Tit-Bits from the Press (1941)

From the September 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Journalism – Twentieth Century

The dishing up of news in the newspaper world is a complicated one with many facets, but in general it may be said, particularly with regard to articles and news items prepared in this country for home consumption, that they have to be written up in such a way that they will appear to support the policy advocated by the newspaper in which they appear. The quizzical attitude in which journalists have come to look upon their profession is exemplified in the following paragraph from the Newspaper World, of June 28th last: —

 The vindication of King Leopold of the Belgians is a perfect example of the need to walk warily the difficult path of newspaper criticism in war-time. Many writers must be wondering now how long it will be before they must think up nice things to say about Stalin. You never know where you are these days. It is not wise to put out the tongue which should be left in its neat resting place—the cheek.

It was on June 22nd that Germany attacked Russia, and prior to this date it was definitely not the fashion to “write up” the wonderful qualities of the Russian dictator.

R.M.

50 Years Ago: Words, Words, Words . . . (2004)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The style of the Standard then, as now, owed to two principal sources: the sociological textbooks of the time and popular journalism. From the latter it drew a peculiar Joe Miller waggishness that was part of the stock-in-trade of successful newspaper columnists, easier to exemplify than describe. Thus, the Editorial Committee apologizing for a writer who had not made himself clear to a correspondent: “He developed what he calls his style by studying a burr-walnut piano case in foggy weather”. A debate with a suffragette was irresistible, and its report was resplendent with quips about “ye gallant knight Anderson” and “the poor girl”. Perhaps the acme of this sort of wit was with a highly dramatic poem which had the refrain:

“Go! Reckon your dead by your forges red,

And in factories where we spin;

If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,

By Christ! We have paid in full.”

The poem was called “Gawd Struth We Have.”

The writers on economics, socialist theory and political issues put forth their subject-matter lucidly and without frills or ambiguities; style which came naturally through close acquaintance with Engels, Kautsky, Plechanov and the other classical exponents of Marxism. The popularisation of academic and technical subjects influenced later writers, and is still doing so – “science for the citizen” has made its mark. Just as on the platform, the people addressed are more widely informed and less concerned with theoretical questions. That does not mean, however, that the modern writer – or speaker – may neglect theory; it means that he must apply it more widely in a world with wider horizons.

And so it goes on; the business of persuading people to think straight, because that is what the Socialist wants. Words are our weapons. Words, words, words . . .

(From an article by R. Coster, Socialist Standard, September 1954)

A letter to the Fire Brigades’ Union (2004)

From the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear General Secretary,

At its meeting of 3rd July 2004 our Executive Committee asked me to write to you to express our welcome of your union’s recent decision to reverse your historic mistake of affiliating to the Labour Party.

For nearly 100 years the Socialist Party has held a clear and consistent position that trade unions and political parties need to remain separate. We have considered it bizarre that trade unionists in public sector unions should hand over their dues money to their, effective, political employers. Feeding the hand that beat them.

We have observed that trade unions need freedom to manoeuvre and represent the interests of the membership – distinct groups within the working class.  This freedom of manoeuvre means getting the best deal for their members within capitalism, often as against the general policy of a political party, which has to at least attempt to represent the general interest of its constituency. Political parties and trade unions only harm each other by shackling themselves to one another.

In the case of the Labour Party in Britain, it is clear that there have been numerous clashes between themselves and the Unions. The Attlee government used troops to smash a dock-workers strike. Wilson’s government floundered over the refusal of the unions to accept the ‘In Place of Strife’ income controls policy. Your own union members were branded traitors and threatened with legislation to deprive them of their freedom to strike in your recent dispute.

This is not caused by individual wickedness of Labour ministers, but by the hard logic of administering capitalism.  The same hard logic that saw Labour governments tear up railways and close down more pits than the Tories ever did. Capitalism is founded on the principle of no profit no production, and if a government is to keep capitalism running, it must obey this hard and fast law.

We thus wish to express our hope that your union will not seek to affiliate with any other political party, and most specifically, not try to recreate the Old Labour disaster that has blighted the workers movement for more than a hundred years. We hope you will use all your union’s resources and funds to defend your members’ interests, rather than those of your political employers.

We further hope that your members will come to understand that any resolution of a pay-deal within capitalism means their continued exploitation by the tiny capitalist class, and that their best interest lies in joining their fellow workers in a movement with the express and single aim of “the abolition of the wages system” and its replacement with common ownership and the free association of producers.

Yours for the World Socialism,

Bill Martin (Acting General Secretary).

Same Old Answers (2004)

From the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Saturday 3 July, the lunchtime edition of ‘Any Questions’ on BBC Radio 4, that doyen of the Left Arthur Scargill made a return appearance onto the national stage. In the light of the recent experiences of the Left here and around the world, might he have revised his world outlook? Would the failure of Keynes, the rise of Thatcher and Reagan, the defeat of the miners’ strike, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of New Labour and numerous attempts to get his Socialist Labour Party elected, cause this once colossus of the Left to think a little wider about society?

Arthur’s lack of an understanding of our capitalist world was displayed when he called for Mr Bush and Mr Blair to be in the dock with the tyrant Saddam. He imagines that workers could, under his leadership, provide enough pressure to force capitalists in the USA to put their own man, Bush, on trial for dancing to their own tune.

Next, in answer to a question posed on the ex-Sainsbury Boss, Peter Davis’ £2m bonus that forced him out, Arthur declared he would, presumably if he were to become Prime Minister, nationalise Sainsbury’s, Tesco M & S and all the banks etc, etc and use the profits for the good of the workers and pensioners.

Here Arthur, like Tony Benn, George Galloway, Tommy Sheridan and the rest of the left, has learned nothing from the failures of both Keynes in the West and the Bolsheviks in the East.  Both groups in a similar way, the latter, slightly more extreme than the former, thought that they could make capitalism work in a national-centric arena for the workers and call the result: ‘Socialism In One Country’.

The left work to accomplish a compromise, as proposed by Keynes, with the ideology of the wages system which exploits human labour for profit and places a monetary value on that labour and its products (as commodities).  An ideology which fosters the creed of competition and contest, which leads to human estrangement, brings first squabbles among us then violence and ends with war and death.  An ideology which will deny the human race the talents of all the humans as many are blighted and stunted by a life of miserable wage labour producing useless and cheating products for market and in duplication 100 times over.  An ideology which will preserve the existing partition of humans into economic units (countries or regions) governed by leaders who will seek to protect their power and interests, which are different from the workers, through the rule of law and factitious process of parliamentary democracy.

Finally, Arthur called for more financial investment into the process where we, in Britain, could produce winners for the world sporting arenas.  Not just one Henman, but many many Henmans, across all the sports.

I guess old king coal is still a merry old soul, in his little world of grand delusions.

