Editorial: The Worker and his Work (1942)

Editorial from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Because of a legendary incident in the Garden of Eden (for which Adam blamed Eve, who blamed the serpent), many Christians believe that work is a curse laid on sinful humanity : “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shall thou eat of it. … In the sweat of thy face shah thou eat bread.” But vast numbers of workers who care nothing for biblical stories have the same opinion. They judge by what they know and they judge that work is by nature evil : but all they know is what work is like under capitalism. They have not realised that the evil is not work itself but the conditions under which they carry it on when they leave the comparative democracy of their leisure hours for the dictatorship of the capitalist factory or workshop. Not the activity of producing useful articles but the drab surroundings, the discipline, the long hours, the bullying, the intense speed, and the knowledge that the work is carried on not for the good of the community but for the profit of the shareholders. These things need not be. Under Socialism they will not be. It is in the forefront of the Socialist purpose of real reconstruction that work shall take its proper place as a pleasurable activity worthy of free men and women, duly balanced against opportunities of enjoying leisure. The Socialist principle, “From each according to his ability : to each according to his needs,” does not envisage perpetuating work as a penance, work as the worker knows it under capitalism. The worker will not be a numbered unit in a stupid machine for turning out cheap and nasty articles of merchandise for the profit of the few.

Socialists know these elemental truths, but the social reformers, their judgment warped by concentration on the limited scope of improvement under capitalism, are in the main blind to the great possibilities of life and work under Socialism. Many years ago the S.P.G.B. rescued from undeserved oblivion William Morris’s “Art, Labour and Socialism,” in which the truth was proclaimed by a man who understood that subject in all its aspects. Morris had his limitations, but he was right in his insistence that capitalism, along with its economic exploitation of the working class, had committed the crime of compelling many workers to perform degrading tasks under conditions robbed of all pleasure and intelligence. He rejected the shallow view that all we can do, and want to do, is to take over capitalist industry as a going concern and put it under new management. He saw that with the abolition of capitalism Socialists will get rid of the profit seeking that has corrupted the production of wealth. “That system,” he wrote, “is after all nothing but a continuous implacable war; the war once ended and commerce, as we now understand the word, comes to an end, and the mountains of wares which are either useless in themselves or only useful to slaves and slave-owners, are no longer made, and once again art will be used to determine what things are useful and what useless to be made; since nothing should be made which does not give pleasure to the maker and the user.” He was not, as some of his admirers have supposed, aiming at putting back the clock and dispensing with machinery. He knew this could not be done, but he also saw that machinery which could have been used to minimise that necessary labour, not pleasant in itself, had not been so used under capitalism. He echoed J. S. Mill’s doubt whether all the machinery of modern times has lightened the daily work of one labourer. Instead, capitalism has imposed on its machine slaves “plenty of unnecessary labour which is merely painful.”

Elsewhere, in his pamphlet, “A Factory as it might be,” Morris dealt one by one with many of the problems to be faced. One of his shrewd observations was : —

“In a duly ordered society, in which people would work for a livelihood, and not for the profit of another, a factory might not only be pleasant as to its surroundings, and beautiful in its architecture, but even the rough and necessary work done in it might be so arranged as to be neither burdensome in itself nor of long duration for each worker; but, furthermore, the organisation of such a factory, that is to say, of a group of people working in harmonious co-operation towards a useful end, would of itself afford opportunities for increasing the pleasure of life.”

He knew these things would never be done under capitalism.

Now, half a century afterwards, when technical developments have made the problem still easier of solution, thousands of social reformers are busily engaged on post-war plans for reorganising our education, our work and our lives within the framework of capitalism and for the purpose of enabling that capitalist country in which they happen to live to be a more ferocious and formidable competitor in the continuous implacable war of international commerce. They are the enemies of Socialism and of the health and happiness of the human race.

Through ignorance, class interest, or the mistaken notion that compromise with capitalism is justified for the purpose of niggling ameliorations of the hardships of the workers they have rejected the prime and urgent necessity of destroying capitalism, root and branch. Within the limitations they have imposed upon themselves they cannot even conceive that work and the conditions of work could be fundamentally changed. It is for Socialists to bring the working class to recognise the truth of which their leaders and “thinkers” are unaware.

“The Spoil of Europe” (1942)

Book Review from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Spoil of Europe by Thomas Reveille. (Allen & Unwin. 10/6)

The author evidently, knows his German and his Germany, and from the point of interest of the Socialist, this is a book which relieves one of the task of ploughing through pages of the usual descriptions of the Nazis and the Nazi machine, in order to obtain some idea of the mechanism of the German administration, although the book sets out to prove how the Reich is plundering Europe.

Germany has taken over the whole of the banking system of Europe “to mobilise the surplus of capital in Western Europe for financing of Continental objectives.” Germany, in fact, has become Europe’s banker, but with a new principle. “That soil and labour rather than gold should be the basis of a currency is the recurring Nazi assertion.” (P. 22.)

That this should support the “banks create credits” cranks here is smashed by the chapter, “The Golden Haul,” where the author asserts that all the gold holdings of Europe’s banks have been seized by the authority of the Reichsbank and “gold certificates” given in its stead and so likewise the gold of private persons, together with the legal “sequestering” of gold held by banks in their name abroad so that the Reichsmark notes all over Europe have some sort of gold backing.

The comprehensive picture of the State administration of industry and agriculture, in which each industry has its own “Industrial Board,” together with the Labour Front—the organisation for the industrial workers—which is dominated by the political party of the Nazis in the shape of the “Nazi Party Factory Cell Organisation” (N.S.B.O.) leaves the Socialist with the impression that the whole outfit was copied straight from the Russian State system and adapted to German capitalist conditions.

The German worker is told that this is the German version of Socialism. “The worker need not consider himself the inferior of the employer, because all members of the German Volk are ‘equal.’ Strikes and lock-outs are forbidden, and the recalcitrant employer is tried before ‘Courts of honour,’ and is fined for offending against the social honour of work” (p. 22). Real wages are kept down and “thrift” encouraged by stringent taxation and savings, in order to divert the new income from consumers’ goods to armaments, with the reduction of interest on investments from the previous 6 per cent. to 3½ per cent. from January 1st, 1941. (P. 226.)

The full name of Germany’s set-up is the “National Socialist German Workingman’s Party,” a title that is all things to all men, and advantage has been taken of the slogans and aspirations of men ranging from Jew-haters to Communists, industrialists and monarchists.

The technique employed differs somewhat from the Communist method, as the author points out. “The Communists pursue methods known as boring from within, while they are out of power. As soon as the reins of state have been seized they unmask themselves and start a clean slate by destroying everything before them. The Nazis are much smarter. They continue boring-from-within methods well after they have assumed power, and never come out into the open until all opposition has been brought within their control, adopting any pose necessary to do this” (p. 27).

That the German ruling-class plan by all means to become the complete masters of Europe is labouring the obvious, but what is not obvious is their attitude to Britain and her Empire. According to Reveille, the Reich had no intention of invading or smashing Britain, or her Empire, but to keep her neutral with her navy here, not steaming away from a defeated Britain. And even when war was declared every effort in the way of offers of peace were made, with a scheme for recognising Germany’s hegemony of the Continent, and a free hand in her land policy, while the Reich would acquiesce in British overseas supremacy, and pledge her might as the guarantee of the British Empire.

“A model for the accord of world markets already exists; this is the agreement concluded at Dusseldorf in March, 1939, between Reichgruppe Industrie and the Federation of British Industries. Both were official bodies, and the agreement was sponsored by the Reich and Chamberlain Governments” (p. 308).

