Cooking the Books: Carney rethinks capitalism (2021)

The Cooking the Books column from the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Rethink capitalism to solve the climate crisis’ was the title New Scientist (20 March) gave to an interview with Mark Carney, who until last year was the Governor of the Bank of England. Carney didn’t actually use the word ‘capitalism’, though he had done in a previous interview in 2019 with Jon Snow on Channel 4 which the Guardian (31 July 2019) reported under the headline ‘Capitalism is part of solution to climate change, says Mark Carney’.

Capitalism is a system of production for profit under which capital, in pursuit of profit, tends to flow into those lines of production that promise the most. Carney has no objection to this and wants to harness it by pointing to the opportunities for capital to make a profit from investing in alternative energy sources to fossil fuels:

  ‘… people recognise that if they can crack, say, green hydrogen as a fuel for trucks or direct air capture of carbon, there will be an enormous use for those and they or their company will make a lot of money.’

Or, as he told Jon Snow, ‘the most important thing is to move capital from where it is today to where it needs to be tomorrow… there will be great fortunes made along this path aligned with what society wants.’

The same as Boris Johnson blurted out to Tory MPs in March: ‘The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed’ (Guardian, 24 March).

For Carney, however, the profit motive is only ‘part of the solution’; the state needs to play a role too by using taxes and other measures to make investment unprofitable in fossil fuels and industries that burn a lot of them. He is no free marketeer and has criticised this ideology for turning capitalism from a market economy into a market society where, as he told New Scientist, market value ‘applies not only to material goods, but increasingly to the whole of life’. He wants ‘to get market value and societal values back into an equilibrium’.

But, to return to reality, could capitalism solve the climate problem? One thing is obvious – if it is going to move in that direction it will only be because it is profitable to do so and unprofitable not to. Carney is right to say that the state would have to intervene. Despite what the free-market ideologists say, capitalism could not exist without the state and never has. In fact, one of the state’s roles, as executive committee of the capitalist class, has been to intervene to impose the longer-term general capitalist interest against, if need be, the short-term interest of some capitalists.

This was the situation in Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century. The capitalist factory owners so over-worked their workers that they threatened the future supply of fit workers. The state had to intervene to limit the working day to ten hours. As Marx commented:

  ‘The immoderate lengthening of the working-day, produced by machinery in the hands of capital, leads to a reaction on the part of society, the very sources of whose life are menaced; and, thence, to a normal working-day whose length is fixed by law’ (Capital, Vol. 1, ch. 15, section 3c).

We are in a similar situation today with the ‘immoderate’ burning of fossil fuels. We can expect, as happened in 1850, the capitalist state to intervene. So attempts will be made, and are being made, under capitalism to do something about the climate crisis. But what sort of society is it that requires intervention to try to stop its economic system from menacing the very sources of life on which society depends?

The Right to be A Wage Slave (2021)

From the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over the years we have seen a growth in the number of temporary and part-time workers, many of whom are identified as self-employed. The gig economy forms a significant part of this trend, which covers a wide range of occupations from IT consultants to Uber and Deliveroo drivers. One definition offered is ‘it is a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs’ (‘What is the ‘gig’ economy?’ BBC News, 10 February 2017). What distinguishes the gig economy is that the workers are paid for a particular piece of work, as opposed to those on zero hours contracts who are paid by the hour. The term ‘gig’ was coined by jazz musicians in 1915 who were paid for each live performance. It is a term still used by today’s rock and pop musicians. According to a TUC report, the gig economy has doubled in size since 2016 and with just under 5 million workers (‘Gig economy in Britain doubles, accounting for 4.7 million workers’, Guardian, 28 June 2019).

Insecure, casual working has always been a feature of capitalism. At one time, it was common for building workers to be hired on a day-to-day basis. In the US in the 1930s many farmers had to sell their land because of drought and falling prices and ended up as itinerant workers. After the Great Depression, temp agencies sprang up, which supplied workers to employers on a temporary basis (The History and Future of the Gig Economy, Small Business Trends, 12 November 2019).

Some claim that the gig economy is a product of the new digital technology. It is the case that firms like Uber use smartphone apps to organise jobs for their workers, but there are employers, such as Hermes, who also employ gig workers, but use more traditional methods to run their businesses (‘What is the gig economy and why is it so controversial?’ Wired, 14 September 2018). This explanation of the rise of the gig economy doesn’t give us the full picture. In the last fifty years, Western capitalist countries have experienced a decline in their manufacturing and traditional industries with the concomitant erosion of trade union power and accompanying loss of relatively well-paid jobs. Insecure, casual jobs have, to a large extent, taken their place. In the less developed capitalist countries there is a pool of underemployed workers who are prey to these gig employers. It is probably no coincidence that Uber was founded in San Francisco in 2010 in the aftermath of the 2008-9 financial crash when unemployment was high. Under capitalism, competitive pressures compel businesses to grab a greater share of the market by undercutting their rivals by offering a product or service at a lower cost.

Supporters of the gig economy insist that its workers enjoy the flexibility and independence that come with being one’s own boss. No doubt for some gig workers, such as video producers, working this way can be a relatively lucrative venture. However, for many it is just ruthless capitalist exploitation by another name. Firms like Uber and Deliveroo designate their workers as self-employed so they don’t have to fork out holiday pay and sickness benefits, contribute to their pensions, pay the minimum wage or any redundancy payments, but receive the fruits of their labour like any traditional capitalist. The benefits of flexibility have been illusory as it is their employers that ultimately control the hours they work. Despite the capitalist spin, more and more gig workers are seeing through the con. They know that they are workers, not independent contractors.

They are fighting back. In 2016 two Uber drivers launched legal action to be recognised as workers. The London employment tribunal ruled in their favour, that they should be classed as workers and be entitled to holiday pay, paid rest breaks and the minimum wage. Uber appealed this ruling to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and when they lost in November 2017, they went to the Court of Appeal which also upheld the ruling in December 2018. Uber made their last stand with the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, which, on 19 February, dismissed their appeal and upheld the ruling that Uber drivers are workers and are entitled to employment benefits. Uber responded by claiming that the verdict only applies to the small number of drivers who brought this case. However, thousands of Uber drivers are filing claims for compensation.

On 7 April, Deliveroo drivers went on strike for higher pay and better work conditions. This followed similar strike action in August and September 2019. Some gig workers are even organised in trade unions, one is the App Drivers and Couriers Union and another is the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain.

Despite all the guff written and spoken about living in a postmodern society where the class struggle is a thing of the past and we are now all aspiring individuals, it is evident that workers, even the more precarious ones, are still collectively organising to defend and, if they can, improve their working conditions. We think it is great that some workers are winning their battles. However, we must go on and win the class war.

Oliver Bond

Material World: Gender oppression in India (2021)

The Material World Column from the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In the past couple of months we have witnessed a massacre in Atlanta USA targeting Asian women, the New York Governor accused of being a serial harasser of his female employees, police forcibly dispersing a women’s protest against femicide in London, and large marches in Australian cities highlighting the violence against women. In Mexico, there have been protests against the government’s support for a political ally accused of rape as well as widespread police inaction concerning the assaults and murders of women. While in Turkey nationwide demonstrations took place as President Erdogan withdrew Turkey from an international agreement to prevent violence against women. With such resistance from women against the violence inflicted upon them now featuring in the media, we should not forget other forms of repression and oppression of females.