William Dunn

Obituary: George Meddemmen (2004)

Obituary from the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death at the end of June, at the age of 84, of our comrade George Meddemmen. He was born in Camberwell, South London, in 1920 and joined the old Bloomsbury branch in 1947. In later years he was a member of Central Branch living in Rayleigh, Essex. Comrade Meddemmen taught art and design and much of his contribution to the party was in this field, designing for instance posters and the front covers and inside illustrations of the pamphlets on war, Ireland and the miners’ strike we published in the 1980s. Asked last year to record his reminiscences he wrote: “I was on demob leave in 1946 after six year war ‘service’ in the artillery (a number of my works, painted during the Italian campaign, are in the archives of the War Museum) and thanks to Tony Turner in Hyde Park, I learned of the party and joined. Apart from my artwork, I’ve done little of note for the cause. My dizzy heights were reached in the 50s, when I chaired one of the Party’s Sunday evening public meetings in a T. U. club in Gt. Newport St, W1. (Those meetings were very well attended, before TV gripped so many people’s bottoms.)” Which shows that being a soldier is not a bar to later being receptive to socialist ideas.

Blogger's Note:

There is a recording of George Meddemmen speaking about his time during the war (and his early life) available on SoundCloud.

If you click on this link you will be able to see a number of George Meddemmen's illustrations that appeared in the Socialist Standard and elsewhere.

Obituary: Daphne Cottis (2004)

Obituary from the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are sorry to also have to report the death in June of comrade Daphne Cottis of Southend who originally joined the Party – in Southend – in 1944. Older and not-so-old members will recall that she often represented Southend branch at Conference, together with her husband Harold (who died three years ago), as well as volunteering to run the literature stall that is always set up on such occasions and maintaining a Socialist Standard round locally. She was also a keen supporter of Southend United football club and for many years acted as a steward at their home matches.

Editorial: Socialist exclusive (1984)

Editorial from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

In September 1904 the Socialist Standard came alive and politically kicking: the first issue of the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s journal declared:

. . . we are all members of the working class, and cannot hope that our articles will always be finely phrased, but we shall at least endeavour to lay before you on every occasion a sane and sound pronouncement on all matters affecting the welfare of the working class. What we lack in refinement of style we shall make good by the depth of our sincerity and the truth of our principles.

Today, we can look back on that promise and ask how it has stood up to the test of eighty years during which the events of capitalism have given many an opportunity for it to be kept or broken.

In the First World War we might have gone the way of a host of confused reformists and, telling ourselves that we were only postponing the revolution, given support to one or other of the rival capitalist groups who were in conflict. That would not have been a postponement of socialism; it would have been its abandonment as our policy. Instead our socialist principles demanded that we stood out against the slaughter of workers by each other; “. . .no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood . . ." was how the Socialist Standard expressed our opposition to capitalism’s wars.

Before that war had run its course there was the Russian revolution, which offered false hope to many workers seeking for some relief from the miseries of capitalist society. These hopes, of course, persist to this day; it is still possible to find “communists" who argue that capitalism in Russia and its allied states is different in some basic way from capitalism elsewhere. The SPGB have never entertained such delusions and as early as 1918 the Socialist Standard exposed the undemocratic and anti-socialist actions of the Bolsheviks, pointing out that the new rulers in Russia would have no option but to organise the development of capitalism there with all that that meant in terms of the repression and exploitation of the Russian workers.

The twenties and thirties brought much questioning of capitalism, of whether the slump meant that as a social system it was about to collapse, of whether it would be better organised under a Labour government including an element of ex-trade unionists and the like. Such ideas could only originate in an ignorance of the true nature of capitalism, of how it operates and of what is needed to abolish it. Socialists knew that the system would not, could not, collapse of its own accord. We knew that organisations like the Labour Party, with their promises to run capitalism stealthily in the interests of the working class while they reformed it out of existence, were attempting the impossible. The Socialist Standard put these attitudes; we were not surprised when the two Labour governments failed and when capitalism ground on its repressive, destructive way. Neither, unlike so many people who had put their faith in such delusions, were we disillusioned. Socialist principles had shown that reformism is futile, a diversion of the energies which should be devoted to bringing about a social revolution. Labour government could be no more successful than any other in controlling the anarchies of capitalism. The society of class ownership could be ended only when the working class in the majority understood the need for this and how socialism would be the next stage in social development. Nothing less would do.

The confusion and the irrelevance of the reformists was exposed again by the Second World War, when they argued that democracy was at stake and that the defeat of Nazi Germany (with which they falsely equated the safeguarding of democracy) must take priority over all other objectives including, inevitably, the struggle for socialism. Socialists again opposed that war. arguing that democracy was not an issue in it and that in any case democracy could be defended only through the will of a consciously democratic working class — which meant, in fact, by socialists. The war would not, we argued, make the world safe for freedom nor for peace. Since 1945 dictatorships and repression of the most brutal and pitiless kind have flourished throughout the world and millions have died in wars during this time of “peace”. The socialist case, which the Standard stated with all the force promised in that first issue, has been fully justified.

Since 1945 there has been small reason to feel that there has been any decline in the adherents of the case for reformism. The problems of capitalism persist, indeed in many cases they can be said to worsen. This is the nuclear age, when war promises to be an instant, all-obliterating matter from which settled human life may not be able to recover. World-wide, famine regularly wipes out tens of millions of people.

In many countries there are clumps of refugees, homeless through the conflicts of capitalism and the system’s artificial, inhuman national barriers. Poverty in its simplest form, in which workers struggle day in and day out to make ends meet and to gain access to the most unremarkable of life’s needs, persists. In 1984 poverty has the added impetus of unemployment, to which government’s inevitable response is to tighten the screw on workers, to grind down their already perilous hold on adequacy. But to each of these problems the reformists have their apparent, seductive answer. War, they say, can be eliminated by the capitalist powers agreeing not to behave like capitalist powers. The same can be said about nuclear weapons; the mighty states which have made them should simply agree that it has all been a waste of time and throw them away. Famine can be solved through charity, poverty by an adjustment of state benefits. And so on.

The reality of capitalism is that such problems are endemic to the system. They flow directly from its basis and in one form or another they will endure for as long as capitalism lasts. The reformist case is that capitalism need not be abolished (although some reformists profess this to be their eventual, distant, objective) just yet because it can be modified so as to be acceptable to people. All the evidence destroys this myth and points to the conclusion that socialism cannot be delayed. It points to the conclusion that reformism is not only futile but reactionary, since it aims to postpone socialism when this in fact means the abandonment of the aim of social revolution and therefore the continuation of capitalism with all the problems which so concern the reformists.

The Socialist Standard has stated the socialist case on these issues because it is the official journal of the SPGB. We are an organisation of workers who are conscious socialists; we may ". . . lack refinement of style” but we offer an understanding of capitalism and of the need for socialism which amounts to no less than the only hope for a desperate world. Socialists are democrats; every member of the SPGB stands equally and we have no use for leaders, who exist to lay down policy for, and to instruct, those who are not clear about where they should be going. A democratic political party must control, in the majority, everything that is said in its name and that is what happens in the SPGB. The Socialist Standard, today and for the past 80 years, has stated a clear and uncompromising case for socialism.