That Churchill ended this policy of “appeasement,” backed by the role of the United States of America becoming the arsenal for the democracies, while the Luftwaffe, plus the flying emissary Hess, attempted to “induce Britain to ‘voluntarily’ fulfil her assigned role in the Fuehrer’s grandiose plan,” is the burden of the last pages in the book.

Appended is the National Social Party Programme, declared by Hitler to be “immutable,” and no Socialist reading it could (except for the clauses dealing with Jews and non-Germans) say whether it was drawn up by Communists or any other reformist organisation. Take only a few.

“We demand the abolition of a professional army and the creation of a people’s army” (clause 22).

Socialists will remember this as the aim of the old Bolsheviks and the substance of the “People’s War” nonsense to-day: “In view of the terrible sacrifice in money and blood which every war inflicts upon the people, we demand the integral confiscation of all wartime profits, the nationalisation of all existing trusts” (clause 12).

The Labour Party or the I.L.P. could not beat this clause as a war cry. In fact, the Labour Party recently evaded the issue of the nationalisation of the mines of Britain and fell in with a scheme propounded by the Tories, which left the owners in possession.

“The Spoil of Europe” leaves untouched any conclusions of a theoretical nature. But it can be said that the military needs of countries preparing, then waging war, are the driving forces, whereby because of the mechanical nature of modern war, all production of field or factory must be co-ordinated.

There are independent writers who argue that the anti-democratic features of State-capitalism arise out of the very machinery necessary to run it, that in so far as a whole country’s resources are integrated and brought under control of the State, that this can be pictured as being one productive unit, where, as in an up-to-date works, if one division of labour gets out of step, no time is lost in ending the stoppage. The State officials therefore become responsible for the dragooning of everything and everybody, to fit into the centralising plans issuing from the higher authorities. Propaganda, and this includes the arts, stage and literature, is controlled, with the motive of allowing nothing to interfere with the direction that the leaders have laid down.

Although substantially true, this dictatorship which can allow of no political opposition, cannot be regarded apart from the phenomenon of war, in which the fear of defeat, invasion, or worsened conditions, can be the lever, used by the dictators to move the masses to collaborate in plans which virtually deny them the right to organise independent of the State.

It must also be borne in mind that the totalitarian countries have performed a “forced march” of their economic systems in order to balance, and be prepared against, the slow, yet highly industrialised, states which they will clash with in war.

This war has given some cruel lessons to the workers of the power of the capitalist state, for the state is but the “executive committee” of the ruling class, and it is in being to promote the interests of the ruling class. Yet it exists solely because the working class is wedded to capitalism, and bound to the fortunes of its commercial rivalries, its wars and poverty.

State-craft has added stage-craft to its arts and the workers are induced to cheer the very caricatures and skits of their own aspirations. Capitalism robed as “communism” and “Socialism” in full German battle kit can make their bow before thunderous audiences.

Members of the S.P.G.B. propose that the working class take the state-power into their own hands, to establish Socialism, the class-less society. The workers will be convinced of this necessity by Socialist education, driven home, unfortunately, by bitter experience. Thereafter the State will “wither away.” the need for its existence ended, never to return.

Frank Dawe

Letter: Is Disunity Hindering Socialist Proaganda? (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked to comment on the following letter published in the “Locomotive Journal” (August) : —

Sir,—Why is it, despite the most glaring of Capitalism’s evils, i.e., poverty, unemployment, war and its entailing miseries, the emancipation of the worker is no nearer its achievement? Is it due to the fact that whilst members of the Anarchist and Communist, S.P.G.B., Labour (a small minority), etc., parties, recognise that our common enemy is capitalism, they are divided in their method of approach ? If so, capitalistic society has no fear of being overthrown while their opponents carry on a divide and rule policy for them. Incidentally the proprietary rights of the study of “Sociology” are as much the workers as anyone’s, and in my humble opinion would be beneficial in their fight for equality. In case I should be misunderstood I am in no way suggesting this as an alternative measure for achieving same.

—Yours faithfully, 

J. Hodgkin. 

Stratford.

Reply:

The writer of the letter has a point of view that is held by a number of workers. It is not new. To go no further back than 1893 it was put in that year in the “Manifesto of English Socialists,” issued by G. B. Shaw, Sidney Webb, and others, on behalf of the Fabian Society and the Social Democratic Federation. Believing that “whatever differences may have arisen between them in the past, all who can fairly be called Socialists are agreed in their main principles of thought and action,” the signatories appealed “to all Socialists to sink their individual crochets in a business-like endeavour to realise in our own day that complete communisation of industry for which the economic forces are ready and the minds of the people are almost prepared.”

It is instructive to compare Mr. Hodgkin’s letter with the 1893 Manifesto, for they contain the same mistaken assumption. To start with, the group represented by “the Anarchist and Communist, S.P.G.B., Labour (a small minority) etc., parties,” is so small and weak that it could no more revolutionise society than could the tiny Fabian-S.D.F. group in 1893. Success now, as then, would depend upon whether the merging of the separate groups would so increase the effectiveness of propaganda that the Socialist movement would rapidly grow. But the question is, propaganda for what ? It is true that the group named (as also the whole of the Labour Party) would subscribe in words to the proposition that capitalism is the enemy, but that would only be an illusory agreement. They do not mean the same thing by the term “capitalism,” and their objects are not the same but are fundamentally different and irreconcilable. Let us suppose that six groups separately voicing different objects are merged into one group speaking in six different voices, what gain is there? Anarchists, the S.P.G.B. and the bulk of the Labour Party are opposed to Communist dictatorship and to the regime in Russia. The Communists, if they had their way, would suppress all the others. The S.P.G.B. is fundamentally opposed to the State Capitalism that the Communists and the Labour Party aim to introduce under the name “Socialism.” The Anarchists and the Labour Party are not in favour of the object of the S.P.G.B., a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control, and the Anarchists do not recognise the fact that the working class cannot achieve their emancipation except through democratically gaining control of the machinery of government.

Another question is the advocacy of reforms. The 1893 Manifesto proposed a programme of “immediate” measures within the scope of “practical politics.” This was on the ground that these reforms would give the workers more leisure and less anxiety so that they could turn their attention to Socialism. The Labour Party have the same view now. The S.P.G.B. rejects it, holding that parties which advocate reforms attract reformists, not Socialists; perpetuate the illusion that capitalism can be reformed satisfactorily; and end up by being swamped by reformist elements. Many of the reforms listed in the 1893 Manifesto have been wholly or partly achieved— an eight hours law, prohibition of child labour, payment of M.P.s, universal suffrage, suppression of sub-contracting and sweating, but so far from the propaganda for Socialism having been simplified, the workers’ increased leisure is being taken up with “immediate” demands for more and more reforms. Whereas in 1893 Shaw and others were content to name eight immediate demands, the Labour and Communist Party can now at any moment produce a list of almost as many dozen—though at the moment far from believing that “capitalism is the enemy” they believe that the paramount task is to protect democratic capitalism against Nazism, and have shelved all their reforms to that end.

In 1893 it was believed that the “minds of the people are almost prepared” for Socialism. Shaw and his colleagues were mistaken, and while progress has been made it is still true that the great majority of the population are not prepared for Socialism. One of the principal reasons is that instead of preaching Socialism most of those who (wrongly) regarded themselves as Socialists have been preaching reforms and everything else but Socialism. This is still true, and fictitious unity would not alter it.

Let it be remembered, too, that the 1893 attempt at unity failed and the S.D.F. and Fabian Society are still in separate existence. In the intervening years there have been dozens of attempts at such “unity.” All have either failed and have merely encouraged reformism at the expense of Socialist propaganda.

Incidentally, while we are on the subject of unity, we notice that after years of propaganda for amalgamation there are still three separate railway trade unions.

Editorial Committee.

