World View: Kashmir and the threat of nuclear war (2002)

From the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent weeks, the eyes of the world have once again turned to Kashmir and the ongoing antagonism between India and Pakistan over who should control it. Though the two countries have three times gone to war (1945, 1961 and 1971) without much western interest, this time round the sabre-rattling is attracting wider attention, not least because it could very rapidly result in a nuclear exchange with the loss of an estimated 25 million lives.

 

The Kashmir situation is a hangover from the age of Empire and British colonialism, when India was ruled by Britain and Kashmir was a principality ruled on behalf of Britain by the repressive Hindu Dogras dynasty. 

For the British, the Kashmir region was a strategic asset, of paramount geo-political significance. It could serve as a listening post for the tracking of Soviet-Sino ambitions in the region and be militarily important should Russia or China decide to attack. Indeed, even the US now views Kashmir as part of their on-going plan to circle China with their military bases.

In 1947, however, Britain’s rule of India was coming to an end and the region was being plunged into an orgy of religious bloodshed. As had been the case with some 580 other Indian principalities and states, Hari Singh, Kashmir’s maharajah, was given the choice either to join India or Pakistan or of remaining independent. Although the majority of the people of Kashmir were Moslem, he chose to surrender the territory to India. The “official” initial intention of Lord Mountbatten – the British governor-general – was that a plebiscite of the Kashmiri people be held. This has never happened, in spite of numerous UN resolutions on the issue,

One common view is that Lord Mountbatten was really the architect of the handover, believing India to be far more capable than Pakistan of repulsing any Russian and Chinese advances in the subcontinent, acting as a proxy army on behalf of western interests in the area.

Whilst Islamabad insists Kashmir should belong to Pakistan, citing UN resolutions on the issue and pointing to the Moslem majority in Kashmir, India is insistent that under the terms of the 1972 Simla Agreement both countries decided to settle the dispute through bilateral negotiations and minus UN Interference. And whilst India insists that the accession of Kashmir to India in 1947 is complete and that Kashmir is an integral part of India, Pakistan contests this and insists that the region is in fact disputed territory and that it has the right to provide moral and diplomatic support for an indigenous freedom struggle there.

At the moment one and a half million soldiers face each other across their respective borders and there have been regular artillery exchanges. Though tensions are high, the situation is not considered as threatening as it was weeks ago, when western governments were asking their nationals to return home. Since then, both countries have been involved in diplomatic talks with the US, Britain and Russia. None of which, however, has helped remove Indian forces from the Kashmir border or lessened the likelihood that renegade anti-Musharraf groups in Pakistan could take matters into their own hands. Analysts in Washington still maintain that any terrorist attack from Pakistan’s militants could easily result in a swift Indian nuclear response. And as Musharraf may sue for peace, he is mindful that he needs the support of the army and its hawkish generals, many of who see the Kashmir cause as a religious duty.

For Britain’s part, whilst Blair is playing his trite role as global peace-maker, this can only be considered an act of hypocrisy. It has been after all a Labour government these past two years that has helped up the ante there. In 2000 alone, the peace-loving Blair government granted India and Pakistan some 700 military export licences (just as Britain armed both sides during the Iran-Iraq war). Moreover, India is currently under licence to build the British-designed Jaguar bomber – the type of bomber that could deliver atomic bombs to Islamabad and other Pakistani cities

In January this year, Tony Blair travelled to India on a “peace mission”, intent on lending the Kashmir crisis his diplomatic skills. He did just that, returning a week later with a £1 billion order for 66 Hawk fighters. Three weeks later the British High Commission there organised a party for British arms salesmen attending the Defexpo arms fair – dealers who openly acknowledged that they were hoping to cash in on the crisis. The same old excuse applied – “if we didn’t, somebody else would” (the kind of defence you could use for kicking Blair up the arse).

The US and Britain may well be critical of either side in this conflict threatening the use of the “first strike”, but George W Bush has already intimated that he would use the “first strike” option against seven countries in four different scenarios, with British Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon suggesting Britain would do the same.

Although the US has resisted selling arms to India and Pakistan, it must be remembered that both India and Pakistan’s nuclear programme was initiated by the US “Atoms for Peace” programme, that India’s first nuclear device was produced in plant built with US assistance and that Pakistan’s first research reactor came from the US.