In India, dowry is another form of injustice done to women and it is an ubiquitous system alongside the pernicious arranged marriages where daughters are traded as property and a commodity. The heavy toll demanded by dowry prices has resulted in female foetuses being aborted to ensure families have boys.

Dowry is the tradition when a new bride from all kinds of families and backgrounds will present the groom and his family with property, gold, money, household appliances, a motorbike or car, and in rural districts, livestock. The dowry system has been prevalent in South Asian countries for centuries. Among the Adivasi tribes and in other nations such as Thailand, the dowry system works in the reverse direction, the groom’s family pays the dowry price.

India has an alarming rate of crime over dowry and great numbers of suicides of women. It is essentially a commercial contract between the family of the bride and the family of the groom. There are countless other stories of abuse, and dowry-related deaths if the contractual agreement is not completely fulfilled. The man’s family’s honour and status are seen to be impinged.

Statistics show that every 16 minutes there is a rape, one death in each hour and 20 women die in a day. There were 7,000 dowry-related deaths in 2017. However, these are only the reported figures and they do not include deaths from ‘kitchen fires’ and other suspicious ‘accidents’.

Dowry persists as part of India’s marriage customs although its form and the damage to women vary according to the norms of the different communities. Dowry in India is not limited to any specific religion. Although dowry is primarily associated with marriages in Hindu society it has permeated over the generations into other religions such as Muslims, Christians and to some extent also the Sikh community. Religions have reinforced male domination where the woman is subject to her husband and her in-laws. In addition, the dowries and consequent elaborate wedding ceremonies bring financial debts that can rarely be paid off.

India has already enacted legislation in attempts to counter the problems of dowry. 60 years have elapsed since the Dowry Prohibition Act was passed to prohibit the practice of giving or receiving dowry and has been subsequently amended to curb the practice of dowry. To further strengthen the anti-dowry law and to stop offences of cruelty by the husband or his relatives against the wife, new provisions were added to the Indian Penal Code to provide extra protection from dowry harassment. India also passed legislation specifically for Muslim women, while Bangladesh passed a Dowry Prohibition Act in 1980. This law legally banned dowries and imposed sanctions by declaring that accepting dowry could land someone in jail, or a fine, or both.

Those laws have not put an end to dowry. It is an understatement to say that dowry-violence-related laws have failed, as India still has the cruel reality of dowries and dowry-related crime. These laws have been largely ignored or not effectively enforced and when prosecutions do occur the acquittal rate is high with the dowry disguised as a ‘voluntary contribution’ to the wedding expenses. It is a cultural convention which cannot be eradicated solely by law alone. In India, patriarchal practices have relegated millions of women to mere procreation and performing the household chores.

Legislation is an inadequate tool to ensure that women who marry stay unharmed and alive. Such a conclusion also applies globally with violence against women endemic in every country and culture even where there exists no dowry system. Violence against women can only end with education, empowerment and the emancipation of all humanity. Socialism will be the source of the freedom of a life without fear.

ALJO

Human Nature: What Is It? (2021)

Book Review from the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

In any conversation about a different kind of society organised on principles of cooperation rather than competition, of common rather than private ownership of the means of living, the subject of human nature inevitably arises. To those who support a society of from each according to ability to each according to need, the answer is often given that it could not work, since human beings are by nature selfish, possessive, competitive and always wanting more. It’s not an easy argument to combat, as all around us, in present society, we see examples of this kind of behaviour both on a personal and a collective level.

It is backed up furthermore by much written ‘authority’. As early as the 16th century the Italian political writer Machiavelli, in his famous essay The Prince, stated that human beings are ‘ungrateful, fickle, dissembling, hypocritical, cowardly and greedy’ and ‘never do anything good except out of necessity’. This view of humans has often been quoted since, as has the similar idea expressed in the following century by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan that human beings are greedy by nature and human life is ‘a condition of war of all against all’. For Adam Smith too in his late 18th century Wealth of Nations, private interest (or ‘self-love’, as he also put it) was the basis for his argument for the free market. Though, in the two centuries that followed, the rise of views contesting the inevitability of the market and the social and economic inequality that went with it saw some questioning of the fixed human nature theory, it is only in very recent times that such questioning has come to the fore and now seriously contends with the ‘original sin’ idea, whether religious or secular, of human beings as deep-down selfish, wicked and aggressive.

This change in perception (though not yet a sea change) has come about partly through the arguments put forward by organisations such as the Socialist Party arguing for a cooperative society of common ownership, but more widely through a slew of publications, especially over the last few decades, by thinkers and writers from a variety of fields. The latest of these is a remarkable book entitled Humankind. A Hopeful History (Bloomsbury, 2020) by the Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman. This work has already received praise from many quarters and it isn’t difficult to see why. It comes at ‘human nature’ with in-depth scholarly research from a whole variety of areas (an ‘immense sweep’, as one reviewer put it) and is unfailingly informative, instructive and thought-provoking. At the same time, for the informal ‘in your face way’ in which it’s written, it manages to be highly and consistently entertaining, a page turner in fact. So a real ‘good read’ for absolutely anyone.

Bregman’s main line of approach is to examine the evidence presented for what he refers to as the ‘veneer theory’ of human nature and to show it as severely flawed. By veneer theory he means the widespread idea that the civilised, communal behaviour which characterises many of the normal day-to-day interactions of human beings only take place because of the pressure social and political authority puts upon us to behave in a civilised way and not tear one another to pieces. But, the theory goes on to say, the pressure that this authority creates is only a thin layer (a veneer) and as soon as it is relaxed or things go wrong, our true savage individualistic nature manifests itself and we are revealed for what we are – self-centred, individualistic and even savage. So, according to this notion (referred to by the writer as ‘the zombie that keeps coming back’), evil simmers just beneath the surface in us all. He looks at the various writings and life events that are used to support this theory – e.g: the immensely successful novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding about children stranded on an island turning savage; the story of the supposed cannibal inhabitants of Easter Island; the famous ‘shock machine’ experiment by Stanley Milgram, anthropological works by ‘big name’ writers such as Steven Pinker, Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari – and proceeds to drill down into the reality of these and show us new perspectives.

So, for example, the only real-life instance known of children being lost on a tiny island (which he calls ‘the real Lord of the Flies’) shows those children to have set up a friendly cooperative way of living before being rescued rather than establishing some kind of cruel hierarchy as depicted in the novel. In the same way Milgram’s experiment, which purportedly showed volunteers willingly administering increasingly powerful electric shocks to people in obedience to an authority commanding them to do so, is shown, when examined closely, to have encountered significant resistance from those taking part and the outcome to have been reported in an unbalanced, one-sided way. Again, amidst the carnage of the First World War, Bregman provides evidence that very few soldiers in the trenches actually fired their weapons at members of the enemy they could see and many deliberately fired into the air. Likewise, during the Second World War he quotes research showing that only a very small percentage of soldiers actually managed to fire their guns when they came into direct contact with the enemy despite being under orders to do so. Other real-life extreme situations such as the impact of aerial bombing on populations are also seen in a light rarely considered. For example, one of the expectations of aerial bombing by both sides in the Second World War was that it would cause social chaos with people turning on one another. But, in fact, just the opposite happened. Despite the extreme circumstances and the casualties, there was no breakdown of morale. The communal spirit was actually greater than before. In Britain there was the ‘blitz spirit’ and in Germany the mass bombing of civilians towards the end of the war resulted in people working harder than ever and actually increasing production of food and other necessities as well as war equipment. The numerous examples he cites of this kind of thing allow him to state that ‘catastrophes bring out the best in people’ and to regard the ‘bad’ behaviour frequently seen in human beings and their societies as aberrant. He dates it back to the invention 10,000 years ago of settled agriculture, seeing it as a ‘mismatch’ that did not fit the human psyche. Yet it became a game-changer in destabilising and stratifying populations that had previously lived in relative harmony and equality and had not been plagued by the idea of scarcity or the constant desire for more which agriculture introduced.