“Austerity at the Kremin” : an explanation (1942)

From the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader points out that a quotation under the above heading in our September issue is wrongly dated. It should have been given as “Daily Telegraph 18th August,” not 8th August. He also calls attention to what he believes to be a serious error in the quotation. The passage quoted was taken from the “Daily Telegraph” and contained the words “Twenty-six courses were served. Mountains of vegetables and fruits crowded the tables”: but this passage was entirely omitted from other copies of the “Daily Telegraph” of the same date. Why it was cut out we do not know, but perhaps our readers may guess.

Editorial Committee

Letter: The Plight of the Merchant Seaman (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following the review of “Red Duster at War” in our June issue we received from the author a letter concerning the review. Mr. Bennett’s statement is given below, with our reviewer’s comments.

“It gave me a great deal of solid satisfaction yesterday to receive, unexpectedly, a copy of “The Socialist Standard” for June, 1942, and to read, pages 56-57, what “Ramo” has to say of my book, “The Red Duster at War.” But I want to qualify a few of his statements and criticisms, and I believe the Committee would be interested in what I have to say.

First, Ramo claims that I discuss “in a vague way” what ought to be done to improve conditions of seamen. I set myself up as a crusader, not as an authority on what lines should be followed after this war to make life at sea —and life ashore for seamen’s dependents—decent in contrast to the damnable conditions which exist even to this very day. But I have plenty of practical and 100 per cent. workable and authentic suggestions—based upon personal experience at sea and upon moves now taking place ashore behind the shipping scene—I could make. Point is, in what journal can I make those suggestions? Every newspaper and journal in Britain is scared to publicise truth, in this particular matter. Are you ?

Second, Ramo claims that I “betray no knowledge of the class divisions in society.” And how wrong he is! My God, if any unknown writer ever experienced the bitterness of class divisions, then, believe me, I have. Maybe neither the Committee nor “Ramo” is aware of what has already taken place—with Government blessing !—to affect seamen the moment the “Cease Fire” sounds? If you are in ignorance of this, and you will kindly advise me, I will tell you facts that I think will not only shock you but will convince you that my “indignation …” WILL “… find a different channel for its expression.”

Finally—although “Ramo” raises many another point I would here like to deal with, but will not—in the final sentence of the review, it is stated : ‘The only international agreement … is an agreement upon the necessity of doing away with the entire world-wide capitalist system.’ Agreed! AND IF YOU REQUIRE A PRACTICAL WRITER TO OUTLINE THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS DAMNABLE SYSTEM, SO FAR AS IT AFFECTS THE MERCHANT SEAMAN, I AM YOUR MAN. Whatever I may be invited to write for the Committee shall be written, sincerely, without any question of payment, for this is a subject very near and very dear to me.

Who am I that I should set myself up as a crusader? I am a descendant of a Dorset yeoman-farmer, who had eleven sons. One of those sons got into the habit of teaching farm-workers what was their right in life. For his pains he was arrested, tried on a charge of treason, and deported for life to Australia. Two years later there was staged the Tolpuddle affair.

I am, like the merchant seaman, neither a nitwit nor a near revolutionary. But I want to fight for Socialism. To the bitter end.

I am, Gentlemen, Sincerely,

WM. E. BENNETT.

Reply.

The author of “The Red Duster at War” disputes the statement that he betrays no knowledge of the class division of society. In making this statement, he uses the words “class divisions” (plural). Without wishing to be too academic, it must be pointed out that if a body is divided into two parts, the operation is called a division. Only when it is divided into more than two parts is it necessary to have more than one division. Hence the use of the term “divisions” seems to imply a belief in the existence of more than two classes in society. But to deal with the matter more fundamentally, a knowledge of the class division of society (we mean, of course, as understood by Socialists) implies certain things. It implies that this class division is not only one which extends throughout the whole of the capitalist world; it implies that this division of society into two classes is fundamental, transcending such temporary and artificial structures as “nations”; it implies a knowledge of the fact that governments, under capitalism, are but the executive committee of the ruling caste (the employing class), and that such governments cannot therefore be expected to act otherwise than in the interest of the employing class; it implies that while capitalism exists, there can be no hope of any permanent improvement in the lot of the workers; it implies that the only solution is to abolish capitalism with its system of wages and profits and to replace it by a classless society.

The following further quotations can be adduced from Mr. Bennett’s book : —

“Cromwell had the right idea.” (Page 180.) (This refers to the maritime laws designed to prevent the transport of goods between Britain and British possessions other than in British ships.)

“As a nation, Britain can no more afford to lose her shipbuilding industry than she can allow her shipping to be driven from the Seven Seas !” (Page 172.)

“Lord Essendon . . . seemed to hit the vital mark when he said: ‘The only way to revive British shipping and to make it profitable … is to pay due attention to the tramp-ship, which is the very foundation of the modern Mercantile Marine.’” (Page 158.)

“Or will some bright spark in some future Government suggest a plan that the Government itself makes an appearance on the oceans as shipowner? Already there has, I believe, been rather more than a hint of an official plan for a brand-new fleet of merchantmen, to be leased to shipowners for normal trading to all parts of the world on condition that the firms leasing the new, faster, more economic ships would lay up their own older vessels. Why? Why lay up any ship, so long as it can earn its salt ? I have served in antiques which provided the most pleasant returns—and surprises—for shareholders. And nobody ever runs a ship, a shop or a slop-chest merely for the fun of the thing. Or do they?” (Page 158.)

We can make no other deduction from these quotations than that the author is concerned with the increasing of British capitalistically-owned tonnage and with profits. That he may be concerned with improving the lot of the merchant seaman (which we do not dispute) is incidental. But this is not Socialism. It is typical Labourism.

It is quite possible to feel the hard knocks caused by a class division of society, without appreciating their theoretical significance or the action which should follow that appreciation, i.e., a determination to spread the knowledge which alone, when sufficiently widely diffused, will enable the workers to take the essential step of overthrowing the capitalist system in its entirety and replacing it by its logical and evolutionary successor—Socialism —a society where the whole of the means of production and distribution (including shipping) are the property of the whole of the people and operated democratically for the benefit of the whole of the people.

Nevertheless we sympathise with Mr. Bennett’s endeavours to improve the lot of the merchant seaman, and it is possible that with the greater industrialisation and combination of the shipping industry and more frequent social intercourse forced upon the merchant seamen, there will be a greater realisation of the necessity for organisation and action by the seamen to obtain better conditions. But it is still true that organisation and better conditions cannot do away with the booms and slumps which are inseparable from capitalist society, so that eventually seamen, as well as other workers, will finally reach the point of understanding that it is the system of society itself which is at fault.

Ramo.

Another Idol Gone (1942)

From the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another nasty jolt has been given to the fiction that the workers have not the capacity to understand the fundamental problems of life and should seek guidance from experts.

Not only do philosophers merely view the world differently but individual philosophers, after insisting for the best part of a lifetime that their view is the only true one, will suddenly recant and put forward an opposite view with equal conviction. They recognise their past errors with the ease, impudence and dogmatism of the Communist Party. It is just a further illustration of the utter futility of relying upon philosophy as an assistant in the struggle for working-class emancipation.

A recent example of the recanter is Dr. C. E. M. Joad, who, for some peculiar reason, is credited by reformers with a reputation for brilliance as a thinker. He also figured as the backbone of the B.B.C. Brains Trust, and is a teacher of philosophy at one of the Universities.

Before the outbreak of war Dr. Joad wrote a book supporting the pacifist attitude on war, but shortly after the war commenced he recanted this view. Recently he has written an article recanting his fundamental views on philosophy. This article is entitled “From Sunlight to Shadow” (Evening Standard, 25/8/42) and the Evening Standard have printed in thick letters above this title : “After 30 years of agnosticism, Dr. C. E. M. Joad has become a believer in God.”