Socialists are satisfied — but no more — that our case has stood the test of time and has been kept clear and forceful for all these years. But we are aware that progress towards socialism is desperately needed; we are not satisfied that the workers remain so wedded to capitalism, so susceptible to the specious propaganda for the social system which exploits and degrades them. If we look back, then, it is only to draw the lessons of the past and to apply them in the future. The years since 1904 have taught us of the need to refuse compromise, to stand for socialism and for that alone and to insist that the revolution is an immediate possibility; the working class can and must understand socialism and opt for it. That is the continuing task of socialists everywhere and the Socialist Standard, as their journal in this country, will carry on with it until socialism becomes reality.

When that happens, the role of the SPGB is at an end. A classless, united society will have no need for any expression of class-divided society; there will be no privileges, no coercive machinery, no medium through which ownership on the one hand, and denial of access on the other, are expressed. Neither will there be political parties, which exist as proponents of class interests. The socialist parties alone represent the interests of the working class; when that class is abolished with the establishment of socialism the socialist parties, along with all others, will cease to exist.

There are many ways in which the SPGB and the Socialist Standard are unique and one of them is the fact that we are busily working for our own extinction. That should not of course deter any worker who thinks that socialism is the answer to the problems of modern society. Eighty years of the Socialist Standard is enough and it is time we were able to use these columns to write, thankfully, our own obituary.

The Miner’s Strike – Why (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why did 120,000 miners join what has become the longest, bitterest and most controversial strike in the British coal industry since 1926? Clearly, it is no answer to say that they are motivated by subversive political aims or that they have all been hoodwinked by nasty Arthur Scargill and the NUM leaders. We can read this kind of facile substitute for an explanation in the propaganda press.

Economics under capitalism are concerned first and foremost with price and profit. Production is regarded as “uneconomic” when investment of capital shows little or no prospect of leading to profit for the investor. Being “uneconomic” is not at all the same as being “useless”. For example, dairy farming is currently “uneconomic” within the EEC countries because more milk is produced than can be sold profitably. However, milk is desperately needed by the 40,000 children who, according to UNICEF, die of starvation or malnutrition-caused diseases every single day. So, when the economic experts say that miners are producing too much coal, this excess relates to profit rather than need. Similarly, when they say that investment in certain miners is “uneconomic” this does not mean there is not plenty of coal in them, but that capital investment in mining such coal would be unprofitable.

Politicians like Thatcher have never forgiven the NUM for the success of their last strike. Responding to the feelings of many capitalists, her government wants to weaken the power of the miners. A leaked Cabinet Minute of 1979 explained that 

A nuclear programme would have the advantage of removing a substantial proportion of electricity from disruption by miners and transport workers.

Economists are not paid to think about the devastation of the old mining communities which pit closures cause: destroying long-established ways of life does not appear on their balance sheets. Economists are not paid to register the harsh facts that more than half of the men attempting suicide are unemployed and that the rate of successful suicides in Britain has shot up during the present recession. Nor are they paid to bother themselves about the old workers who will die this winter because they are too poor to switch on a heater. Electricity output has been reduced because there is much less market demand for it by domestic consumers, while the non-recognition of real human demand leads to the totally unnecessary social disease of hypothermia. But none of these factors is of economic significance under capitalism: let communities be converted into industrial wastelands, let thousands of useful and energetic miners be forced into idleness, let thousands be cold for lack of coal-based heating.

Myths about the State

There was once a time when miners, in the company of many other workers, were easily persuaded that the solution to the problems of the profit system was nationalisation of industry. If only the mines were owned and controlled by the government rather than by private capitalists, it was asserted, the miners would have little to worry about. Forty years ago Will Lawther, the President of the Mineworkers’ Federation of Great Britain (the predecessor to the NUM), asked readers to imagine what could be achieved through nationalisation:

It would win the complete confidence of the miners and their families. Generations of suspicion and hatred would be wiped out, and an entirely new attitude developed towards the coal industry . . . Only through public ownership can you really plan the effective use of Britain’s coal resources, plan production on the basis of modernisation or mechanisation, and bring about complete unity between your export and domestic coalfields . . .” (Foreword to Britain’s Coal by Margot Heinemann, 1944).

Lawther goes on to predict that nationalisation would “enormously improve output and make use even of old coalfields that are looked upon as being worked out” and that “only the nationalisation of the mines can win the confidence of the miners”. One can forgive miners for having been taken in by these hopes for capitalism at the time, even if—it must be added—the Socialist Party of Great Britain was then pointing out to those who would listen that nationalisation offered no solution to the workers. But now, after decades of experience of state capitalism in action, it is politically inane for workers to imagine that nationalised industries are in any way immune from the economic laws of capitalism. The NCB, as the state employer, is just as exploitative and antagonistic to the workers’ interests as were the old mine owners.

The second myth which needs to be dispelled is that the state—the government, the law, the judges, the police commanders—is neutral. The state must be the political defender of the ruling class. When thousands of miners are stopped from picketing, when hundreds of miners are beaten by the police and when the funds of the South Wales NUM are stolen by the courts, it is clear that the state exists to reinforce the needs of capital. It would make no difference if the Labour Party was running the state instead of the Tories. That is why, when the Labour Party was in office between 1964 and 1970, they closed down 48 pits and made over 50,000 miners unemployed in the South Wales region alone.

In the first three months of the strike one miner was arrested every twenty minutes—3,282 arrests in all. Over 80 per cent of these arrests were for “breach of the peace” or “obstruction”. Obviously the government has instructed the police to use tough tactics in dealing with the strikers. The well-known television picture of a police officer beating a defenceless striker with a truncheon is but one of numerous examples of police brutality in a battle initiated by the state. But as ordinary workers, paid to do an unpleasant job, it is not the police workers on the picket lines who are to be blamed: the real culprits are the legally respectable and physically secure boot-boys who pull the strings of the state.

The NCB has increased its importation of cheap Polish coal which is one of the factors weakening the effects of the British miners’ strike. The NUM now has an official picket outside the Polish Embassy, calling on the Polish bosses to suspend imports in order to strengthen the effects of the British strike. But when Polish miners attempted to set up an independent union of their own the President of the NUM (writing in his personal capacity) argued that such action constituted “sabotage” and that the Polish miners should be loyal to their state bosses. The capitalists, who not for the first time are benefiting from the tactic of Divide and Rule, must be laughing all the way to the bank as they import cheap coal from their “Communist” enemies. Reproduced below is the full text of a resolution published by the underground Solidarity union in the Warsaw region, first published in their illegal journal, CDN. It shows that the writers and supporters of this Polish resolution are thinking along internationalist lines:

“For four months the British miners have been on strike against a programme of mass closures of mines for economic reasons. The miners are threatened with unemployment. The government has rejected compromise solutions and has resorted to severe police methods against the strikers. Thousands of miners have been arrested; hundreds have been hospitalised and one has been killed.