Though other writers too have presented arguments for seeing ‘human nature’ in a positive light (a recent example is Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff), Bregman goes further than these in a particularly striking way. Like him, most of them reject the notion of an innately self-serving, potentially evil human species, explaining anti-social behaviour as the reaction of hugely adaptable and flexible beings to conditioning and circumstance. Bad circumstances can make us bad people. But Bregman goes a step further. He looks beyond that idea to claim that the innate, fundamental default of human beings is to be friendly, communal, kind-hearted and cooperative, to the extent that he attaches to humans the label Homo puppy. This may seem sweeping or extreme and perhaps the jury is still out, but his arguments are certainly compelling. He sees as the main driver of human behaviour the desire to act together even in the most dire circumstances, leading to tolerance and mutual support even when things seem to be falling apart. Apart from the ‘blitz spirit’ in Britain in the Second World War, he also gives the surprising example of the apparently inexplicable dogged resistance shown by the vastly outnumbered and outgunned German forces as the Nazi regime was falling apart towards the end of the war. They found it impossible not to continue cooperating with one another. More generally, the author points to the plethora of everyday gestures of help, cooperation, solidarity and compassion people in all societies all over the world show to one another on a daily basis and quotes approvingly the statement by historian Tine De Moor that ‘History teaches us that man is essentially a cooperative being, a homo cooperans’. Another way he puts it is that ‘human beings claim togetherness and interaction’ and ‘our spirits yearn for connection just as our bodies hunger for food’.

On violence too, after presenting the evidence put forward by war historian Samuel Marshall in his book Men Against Fire that ‘the average and normally healthy individual (…) has such an inner usually unrealised resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life’, the author expresses agreement with sociologist Randall Collins that ‘Humans are hardwired for (…) solidarity (…); and this is what makes violence so difficult’. In view of all this, it is perhaps unsurprising that one reviewer has seen Bregman’s analysis as leading to ‘a new understanding of human nature’ and lighting ‘the path to a brighter future’ and another as ‘a devastating demolition of the misanthrope’s mantra’.

This is truly myth-busting stuff and all good news for socialists who have always argued that there is no ‘human nature’ obstacle to a society of common ownership and democratic organisation based on from each according to ability to each according to need. But what about any political conclusions or prescriptions by the author from the wealth of evidence he presents? Well, he expresses strong support for ‘participatory democracy’, even if with no clear explanations of its content, and recommends people associating with one another as closely and directly as possible as ‘the best remedy for hate, injustice and prejudice’, since, once they come into close contact, their Homo puppy nature, their innate friendliness, will dissipate any hostility, prejudice or lack of empathy. He doesn’t go much further than this, and he had already done that in a previous book, his best-selling Utopia for Realists (reviewed in the August 2017 Socialist Standard). In political terms that book roundly criticises the market system for its ‘bullshit’ jobs and the waste of skills and energies it engenders and sees a remedy for this in various reforms such as a shorter working week, a basic income scheme (here now renamed ‘a citizen’s dividend’), increased taxes on wealth, and open borders. From the socialist point of view, though Humankind is an impressive and important book, it’s a pity he didn’t go any further, since the changes he recommends, apart from being unlikely to happen given the nature of capitalism, would clearly not, even if enacted, get to the root of the problems caused by the money and profit system with its imperative to produce come what may for profit rather than for need.

There is, however, one point in Humankind in which the author does seem to make an argument against the money system by pointing out that in capitalist society, even of the Western democratic kind, ‘the threat of violence is still very much present, and it’s pervasive. It’s the reason families with children can be kicked out of their homes for defaulting on mortgage payments. It’s the reason why immigrants can’t simply stroll across the border in the fictions we call ‘Europe’ and ‘the United States’. And it’s also the reason we continue to believe in money (…) Money may be a fiction, but it’s enforced by the threat of very real violence’. Yet in the end, disappointingly, money and the violence behind it are not something he seems to want to look outside of. As in his previous work, he fails to go beyond recommending anything beyond what would in practice be relatively minor reforms to capitalism, easily withdrawn if the going got tough for profit making. Indeed, he’s on recent record as saying that ‘sometimes markets work best, sometimes the state has the best solution’. This is a pity, given that he expresses an unequivocal liking for the kind of non-hierarchical social arrangements which characterised the pre-agricultural past of our ancestors, people who were ‘allergic to inequality’ and ‘universally – and all but obsessively – concerned with being free from the authority of others’. What is the objection, therefore, to such arrangements – without the market and without the state and at a secure level of technology – for our own future now?

Howard Moss

Paris Commune 1871 (2021)

From the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

May 28 marks the 150th anniversary since the French Army captured the Communards’ final positions, officially marking the end of the Paris Commune, the first living example of workers in control of political power. Preceded by the Franco-Prussian War, which ended after Prussian forces besieged Paris for over four months, the Commune began on March 18, 1871, following a failed attempt by the French Army to seize 400 cannons that the Government of National Defence deemed ‘state property’, even though Parisians themselves paid for the cannons via a subscription. The French Army retreated to Versailles and Paris’s National Guard then took control of the city for over two months before the French Army could gather enough reinforcements to return and slaughter the Communards during Bloody Week. Along with the Prussian Army, who’d just defeated the French, they injured as many as 10,000 Communards and massacred as many as another 10,000, with 147 alone being shot at what’s now called Communards’ Wall in Père Lachaise cemetery the day before the French and Prussian armies fully suppressed the uprising. The French Army captured over 43,000 prisoners during and immediately after Bloody Week, 13,500 of whom were either sentenced to imprisonment, deportation, forced labour, or death.

Barricade at Paris 1871

The Paris Commune arguably stands out as the first peek at what the last phase of capitalism might have looked like, as well as what challenges the working class might face in attempting to surpass it. Though the Commune was ultimately foiled, events like this are always worth analysing for any lessons that can be learned, whether good or bad, and applied to the future.

The Good

One of the best aspects of the Commune was that it was leaderless. Leaders necessarily imply followers placing all their faith in them, even though no one’s infallible. Having a leader also allows an easy target to be picked off, incapacitating their followers at the drop of a hat. Rather than leaders, the Commune had mandated delegates, elected by the Communards themselves, who were recallable any moment the people felt a delegate wasn’t carrying out their will — a direct democracy. They also had plans to implement the same structure of self-government across the rural areas of France, having district assemblies in the central towns and having those send delegates to the National Delegation in Paris — decentralised self-government. Magistrates and judges were elected and immediately revocable, as well.

The Commune also passed a decree which implemented a separation of church and state, as well as another allowing everyone to attend school free of charge, with some arrondissements giving out free school supplies, clothes, and food for children — mutual aid. The police were also made revocable, and they abolished conscription, along with the standing army, declaring the National Guard — which included all citizens able to bear arms — as the Commune’s only armed force. Much to the surprise of the bourgeois government, there was no violence between Communards during the entire two months. Pensions were also granted to the unmarried companions and children of national guardsmen killed in active service. The death penalty was abolished and the guillotine was even brought out by the National Guard and publicly burned as the crowd celebrated.