So, while there is much evidence for the continuance of the war industry, the peace industry seems to be pretty limp. The United Nations, set up to prevent conflicts, is all but lame. The Security Council is yet to invoke Article 34, which calls for investigations of disputes “likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.” The UN Charter further allows any country or even the Secretary General (Articles 35 and 99) to place any threat to global peace before the Security Council.

The impact of a nuclear exchange between two impoverished countries and the knock-on effect for the rest of the globe is unimaginable. The death toll would be in the tens of millions, with many more dying months and years later. Millions of acres of land would be uninhabitable and the fallout would contaminate many neighbouring countries for centuries. The humanitarian mission to treat the survivors would have to be the biggest rescue mission in history – perhaps as big as all previous rescue missions combined. That such a scenario is possible is a damning indictment of capitalism. We stepped out of the 20th century – a century of bloodshed in the name of profit – into the 21st dragging every social ill behind us, with even more global problems abounding than 100 years previously. What a barbaric age we live in. Still, borders are to be fought over. Still, gods to be avenged and, still, that age-old cursed prize – profit – to be sought in every stinking orifice. And were the mushroom clouds to start rising over Islamabad and New Delhi, western capitalists would still ponder how they could cash in on this hell, this hell of their system’s making.

John Bissett

New words, old tunes, same dance (2002)

From the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again the ever gullible African “leaders”, intellectually bankrupt as they always are, have allowed themselves to be ridiculed by their local and Western economic advisers. This time around they have been hoodwinked into adopting a 201-point nonsensical package of a so-called African Renaissance project christened the “New Partnership For Africa’s Development”. (NEPAD). Foremost among the shameless stooges dishonestly claiming authorship of the bogus document are Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, Nigeria’s Obasanjo, and South Africa’s Mbeki. Adopted in 2001 at Abuja, Nigeria. NEPAD is now gathering momentum with conference upon conference being organised to extol its virtues. It is therefore our duty to expose this cankerworm that it is.

 

The architects of this programme claim that they are inspired by what they see as an increasing number of African countries with “good governance”. In their words “the number of democratically elected leaders are on the increase” (No. 44) and “across the continent democracy is spreading” (No. 45). This view of theirs leaves conscious people wondering what “democracy” stands for here since the state and its institutions all over Africa still remain fundamentally as elitist as when the colonialists introduced them here. Political parties are still the personal organisations of a few wealthy individuals who always employ all sorts of dirty tricks to win elections. To assume, therefore, that there is a democracy in Africa (or even in George W. Bush’s USA) which serves as a basis for development is to daydream.

They go further to talk (in No. 8 and 27) of consolidating and celebrating the “gains” that Africans have achieved through the years. Nothing could be more preposterous and an insult to the suffering masses. The ordinary people of Africa have seen their living conditions jump from the frying pan into the fire all these years – which in fact is even why the NEPAD came into being. What then are the economic gains to consolidate? Is it the increasing poverty, illiteracy, disease, starvation, squalor, etc? Or maybe the leaders are thinking their five-star hotels and beautiful beaches which are exclusively reserved for the wealthy Western tourists and World Bank and IMF “experts”.

Not unexpectedly, and like all other previous theories and strategies for development (which woefully failed), the document claims that NEPAD differs in approach and strategy from the earlier plans and initiatives in that it is an African-owned and African-led programme (Nos. 59 and 60). But this argument comes up against a two-pronged snag. In the first place Africa is not a homogenous unit. The continent comprises a mass of hewers of wood and drawers of water on the one hand and a few privileged fat cats sitting on Africa’s wealth on the other hand. These two groups have interests which are miles apart. The idea that NEPAD “is based on the agenda set by African peoples through their own initiatives and of their own volition to shape their own destiny” (No. 48) and that “we are, therefore, asking the African peoples to take up the challenge of mobilising in support of the implementation of this initiative” is sheer nonsense.

The mere existence of leaders and the led; the privileged and the unfortunate ; or the “smart” and the “dull” is itself a reflection of the class-divided society that is ours. It is therefore not strange that the small fry fat cats who have by mere stroke of luck seen themselves in comfortable seats will present to us such a programme as NEPAD. It is meant to perpetuate their privileged class interests.