Dr. Joad is fond of presenting different points of view (most of which only appeal to people on account of the language in which they are embedded), and in the process he has either got his own points of view mixed up or else he never had any. May we add that to be logical and honest Dr. Joad should have all his writings on philosophy to date withdrawn, and added to the waste paper collection, along with other rubbish, as he is now starting once again from scratch. We wonder if he will still have the face to carry on his job as teacher of philosophy, though, of course, capitalist economic experts still hold down their jobs in spite of their admitted bankruptcy on such questions as crisis and unemployment, and the most ghastly mistakes in forecasting the future. If an ordinary worker exhibited similar incapacity in the job he was paid to do he would soon find himself walking the streets. However, there is a reason why the “experts” keep their jobs, but we cannot go into it at the moment.

Let us now consider Dr. Joad’s article, and see what message, if any, he has for the workers in his new-found philosophy.

He opens with a discussion of the reasons that led him to agnosticism thirty years ago. His criticism of Christianity, including the question of whether earwigs had souls, he finally sums up with the following statement : “Seeing no answers to these questions, I consigned the whole religious bag of tricks to the shelf, where they have mouldered in cold storage ever since.”

Notice the phrase he uses, “mouldered in cold storage.” Now things don’t moulder in cold storage, and this is true of Dr. Joad’s putting “on the shelf.” What in fact, he did was to put the problem on the shelf because he was unable to solve it, and yet he has presumed to stand as an authority and guide on the subject ever since ! Now, appalled by the spectacle of the world at war and a debauch of unbridled savagery, Dr. Joad, the philosopher, savant, and guide, finds himself out of his depth. His superficial understanding will not guide him through the morass, so, like the primitive savage, he throws up his hands and appeals for supernatural aid. It hardly seems credible that a man with his opportunities should not have reached sufficient understanding years ago to realise that war was inevitable and that he would therefore have adjusted his ideas accordingly. But perhaps this is too much to expect from an “expert” who lives in a cloud of words and thrives upon clever and empty repartee.

He tells us in the article that he never held the view that matter was the only reality but believed that there were “certain absolute values of beauty, of truth, perhaps of goodness, perhaps even of God, who revealed Himself in the values”; that there was something else that accounted for beautiful music and Shakespeare’s sonnets. The fathead ! Darwin considered a worm far more beautiful than any music, and mathematicians are enthralled with the beauty of figures. What about the “Back Room Boys,” who produce designs for “beautiful bombs” and beautiful bombers with the object of decimating beautiful cities and beautiful bodies ? Is the present writer expected to believe that a principle of evil or a principle of good is responsible for the production of the wonderful caterpillars that are eating up his cabbages ? And what about the weather that simply won’t do its stuff—has the principle of evil got hold of this too ? or does Dr. Joad now believe that earwigs have rather shabby souls ?

Stumped for an adequate explanation of the latest catastrophe of war he can only see in it a proof that there is another absolute value—evil. What he completely fails to grasp is that as our physical and mental faculties evolve over hundreds of years so also do our ideas of what is pleasing and our capacity to produce what is pleasing. Thus there are no such things in his sense as absolute values. All values are relative and change with social evolution. To kill is evil in peace times but in war it becomes good, and Christianity, to which Dr. Joad is appealing, supports it.

Dr. Joad writes that he had been trained to regard evil as a by-product circumstance, economic and psychological, and that by removing the circumstance the evil would be abolished. Now observe the meaning the learned professor applies to these terms in the following extract:—

“I can believe this no more. The evil in the world to-day is too widespread and obtrusive, our noses are being rubbed too firmly into it, to enable us to take any longer so easy a view of its nature and origin. Is all the torturing and murdering and persecuting and raping that disgraces contemporary Europe to be dismissed as a by-product of the poverty and/or psychological maladjustment of young men born in Germany 20 or 30 years ago ? It seems unlikely ! Evil, then—there seems no escape from the conclusion—is endemic in the heart of man. But to believe in the reality of evil and to have no recourse against it save such as lies in the sporadic efforts of one’s own will and the slender integrity of one’s own judgment, that is, for me, a frankly intolerable position.

There must, one feels, be some outside source from which assistance can be invoked. ‘So there is,’ says religion, ‘there is God, and if, believing, you pray to Him, grace will be vouchsafed whereby evil may be resisted.’ Hence arises the paradox, that one is driven to believe in the existence of a benevolent and participating God, precisely because of the fact of evil.”

What a pity he doesn’t do a bit more knowing and less believing and feeling. The present writer knows that if he abolishes the caterpillars he will save the cabbage and therefore he is picking them off, and, given adequate assistance, would be completely successful.

The quotations from Dr. Joad’s statement provide a glaring example of what little knowledge he possesses of the subject he is discussing. Who claims that the evils of war are a by-product of poverty or the psychological maladjustment of young men ? Only ignoramuses like Dr. Joad ! Was the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Boer War, or the last Great War due to these causes ? Of course not. Was any war in history due to them ? Again of course not. Was even the Peloponessian War in Greece two thousands odd years ago, with which Dr. Joad should be very familiar, due to these causes ? The suggestion is absurd and could only come from an idle and disillusioned dreamer. One fact alone should banish from the mind any such ideas, and that fact is that for hundreds of years it has been the wealthy, property-owning class who have decided whether or not war should be declared. For the mass of the people the position has been—their’s not to reason why, their’s but to do and die.

The main fact is that wars are a product of the clashing economic interest of various property owners in different parts of the world who struggle for markets, trade routes, sources of supply of raw materials, and so forth. While private property with its clashing sectional interest remains war in all its barbarity will always cast a shadow over the social picture and no help can come from a mythical outside force.

If Dr. Joad had faced up to this position thirty years ago he would have realised that wars are always barbarous, no more so now than centuries ago. Greece in the age of Pericles, one of the brightest periods of all time, was disfigured in its warfare by just the same torturing, murdering, persecuting, and raping as has disfigured every war from that day to this.

Dr. Joad has put the wrong title to his article. He should have called it “From the Shadows to Despair.” This mental collapse is not an isolated instance, and it just reinforces our contention that to understand what is happening to-day it is essential to grasp the real basis of the social system, the capitalist private ownership of the means of production, which is beneath the hunt for profit and the consequent class division, economic conflicts, and wars. Given the conditions that lead to war then war will always produce the barbarities that have upset Dr. Joad’s mental apparatus. The solution is the building up of a new system of society in which private ownership will have no place.

In conclusion, we would call attention once again to the fact that philosophers only view the world differently; the point is to change it.

Gilmac.

Letter: The Death Penalty in Soviet Russia (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received from a reader the following letter about the paragraph in our August issue : —

24/8/42.

Dear Sirs,

In the August issue of the Socialist Standard it is stated that a reader, on enquiring by telephone at the Soviet Embassy as to the truth or otherwise of Boris Souverine’s statement that children in the U.S.S.R. are liable to the death penalty for theft from the age of 12 years upwards, was informed that this statement is false, and that the death penalty applies only to people of 18 years of age and more.

Boris Souverine (formerly leader of the Communist Party of France, and a man with considerable experience of Soviet life) makes the charge on page 612 of his biography entitled “Stalin,” but unfortunately does not give the reference.

The reference, however, can be found by anyone who is interested, in “Stalin’s Russia,” by Max Eastman, friend of Lenin and Trotsky, and formerly editor of the “Liberator,” the only American magazine to support the Bolsheviks from the day they came to power.

On pages 28 and 29 of that work Max Eastman says :

“In the spring of 1935 Stalin’s government issued a decree which made the death penalty for theft—adopted for adults three years before—applicable to minors from the age of twelve. When this fact was announced at a congress of the French Teachers’ Federation in August of the same year, the Stalinists in the Federation indignantly denied it. Being shown a copy of Isvestia (April 8, 1935) containing the decree, they lapsed into silence, but they were ready next day with the information that ‘under Socialism children are so precocious and well educated that they are fully responsible for their acts’ ! It is but a reflection of the manner in which this ideology is being stretched to cover every saddest thing in Russia.”