The government of the Polish People’s Republic, despite hypocritical condemnations of the activities of the British police in the columns of the regime press and by the regime’s pseudo-trade unionists, is profiting from the export of coal to Britain. It sells dirt cheap coal which has been mined in scandalously neglected working conditions and with reckless condemnation of the labour force and the coalfield. The slave labour of the Polish miner serves to break the resistance of the British miner.

British miners! The true sentiments of Polish trade unionists towards the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic and their practices was shown in the recent electoral farce which was boycotted by the workers. In the prevailing conditions of terror, the Polish workers’ movement is at present not in a position to undertake protest actions. But you may be certain that as you have supported and are supporting our struggle, so we are in solidarity with you. We strongly oppose every case where force is used against workers struggling for their rights and interests.” (Published in CDN, Mazowsze region, 26 June, 1984).

How painful it would be for the workers who produced the above resolution to know that the President, and several other key leaders, of the NUM believe that Solidarity should not exist.

What the miners struggle has shown

As the miners’ strike has not been organised by socialists, it is not surprising that tactics have been employed with which we disagree. It is possible that the division within the NUM could have been avoided; full, democratic decision-making within the workers’ movement is always the surest guarantee of strength.

But the miners’ struggle has shown the importance of solidarity between workers of one county and another one country and another. The sense of common purpose and dedication which thousands of miners have shown during the strike contrasts sharply with many previous struggles in trade union history, where workers have been conned into co-operating in their rulers’ interests. Let any miserable little cynic who says that workers are incapable of self-organised co-operation take a look at the tremendous achievements in communal self-help which strikers have set up.

Secondly, the strike has shown the Labour Party and its Leftist followers to be quite unable to point the miners in the direction of socialism. According to the theory, Leftists are supposed to wait for major struggles like this one in order to move in and tell the workers about the alternative to capitalism. In fact, the SWP, CP, WRP, RCP and numerous other inflatable vanguards have not produced a single leaflet between them urging the miners to transform their demands into the political aim of abolishing the wages system. As for the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock and his fellow mis-leaders have had little to offer but empty rhetoric. After all, every time the Labourites stand up in the House of Commons to tell the Tories how wicked they are, the Tories have been able to quote chapter and verse showing that previous Labour governments have run the mines in just the same way—to meet the demands of the profit system.

In any strike between robbers and robbed (with the exception of political strikes, such as when the dockers opposed immigration or the Labourites ran their phoney day of action) the Socialist Party is unequivocally on the side of the robbed. In the class war no worker and no political party can be neutral. But in expressing solidarity with workers in struggle, we point out that our sympathy and their temporary gains will be meaningless unless victory involves winning the war and not just one battle. To win the class war workers must organise as a class for the conquest of the earth and all its resources. No lesser victory is worth settling for.

Steve Coleman

Briefing: Sir Keith's education (1984)

The Briefing Column from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Joseph clashes on ‘Marxist slant' in Open University" was the arresting headline which the Sunday Times (1 July) gave to an article by their Education Correspondent, Peter Wilby. What is happening at the OU? The net contribution of my school and “higher" education towards my socialist knowledge was nil, and that goes for most socialists, I guess. The article just had to be compulsive reading.

Apparently Sir Keith has been taking a close personal interest in the University’s foundation course in social science, coded D102. Earlier this year he asked for copies of the 20 course booklets and commissioned a secret 17-page report, written, we are told, by "a number of professional economists", alleging serious bias.

Just what was the "serious bias” about which Sir Keith is complaining? Wilby’s article quotes some detailed complaints:

1) "The (course) authors are preoccupied ‘with depicting production as essentially a struggle between capital and labour’.” Now in our present-day society—capitalism—the working class, the overwhelming majority, have no other way to scratch a living than to sell their physical and mental energies (labour power). Capital and labour thus face each other as buyers and sellers, those interests a priori must be antagonistic. Another angle on this conflict is to see it as a struggle over the division of the product of labour. The higher the share taken by the non-producing capitalists, the less is the portion left for the producers of the whole wealth of society, the working class.

2) “Profit is seen purely in terms of the expropriation of a surplus created by labour; no mention is made of its possible role as a reward for risk-taking or for the stress and burdens of entrepreneurship.” This concedes that surplus wealth (above the worker’s pay) accounts for capitalist profits. We can concede that a capitalist investor is sometimes taking a calculated risk, with heavy losses on occasions taking the place of spectacular profits. But what have the capitalists as a class contributed to the actual productive process? In both cases, nothing. As for the stresses and strains of entrepreneurship, where they represent a real contribution they are now almost exclusively performed by salaried employees, members of the working class.

3) “The booklets are ‘at great pains to conclude that Britain is basically a capitalist economy’. The report says that ‘most professional economists' would not agree." Very unprofessional judgement, professional economists! It should be obvious from the definition of capitalism which we gave in 1). that the only area of the world to which it does not apply are those still at earlier stages of development (for example. New Guinea). What confuses these "professionals" and others is the position of nationalised industries, where a state-run body acts as employer. However workers in these enterprises are selling their labour power in exactly the same way as workers in "private" industry are to their bosses.

4) “Capitalists are viewed as having a desire to keep wages as low as possible.” We saw under 1) that all things being equal, the smaller the share of the total wealth accruing to the workers the greater the profits of the capitalist class. In some cases, by paying somewhat higher wages an employer may attract better workmen or women and so increase profits. Also, although it is difficult to express this in figures, a happier workforce on pay somewhat above the going rate may perform better and again produce more profits. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be “a desire to maximise profits”, but this is pretty well the same as minimising wages relative to profits.

5) “The ‘overthrow of capitalism’ is mentioned three times in half a page." We know that Sir Keith and his friends don’t want to overthrow capitalism, but here we are given no clue on the context of these remarks and what the OU authors understand by the term.

6) “Monetarist theory is described as ‘silly’ and attributed to ‘class interest’.” Definitely a sensitive point with Sir Keith. Monetarist theory is a totally inadequate model to describe the workings of the capitalist system, which is a long-winded way of saying that it is silly. As such its advocacy can only benefit the class in whose interest the capitalist system operates.

At this point the professional economists might as well give up. From their complaints you would think that course D102 had been prepared by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Alas, this is very far from being the case. In answer to the criticism from Sir Keith’s department. Peter Wilby quotes a spokesman for the University as saying “The booklets also describe Britain as a ‘mixed economy’ and add that they refer to it as capitalist ‘not in order to dismiss the importance of the state sector but to continue reminding ourselves of its dependence on the rest of the economy’.” This quote is enough to show what line the authors of D102 have really adopted. State ownership is socialism. Russia is socialist. The conflict between capital and labour can be regulated within the framework of the present social system, or at least this has to be the implication as the authors have no concept of how it can be transcended.