The other problem of this idea of African-owned and African-led program lies in the fundamental issue of funding. All the garbage about the Africanness is completely negated by their No. 181 which merits quoting in full: “the various partnerships between Africa and the industrialised countries on the one hand and multi-lateral institutions on the other will be maintained”. The “partnerships” in question include among others: the UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s; the African-Europe summit’s Cairo Plan of Action; the World Bank-led Strategic Partnership with Africa; the IMF-led Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers; the Japan-led Tokyo Agenda for Action; the African Growth and Opportunity Act of the USA; and the Economic Commission for Africa-led Global Compact for Africa. The objective will be to rationalise these “partnerships” and to ensure that real benefits flow to the “donors” who put up the money.

But perhaps the most ludicrous aspect of this mammoth illusion relates to its modus operandi. A good lot of ink was sunk into the usual rhetoric of “capacity building”; “a safe African environment”; “empowerment”; “ensuring competitiveness”; “enforcing inalienable rights”; “eradicating female genital mutilation”; “providing education, health care, shelter, and food for all”; etc. Each item is exhaustively described but nothing resembling how they would implement the lofty goals is mentioned. The nearest the document ever goes by way of how they would achieve their aims is found in No. 49 which states inter alia that “to achieve these objectives African leaders will take joint responsibility for . . . strengthening mechanisms for conflict prevention, management, and resolution at regional and continental levels”.

Clearly, those who drew up this farce of an agenda did not have any illusions on the continued presence of conflicts and war. They therefore did not hesitate to include the setting-aside of large sums to beef up the military strength of their respective countries to enable them deal with conflicts. Now considering the fact the armaments industry is one of the most lucrative of all capitalist ventures, one can not fail to see through the evil designs of the “partnership” to lubricate this enviable avenue of amassing ill-gotten wealth.

On the other hand, these leaders being dreamers felt that “it is with in the capacity of the international community to create fair and just conditions in which Africa can participate effectively in the global economy and body politic” (No. 41), unaware, due to their warped ideological inclination, that the profit-oriented system has no room for fair play and justice; that profit-seeking knows no morals. And consequently, the leaders’ conviction that “what is required . . . is bold and imaginative leadership . . . as well as a new global partnership” is pathetically naïve.

To cut a long story short, there is no way that the disadvantaged masses of Africa and indeed of the whole world can be salvaged through any design that is shaped by so-called “leaders” and which design operate along the lines of the present money-dominated system. Democracy and development demand the exclusion of leadership; people must organise and relate to each other as equals if progress is to be made. An Arab proverb states that “there are two people who never get satisfied; the one seeking money and the one looking for knowledge”. And since money is known to be the root of all evil, the money seekers (capitalists who control the means of production and distribution of wealth) will unscrupulously stop at nothing to make their profits. But as knowledge is enlightenment it leads to truth and justice. So, our first step in correcting the ills of human society through truth and justice is to understand the capitalist system and how it can never work to the advantage of the dispossessed masses of Africa and everywhere else.

Suhuyini Nbang-Ba

Greasy Pole: Mandelson – Coming Up For The Third Time? (2002)

The Greasy Pole column from the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a little help from his friend in Number Ten, Stephen Byers kept afloat for as long as he could but in the end he was dragged down by the sheer weight of his exposure. This was an opportunity for Blair to re-arrange his ministers, unexpectedly promoting Paul Boateng to the influential, money-filtering job of Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Boateng does not have a reputation for being sympathetic but he is the first black Cabinet minister, which ensured that his appointment dominated the media. On the following day the front pages were given over to huge photographs of him and the inside pages were lavished on profiles of him. There was hardly a mention of Alistair Darling, the new minister in the hot seat of Transport and even less of the discredited and embarrassing Byers, who had now sunk almost without trace.

We have become accustomed to the Blair government’s aptitude for this kind of media manipulation. At one time it was the speciality of Peter Mandelson, who like Byers is now fallen from grace but who does not consent so easily to being airbrushed out of the reckoning. In fact Mandelson, although he was twice forced to resign from the government when he was blamed for some particularly blatant sleaze, rather fancied himself as a successor to Byers. In a recent interview he discussed his possible response if Blair were to offer him the Transport job: “ I love being a minister. I love being in government, it’s what I was put on earth to do.” This wistful musing was a change from his vengeful, tub-thumping reaction to being re-elected for Hartlepool in the election of 2001:

Before this campaign started, it was said that I was facing political oblivion, my career in tatters, apparently never to be part of political life again. Well they underestimated Hartlepool and they underestimated me, because I am a fighter and not a quitter.