The law is referred to in many other works on Soviet conditions and I should imagine it is too late in the day for the matter to be disposed of by an anonymous telephone message from the Soviet’s Embassy. The Soviet Government denied the reality of the famine of 1932-33 (in which upwards of 4,000,000 peasants died of hunger), but the facts are now admitted by every prominent newspaper correspondent who was in Russia at the time, many of them (such as Eugene Lyons and W. H. Chamberlin) Communists or Communist sympathisers. The Stalin Constitution to-day guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press to the Russian workers, but no one dares to raise his voice against the prevailing administration nor can anyone mention the name of a single newspaper published in opposition to the Government.

As many are puzzled by what is taking place in Russia to-day and at a loss to understand what conditions in Russia really are, I would ask your permission to append a list of several of the most informative works on the subject for the benefit of those who wish to investigate the matter further : —

“I was a Soviet Worker ” : Andrew Smith.

“The Russian Enigma ” : Anton Ciliga.

“Stalin ” : Boris Souverine.

“Stalin’s Russia ” : Max Eastman.

“The Destiny of a Revolution ” : Victor Serge.

“Assignment in Utopia ” : Eugene Lyons.

“A Fake Utopia ” : W. H. Chamberlin.

“I Speak for the Silent ” : Professor Tchernavin.

“Russia Under Soviet Rule ” : N. A. De Basily.

“Russia in Chains ” : Ivan Solonevich.

The first six of these works were written by former Communists, but all are informative, and give a picture of Soviet life and conditions that is as different from the “facts” of Communist propaganda as night is different from day. They should be obtainable at any public library.

—Yours faithfully,

H. W. Henderson

Nationalism: deadly enemy of socialism (2022)

From the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

To many workers nationalism, like some other prejudices, is just another weird idea left over from the past. However, too many others still identify with countries and nations. Nationalism therefore still plays a large part in keeping workers divided.

Some try to make a distinction between patriotism and nationalism: with patriots identifying with their own imagined country without harbouring any ill-will towards people of other countries and nationalists who, as well as having special affection for their own imagined country, are also more xenophobic.

These concepts are so entangled that it makes no sense trying to disentangle them: it is the unsound nature of these notions which bothers us.

To the nationalists, whether Scottish or English, British, German, Russian, Chinese, American or whatever, the concept of the nation is a very important matter. For some it is the most important matter. Nationalists adhere to the strange notion that the nation, or nation-state, is an entity to which we should have automatic allegiance.

But why should we have such allegiance? And what exactly is a nation, and in whose interests does a nation-state operate?

Until the eighteenth century local feeling was much more important than national feeling. The pre- eighteenth-century community-spirit sense of nationality considered a nation to be composed of people living in a particular area with a common language, culture and history; but not necessarily ruled by the same state.

During the eighteenth century some new countries and nations were created. Great Britain, for example was a nation-state created by a merger between England & Scotland in 1707. This was not a ‘hostile takeover’ of Scotland by England, but a deal done between the ruling class of England and their counterparts in Scotland. Needless to say neither the working class in England nor the workers in Scotland were consulted.

Certain gentlemen in what was then the North American colonies became rather disgruntled over trade and taxation and their lack of representation in the British parliament. These grievances between the gentleman rulers on either side of the Atlantic eventually led to the American War of Independence. The British gentlemen on the American side of the ocean foreswore their allegiance to the King and declared independence from Great Britain. In their Declaration of Independence in 1776 they called the new country the United States of America.

The French Revolution in 1789 and its aftermath gave impetus to the further development of liberalism and nationalism throughout Europe and by the nineteenth century nationalism had become more important and much more assertive than the hitherto existing sense of nationality.

The new nationalism intertwined with liberalism was really part of the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie.

Eastern Europe was relatively backward but north-west Europe had reached an advanced stage of industrial and trade development. Industrialisation and increased commercial development spread from west to east along with the political ideas of the rising bourgeoisie.

The new nationalism was essentially the idea that the nation, whatever it was conceived to be, is the most important unit of organisation in society and should therefore be equivalent to the state: it was the concept of the nation-state.

Nationalism and liberalism posed a threat to the cohesion of states like the Habsburg Empire which contained Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Czechs, Poles, Croats and Serbs within its boundaries. On the other hand, new states could be established if the idea of nationalism captured the minds of Germans and Italians whose nations were both divided into various separate states. So, sometimes nationalism united territories into new countries and sometimes it tended to disrupt and divide existing countries.

In 1861 Italy went from being a ‘geographical expression’ to unification. There was at that time a number of competing notions about what a united Germany might be. The so-called Holy Roman Empire had been dissolved in 1806 leaving a collection of petty states which organised themselves during the course of the 19th century into a number of configurations and confederations which eventually led to unification in 1871.

The old absolutist system of government was diametrically opposed to the needs of a developing and dynamic capitalist economy and it was this antagonism of interests which gave rise to the attack by the middle class against absolutism and the feudal rights of the aristocracy.

Liberalism required the unity, inherent in nationalism, of nationhood in society to ensure the satisfactory operation of a liberal constitution. So bourgeois liberals promoted nationalism to further their own ends. But the acquiescence at least of workers and peasants was essential in achieving national unity and independence.

To maintain national cohesion, nationalist ideology is required. Various paraphernalia like flags and national songs/anthems are used to help indoctrinate the subjects of a nation with the myths and fantasies of nationhood. History books with a twisted account of how the nation arose and how it has done great things are also very useful.

A measure of how successful this indoctrination is can be seen at international sports events, where the participants go into a trance-like state as they sing the national anthems of what they have been trained to believe are ‘their’ countries and many are overcome with emotion.

‘Scots Wha Hæ’

The Braveheart Legend today owes much to the eighteenth century romanticised view of the Wars for Scottish Independence of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, which culminated in the Battle of Bannockburn in June 1314.

These wars were really struggles amongst the aristocracy, who had lands in both England and Scotland, for political power commensurate with their landholdings and their own perceived greatness.

The song Scots Wha Hæ, by Robert Burns, was ostensibly based on Robert Bruce’s speech to his troops before the Battle of Bannockburn, but Burns was influenced just as much by contemporary struggles in Europe and elsewhere when he wrote this song. He also knew that to openly write such a song about the ‘radical’ struggles of his own time, whether in Britain or abroad, could expose him to prosecution for sedition.

In more recent times the rise of the SNP as a political force results largely from the perceived failures of decades of Labour and Tory governments. It could be said, particularly from the 1970s onwards, that the misanthropic projects of Labour and Tory governments led to growing support for nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.

To the Scottish National Party the nation is the most important thing. The essence of its argument is that the interests of the ‘people of Scotland’, whoever they might be, can be served best by a government in Edinburgh rather than one in London.

They claim nowadays that nationality can be defined in such a way as to include everyone who lives in Scotland. A bit like the USA, where you can become an American or a hyphenated one for a generation or two; or perhaps forever.

It sounds much ‘nicer’ than some of the more virulent and nasty types of nationalism. But unfortunately, many of the SNP’s supporters continue to be the more old-fashioned and nasty type of nationalist.

Change of rulers

Since the collapse of the British Empire after World War II, many nations have gained independence from British rule. None of this has led to any lasting benefit to the workers in these countries. As in the rest of the world the populations of these countries are divided into employers and their wage-slaves.

So, although the nation-state may be a convenient vehicle by means of which a local (national) capitalist class can exploit the workers within its boundaries, it brings no benefit to the workers.