Having said that, we can afford a chuckle at the extreme sensitivity shown by Joseph and his allies to what is taken to be criticism of their capitalist system of society. Their intervention to try to alter the contents of this course is being undertaken because they believe they are suppressing socialist propaganda. But the contents of course D102 appear similar to the misconceptions propagated for many years now by the so-called left wing parties. These have led many workers, who realised that something is seriously wrong with capitalist society, to expend their energies along futile paths which have divided the working class. In contrast the anaemic, 100 per cent pro-capitalist course which Sir Keith would no doubt like to see substituted for D102 could well be seen by some students as so far removed from real life that the result may be to enhance their efforts to work out things for themselves. That road took me and many others into the Socialist Party.

E. C. Edge

Letter From Europe: Exit the "Communist" Ministers (1984)

The Letter From Europe Column from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

After three years of sharing responsibility for governing French capitalism (for two of which, beginning with the four-month wage freeze imposed in June 1982, the government pursued an openly anti-working class policy), the PCF has decided it has had enough. When Mitterrand changed his Prime Minister in July the PCF found an excuse not to participate in the new government of Laurent Fabius, a whizz-kid of bourgeois origin (his father is a rich art dealer) the successor of Pierre Mauroy.

Although Mitterrand did not insist that the PCF should be excluded he was probably satisfied that they decided to go of their own accord. He had after all changed his Prime Minister precisely to give the impression. in the run-up to the 1986 General Election, that he had broken with his failed past policies. He wanted to alter his government's image by having as Prime Minister a man who better incarnated the change of policy towards the crisis forced on the government by the operation of capitalism: the “modernisation” of industry.

His government had in fact been pursuing this policy for some time but the presence of Mauroy as Prime Minister — and of the PCF ministers — represented a visible link with the previous, failed policy (on which both Mitterrand and his parliamentary majority had been elected) of trying to make capitalism work in the interest of the working class. This policy had been abandoned as long ago as June 1982 when the wage freeze was imposed and a deliberate policy of helping enterprises to restore their profit margins was adopted. It was abandoned, we hasten to add, not because Mitterrand and his government had decided to betray the working class but because it was unrealistic, in fact impossible, since capitalism just cannot be made to work in the interest of the working class. That the previous policy was unrealistic in capitalist terms was explicitly recognised by Mitterrand who repeatedly declared, for the benefit of the PCF and certain members of his own party who wanted to continue the old policy, that the policy adopted in June 1982 was "the only one possible”.

During the presidential campaign in 1981 Mitterrand and his supporters had promised to end the crisis and reduce unemployment by increasing “popular consumption”, by giving people more money to spend as a way of stimulating production. This wouldn’t work as crises under capitalism are not caused by a lack of purchasing power but by a lack of prospects for profit-making.

But it is true that Mitterrand and Mauroy did begin by honouring their promise. The minimum wage was increased, social benefits were improved, more civil servants were taken on. This increase in “popular consumption" financed by the printing press led to prices rising in France faster than among its commercial rivals, bringing about an increase in imports and a drop in exports, a balance of payments crisis and as early as October 1981 a devaluation of the franc. From then on it was downhill all the way: June 1982: Second devaluation. First austerity package. March 1983: Third devaluation and second austerity package.

Meanwhile unemployment grew from the 1,630,700 it was when Mitterrand came into office to 2,147.700 in June 1984.

Parallel with this economic failure went a growing disaffection of those who had voted for Mitterrand and the Left in 1981. Local elections and by-elections all showed a steady swing to the rightwing opposition parties, including the National Front (basically the same as its British counterpart) which, in the recent European elections, polled nearly as many votes as the PCF and won itself 10 members in the 81-member French delegation to the European Parliament.

Here too Mitterrand and his party decided to operate a tactical turn. Instead of appealing to the working class — to whom they had now learned they had nothing to offer given the way the capitalist system operates — they decided to try to show that the Left was just as capable as the Right of managing capitalism—and of imposing the anti-working class decisions that this necessarily involves. If we are going to lose the 1986 General Election, the reasoning went, let us at least show that we are capable administrators of capitalism so that the charge of economic incompetence cannot be levelled against us in the 1991 elections.

Mitterrand began to adopt the language of his conservative predecessor. Giscard. The same terms — modernisation, enterprise, innovation, competitivity, risk, initiative. profit — rolled off his lips. Taxed about this in a newspaper interview on the third anniversary of his election as President. he replied:

What! The words modernisation, enterprise. innovation and the rest are rightwing? That’s an absurd assumption. (Liberation, 10 May 1984).

"Modernisation” is a nice-sounding word, suggesting the building of new factories with robots, automation and the rest. In fact it is a euphemism to describe what always happens when capitalism is in one of its periodic depressions. The least productive enterprises go to the wall and are eliminated from the competitive struggle for profits. This results in a rise in the average productivity in particular industries and so in a fall in their average costs, this putting them in a better competitive position against the same industries in other countries. In other words, the rise in average productivity and so in competitivity comes about not so much through the introduction of modern machines as through the elimination of old-fashioned ones — and of the jobs of those who operate them.

This is what modernisation means in practice. So the workers of France have nothing to gain from the new government’s declared intention, expressed in the new Prime Minister’s first declaration on the very evening of the day he was appointed, to "modernise the country”. This inevitably means more closures, more sackings, more job losses, more unemployment. Fabius openly admitted this in the new government's policy declaration before the National Assembly on 24 July:

Modernisation — one must have the honesty to say so — may cost more jobs before creating them (Liberation, 25 July).

This argument that the way to full employment lies through letting unemployment grow in a depression through the elimination of inefficient firms is true to the extent that slump conditions, if allowed to work themselves through, do eventually prepare the ground for the subsequent period of boom (and vice versa of course, though capitalist politicians are not so keen on mentioning this, anxious as they are to maintain the illusion that a boom can be made to be permanent). But this represents a complete U-turn compared to the pre-1981 election promises of Mitterrand and his parliamentary majority. Not that there was really any choice in the matter: any government has to adopt this approach sooner or later, whether willingly (like Reagan and Thatcher) or reluctantly (like Mitterrand, perhaps), since it is dictated by the economic logic of the capitalist system within which they work.

Mitterrand himself, in his interview with Liberation on 10 May, had also been explicit enough about what modernisation would involve:

If you consider that being on the Left rules out modernising the country because of the suffering that all change causes, then I can't follow you. And yet I ask myself everyday about what I have the right to ask of the working class which has been the victim of so many injustices and so much oppression since the coming of the industrial era.