Rewriting History 

Has Mandelson changed, then? Is he no longer the Prince of Darkness, the presence in the background who plotted his party’s rise to power with such diabolical skill – and then applied the same talents to undermine anyone who was less than ardent in their admiration for blessed Tony Blair? Is he re-assessing his essential role in politics, so that he is not a fighter or a quitter but a joiner? One step in this direction is the publication of an up-to-date version of his 1996 book The Blair Revolution, of which there were extracts in the Guardian on 17 and 18 May. When Mandelson originally wrote that book Labour had been out of government long enough to make it safe for Blair to spout meaningless promises about “. . . a new social order in Britain, a genuine modern civic society for our time, based on merit, commitment and inclusion”. A lot has happened since then, a lot of reality has penetrated the verbiage of Labour leaders; two landslide election victories for them, Mandelson twice in and twice out of government, the comprehensive exposure of New Labour as not significantly different to the Tories – even in the matter of sleaze, which in 1996 seemed to be exclusively Conservative territory.

And now we have him, perhaps because he sees it as the only way back into favour with the leadership, re-assessing the government’s record in a manner which must have demanded all his guile and talent for obfuscation. Too carping an approach would have made him seem to be sulking. Too obsequious and he would have been included in that contemptible bunch of lapdogs on the Labour benches. Something better mannered, more constructive was needed. Like this:

• In acquiring skills to deal with the media, we created spin
• In winning business to our side, we lost some workforce confidence
• . . . having promised less than we thought we could do, we started hyping more than we were actually achieving…
• . . . too many of the worst estates and deprived communities remain unchanged – bleak ghettos depressing the sprits of all who live in them . . . too often becoming centres of danger and desperation
• New Labour government mark one has been too controlling in the way it tries to run the country and Whitehall

Communist Party 

These comments will be recognised by many people whose reservations about New Labour in government have often provoked a dangerous hostility from Mandelson. So the apparent conversion of the man who, more than almost everyone else in politics was notorious for creating spin, control-freakery and “losing workforce confidence” must provoke a few questions. Should we take what he says at all seriously? Has he ever given us any reason to believe him? The evidence against him is overwhelming.

To begin with, Mandelson was once an active member of the Young Communist League. Nothing much wrong with that, it might be argued; we all have the right to change our minds if we have reason to and there are plenty of ardent Blairites in the government who cut their political teeth as left-wing hell-raisers. In Mandelson’s case that argument is weakened by his attempts to conceal this murky bit of his past, saying that he “. . . wasn’t sure whether I was technically a member” of the Communist Party.

Luckily, by the time he was in the government in 1998 he had transformed himself into a mature politician, assuring an audience of business executives, in case they had any qualms about New Labour having silly ideas about equality of access, that the government was “. . . intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. (The word “relaxed” was a favourite with New Labour just then – it was a handy euphemism for breaking promises and acting against what they had claimed were their sacred principles.) In fact Mandelson had been relaxed about getting into the Commons in the first place because, in June 1989, just before he sought out the nomination for the rock safe seat at Hartlepool, he “categorically” denied having any intention of standing for parliament.

Guacamole 

Hartlepool is not famous as a place where the rich have discreet villas and keep their yachts – which may have caused a few problems to its new Member of Parliament. During a visit there Mandelson was persuaded to enter a fish and chip shop. Blanketing any possible disdain at where he found himself, with a show of gourmet enthusiasm he asked for “some of that guacamole” – meaning a portion of good old working class mushy peas. (Guacamole, for those who do not frequent the same exalted circles as Mandelson, is made from avocado, tomatoes, mayonnaise and seasoning. It is a popular dish in the kind of trendy restaurants favoured by left-wingers). Rather than slumming it in a chippy Mandelson was more at home in another class of company. Like the ministers in the first Labour governments in the 1920s, he wallowed in the attentions of the filthy rich. His first parliamentary assistant, Derek Draper (who was no mean social climber himself) wrote that Mandelson “. . . loved mixing with rich, glamorous, exciting people. He seems to go ga-ga when he has anything to do with them”. His eagerness to have a home appropriate to his ambitions tempted him into borrowing all that money from Geoffrey Robinson (for the same price he could have bought something like a whole street in Hartlepool) and his reactive tendency to conceal the truth led him into the attempted cover up, which in the end cost him his ministry.