It’s said that the highest salary given to an employee of the Commune was 6,000 francs, though that claim has been contested. Regardless, they abolished child labour, as well as night work for bakers, since it’s very difficult to get sleep while you’re cooking bread. Employees were given the right to take over and run any businesses that were abandoned by their owners and any fines imposed by employers on their employees were prohibited. All workmen’s tools and household items that were given to pawn shops during the siege, valued up to 20 francs, were returned for free and, later, the Commune ordered the closure of all pawn shops themselves, since they were deemed a private exploitation of labour. There was a moratorium on all rents during the siege, meaning they were supposed to be paid back afterward, but the Commune forgave all rent for homes from October 1870 through April 1871, with any amounts already paid counting instead towards future rent, along with a postponement of commercial debt obligations, and the abolition of interest on any debts.

The Bad

It’s much easier to play Monday morning quarterback with uprisings rather than actually participate in them, but it’s always important to take a critical look at these kinds of situations to parse out any decisions made due to bad circumstances from those made due to bad foresight. One of the first that stands out is the fact that, despite many women playing important roles in the Commune, they weren’t allowed to vote in the Commune elections. Only three countries had ever granted women suffrage before this, but — considering the fact that the Communards were seeking economic equality — it wouldn’t have been much of an ideological leap to extend that equality to women, too. Another drawback was the fact that they opted to keep the Commune Council’s meetings secret, citing war with the bourgeois government as their reason. They obviously should’ve tried their best to prevent any sensitive information from getting back to the French Army, though perhaps a reasonable middle ground could’ve been reached.

Aside from those decisions, there were a couple made that were pretty useless. One was the adoption of the French Republican Calendar. Considering the Commune was still at war, finagling with the date should have been the last thing on anyone’s mind, if only because it could complicate communications with allies outside the city. Communards also took to burning various buildings and monuments, two of the most prominent being the Vendôme Column and the home of Adolphe Thiers, the chief executive of the French government during the Commune. While individuals may decide to do that themselves, the only things the Commune administration should have been focused on at that time were keeping Parisians alive and surviving as a political institution— and burning buildings assists with neither of those.

As far as the financial decisions go, the Communards decided to take a loan from the Rothschild Bank to cover their expenses, rather than seize the 254 million francs in gold coins and banknotes left inside the vaults of the Bank of France — essentially leaving their greatest bargaining chip on the table. Had the Commune threatened to collapse the French currency, they might have got Thiers to do anything they wanted. Not only did they neglect to exploit that opportunity, but if employees took over a business, they also recognised the previous owner’s right to compensation. Employers rob employees for their surplus value and, by virtue of that alone, would have no reasonable right to compensation in this circumstance. That money could instead be used for more mutual aid.

Another big issue was censorship and repression. The Commune banned multiple pro-Versailles newspapers and created a Committee of Public Safety to hunt down and imprison enemies of the Commune, in the same vein as the Committee of the same name which committed the infamous Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Considering how many times efforts like this had taken a turn for the worse before, the Commune should have avoided them at all costs. They also issued a decree which accused the Catholic Church of ‘complicity in the crimes of the monarchy’, arresting roughly 200 church officials afterward, along with another decree later called the Decree on Hostages, which stated that for every prisoner of war or Commune official that was executed by the French Army, the Commune would execute three hostages. However, it’s worth noting that, despite this decree and the fact that the French Army executed multiple Communards beforehand, the Commune executed none of their hostages until after the start of Bloody Week — and even then it was only 63, which pales in comparison to the roughly 10,000 Communards murdered in cold blood during that same week by the French and Prussian armies.

Arguably, there were also more than a few mistakes made on the military front. A major setback happened when the National Guard tried to march on the French Army in Versailles. The National Guard took power after the French soldiers refused to fire on them once instructed to during the soldiers’ attempted seizure of the cannons. The Communards naively assumed the same thing would happen again and advanced without cavalry, artillery, food, ammunition, or ambulances. Not only that, but they didn’t even scout the area ahead, subsequently passing a line of forts on the way that they thought were occupied by more national guardsmen but which had actually just been re-occupied by the French Army, causing the National Guard to suffer heavy artillery fire as a result.

As the French Army was returning to recapture Paris, divisions arose within the Commune about whether to give absolute priority to military defence, or to political and social freedoms and reforms. This decision honestly should’ve been a no-brainer, considering that any reforms would be undone if the Commune were to be drowned in blood. A key fort, Fort d’Issy, was captured by the French Army and the National Guard left the fortifications undefended by one part of the city wall at Point-du-Jour, allowing 60,000 soldiers to enter the city within a few hours. Without an overall planned defence or many barricades having been prepared in advance, it quickly turned into a bloodbath. To add insult to injury, when the Commune Council found out the walls of Paris had been breached, they were holding a trial for a former General — something that clearly could’ve waited until the war was over — and the last military commander they’d chosen, Louis Charles Delescluze, was a journalist who had absolutely zero military experience.

Most importantly, though, even if the Communards had done everything correctly, they were still acting prematurely. Not only was the majority of the working class still not socialist, but the majority of the Communards weren’t socialists in the proper sense, either. Aside from that, capitalism was still in its relative infancy, far from the complete global hegemony we’ve reached now and any developments that are bound to happen in the future. As frustrating as it may be, we have to remember that, no matter how badly a minority of the working class may want to establish socialism, they’ll fail until the material conditions have developed for them to succeed — two key conditions being productive forces capable of sustaining a socialist society, as well as a vast majority of the global working class understanding what socialism is and what responsibilities it would entail, while actively wanting to establish it. Nonetheless, the Commune was a noble effort that will surely go down in history as one of, if not the greatest, attempt at liberating the proletariat.

Jordan Levi

(WSPUS)

Marx’s considered opinion on the Paris Commune:

“[A]part from the fact that this was merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no sense socialist, nor could it be. With a small amount of sound common sense, however, they could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people — the only thing that could be reached at the time. The appropriation of the Bank of France alone would have been enough to dissolve all the pretensions of the Versailles people in terror, etc., etc.” (Letter to F.D. Nieuwenhuis, 22 February 1881) (see Marxist Archive)

Editorial: The Working Week (1960)

Editorial from the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the nineteenth century trade unions struggled for shorter hours and meant just that. In post-war years, when low unemployment should have made it rather less difficult to press claims, campaigns for shorter hours have become disguised efforts to get more overtime pay.

In 1938 when the standard working week for most industries was 48 or 47 hours the inquiry made by the Ministry of Labour into pay and hours in manufacturing industry showed that the men were on average doing 47.7 hours.

In 1946 and 1947 the standard week was generally reduced to 44 and the hours actually worked averaged 46.6. By 1952 they were back again to the 1938 level of 47.7, and in October, 1959, averaged 48.5.

Now a new movement is bringing the standard week below 44. In the past few months agreements have been reached covering four million workers, the new hours being mostly 42, but in 1959 the numbers of workers on overtime was increasing again after an earlier fall. It remains to be seen, when the shorter hours agreements come into effect, whether the earlier experience will repeat itself and 'shorter hours' in fact become longer.

Editorial: Profits and Wages (1960)

Editorial from the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British propertied class came out of the war much worse off than when they went in but in the past few years they have been moving towards their former position. The phrase used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is that what has happened since 1952 “ has about restored the balance.”