And two months later, on a visit to the Auvergne region of France, he told complaining trade unionists:

The state is not an industry, and the nationalised enterprises are not there to serve the state. Certainly, they have particular duties, but they must manage, invest, organise according to the idea which they form. If they were to be transformed into a government department, you would see the substitution of a bureaucracy for all the living forces. The idea that a nationalised enterprise can escape from the crisis and artificially create jobs? No, that would be to undermine a sector that I have extended (Le Monde, 8/9 July 1984).

Adding, as off-the-cuff remarks that might have come from Thatcher or Reagan (or Kinnock after he has had three years experience of administering capitalism — if he ever gets the chance, that is), “the state does not have the task of creating industries. of rushing to the aid of enterprises in danger" and “one cannot ask the state to be satisfied with covering losses. It must also make profits" (Liberation. 7/8 July).

In a sense, in belatedly withdrawing from the government the PCF has been more loyal to the promises on which Mitterrand and the PS/PCF parliamentary majority were elected than have Mitterrand and the PS. But what the PCF fails to realise is that these promises were quite unrealistic and could not have been honoured because of the very nature of the capitalist system within which they were to be implemented. Capitalism just cannot be made to work in the interest of the majority class of wage and salary earners. It is a profit-making system that can only work in the interest of those who live off profits derived from exploiting wage-labour. Mitterrand and the PS learned this within a year of coming to power and then settled down to administering capitalism in the only way it can be: against the working class.

The PCF, even though it accepted for at least two years to go along with the anti-working class policy any government of capitalism is sooner or later obliged to adopt, still entertains the old illusions. But there's no particular merit in remaining loyal to promises that have been proved to be illusory.

The PCF will no doubt now go before the workers telling them that Mitterrand and his government have failed because they have deliberately chosen to pursue a pro-capitalist rather than a pro-working class policy, whereas this failure was not a question of intention or sincerity or determination but due to the nature of capitalism. Mitterrand, the PS and indeed the PCF failed because in the context of capitalism this was pre-programmed. No government can make capitalism serve the interest of the wage and salary earning majority.

Adam Buick

(Luxemburg)

Billion-dollar Games (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the biggest media and commercial binges in the last four years got under way at the end of July. We refer of course to the Los Angeles Olympics, rumoured by some simple souls to be a sporting festival but in fact an excuse for making money and reinforcing nationalist prejudices.

These were clearly the most commercialised Games ever held. The stages of carrying the Olympic torch across the United States were auctioned for three thousand dollars a kilometre and prominent alongside each runner was someone in a T-shirt advertising the telephone company, AT & T. Each sporting facility had its own sponsor; McDonalds, for instance, built the swimming pool, and Southlands Corporation the cycling velodrome. Fearing a repetition of the Montreal fiasco of 1976 (where the Games will not be paid for until the next century), Los Angeles only agreed to accept the Games if it could be guaranteed that the city would not lose money on them. This was assured when a consortium of businessmen accepted responsibility and set out to make as much money from the Games as they could.

The modern top-class sportsperson can hardly be other than a full-time athlete. Long gone are the days when it was possible to stay at the top by means of a couple of light training sessions a week. Training nowadays is highly scientific, with different emphases for different events, and a daily commitment is required. This is partly why Olympic eligibility is determined not by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but by the international governing body of each sport. So runners are allowed to make a living from the sport, while swimmers are not. In 1988, when tennis is part of the Games, professionals will be openly allowed to compete — provided they are under twenty!

The American athlete Carl Lewis has openly stated that "the Olympics are about money and not much else”. And he should know: he calculated that every gold medal he won in the Games (and he won four) would be worth one and a half million pounds to him. There would be endorsements for sports products, of course, but also for clothes, deodorants, and the like. Coca-Cola are discussing an extra contract with Lewis worth over four million pounds. Even this will just keep him in the style to which he is accustomed. He maintains his “amateur” status by having his income paid into a trust from which he can draw generous “expenses”. Not surprisingly, he sees little point in formally turning professional.

It may be worth recalling that the original Olympics of Ancient Greece were not based on amateur ideals either. In addition to victory garlands, sizeable prize money was paid, and athletes eventually organised their own professional associations to negotiate with the promoters of games. It is probably not too far-fetched to discern a professional circuit of games which provided an income for highly-trained full-time athletes. There was no pretence that taking part was more important than winning: victory in competition was what mattered, and there were no records or personal bests.

According to the accepted mythology, the Olympics were revived in 1896 because of the heroic vision and single-minded energy of Baron de Coubertin. In fact, there had been plenty of earlier attempts to do so. In 1612, Robert Dover founded the Cotswold Olympics, which won royal approval from James I (they endured in some form till 1852, when they were discontinued because of “debauchery”). In 1862, some “Olympics” were held in Liverpool, but nothing further came of them. Basically, these were sports gatherings for ordinary people — it took an aristocratic movement to get the Olympics truly going again.

De Coubertin was much influenced by the ethos of the English public schools and sport’s role in them. Thus his list of proposed sports for the first Games included rowing and cricket. The early Games were very much for the rich — ordinary workers could not afford the cost of attending, and sporting organisations were too primitive to arrange and finance large teams. In fact it was not until 1908 that entries were made nationally rather than individually, a change which presaged the later jingoism and national rivalries. Many of the early competitors — especially those from the United States and Great Britain — were university athletes, as these institutions provided some of the best facilities for training and competition.

Ironically it was in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics, that de Coubertin died. The Olympics had been assigned to Berlin in 1931, before the Nazi takeover, and no had forseen what would happen. No expense was spared in providing superb stadia and other facilities, or in ensuring that the German squad was trained as well as was possible. In 1933 the American Amateur Athletic Union had voted to boycott the Games if German Jewish athletes were discriminated against: but in December 1935 the American Olympic Committee decided narrowly against a boycott. It is often said that the 1936 Games were the first overtly political ones, but a better candidate for this title is the 1920 Games, which were awarded to Antwerp (as an emotional consolation to Belgium after the war) and from which those countries defeated in the war were excluded.

The organisation of events so as to fit in with convenient television timings is a fairly recent innovation but their manipulation for non-sporting reasons is not. For instance, the marathon distance of 26 miles 385 yards has no connection with Ancient Greek battles. The distance was fixed at the London Games of 1908. The race was run from Windsor to the White City, which turned out to be precisely 26 miles. But an extra 385 yards was added so that the finish could take place in front of the Royal Box.

Talking of royalty, the Games are fated to occur in the same years as American Presidential elections. But for this, there would hardly have been an American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. This year President Reagan has noted the potential for exploiting the Games as part of his re-election campaign. Having been thwarted by Olympic officials in his attempt to secure a more than purely formal role in the opening ceremony, he made the most of every American success. As far as the tame American media were concerned, there was certainly only one country competing.