Nationality is therefore something imposed upon the worker. In fact, the workers of the world have no country and therefore should not have any allegiance to this or any other country. Instead of worrying about the interests of the country or the nation to which they belong, their allegiance should be to their own class interests.

Our use of the possessive pronoun with respect to the employers and their wage-slaves was no accident: the countries are theirs – ie, the capitalists – as are we their wage-slaves. But the countries are not ours! We do not own enough of this or any other country to fill a flower pot.

Instead of worrying about the interests of the country to which they belong and its independence or lack thereof, workers should seek independence for themselves: independence from the tyranny of capital and silly flag-waving nations. Nationalism – like sexism, racism, and religious superstition – is anathema to socialists. We can have nothing but antipathy to it. It is totally incompatible with working class interests and the struggle for socialism.

The Scottish National Party argues that social problems in Scotland are caused by London government and that with an independent government in Edinburgh a start could be made in solving these problems.

The Socialist Party argument is that social problems in Scotland are not caused by government from England but, as elsewhere, by capitalism. Re-arranging frontiers or constructing a new state is no more a solution to working class problems than electing a new government of capitalism or changing the Prime Minister.

Such political changes, are irrelevant to the working class, since they leave the economic basis of society – the class monopoly of the means of production – unchanged; and it is precisely this that is the root cause of their problems.

Against all nationalisms

The Socialist Party opposes Scottish nationalism just as it does British nationalism which, of course, is supported by the Tories, Labour and the Liberals. We are opposed to all nationalism and insist that the solution to our problems lies in the establishment of socialism throughout the world.

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has recently proposed holding another referendum on whether or not Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom. She claims that she has a mandate to conduct one. The SNP together with the Scottish Greens, who have turned tartan in the last few years, constitute a pro-independence majority in Holyrood. Although this majority of nearly 56 percent in the Scottish Parliament is based on only 49.2 percent of the popular vote, it is a greater ‘mandate’ than Boris Johnson’s 43.6 percent of the popular vote which gave him 365 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons and control of the British state.

The question of whether or not the Scottish Parliament has the authority to conduct a referendum has been referred to the Supreme Court. Should the Supreme Court rule that the matter is reserved to the authority of Westminster and if whoever replaces Johnson still refuses to grant Sturgeon permission to conduct a referendum, the SNP will fight the next UK general election solely on one issue: separation. This would, they say, be a de facto referendum on independence.

Therefore the proposed referendum in October 2023 or the next general election in 2024, like past elections, gives us a ‘choice’: vote yes, get capitalism; vote no, get capitalism! It is like being asked if migraine is better than diarrhoea. Capitalism offers us innumerable such ‘choices’, in an attempt to pretend we are being consulted.

To borrow some of Burns’s words: ‘Now is the day, and now is the hour’, but not for supporting some madcap scheme to create a new nation, or restore an old one. It is time to get up off our knees and face the future: not a fairy-tale future promised by politicians but the future that we will make. Not Scotland for the Scottish, England for the English, Wales for the Welsh, or any other nationalist fantasy world.

A long time ago in the aftermath of a bloody war we claimed the world for the workers and called upon you, our fellow workers, to fight for socialism. Over a hundred years later our claim and demand is the same. By overthrowing capitalism and taking the world for the workers, we will have one world for one people. To do anything else is, just like the proposed referendum, an exercise in futility.

John Cumming

The Chumocracy (2022)

Book Review from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chums. By Simon Kuper. Profile Books. 2022. £16.99

Simon Kuper is a writer and columnist for the Financial Times, specifically the FT Weekend magazine. He was also the co-author of Soccernomics, which analysed the finances and tactics of modern football as they have emerged in western Europe in recent decades.

Kuper is an excellent writer, arguably one of the best, and while his politics is not ours, he is a provocateur who thinks seriously about current affairs and trends, always looking for unconventional angles to analyse familiar issues. And in Chums: How A Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, he has done it again.

For a start, 11 of the 15 post-war Prime Ministers (at the time of writing) went to Oxford. And five of these went to the very same school, Eton. In the 1980s and early 90s a group of politically minded students were at Oxford at similar times and Kuper – who was at Oxford himself then – has dissected their influence, political trajectory and growing power.

The incubating role of the Oxford Union debating society for toffs and aspiring toffs is paramount, the infamous and élite Bullingdon Club that Johnson, Cameron and Osborne were part of arguably less so, but Kuper chronicles it warts and all. His key insight is about Brexit, because in many ways it was at Oxford at this time that Brexit was conceived. Patrick Robertson, the founding secretary of the Bruges Group, was prominent at Oxford in this period, as was fellow Tory and later MEP Daniel Hannan, who set up a similar organisation of his own and was also to help Michael Spicer found a grouping of anti-EU MPs that became the European Research Group. Alongside these came Dr Alan Sked’s Anti-Federalist League, the forerunner of UKIP – and hence an entire Brexit ecosystem was formed.

The later role of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in Brexit has been well documented and Kuper does not spare them:

‘Brexit was the sort of grand cause that Johnson and Gove had lacked all their political careers. It would give them a chance to live in interesting times, as their ancestors had… It would be a gloriously romantic act, like the Charge of the Light Brigade, only with less personal risk. The Oxford Tories would reclaim parliamentary sovereignty, the birthright of their caste, from the Brussels intruders. In private, they understood that Brexit might not work out brilliantly, but Britain had no natural predators and would survive even a blunder’ (p.160).

Whatever we may think of the Brexit/Remain debate and its ultimate futility, Kuper spots trends that others have missed here. Fascinatingly, there is a close alignment between the subjects that Oxford politicos studied and their subsequent position on the issue. Of the prominent Remainers that were at Oxford nearly all studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) – Cameron, Hunt, Hammond, Hancock, Truss, etc as well as the Milibands, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper and in an earlier period, Mandelson. Yet as Kuper explains:

‘By contrast, all the leading Tory Brexiteers studied backward-looking subjects: classics for Johnson, history for Rees-Mogg and Hannan, and ancient and modern history for Cummings. Gove’s degree was English, which mostly meant the canon’ (p.40)

The overwhelming sense here is of a group of privileged Tory students who thought of themselves as rule-makers not rule-takers, and who were looking for the next grand project once Thatcherism was complete, and one that could hopefully restore their birthright and entitlements. That they succeeded as much as they did is a remarkable testament to the UK’s enduring class system and its networks into business and the press. But as they say, all political careers ultimately end in failure – and this cohort of political careerists has clearly been no exception.

Dave Perrin

Cooking the Books: Can banks create wealth? (2022)

The Cooking the Books column from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who believe that a bank’s business model is to create money out of thin air, lend it at interest, and make a profit as the difference between the interest they receive and their running costs, must have been mystified by an article in the Times (6 July) which reported:

‘The Bank of England has warned the City against making ‘excessive’ cuts in lending to households and businesses as the economy slows because of the risks of exacerbating a downturn.’

If banks make loans out of thin air, why would they cut back on lending? One reason, compatible with this belief, might be an absence of credit-worthy borrowers; although it wouldn’t cost the banks anything to conjure up the money to make a loan, it would be pretty pointless if the loan wasn’t to bring in any interest.

This already shows that bank lending (whatever the source of the money to lend) depends on the state of the economy. If this is contracting there is less opportunity to make loans (even out of thin air). On the other hand, if it is expanding there is an incentive to make more loans. This suggests that theories that a boom is caused by banks lending too much put the cart before the horse. Bank lending depends on the state of the economy, not the other way round.

Ignoring for the moment where the money for a bank loan comes from, what is the source of the interest? With big loans to capitalist enterprises to invest in expanding their business, the interest comes out of their profits. As these profits come from the unpaid labour of workers, the source of the interest is human work. Smaller loans are given to individuals, such as to buy a house. Here the interest is paid out of their wages but, since wages are a share (the paid share) of what workers produce, in this case too the source of the interest is human work.