A readiness to double-cross made a bitter, implacable enemy of Gordon Brown. In the leadership election after the death of John Smith in 1994 Mandelson seemed to be assuring Brown of his support at a time when he was actually committed to Blair. Of course that’s politics – and so are the dark arts of lies and manipulation. Where does Mandelson stand on this? In 1986, when he was Labour’s Director of Campaigns and Communications, he wanted to get rid of his deputy, John Booth. It may have been that Booth was becoming a bit of an embarrassment to Mandelson; for one thing he had found out that his boss was in regular contact with the Times, in spite of a Labour Party executive decision to break contact with Murdoch’s papers over the sacking of hundreds of printers during the move to Wapping. Booth contested the matter, whereupon Mandelson assured him that if he had to be sacked “I will make any fabrication of the truth and stick by it faithfully”. To make the point clear to a wider audience, in August 1997 he informed us of the function and uses of spin doctoring: “to create the truth”.

Politics 

These matters are the tip of the very nasty Mandelson iceberg. But we should not lose sight of the fact that whatever he did was not briefly experimental. It was done with the collusion of his party’s leadership, because they saw it as an essential contribution to their victory. He fawned on the rich and socially parasitic while Blair told us that New Labour was on the side of “ordinary people, against privilege”. He specialised in underhand trickery to serve the interests of a party which promised “open government” (as if there can be such a thing). He did all this when he was a member of a government which was committed to turning its back on the years of Tory sleaze. It was at one time convenient to punish him so that New Labour could claim he was an isolated case. The truth – the uncreated, undoctored truth is that the politics of capitalism, like the system itself, must be founded in deceit.

Ivan

Letters: Punk rock (2002)

Letters to the Editors from the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Punk rock

Dear Editors,

When I began reading the article on Punk rock in the June issue, I wondered if I had got the date wrong and it was one of those April 1st spoofs beloved of the Guardian. I was surprised to see so much valuable space devoted to so much pretentious twaddle. It’s bad enough to read this sort of pseudo intellectual rubbish in the Daily Telegraph, least of all in the Socialist Standard.

Denham Ford, 

Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

Reply: 

We can understand that punk music can’t be everybody’s cup of tea but it was a significant social phenomenon in its time and its jubilee was certainly worth commenting on more than the other one—Editors.

Capitalism defined

Dear Editors,

Capitalism has been defined as a political economy based on commodity exchange and surplus value. Thus under capitalism economic production portrays the implicit class interests of the bourgeoisie and not the satisfaction of general social needs as such.

Commodity production alienates the working class from the physical objects of their labour. Their social essence as members of civil society comes to be determined by the money wages obtaining under existing conditions. The working class’s engagement in economic production ends in the creation of commodities.

The realisation of surplus value thus becomes the major factor motivating economic production under capitalism. Commodities and social goods are created not for unrestricted consumption but for sale.

The nature of the working class social deprivation under capitalism warrants no further elaboration other than the sanctification of unemployment, inflation and social poverty in every capitalist society. Because economic production is undertaken in order to realise surplus value the full satisfaction of the basic social needs shall always remain unrealised under capitalism.

Scientific socialism aims to change the fetishistic economic framework of capitalism. The eradication of capitalism will entail a class war between the state and civil society that can only be realised through a working class inspired socialist revolution.

The illusory projection of political and economic freedoms under abstract and fictitious entities abstracted from the immediate reality of civil society has led to the blind acceptance of the political state as a universalisation of human freedoms. The political and economic interests of civil society come to depend upon the arbitrary whims and fancies of political elites. The political state illuminates the unrealised political and economic freedoms that cannot be realised under the intrinsic economic relations based on competition.

The division of labour has suppressed labour’s potentialities for individualised self-realisation by subjecting its mental and physical potentialities to the limiting conditions of the commodity market. The division of labour is a fetter upon labour’s physical and mental potentialities and limits its self-realisation. Thus the eradication of capitalism will liberate labour from its restricted social conditions under the division of labour.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels developed and formulated their systematic and dialectical premises of dialectical materialism while domiciled in England. Their critical analysis of capitalism was heavily influenced by political and economic transformations taking place in the 19th century. Thus the scientific and dialectical assumptions of Marxism are open to further historical development that may transcend the predictions of Marx’s own theories.

Kephas Mulenga, 

Kitwe, Zambia

50 Years Ago: Crime and Capitalism (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the end of the war a great many speeches have been delivered and a great many articles written on the growth of “crime” and especially of juvenile “crime.” The makers of these speeches and writers of the articles have based their views upon an acceptance of the social rules of Capitalism and, in general, have failed to see that what they accept as crimes can only be explained by the capitalist environment in which we live, and cannot be abolished as long as this system continues.