Which brings us to the boycott on the part of Russia and other East European countries. This was ostensibly because of lack of guaranteed security in Los Angeles but is more likely to be at bottom another move in the lofty and lowly world of power politics. In view of the strength of some of the withdrawing countries, it inevitably means that the achievement of the winners will be devalued, thus reducing the capital that Reagan can make out of American medals. One side-effect of the boycott was the decision of the IOC to pay all the expenses of the Rumanian team, as a way of ensuring some East European presence.

With these the third Games in succession to suffer from a boycott, the IOC executive committee has proposed that attendance at future Games be made compulsory. Of course, the only way to punish infringements of such a rule would be suspension from the Olympic movement. Like truancy from school being punished by expulsion. It clearly takes an Olympic committee to dream up something like this.

The Olympics, then, were not a sporting festival designed to promote international peace and harmony, but a further example of the way capitalist rivalries and priorities pollute and distort every aspect of life under the present social system.

Paul Bennett

SPGB Meetings (1984)

Party News from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Material World: Afghanistan: another empire fails (2021)

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

Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, fell to the Taliban last month, with every other provincial city having already capitulated in what can only be described as a rout. Now the Taliban are in full control of Afghanistan. At the time of writing, the USA and the UK were rushing troops to facilitate the hurried evacuation of foreign nationals and diplomats from Kabul. Already Turkey, Iran and Tajikistan were reporting the arrival of refugees fleeing the threat of the Taliban.

The invasion of Afghanistan was the first action of America in what it called the ‘war against terror’ in response to the 9/11 attack in 2001. Afghanistan had been the base of operations for Al Qaida with the Taliban’s complicity. It has now become yet another embarrassing military defeat for the world’s greatest superpower.

In July as American forces departed Bagram Airbase without any advance notice to their Afghan allies, the United States’ top military general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley said to reporters, ‘This is going to be a test now, of the will and leadership of the Afghan people, the Afghan security forces and the government of Afghanistan’ (LINK).

We now know the result. Despite being a formidable force of 2-300,000, well equipped with some of the best US weaponry and trained by expert NATO instructors, and despite receiving continued American air support, the Afghan National Government army and police have melted away with a surprising lack of resistance.

The USA had invested almost $83 billion on just the training and arming of Afghanistan’s forces. From 2001 to 2018, the U.S. spent $730 billion on the war, the U.K. spent $28.2 billion, Canada $12.7 billion, Germany $11.1 billion, Italy $8.9 billion, and France $3.9 billion, all filling the coffers of the armament industry.

In addition, from 2001 to 2018 they each provided billions of dollars in foreign aid to Afghanistan which still remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The US donated $32.32bn, Germany gave $5.88bn, the UK’s contribution to aid was $4.79bn, Canada, $2.42bn, Italy, almost one billion and France, just over half a billion in foreign aid, with much of it going into the pockets of the profiteers and corrupt Afghan officials.

Of course, there will be other Great Powers ready and eager to take advantage of America’s defeat. After all, Afghanistan’s potential mineral wealth is still there to be mined and remains to be exploited. While China’s Belt and Road project will be viewing the trade routes through Afghanistan with great interest.

General McChrystal, the former Joint Special Operations Command and Afghanistan War commander, when asked if the ‘War on Terror’ had been worth it answered, ‘It would be impossible to argue that it was. The outcome just hasn’t been positive enough to argue that…’ (tinyurl.com/a9hvfv56).

While McChrystal may view the war through the lens of military strategy and the geopolitical context, socialists think about the human cost of this Afghan war and the consequences to come. What for governments is the price in the blood of the innocents, the pain of the wounded, the suffering of the displaced refugees?

An estimate is that the war has killed 171,000 to 174,000 people but the fatalities are an underestimate as deaths by disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and other indirect causes from the war are not fully included. Atrocities were conducted by all sides in this war and no country held the moral high ground although each claimed it.

There are millions of refugees from Afghanistan who comprise the largest refugee population in Asia, and the second largest in the world. Now those figures can be expected to rise sharply.

While some on the left may take a feeling of ‘schadenfreude’ from the West’s humiliation and claim another victory for ‘anti-imperialism’, our sympathy goes out to all our fellow workers.

A few Afghans who cooperated with the Afghan government and the occupation armies are being fast-tracked through the asylum-seeker process but many more who the Taliban, not known for their mercy, consider collaborators will face a very uncertain and insecure future. We can be sure that the Taliban will not be keeping to any conciliatory promises made to the USA back in 2020 during their peace talks at Doha.

Socialists can confidently predict that civilians will still be paying a terrible price for the actions of Osama Bin Laden back in 2001 and the American miscalculated response to it, and will continue to bear the cost of the ‘War on Terror’ for a long time to come. The best way to halt all the killing and maiming is to finish the fighting and we hope that the hand-over of power may reduce the extent of the conflict. But, as with all conflicts in capitalism, don’t expect any permanent end to human misery and tragedy.

ALJO

Capitalist philosopher (2021)

Book Review from the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government. By George Caffentzis. Pluto Press. 2021.

This is a slightly revised, second edition of a book that originally came out in 1989 in which Caffentzis argues that John Locke, who lived from 1632 to 1704 and whose writings all university students of politics and philosophy are required to study, was ‘the philosopher of primitive accumulation’. Even supporters of capitalism recognise, in fact hail, Locke as an early advocate and ideological defender of their system. This is because of the justification he provided for the private ownership of land and industry and his view that the basic role of governments is to protect property ownership.

Locke’s argument was simple enough. Accepting the traditional Christian view that God originally gave the Earth to humanity for its members to use to satisfy the needs of all of them and not to waste, he argued that in a ‘state of nature’, i.e. before governments and laws were established, individuals worked the land to satisfy their needs and were entitled to what they mixed their labour with – his so-called ‘labour theory of property’. However, at first this was only up to the point where their needs were satisfied; if they produced more than they could consume themselves, they couldn’t let it go to rot but were obliged to give it away or let others use it. This changed, Locke went on to argue, with the emergence of money as a means of exchange and a store of value as it meant that any surplus could now be converted into something that would not rot – the precious metals silver and gold.

This – what Caffentzis calls a ‘state of money’ – led to a ‘social contract’ between people to set up a government to protect the property of property-owners, especially of the wealthier among them. Locke used the ridiculous, in fact outrageous, argument that in agreeing to the use of money the non-wealthy had tacitly agreed to its consequence of ‘a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth’ and ‘an inequality of private possessions.’ This, argues Caffentzis, shows that Locke supported not only some members of society becoming landless but also the accumulation of wealth in the form of money, the two conditions Marx pointed to for capitalism to get going as an economic system.

Locke was not just a philosopher. He was involved in government. For instance, he drew up a constitution for the Carolinas, then still a British colony, which condoned chattel slavery. He was also involved in monetary policy, a discussion of his view on which is the theme of Caffentzis’s book. The main currency in England in Locke’s time was silver coins of a given weight. By the mid-1690s, due to clipping, most no longer contained their face-value weight of silver. To remedy this, which had become a hindrance to trade, it was decided to call in all existing silver coins, melt them down and re-coin them. The question was at what rate. Some wanted to devalue the pound and the shilling by defining them as a smaller amount of silver. Locke was against this. Caffentzis interprets this as meaning that Locke realised that, without a currency free from government manipulation, Britain would never come to dominate world trade. He also links this to Locke’s theories of knowledge and language.