This arose out of a question put by Mr. Douglas Jay on 22nd March, 1960, about the increase of wage rates and dividends. Mr. Heathcote Amory replied that whereas weekly wage rates have increased by about 42 per cent, between 1952 and January, 1960, and by about 3½ per cent. between 1958 and January, 1960, provisional estimates about dividend payments show that dividends paid by companies on ordinary shares in 1959 were about 78 per cent. higher than in 1952 and about 12 per cent. higher than in 1958.

The reply was followed by a further interchange. Mr. Amory admitted to Mr. Jay that these figures show that under the Conservative governments “dividends have been increasing faster than wages,” but retorted that between 1938 and 1952 "dividends increased by only 30 per cent. whereas wages increased by 100 per cent. ”

Then Mr. Amory agreed with a Tory interjection that workers’ earnings (he probably meant wage rates) were falling behind the cost of living under the Labour government and have got ahead since.

Figures given in the official Economic Survey 1960 show that company dividends on ordinary' and preference shares rose by nearly 30 per cent. between 1955 and 1959 from £655 million to £848 million.

May Day (1960)

From the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The engraving (by William Blake after the painting by Collings) reproduced on the cover graphically represents May Day in 18th Century London. Prominent in the days celebrations were the little chimney sweeps (in the engraving they are shown holding dust pans—the symbol of their trade), who were annually released on May 1st from the bondage and brutality of their dangerous job.

When my mother died I was very young.

And my father sold me while yet my tongue 

Could scarcely cry “ 'weep! ’weep! 'weep' 'weep' "

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

Blake

The E.T.U. and the Press (1960)

From the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists take every opportunity of examining and commenting on all the facets of capitalist society, including that much-publicised field, at the moment, anyway, trade unions. We oppose all other political parties, but when dealing with trade unions the fact that the leadership of any particular union has a political bias does not affect our judgment of their activities on the industrial field. As good or as bad as they may be, we recognise that trade unions are the weapon of the working class in the field of industry, and we therefore support the principle of trade unionism, rather than trade unions.

In line with this reasoning, let us take a look at the Electrical Trades Union. Readers will no doubt be aware of the large amount of publicity that has been given to it—charges of malpractice, rigged ballots and Communist Party interference in the running of its affairs. In fact, over the last two years, the working class, and the electricians in particular, have been subjected to a veritable barrage of “information” and “advice” about their leaders. This culminated in the re-election of the General Secretary, Frank Haxell (much to the disgust of the daily and weekly press) with a lower majority than he obtained five years ago.

In the past, members of the Communist Party have been elected to trade union posts and although the press have commented on these, it has not been with the same ferocity and abuse that has been meted out to the E.T.U. There is no doubt that the Communist Party's allegiance to the Soviet Union has been largely responsible for this, but this is not the only reason: another, and, we think, more important view was contained in an editorial printed in The Guardian (25/2/60). under the heading “T.U.C. Troubles.’’

  The strike weapon was forged in the last century, when local industry was largely self-sufficient, and a strike was often the only way of bringing grievances to attention. Today a strike should be a weapon of last resort—it is absurd to make thousands of workpeople in the motor factories lose wages because of a dispute in one firm that happens to make a vital component.

And it offers a solution:

  If power to call a strike were delegated to a Motor Industry Committee of the T.U.C., the strike would become the weapon of last resort that it ought to be. 

No doubt this would be an admirable solution for the capitalist class. One can imagine the inter-union strife that would go on between the smaller craft unions and the large unskilled unions, especially in the motor industry, before they even agreed that a strike was necessary, with the consequent delay and effect on the workers’ wages and conditions. And if the observations of some trade union leaders like Mr Carron of the A.E.U. are any guide one could visualise an attempt to outlaw strikes with the approval of the T.U.C.

Now, where does the E.T.U. fit into this? First, it must be made known that although they are the seventh largest union in the T.U.C., they have no representative on the T.U.C. General Council. This is the result of the block voting of the two great general unions, the Transport and General Workers and the General and Municipal Workers, ostensibly because of the ET.U.’s “Communism,” but probably also because of their militancy and the fact that they have not always been prepared to play ball with the T.U.C. on a number of vital issues. Notably among these were their criticisms of the wage freeze when the Labour Party was in power after the war.

This, we contend, is the type of activity that should be supported by the T.U.C., not the Guardian “Motor Industry Committee,” which would basically protect the interest of the motor industry section of the capitalist class.

But this is not all. The Guardian Editorial also said:

  The real sickness of the E.T.U. is not the conduct of elections but the fact that its President and General Secretary were members of a Party alien to everything that British trade unionism stands for, and if the pitiful rump of electricians who care enough about their union to vote in its elections want to have Communists as their officers they are entitled to their choice.

No doubt The Guardian would like to see officers hand-picked by "appointments," as operates in a number of other unions. No, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The electrical worker today is one of the highest basic paid workers in industry. On top of this, he is a key worker. No wonder the vast monolith of capitalism, with its interdependence of workers, is worried about the E.T.U. So long as a trade union acts in the interest of its members it is fulfilling its proper function on the industrial field.

Perhaps the last word can be given to the Financial Times, which had this to say about the leadership of the E.T.U. (22/2/60):

  The leaders of the E.T.U. are clearly successful. They are able negotiators who drive a hard bargain, and they are not above uttering the occasional threat which everyone knows they will carry out.

In conclusion, we have this to say to trade unionists. Your right to strike has been bitterly fought for in the past: be careful that you protect it in the future, irrespective of the views of any newspaper or trade union leaders.

J. P. E.

Blogger's Note:

I'd bet one of my bitcoins that J.P.E. was Johnny Edmonds. Same initials and the connection with Electricians Union.

Socialism or Nationalisation (1960)

From the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Only when industry and transport etc, are owned and democratically controlled by the whole community can service to the whole community be a reality. Nationalisation or State Capitalism is not the solution to the problem."

Nationalisation or Socialism?  (1/-)

Finance and Industry: The New Pound Note (1960)

The Finance and Industry Column from the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New Pound Note

Several newspapers have commented on the continuation in the new pound note of the meaningless words “Bank of England Promise to pay the Bearer on Demand the sum of one pound,’’ and have wondered why it has not been dropped. Not that it was always meaningless. When gold coins circulated as currency, before 1914, the promise meant, by law, that the holder of a £5 Bank of England note (there were no £1 notes) could demand gold coin for it over the bank counter. And that meant that the purchasing power of the note was always the same as that of the legally defined weight of gold contained in the coins. If the law had remained unchanged and if the promise still had meaning the holder of a pound note could demand from the Bank a sovereign, or gold pound, the present price of which in the gold market is over 60s.

The fall in the value of the note corresponds to the combined effect of the pound having been reduced from 4.86 American dollars to 2.8 dollars, and the gold content of the dollar having been reduced by nearly half in 1934; so that the pound note represents only about a third of the gold it represented in 1914. This has been brought about by the inflation of the currency. Yet all that the Radcliffe Committee on the Monetary System had to say in its report last year was:

  The authorities have explained to us in evidence that they do not regard the supply of bank notes as being the only, nor nowadays the only important, supply of money . . . bank notes are in effect the small change of the monetary system. (Para. 348.)

“Small change” is an odd term to apply to an increase in the note issue by about £1,670 million, from the £530 million of 1938 to the present £2,200 million.

And when the Committee added that “the government’s function in issuing notes is simply the passive one of ensuring that sufficient notes are available for the practical convenience of the public,” they might have recalled that historically every government that has helped to pay its way by the printing press has made the same plea and disowned responsibility for the effect in raising prices.