The belief that banks create money out of thin air assumes that banks can create wealth by a few keyboard strokes. If that were true it would indeed be amazing, on a par with alchemy let alone magic. It might be said that what banks create from nothing is a claim on wealth. But that doesn’t hold water either. That claim would be transferred to the borrower. As soon as the borrower uses the claim to actually acquire wealth by buying something, the bank has to honour it; it has to produce a corresponding amount to transfer to the person or business that the borrower used the loan to buy something from. These won’t be satisfied with thin air. They will want the real thing. The bank will either have to have the money already or get it fairly quickly. In other words, it is already existing money that is the source of what banks lend, which will be the monetary representation of actual wealth produced by human work in the past.

Banks are not financial alchemists but intermediaries between those with money they don’t want to spend for the time being and those without money who want to spend some. This is why the banks are wary of lending when the economy is contracting. If they lend to people or businesses that may not be able to pay it back, they risk losing not just the interest but also the money they lent.

The Bank of England can no more cajole banks into lending money when the economy is contracting than they can to lend less when it is expanding. Not that that stops them trying.

Proper Gander: A Problem Not Registering (2022)

The Proper Gander column from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

It would be nice to assume that as knowledge and technology carry on improving, so would healthcare, as more and better treatments become possible. But as we know, the National Health Service has always struggled to provide enough of what’s asked of it, despite the hard work of its staff. One aspect of the NHS where it’s sadly become realistic to lower our expectations is dental care. In a recent documentary on BBC News, Disappearing Dentists, presenter Dominic Hughes highlighted some of the issues.

The programme includes some distressing interviews with people who have been unable to register with a NHS dentist and unable to pay for treatment privately. One woman was left without a dentist when the practice she was registered with closed and there were no other ones taking on new NHS patients available nearby. Since then, she has lost 13 of her teeth because of receding gums for which she can’t get any treatment. Another woman has resorted to making substitute dentures from mouldable plastic herself because there are no dentists she can access. A father is unable to find a practice which will accept his children, who need treatment for painful cavities and misaligned teeth.

The programme’s researchers got in touch with nearly 7,000 dental practices who have contracts with the NHS. They found that in England, Wales and Northern Ireland around 90 percent of practices said that they were not registering new adult NHS patients, and 80 percent were not accepting children. A quarter of practices had waiting lists to register, with most being a year or more long. Many areas, especially much of the north of England and all of the west country, have become ‘dental deserts’ with virtually no chance of being able to newly register. The situation isn’t quite as extreme in Scotland, where 82 percent of dentists are not accepting new NHS patients, and nearly everyone has already registered, according to the Scottish government.

The NHS manages dentistry different to other aspects of healthcare. Most dentists operate as independent contractors rather than being employed by the NHS like GPs and hospital staff. Therefore, dentists are able to treat both private patients who pay for this directly and patients registered through the NHS, which subsidises the cost. NHS patients themselves are charged between £23.80 and £282.80 for a course of treatment, with children, pregnant women, benefit claimants and some other groups having all costs covered. Only treatments which are deemed clinically necessary are available through the NHS, so cosmetic procedures are only performed privately.

The programme-makers spend a couple of days at the emergency clinic at Newcastle University’s School of Dentistry. Drop-in clinics like this treat people who are in pain, without them having to be registered or charged as private patients, although there aren’t enough of them to cover much of the country. Many of the people who come in and are interviewed didn’t expect they would need to go there as they thought they were registered at their local practice. When they tried to make a booking for their current problem they were told that they had been taken off the register because they haven’t had an appointment recently. Being in pain, they couldn’t take the option of joining a long waiting list to re-register, and without other practices able to enrol them as NHS patients or the means to pay privately, they headed to the emergency clinic.

One dentist interviewed for the documentary said that the current crisis is the result of reforms to the way that dentists take on NHS work brought in during 2006. The type of contract a dentist had with the NHS changed from them being paid for each piece of work they did to having a block contract with their Primary Care Trust which pays them for a set number of ‘units’ of treatment each year. One given reason for the reform was that the system of charging individually for each treatment was believed to encourage more work than was necessary and discouraged preventative advice. Dentistry was already in a bad way when the contracts changed in 2006, with an ongoing shortage of dentists, especially in more economically deprived areas. The situation is even worse in 2022, as illustrated by the documentary. The dentist interviewed says that his current contract fails to meet the costs of NHS treatments because it caps the budget available for them. His income from private patients covers the gap to some extent, but this reduces his overall revenue which isn’t in his economic interests. Having a maximum number of NHS treatments paid for means that the practice can’t expand its NHS work. And as the population increases, more people will want to be registered, leading to rising demand which isn’t being met. Alongside this longer-term trend are the more recent disruptions due to the pandemic, which are still having an impact.

The crisis in NHS dentistry provision has got to compete for attention among all the other crises going on at the moment. There’s no appetite for structural change, according to Nigel Edwards, chief executive at the Nuffield Trust. He says that there’s a risk of dentistry becoming a two-tier system, but this has already happened with the difference between NHS and private patients. Like everything else, dentistry is commodified, and the NHS is an inconvenient complication of this for the capitalist class. It’s easy to think that NHS dentistry is being deliberately neglected by the Tories in order to promote the private sector, although it was under a Labour government that the contracts blamed for exacerbating the situation were brought in. Regardless of how it’s funded, basic dental care is always going to be an awkward fit into the capitalist economic model: it’s a product which requires expensive highly-skilled staff and decent equipment and also one which we don’t want unless it’s needed. The documentary ends by saying ‘there’s no quick fix for NHS dentistry’, but it would be more accurate to say that there’s no real fix at all within capitalism.

Mike Foster

Obituary: Oliver Bond (2022)

Obituary from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oliver Bond, one of our most active members, died suddenly at the beginning of August as a result of an unsuccessful emergency operation. He was 66 and had not yet got round to claiming his state pension. Oliver was born in Canada but was brought up in Scotland. He joined the old Islington branch in 1984 during its very active period. He worked as a programmer on mainframe computers but was made redundant in his 50s and was never employed again. Some of his work colleagues could only find jobs working in a call centre, such was the reduced demand for workers with their particular skills. In the Party he was involved in a whole range of activities, street selling, pub selling, writing (his last contribution was the editorial in the June issue), even speaking occasionally, and also as an election candidate and agent. At the time of his death he was on the ballot committee, the member responsible for subscriptions to the Socialist Standard, and Treasurer of the South & West London branch. Outside the Party he was a keen member of CAMRA. He was a quiet, thoughtful and diligent man, generous to a fault and who could never say ‘no’. He will be sorely missed by his friends and comrades. Our particular condolences go to his brother and sister in Canada.

50 Years Ago: The Five Jailed Dockers (2022)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The dockers are worried about their jobs, or rather about the drop in standard of living they will suffer if they lose them. Since 1967 the number of dockers has fallen by a third, from 60,000 to 40,000, mainly as a result of the so-called container revolution. One aspect of this problem has been that much container work, even in dock areas, has been done by workers other than dockers, some non-union, some members of other unions, but all generally at lower wages.

It is the policy of the dockers’ unions, the Transport and General Workers Union and the rival National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers (expelled from the TUC in 1959 for ‘poaching’ TGWU members), that the work should be done by dockers, at dockers’ wages. To this end, the dockers have taken various forms of industrial action, official and unofficial, legal and illegal, from blacking container firms to a national docks strike.

A number of the blacked container firms took the TGWU and some of the shop stewards (from both unions) to the National Industrial Relations Court complaining that the blacking was an ‘unfair industrial practice’. The Court agreed: the TGWU was fined at least £55,000 and, eventually, five dockers sent to prison for ‘contempt of Court’.