What comes under the heading of crime came into existence with the development of property. Crime did not appear in early communistic communities because property relations had not developed and sex relations were free. Crime consists of infringements of social rules. With the growth of property the owners of property became the rulers and law makers, and when they later delegated their functions to henchmen the laws continued to be laws based upon propertied society. Infringement of these laws were classified as crimes. But there was a certain elasticity about the laws to harmonise with the interests of property owners at different times. For instance, piracy was a crime, but not when, as in Elizabethan times, it was practised by English sailors and brought maritime wealth to the English ruling class; stealing was a crime, but not when English landowners stole millions of acres of common land; killing is a crime except, as then years ago, when millions of men were trained to strangle, blow to pieces, shoot and maim their fellows. Even to-day, whilst men are brought before the courts accused of the crime of killing, millions of their fellows are being trained and equipped to kill on a mass scale. Again, if a woman is caught selling the use of her body to a man under a contract – marriage – it is quite all right, but if she is caught selling the use of her body without this contract she is guilty of the crime of prostitution. Of course she can sell the use of her brains with perfect freedom.

(From front page article, Socialist Standard, July 1952)

Walking with Beasts (2002)

Book Review from the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Walking with Beasts’ by Tim Haines. BBC Worldwide, 2001

The Walking with Beasts television series was one of the BBC’s success stories towards the end of last year. The accompanying book is equally as visually impressive. In particular the section on Pliocene Africa (relating to Australopithecines) provides a useful and easily digestible summary of the current knowledge of very early human ancestors. Such knowledge is particularly important when we consider “human nature” and its being an alleged barrier to achieving socialism. The section on chimpanzees is rather useful in this respect. Socialists are familiar with the old chimp argument: chimpanzees having an aggressive, male-dominated society, therefore such behaviour must be innate in humans too, the “evolved chimpanzees”. As Haines rightly points out, the bonobo (so-called “pygmy” chimp”) is equally closely related, yet has a completely different social structure – a matriarchy based on promiscuous sex. There are several other useful little snippets of a similar nature. It also makes a good bit of light-hearted entertainment.

Kaz.

And then the roof fell in! (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The American Slump

The beginning of a recession is like intoxication: the patient gets worse—but he feels better. British and American capitalism has been looking and feeling better for two years, but now the symptoms are beginning to show. Business has been booming, problems of shortages have been overcome, and for the consumer—with the end of the “sellers’” market, inducements to buy in the form of better quality, better service, better packaging or even lower price: all these have made life seem better and easier.

Buy now and pay later

Since the War the credit buying was expanded greatly in this country, but it has never reached United States proportions. The legal restriction on hire purchase trading that we have here (minimum deposits, etc.) does not apply in the U.S., and consequently, as selling became more difficult, “easier and easier” credit terms were offend. Not only is credit buying respectable in America, but almost a national custom. Whatever the income range—from the lowest paid to those executives whose blood pressure would suffer considerably at the thought that they wen “workers’’—all buy houses, cars (a new one every year if possible), refrigerators, holidays, and all the gimmicks of the American Way of Life, on credit.

Then is also a growing inability and reluctance to repair anything. When that brand new car—or fridge— or house—starts giving trouble, well then, just throw it away and buy another one. Last year Time magazine, which usually has on its cover the effigy of a Great Man (or film star), featured “The American Repair Man.” and the article dealing with the cover story showed in amusing detail the situation of the American worker, surrounded by mechanical appliances which would save him a lot of labour if only he could get them to work again. 

Throw it away!

But, of course, the advertisers have the answer: buy another one. Buy this year’s model: be in the fashion: your old green refrigerator is out of date—red is the colour this year1

In fact, there is only one thing wrong with buying on credit, and that is that you have to pay for it even if it is later rather than sooner, and this is rapidly being brought home to those millions of Americans who are now unemployed.

Unemployment

The present situation in America is that there are over three million drawing unemployment benefit. The actual number of unemployed exceeds this figure, since the benefit only lasts for a maximum period of 39 weeks and many have been out of work long enough to be now disqualified. This puts them “on relief,” paid for by their city, and they come out of the statistics of “ unemployed.” Arising from this lack of work (and consequently, lack of pay) the furniture and other items bought on credit are being repossessed by the sellers, mortgages are in many cases being held over temporarily and stealing of food from self-service stores has increased noticeably in those towns that have been forcibly hit by unemployment. 