Cinema Tax

When the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the abolition of the cinema tax the Cinematograph Exhibitor’s Association said there was no chance of a reduction in seat prices “because it had always been part of the industry’s case in pressing for abolition that it needed the money.” (The Guardian, 5/4/60.)

Apparently the tobacco firms also “need the money” because they are putting up prices by the amount of the extra 2d. duty on 20 cigarettes.

Angry newspaper readers have written many letters of protest at the “unfairness” of it all.

In fact, the eventual outcome will not depend on what the interests think they need, but on what they can get away with; the economists call it “what the market will bear.” If competition is keen enough they will all have second thoughts.

The taxation experts who advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer look at it differently. If an industry is doing very well there is room for the government to skim off some of their excess profit. That was the situation in 1916 when entertainment duty was first levied. Now that the industry has fallen on hard times, taxation revenue declines and the point could be reached that it would be hardly worth the expense of collection.

More about Russian Gold

The Guardian (8/4/60) published an informative article by Mr. Victor Zorza reviewing developments in the Russian gold-mining industry since the changeover from dependence on the compulsory labour of political and other prisoners to the growing introduction of workers attracted by prospects of higher wages and a share in their finds. Some former prisoners have been freed though still confined to the gold mine areas. He quotes estimates by non-Russian “experts” ranging from an output almost equal to South Africa’s to a figure about half that amount and expresses the opinion that output must have fallen greatly with the decline of prison labour, though the introduction of up-to-date industrial techniques of mining may be expected to raise it again. His own view is that Russia may not possess the big gold reserves sometimes assumed to exist, and that the big sales of Russian gold in world markets in recent years may be not far below total output.

Fifty years ago under the Czar’s government gold prospectors instead of selling the gold to the government at the fixed price often smuggled it into Japan where they got the much higher world price. Things have not changed. Prospectors are still supposed to sell to the government, but Zorza reproduces from the Russian press accounts of gold mine prospectors of today smuggling the gold out of Siberia to Moscow and making a handsome gain. One miner awaiting trial is alleged to have got away with half a ton, worth over £200,000 in the world market. And just to remind us of the similarities of Capitalism east and west of the Iron Curtain the same issue of The Guardian publishes news of one of the series of cases from Pakistan of people (including airline stewards) charged with smuggling gold across the frontier.

By-Product of Automation

Automation, because it involves huge expenditure on expensive plant, gives the employers an additional motive for going over to shift working, so that the plant is not lying idle for a large part of the 24 hours. The T.U.C. report Automation and the Trade Unions noted this: — 

  “In order to obtain the greatest possible use of expensive plant and equipment, it is not unlikely that the growth of automation will be accompanied by efforts to extend shift working.”

For many years trade unions tried to resist shift and night work and nobody can pretend that from the workers' standpoint it is not a worsening of conditions. The March issue of the T.U.C. monthly, Labour, summarises a report on the problems that arise when shift work is introduced:

  Domestic life of the family is suddenly upset; feeding and sleeping arrangements are disturbed and leisure time curtailed. The strain on a wife in such circumstances is “considerable,” says the report, particularly if a shift rota system involves a succession of changes.

Along with the difficulty of the workers trying to sleep in the daytime in a noisy home, there is the problem of getting meals at awkward hours and the problem of finding transport to and from work.

One of the attractions of automation noted by the government booklet Automation in Perspective is that ”automation lowers cost and can help to keep British goods competitive in price with those of other countries’’—and the other countries will of course be doing the same in order to keep competitive with British prices. As far as the extension of shift working is concerned it introduces a new concept of capitalist society, living worse to keep down with the foreign Joneses.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: The German Social Democratic Party (1960)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Social Democratic Party in Germany occupies a similar position to the party similarly named here. Its programme (the Erfurter Programme) consists of the theoretical part, based on the teachings of Marx—the materialist conception of history, the surplus value theory and the class struggle—and the practical, consisting of reforms and palliatives; and we allege that the whole existence of the German S.D.P. has been spent in the advocacy of those reforms, to the detriment of Socialist propaganda. In the early days of our Party we held the erroneous view . . . that the German workers must obtain certain reforms because the revolution from feudalism to Capitalism was not complete. But we found that conditions there make a Socialist Party quite as possible as here.

From the
 Socialist Standard, May, 1910.

The German Social Democratic Party, reformed after the collapse of the Hitler regime, recently adopted a new programme from which the theoretical link with Marxism and also the commitment to wholesale nationalisation has been dropped.

Schlock, Payola and Gyp Sellers (1960)

From the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in stirring times. Rockets landing on the moon, bigger and more powerful weapons to ensure peace, and scientifically minded and humane world leaders prepared to use these weapons if peace is no longer possible. Capitalist civilisation in the mid-twentieth century has certainly produced a unique morality and given us poor ignorant workers a set of social values very difficult to live down to.

Consider the advertising profession. Is it not one of the most typical of capitalism’s great institutions, and also one of the most necessary processes between the raw material and the commodity we consume? If there was no advertising, how would we know that our very life depended on our using pink toothpaste? In fact, without advertising, how would we know what to eat, drink, wear, inject, smoke, etc.? We would be completely lost.

But now, of course, we have Commercial Television, and can therefore learn all these vital facts while sitting in a state of complete mental relaxation (or even stupor) in a darkened room before the Magic Screen. It puzzles us considerably how our forefathers existed without television, and yet they seemed to bumble along somehow.

Recent investigations show, however, that television is nowadays assuming its rightful place in the home. A survey of 200 homes in a town in Northern England revealed that three homes had bathtubs, six had hot water, four had their own toilets, but 125 had television sets!

Time magazine of 9/11/59 quotes Mr. Walter Lippmann (a famous American critic) as saying that the U.S. laissez-faire policy has turned TV into "the creature, the servant, and indeed the prostitute, of merchandising.”

Mr. Lippmann’s strong words were uttered following disclosures that certain American TV quiz programmes were “fixed." As is only right and proper when a National God is in danger, a minister of religion (and also a participant in the quiz shows) girded his loins and defended his God (Time, 16/11/59). “Most of us have a great deal of larceny in us," drawled the Rev. Charles ("Stony") Jackson of Tullahoma, Tenn. "The fact that I am an ordained minister does not make me a saint.”

If a licensed representative of the Almighty can fall into temptation, is it any wonder that lesser mortals (including children) were persuaded to collaborate in the deceptions of the quiz shows? The same edition of Time reports that “. . . of 150 quiz witnesses who appeared before the New York County grand jury and swore before God (or on their affirmations) to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no less than 100, said District Attorney Frank Hogan, had lied.. . .” Obviously these upright, honest, American citizens had been well trained by their contact with the elevating atmosphere of Commercial Television, which in turn draws inspiration from the worthy sponsors of its programmes.

A former advertising chief of one firm involved in the “fixed quiz show” saga neatly summed up the whole subject when he thought that producers “ were living between the mixed values of show business and advertising, and moral values were lost sight of ” (Time, same issue).

"Moral values” notwithstanding, it is plain that, under the beneficent influence of this great “free enterprise" system of ours, the marketer of commodity A must employ ail means (fair or foul) to beat the marketer of commodity B to the lion’s share of the market. One of the means he employs is to purchase the talents, the "integrity,” the showing time, etc., of TV networks, which, in turn employ all means (fair or foul) to attract audiences for their programmes.