The reaction to the jailings shows that working-class, or at least trade-union, solidarity still exists. Besides other dockers, thousands of newspaper workers, miners, train drivers and others (including those at the blacked Midland Cold Storage depot) stopped work. Such was the pressure that even the TUC would have called a one-day general strike of all its ten million members if the five dockers hadn’t been released, an unprecedentedly daring move from the Knights of Congress House. And of course they were released, obviously as a result of this working-class resistance. The government itself may not have directly influenced the Courts, but the workers on strike did. The House of Lords and NIRC were left with no alternative but to hurriedly concoct some legal excuse for letting the men out.

This was a successful defensive action by the working class and one which the Socialist Party of Great Britain welcomes just as we would have supported the one-day TUC general strike.

(Socialist Standard, September 1972)

Editorial: The class war and why there is one (2022)

 

Editorial from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the loud-mouthed Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, the rail unions are ‘dinosaurs’ who are ‘motivated by some outdated class war’ (Times, 15 August). But if the class war is outdated, why is the government waging it on behalf of the profit-taking class? Why has it given itself powers to allow agency workers to replace strikers? Why has the likely future prime minister promised to place yet more obstacles in the way of union members going on strike without breaking the law?

The fact is that class conflict is built into the nature of capitalism as a society where the means of life – the places where the goods and services to keep society going are produced and provided – are owned and controlled by only a section of society, and where the rest of us, as non-owners of such places, are forced by economic necessity to go out onto the labour market and sell our physical and mental energies for a wage or salary. But that is not all. As the only way in which new wealth can be produced is by humans using their efforts to transform materials that originally came from nature, the non-work income of the owners – as profits and other property incomes – can only come from what those workers produce.

Capitalism, in short, is based on the economic exploitation of wage-labour for profit. This is why the interests of the two classes into which it is divided are diametrically opposed. How could they not be when the income of one class comes from the work of the other? The interest of the one class is to defend and increase profits; the interest of the other is to minimise its exploitation. Workers form trade unions to try to do this. The owners have the government to defend their interests.

The Tories, as the traditional party of the ruling class, recognise that this is the government’s role and preach class war against the workers’ unions. The Labour Party have had to learn this the hard way but now accept that in government they too have to give priority to profits and profit-making.

In the current situation, with the rise in the cost of living back in double digits, the unions are not even asking for double-digit wage increases, but only for something more than the 1 or 2 percent that they have been getting. Even non-unionists are changing jobs to get a higher salary so as to try and keep up with the cost of living. It is an almost spontaneous reaction of a class whose standard of living is being reduced. In reflecting this, the unions are doing their job. And in opposing them the government is doing its job.

The class war will only end when workers win political control and make the means of life the common property of society as a whole; when they win the class war and abolish class society.

Letter: Responding to Lynn (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the April Socialist Standard, under the heading Left Is Not Right, we published a letter from Lynn Stabler, with our reply. Another reader has sent us some comments on Lynn's letter; while we agree with Trevor Swistchew on many points — for example his view of society in Russia as state capitalist — on others we have reservations which are set out at the end of his letter.

Dear Editors,

In my view, one of the main reasons we suffer (and there are many forms of suffering) is because we live our lives selfishly. Capitalism epitomises selfishness in today's world. We are brainwashed to compete with each other, to subscribe to goals defined by figures in authority and to obey laws with little or no protest.

Suffering in terms of hunger or lack of medicine or poor conditions can definitely be linked with the doctrine of capitalism, which denies millions of human beings access to the necessary goods, services or opportunity to make life a more equitable proposition. I personally do not believe that violence can liberate the poor from poverty, yet can understand ongoing poverty and its debilitating effects on people and how this leads to desperation in some cases, and thoughts of revenge in others. It appears to be a mixture of exasperation, frustration and fear. Many people die from unnecessary causes like hunger (in a world where grain is destroyed or stockpiled to keep market prices high) illnesses, which medical science has cured in the Western world. The problem is lack of access to a fair share of all the goods, services and wealth created by labour, managed (and abused) in many cases by capitalists. It is not a matter of hate however, it is really a matter of how to ensure that people can get access to enough of the resources which their labour helps to produce, so that they too can survive. That is what true socialists aspire to. and not to bombing others, or advocating violence. I accept that some people who claim to be socialists do condone violence, in the same way that some Christians too are hypocrites who spout Jesus but live debased lives.

Lynn must not grab hold of bits of socialist theory that suit her arguments and use them to attack other views. Socialist theory and practice takes years to achieve — it actually is worthwhile, and is definitely the superior doctrine to capitalism because socialism, when properly understood, and lived, opens one's eyes to the deliberate injustices committed in the holy name of politics. May I conclude by saying loudly and clearly that Soviet Russia is not a socialist country What they actually practise in the USSR is state capitalism (i.e. the state is the Number One capitalist) as opposed to the land owning gentry in capitalist Britain, Not all who say they are socialists are socialists.

Yours in the hurly-burly,

Trevor Swistchew

Reply:

The ethos of every social system — its morals, laws and so on — is based on its mode of wealth production and exerts its pressure on the people to accept and conform. Capitalism's ethos springs from its nature as a society based on the class ownership of the means of life, the production of wealth as commodities and the drive to accumulate capital. The ideas of the working class — who are the productive. exploited class under capitalism — and the goals which they aspire to. are fashioned under this pressure. It is not possible for the workers as a class to operate selfishly, for their role under capitalism is to perform the enormously generous act of producing all society's wealth but allowing their exploiters to appropriate it while they themselves receive only enough to reproduce their working abilities. On the personal level, despite the pressures of capitalism, there are countless examples of workers behaving co-operatively, even self-sacrificially. A most recent case of this was the tragic bravery of the workers who struggled to control the fire in the reactor at Chernobyl.

The problem of preventable, unnecessary illness afflicts the entire capitalist world. Illness in the "backward" countries may take a different form from that in the "advanced" Western world, where disease is very often associated with the stress of survival under industrial capitalism, but that does not indicate that it is any more of a problem.

Socialists are not aiming at a society of "fair" shares of wealth (which is in any case a dubious concept) but one where everyone has the same rights of access towards society's wealth that is. free access to satisfy self-determined needs. This is not in operation anywhere in the world: thus it is not possible to "live" socialism at present.

Capitalism is managed by members of the working class, who perform all the work, be it mental, manual or managerial, needed to keep the system going.

Socialism cannot be achieved through violence. It must be the act of a majority of workers throughout the world who understand socialism and who take the conscious, democratic step to abolish capitalism and replace it with the society of common ownership. The work of socialists is to change workers' ideas, through debate and persuasion: it cannot be done through violence and repression. The fact that some who advocate violence call themselves socialists illustrates the importance of judging people by what they stand for, not by the label they attach to themselves.

The issue of capitalism or socialism is not a moral one. It is not useful to think in terms of "deliberate injustices" ("justice" itself is a nebulous, variable concept) because even if capitalism were immaculately "just" it would still be a social system which cannot meet the needs of the majority of people. Whatever offences it commits against human interests are in response to its needs as a class divided society.

Capitalism has been a necessary stage in social evolution and now it has outlived its usefulness, making it a hamper on human progress. Its "doctrine" was once revolutionary and progressive but now it is reactionary and decadent. The idea of socialism promises to abolish the problems caused by capitalism but that does not make it "superior" in the strict sense of the term. It is truer to say that it is in line with modern conditions and needs and scientifically expresses the nature of the next stage in human society. Understanding socialism is not a difficult, protracted business: the members of the companion parties of the World Socialist Movement have come to understand socialism not through any special abilities or endurance but because capitalism has convinced them that there is no other way

Editors.