Caffentzis presents his case in a clear, easy-to-follow style. The same cannot be said of the 23-page Introduction by Paul Rekert. This should be skipped or read afterwards in case its academese puts you off going on to read Caffentzis himself.

In a Preface Harry Cleaver writes that ‘escaping money has only recently returned to the agenda of revolutionaries’ as events ‘have made growing numbers of those looking beyond capitalism conclude that decommodification of life and escape from money are essential to the conceptualization and building of new, non-capitalist worlds’ (that could be said simpler too). Which is all to the good, though for some revolutionaries it has never been off the agenda.

Adam Buick

Parasites (2021)

From the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will we ever see the end of these airborne parasites?

There can be little doubt about the impact this dreadful virus has had on predominantly the world’s working class.

Nowhere has escaped this awful pandemic. With some parts of the world faring worse than others, and so much loss of life and suffering – much of it down to the gross incompetence of world governments and their inept ministers trying to grapple within the financial considerations and constraints of life under capitalism. Nearly everything boils down to costs and affordability.

But could and would things have been handled any better within socialism?

It would be crass to suggest that viral outbreaks such as coronavirus could never happen within socialism. However, it’s also fair to say that in a society where all due care and attention will be given to the living conditions and welfare of farmed animals, and the preparation and storage of agricultural foodstuffs for human consumption stored in careful conditions, this should reduce the chances of any such occurrences considerably. Moreover, in the event of an outbreak, humankind will have developed a much quicker and more effective way of dealing with the issue. Without being burdened by considerations of costs and the search for profits, response time in closing down the spread of the virus in the shortest possible time would take priority, without the dither and delays that have impacted on the efficacy of dealing with pandemics under capitalism.

Coming out of lockdown

The past 18 months of living through lockdowns and restrictions has been difficult for most people. Each of us have had different experiences, with some finding the quiet routine of lockdown and staying at home actually bringing some comfort and respite from, amongst other things, the daily commute. Meanwhile others have been craving the social contact and routines of life before COVID-19. With most restrictions now lifted in the UK, it’s understandable for some to feel nervous about the new challenges we’re facing, such as the anxiety of returning to the office or finding it difficult to socialise in groups again.

Although some people may seem excited about the lifting of restrictions, rest assured that for many the uncertainty and potential insecurity of employment and a regular income is a source of great anxiety. Socially it might be about when we should or shouldn’t wear a mask, how close to get to people or where to go and what to do in any given social situation.

And let’s not forget the ongoing impact on our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world where coronavirus is every bit as severe now as it ever was. Countries such as India, where the government saw fit to export 66 million doses of vaccines overseas. Enough to have inoculated the major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. While the virus was still raging and people were still dying in very high numbers. All in the name of profit before people.

Life has changed unimaginably since the beginning of the pandemic. The idea of ‘going back to how things were’ may feel completely impossible. Our mental health has been affected by the financial pressures of being furloughed and the reduction of income, and your life may have changed so much that it can be hard to see a positive way ahead.

As socialists we understand the pressures that workers around the world are facing, not only because of the impact of the pandemic, but because of the social system that underpins it. As a party we kept in regular contact with each other through online communication platforms such as Discord and Zoom. These modern sources of digital technology have enabled many of us to share, learn and laugh together in a way that only a generation ago would not have been possible.

What lies ahead?

Although still very much with us, COVID-19 is gradually becoming less of a threat. More and more people are surviving this dreadful disease, thanks to the ingenuity of science and scientists, through widespread vaccination. This naturally gives us hope as a political party that we can once again resume our programme of various activities and reconnect with our fellow workers in the physical environment, including for example the forthcoming COP26 conference in Glasgow later this year. Something we have been preparing for with much anticipation. And should you wish to participate in that particular event in any way, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Your input would be most welcome. We have a world to win and nothing to lose but our chains.

Will we ever see the end of these heir-born parasites?

As one of the oldest extant monarchies in the world, the British royal family seem to have survived the test of time – so far. Whilst its immediate existence is reasonably secure despite Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle’s recent claims of racism, the cultural rifts exposed by the row could signal trouble ahead. The revelations certainly do raise questions about whether the monarchy can or should survive at all.

Queen Elizabeth, on the throne since 1952 (no quips about constipation please) is now 94 and still remains reasonably popular with the general public, with a 79 percent approval rating that many a politician could only dream of. A recent Ipsos Mori poll also indicated that only 17 percent of people believed the country would be better off without a monarchy. This despite a year in which Harry and Meghan quit the royal family and questions swirled about Prince Andrew and his involvement with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. A closer look at the poll also reveals a much less favourable opinion of the queen’s oldest son and heir Charles, particularly amongst younger generations, making him a potentially greater risk to the future of the monarchy. The reason for this must in part have been the characterisation of his uncaring attitude, as disclosed by his son and one-time piss artist and party animal formerly known as Prince Harry, during his recent infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey. This generational attitude also bodes ill for the royal image overseas, with the under-40s in the USA far more supportive of Harry and Meghan’s version of events, than that of the other royals who tried to play down the allegations.

Meanwhile further charges of racism against an ‘unnamed senior royal’ particularly resonated with Britain’s younger generation, who have grown up in an increasingly diverse country. Only 29 percent of the 18–34-year-olds polled said Britain would be worse off if the monarchy was abolished, while 45 percent said it would make no real difference– a view we largely share, and 19 percent saying that it would make the country better.

So while the British monarchy’s immediate survival is relatively secure despite Harry and Meghan’s claims of racism, the cultural rifts exposed by the row could signal trouble ahead. The revelations do raise questions over whether the monarchy can or should survive at all, with Charles next in line to the throne and not scoring well for general popularity.

While we as socialists might sense an opportunity as the current monarch’s reign draws to a close, we still face the prospect of persuading many of our fellow workers that these blue-blooded spongers, malingerers and work-shy freeloaders have outstayed their welcome. One only has to observe the absurd out-pouring of grief from so many misguided flag-waving subjects whenever a member of the royal family dies and the BBC’s royal correspondents begin their sanctimonious arse-kissing rituals, crocodile tears and fake platitudes, to realise what a challenge we have ahead of us.

And while as a party of the working class we may not have been around for anything like as long as the monarchy, we should all rise to the challenge to stop this outdated institution from reigning over us, and look forward instead to the day that their position of privilege will come to an end. When the castles and palaces they inhabit become little more than museums, we might look back in wonder and incredulity at a period in our history when we lived under that kind of rule and all the other insane rules and regulations of capitalism.

Paul Edwards