These recent disclosures of some of the mystical practices and rituals of commercial television have been said to "tarnish" that great institution’s "Image." it is all rather as if someone had testified that the Virgin Mary was not really a virgin at all, and that the "miracle cures 'at Lourdes were faked.

Payola

"Everybody has become so suspicious that if you say ‘Oh, my God!’ on television, people think you're being paid off by the Holy Father." (Famous actor quoted in Time, 23/9/59.) Now actors, like other workers, must live. They must pay their agents and their psychiatrists, pay off their former wives, eat, etc. And, to help make both ends meet, it is only natural for them to look out for some “perks’’—such as the rewards they get for mentioning brand names of commodities (or even making indirect references to such commodities) on television programmes. For instance, one famous comedian said, "Look, Mom, no cavities! ” (the slogan ot a certain brand of toothpaste) on a TV show, and another comedian greeted a guest star with, "What’s this you're wearing—My Sin? ’’ This "plug" was reported to have resulted in "payola" to the tune of $1,000.

If it were not for those gentlemen (called "disk jockeys") who play gramophone records on radio and television, how many of us would ever hear or remember the folk music of our day which emanates from such inspired sources as Archer Street in London? Fortunately for us, these wise men are quick to spot the very best records and then see to it that we hear them over the air at frequent intervals. For the record industry is a thriving one, and record companies will pay a lot of money to sell us excellent records of, say, the amatory aspirations of pre-pubertal boys.

No doubt our readers will by now appreciate that disk-jockeys only tend to “ride” (i.e., ‘plug”) these winning records if they are offered some inducement. Some may consider that the mere playing of these musical treasures would be reward enough, but we regret to state that many disk-jockeys in America have been discovered to have accepted monetary rewards or expensive presents. Some of the more influential disk jockeys have financial interests in record companies and even singers; this may possibly also influence their choice of records.

The latest development in this interesting chapter of honesty and “morality” in American show-business is the emergence of a specialised type of “payola" —to wit, “girl payola” American record companies were recently reported to have shipped two aircraft loads of girls to "entertain" disk-jockeys attending a conference in Miami; doubtless the record companies hoped that, inspired by the love of a good woman, a disk-jockey would oblige by playing (repeatedly) the “right” record on his show after the tiring conference was over. Could business ethics and “morality” be better exemplified?

Despite McCarthy-like government investigations most people involved in the “music business” in America would prefer to retain the status quo, “payola" and all. As Time reports: “The last thing most people in this industry want is to clean it up,” admitted one musician, “ It’s too lucrative for too many people.”

Gypping the Sucker

Thanks to the benign influence of modern commercial television, the fairground quack, the huckster, and the pavement confidence-trickster, have been incorporated in those intellectual offerings of the Silver Screen—the “commercials.” American TV audiences have been so saturated with their high-pressure brand of “commercials” that a special device (called a “blab-off” switch), by which the exhortations of the peddler of a commodity may be summarily silenced, is in great demand. The sale of these “blab-off” switches is much deprecated by the sponsors.

But we digress. Despite apparent differences, the fairground huckster and the TV "commercial" are fundamentally similar: there must be, in both cases, the capitalist duality of seller and buyer. As the chairman of the American Federal Trade Commission investigating alleged dishonesty in advertising methods stated (Time, 4/1/60): "In the blunt language of the street . . . the gyp seller depends on the sucker buyer and can't exist without him." Thus the "gyp seller" and the "sucker buyer" take their place alongside other classical dualities—Holmes and Watson, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and capitalist and worker.

Here are some interesting little deceptions practised by American TV "commercials":

 Sticking food particles to a plate before putting it in a dishpan to demonstrate the inferiority of a competitor’s detergent.

  Lacing breakfast cereal with ice cream so that child models will smile with delight at being served the advertiser’s particular brand. 

  Saturating a sponge with a powerful bleach to prove how one cleanser leaves a stained sink sparkling white, while competing brands leave black smudges.

  Filling a coffee pot with hot wine because real coffee tends to photograph like crankcase sludge.

   Icing a bake-it-yourself cake with shaving cream because real icing melts under hot floodlights.

(Time, 4/1/60.)

Even responsible executives in the American advertising hierarchy feel that deception in advertising methods would be difficult to eradicate. Said one (Time, 4/1/60): “Dishonest advertising is here. It is real. And whatever the percentage, the amount is large and is not diminishing.” The same outspoken executive went on to ask: “How can four different cigarettes all be lowest in nicotine, lowest in tars; how can three different headache remedies all work fastest? ” He has us there.

One of the most important principles of our private property society is “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Members or representatives of the owning class pay large sums of money in attempts to capture the market from their rivals, and are not greatly concerned about the methods employed. In other words, the end justifies the means; a philosophy which must inevitably lead to trickery, dishonesty and cynicism.

Those who support the private property system would no doubt argue that advertising, “commercial” TV, “show business" (in. short, the topics we have discussed here) are examples of “freedom,” “democracy," and “incentive" — alleged hallmarks of capitalism.

Socialists would rather argue that capitalism, with its inexorable drive for expanding markets and more profits, is forced to foster cheating, sham values, artificial desires, and inequality (both political and economic), in its blind drive to its goal—the sale of the commodity.

This thumb-nail sketch of the kind of world capitalism has made, with its own peculiarly twisted type of "morality," may help to show why ordinary workers, who would normally never dream of cheating at a card game with friends, are drawn into the sordid deceits of “phoney” quiz shows. It is of particular interest to Socialists because the deceits and trickery of the advertising business are only reflections of much larger deceptions—those of the apologists, politicians, and spokesmen of capitalism. Perhaps by aiming our Socialist dart at one target, we may hit both. '

Michael La Touche

A Man’s Eye View of Evolution (1960)

From the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is no longer a moot, question or a matter of opinion whether the theory of organic evolution (Darwinism) is valid or not. The science editor of Saturday Review, John Lear, in a special Darwin issue (14/11/59) says:

 . . . the irrefutable evidence (proves) that living things—from invisible microbes to man—slowly acquired their present dimensions, properties and functions (including consciousness) under such analyzable natural law as variations and natural selection.

This general acceptance of Darwin's epoch-making contribution underlies the widespread celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. There is hardly a popular journal that has not had a special issue devoted to Darwinism.

It is especially significant that Darwinism has uprooted religious superstitions. In spite of the appearances of religious growth and persistence, hardly any one is any longer religious in his own daily spheres of activities. Apologists usually qualify their defence of religion with statements that transform their “convictions" into statements of ethics and morals. A case in point is no less an authority than Samuel Miller, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, who wrote in a featured article, devoted to Darwinism, in the Saturday Review (14/11/59);

  The whole imaginative structure of Christian truth, elaborated in myth and symbol, for the most part has crumbled under the impact of the last three centuries of revolutionary thought, scientific methods, and historical studies. The vision of reality articulated in this great Biblical formulary has evaporated and no longer serves as the frame of reference for elucidating the mysteries of being human . . . We have reached a new maturity of freedom from superstition and credulity.

And John Lear (referred to above) goes a step further:

  Our now misplaced supernaturalism. slightly mitigated, but persisting into the new Age of Science, has left our social and political leadership unprepared to define accurately our present problems. 

We find the key for the understanding of biological evolution in Darwinism, which deals with the evolution of biological organs in particular, the evolution of animal organs transmitted through heredity. Marxism may be summarized as the study of the social evolution of human tools (the deliberate planning and making of things to be used by man) as a substitute for animal organs. Progress of man may be seen in his ever-increasing mastery over nature, traced through the evolution of his material conditions of existence.

