewed against the rise in the cost of living that has occurred in the interval. This makes it clear that the share of the destitute in the “affluent” society is, to say the least, nothing to write home about.

However, we are not here concerned with the degree of relief from destitution authorised by successive Governments, but with the degrading social relationship between the haves and have nots arising from the class division inherent in a profit based economy. This subjection of the vast majority by a small ruling class, and the indignities following from this state of affairs, is what Socialists the world over are dedicated to destroy. When property society is finished, that eternal plaint of capitalism . . . “Brother, can you spare a dime?”. . . will go down in history as the scene of disease which plagued humanity far too long.

G. R. Russell

Letter: Strategy (1967)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir: In a letter to the Socialist Standard, published in December 1966, I called for an open-minded discussion of socialist aims and strategies, and also put forward a few suggestions concerning a clear-cut parliamentary strategy. In its reply the Editorial Committee denies that there is any common ground for discussion between the SPGB and other political organisations. These are all supporters of capitalism!

In my opinion this is a deplorable sectarian attitude. Instead of trying to monopolize socialism for itself the SPGB should recognize genuine socialist aims in the programmes of other organizations as well, even if they make use of different formulations. Suppose that Labour left wingers, communists, and anarchists all agree with SPGB-socialists that capitalist privileges should be abolished, and that some form of collective ownership and control of large companies and mass media must be established! Would not that provide a common ground for discussion of strategies, a discussion which might result in political cooperation, perhaps even in a political synthesis?

As to my suggestions for a socialist strategy they certainly cannot be dismissed as “trifling reforms of capitalism”. Confiscation of large fortunes, transfer of economic power to the employees, and abolition of large or unearned incomes would mean nothing less than a social revolution, an overthrow of the entire capitalist system as far as it is based on privileges,' exploitation, and authoritarianism. The utopian dream of abolishing money and production for the market, on the other hand, seems to be too extravagant to provide a realistic political platform for our generation. It has never been proved anyway that such a drastic step is a necessary condition for the attainment of social justice, freedom of opinion, cultural progress, and other humanistic values.

In view of the present world crisis cooperation between the forces of the Left is a necessity. Perhaps this co-operation must also be extended so as to include objectives less than socialism, e.g. reduction of military expenditure and withdrawal of support for the US aggression in Vietnam. 

Sune Hjorth, 

Sundovall, Sweden

Reply: 

Let us get one thing clear straightaway. We stand for a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. Mr. Hjorth now tells us that this is a “Utopian dream” and “too extravagant” and a “drastic step”. By what right, then, does he presume that we can discuss “strategies” with him for an aim he doesn’t share? We can discuss his ideas, certainly, but there is no ground for discussing how to achieve a common aim since there is none.

Mr. Hjorth is taken in by words. True, Labour “leftwingers”, communists and anarchists all claim to stand for Socialism and all talk about common ownership and democratic control. He thinks that this is enough evidence for concluding that they and we have the same aim and that, therefore, whether there will be money or market-production in a socialist society is just a matter of opinion.

He could not be more confused. Money is not just a thing, not just a convenient means for circulating wealth. It disguises a relation between people; in fact, that between independent property owners. Its existence, therefore, implies that of property society too. When relations between people and there are no longer property exchanging wealth, but a classless community producing for use, then money and all the rest of the paraphernalia of buying and selling will become redundant. It won’t be “abolished”. It will disappear, along with wages, taxes, capital assets and investment as a necessary consequence of the assumption by society of the ownership and control of the means of living.

Mr. Hjorth still cherishes his list of reform measures. Some are trifling. Others would demand so high a degree of understanding and determination on the part of the working class that it would almost amount to socialist understanding. Which would make his reforms pointless as people would be demanding Socialism.

Editorial Committee

Cooking the Books: Vice’s homage to virtue (2005)

The Cooking The Books column from the March 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

At their annual “World Economic Forum” jamboree in the Swiss ski resort of Davos in the last week of January, the world’s political and business leaders vied with each other to strike an “ethical” pose. It was, commented one newspaper, a case of ethics with everything.

There is even a magazine called the Ethical Corporation. At the time of the Tsunami its Asia-Pacific editor, James Rose, was active in the Australian press. “Put profits aside in the rebuilding” read the headline of one of his articles, “Shareholders should let companies assist in the post-tsunami reconstruction” (Australian, 4 January). “Companies must look beyond the bottom line” read another, “Corporate leaders see only profits as important. They must change” (Melbourne Age, 7 January).

Shareholders in construction companies would be only too willing to let them assist in the rebuilding. In fact, shares in them went up in anticipation of juicy reconstruction contracts. But this was not what Rose had in mind. Supply lines for aid, he wrote, “could be usefully shortened if corporations went in and did more of the work themselves, gratis, under the direction of the charity groups on the ground”, and:

  “What we need here is for corporations to throw off the cloak of self-interest. The best thing they could do is to approach the situation as it now stands as if it were a legitimate business opportunity, apart from one important factor: they will expect no financial or brand rewards”.

It’s a nice thought. The skills and the techniques are there, there are people in need, so why not bring the two together without any thought of profit? But it’s not going to happen, because that’s not the way capitalism works or could ever work.

Capitalism is a profit-making system and capitalist corporations have no choice but to put profits first. Not because the top executives are selfish or greedy or insensitive but because that’s the economic logic of the system. Corporate executives are merely what Marx once called “personifications of capital” and capitalism is an impersonal economic mechanism of the accumulation of capital out of profits which those in charge have to apply irrespective of their personal opinions or preferences.

Rose is aware of what he is up against as he wrote in the same issue of The Australian:

  “What is a corporation? On one level, it’s a pure money-making machine. There is solid opinion to say that’s all it can be. Even if a corporation wants to be a paragon of the New Age, it is constrained by the fiduciary obligations to its shareholders. It is legally constructed to focus on its and its owners’ self-interest”.

That opinion is indeed solid, very solid. Corporations don’t seek to maximise profits just because this is laid down by the law, as Rose suggests. The law merely reflects the underlying reality of capitalism. It’s not the law that needs changing – it never will  be on this point – but the whole profit system that needs dumping.