Both Darwinism and Marxism have the same purpose of explaining the processes enabling living beings to ensure their food and life.

Darwinism shows why those animals best adapted survive in the struggle for life and transplant their more suitable qualities on to their progeny. What is selected and transplanted is their equipment—their organs. These organs are part of the body and are subject to biological laws of heredity and variation.

Marxism, in its examination of man’s evolution, is the study of tools, outside the body. Man’s struggle for existence is carried on with tools. Its evolution is a social phenomenon and not a biological one. Man is not limited by biological restrictions as is the rest of the animal kingdom. Man is not limited to specific modes of life or natural environments. With the aid of tools he adapts himself to varying climates and changing conditions. Whilst his bodily equipment essentially has not changed for tens of thousands of years, his “artificial organs” (tools) have enabled him to adapt to constant and rapid changes. (It might be said that man, with his knowledge of biological laws, is bringing to a close the biological evolution of the previous billions of years. Truly, man is on the verge of becoming master over his own destiny.)

Materialism

The reason why the Marxists of 1859 were among the very first to hail Darwinism was the realization of a landmark in corroborating the validity of the materialist attitude that there are physical-material explanations for all phenomena and that everything is interrelated and in a constant process of motion and change. Modern science is becoming aware that there is neither dualism (the concept of the universe being two-fold, the spirit world and the material world) nor design in nature and that it is monist (the concept that all existence is an interrelated whole with no independent parts).

Coupled together, Darwinism and Marxism were powerful blows against superstition and led the way to the realization of the evolution of existence. Who would deny, today, that there was a time when there were no men or even living organism? Anyone aware of geological truths would not dispute that there was a time without the existence of the earth. Less understood is that there was a time without astronomy and without mass (matter in the form of particles). What more appropriate occasion to point out the spreading recognition of evolutionary processes in all phases of infinite existence than in these comments dealing with Darwinism and Marxism.

We next proceed to the ambitious task of correlating the multitude of scientific explorations and contributions into a unified outlook on science, as an interrelated whole, establishing the patterns of evolutionary processes that bring us up to the present.

Let us summarize a man’s eye view of the evolution of existence in light of today’s science. It is a summary of processes and not mechanisms. It is concerned with generalizations and not specific details. Both Darwinism and Marxism are on sound grounds in their generalizations of processes, yet history may and does reveal errors in their specific details and applications.

All existence may be classified into five major stages: Matter, Astronomy, Geology, Biology and Sociology.

By its very nature, existence is never at rest, it is in a constant process of motion resulting in a parade of changes. The further one goes back, the simpler, more widespread and longer-enduring are the stages. In the evolutionary process, each succeeding progression emerging out of its antecedents becomes more complex and less widespread. Each later stage is but a particular phase of the preceding larger general stage of evolution.

The all-encompassing generalization of all existence is matter, from which rose astronomy. Eventually, geology—the child of astronomy—appeared on the scene, one of its consequences being biology, from which sprang sociology.

The above description of motion and change also applies within the development of each of these great generalized stages of existence, as well.

In a word, we are tracing, here, the evolution of existence from its simpler and earlier form as energy to its latest and most complex form as capitalism.

All existence consists of matter. Matter is not confined to mass, however (things that are tangible and occupy space). Energy is also matter. The very strides in atomic physics are the visible demonstration that both energy and mass are forms of matter—are material. The famous Einstein formula (Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light) speeded up the actual conversion by man of tangible mass into intangible energy (NOT the release of energy already stored up in mass, such as the heat energy in coal). Likewise, intangible energy can be converted to mass.

The earliest and most abundant phenomenon of existence that we are aware of is energy. [1]

Over countless eons of time, eventually, a single positively-charged proton became the nucleus around which a single, negatively-charged electron revolved. This object was both a form of energy and a form of mass. It is hydrogen, the simplest and the most plentiful (over 99 per cent.) of all the mass in existence.

Evolution can be visualized in the atomic scale which lists elements by the quantities of electrons in their atoms. Elements start with hydrogen (one electron), the first element, then helium (two electrons), all the way up to uranium and the man-made elements.

Eventually, elements combined into molecules. The earliest molecules were gasses, later liquids and the highest form of mass is solids; each form of mass is distinguished from the other by the speed and distance of their electrons in their orbits and also by their organisation within the molecule.

The evolution of matter is from its simplest form as energy to its most complex form as solids.

The embryo of astronomy was nurtured in the evolution of energy into mass. Not until the particle, hydrogen atom, appeared did space come into existence. Space is a relationship of mass, it has no meaning, otherwise.

Evolution in astronomy is traced by densities; the earlier stages being less dense and the higher stages being relatively dense. The most rarified aspect of astronomy is intergalactic space. The space between galaxies constitutes over 99 per cent. of all astronomical existence and illustrates how relatively insignificant is the amount of mass in the cosmos. The density of intergalactic space is estimated to be one hydrogen atom per cubic meter. Man has been unable to even come close to this sort of a vacuum in the laboratory. The next higher stage in astronomy is interstellar space, which consists of one hydrogen atom per cubic centimeter. Then arose planetary nebulae with thousands of hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter and which is quite a vacuum on its own merits. The next higher development in astronomy is stellar atmosphere with its millions of hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. Finally, came the stars and, in particular, our own star, the sun.

Our vast solar system, with its fantastic distances, is like a small pebble near the outer edge of the Milky Way, our own galaxy. Our sun is but one of billions of suns in the Milky Way. All these stars, put together, are dwarfed into a tiny fragment of the area of our galaxy. Then, there are groups of galaxies forming an astronomical system known as a cluster. Sometimes, these clusters are called universes (the term, “universe” is also used to refer to both a galaxy and the cosmos). There are billions of clusters each with billions of galaxies. And all, clusters and galaxies, revolve around a centre and have orbits. The term, cosmos, usually refers to the entirety of astronomical phenomena.

Isaac Rab

(WSPUS)

(To be concluded next month)

[1] We have no information about evolution within energy but we do know that the properties of energy are related to their frequencies.

From the Branches (1960)

Party News from the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Standard

It is good news indeed that the March issue of the Standard was sold out. The Comrades responsible for distribution and sales were able to plan ahead, noting various meetings and demonstrations being held and with good support from Comrades, successfully disposed of the whole issue. This is good news indeed and augers well for the summer outdoor propaganda season. The aim should be buy more from the printer and sell more to the people who need to learn about Socialism.

* * *

Outdoor Propaganda commenced in April and should be in full swing by May and the remainder of the summer. Details of meeting spots are given on the meetings page and Comrades are urged to note the times and places and support all the meetings at all times.

* * *

Islington

Islington Branch is holding a lecture—The Socialist Party—on Thursday, May 12th, at 7.45 p.m. Comrade C. Michael is the speaker and the meeting place, Co-op. Hall, 129, Seven Sisters Road, N.7 (near Finsbury Park Tube Station).

* * *

North West Kent

Will any readers in the Bexleyheath, Crayford, Dartford, Erith, Gravesend and Welling areas of North West Kent interested in the formation of a discussion group, communicate with H, J. Wilson, 7 Cyril Road, Bexleyheath, Kent (phone Bexleyheath 19S0).

Bristol

The Party platform will be on Durdham Downs every Sunday during the summer. First meeting, Sunday, May 1st. Comrades and sympathisers in the district are asked to support these meetings. The Downs are ideal for outdoor meetings and as proved in the past—very successful meetings have been held.

Phyllis Howard