The “land of opportunity” is receding for the unemployed worker whose home and way of life is in danger. Suddenly, the insecurity of capitalism is made real.

This problem will be aggravated since we learnt recently that the American car factories are shortly to shut down production of 1958 models for several months to give dealers time to sell 760,000 1958 cars now unsold. The industry always shuts down every year in order to retool for the next year’s cars, but this year the closure has been brought forward many months.

Too Much

Everywhere the terrible cry goes up—surpluses. Too much food, bumper crops; too much oil; too many cars and other goods on the market: too much production of raw materials from South America and Asia, causing world prices of raw materials to drop drastically: too many unemployed, not able on the benefit to buy more of these commodities and seeing those that they have “ bought ” taken back by the finance companies.

Add to this catalogue the statement by Mr. Khrushchev last November: "We declare war on you in the peaceful field of trade.” Thus Russia, a new competitor, enters world capitalism on a large scale as a rival to the older established powers.

Capitalism's Answer

What is the answer? In May there was a meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board in New York at which economic and business experts gave their remedies. Cut taxes to encourage business they say: but the man on relief does not pay taxes and has not business been “encouraged” too much? Produce better values, they say; but the man on relief (or in danger of it) will be unable to buy anything other than necessities, good or bad value. Bring back the lost art of selling, they say: but again, if you haven’t got the money you can’t buy, no matter how slick the salesman. Introduce high tariffs against foreign imports? but that will only aggravate the bankruptcy of countries like Bolivia, Chile, Indonesia and others, and will have a profound effect on countries like Britain, which depends largely on car exports to the U.S. It has been estimated that a 4 per cent. drop in key prices in undeveloped lands cancels out all the funds supplied by the United States in economic aid. In many cases the drop has already exceeded that amount.

It may seem strange that those who support capitalism most volubly—including those workers now unemployed—are those who understand its workings least. Or perhaps it is not so surprising since if they did understand it, would they still support it? See the great surprise of the American worker who finds it hard to realise that all that bustling prosperity founded upon these great factories—such permanent things—all this should suddenly collapse into what is now politely called a “recession.” A recession, mark you, that shows no signs of getting better yet. The National Industrial Conference Board which met in New York this month (referred to above) received a “report from businessmen pointing to a further decline in spending for plant expansion that will last into 1959.” And recently a top building-industry economist, speaking to the New York Society of Security Analysts said that the recession will last “through I960"

Our Criticism

Socialists are opposed to capitalism and we are opposed because we do understand the basic workings of the system. The broad cycle of slump and boom will continue due to the basis on which production rests. This basis, this “ incentive ” that is thought so admirable by anti-Socialists, is the competitive urge to profit. But this incentive can work both ways—if the production of a commodity does not appear profitable, then it will not normally be produced. On the other hand, distribution has no relation to the needs of people but only to the ability or otherwise to pay the price.

Generally the picture of the world commodity market today—of which America is only a more dramatic example—is of too many goods unsold, in store, production being restricted. And, at the same time, too many people needing those goods and without the money to buy them.

It's Falling

This is always the picture in capitalism and is only brought out more clearly when, as at the present time, there is a growing world recession. To those who support capitalism, this system of fake individualism, financial enterprise and dog-eat-dog competition, we say. this world as you see it now is the society that you perpetuate.

We say further that this is not necessary. The energy and enterprise that goes into attempts to solve insoluble problems and to stabilise an unstable system, and the techniques of production that produced these vast crisis-making surpluses—all these could be used perfectly well for the benefit of the whole community, in a society where goods were made to satisfy peoples’ needs and not for the profit of the producers.

With Socialism, economic security would be a reality.

As one of the unemployed said, in Bristol, Connecticut, where now nearly one worker in four is unemployed: “ It seemed set to last for ever, and then the roof fell in.”

L. B.

The Mind in Chains: Censorship and Society (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps the commonest of all traditions in a parliamentary democracy is that a law can be passed to put anything right. “It ought to be stopped” is the expression of most people's belief that somehow a statute can be got up that will check greed, prevent cruelty, or end any of a thousand kinds of nastiness. There is remarkably little evidence for this; only a few months ago Sir John Wolfenden’s committee reported the impossibility of making laws to deal with prostitution, and modern history is full of unsuccessful attempts to put down social problems by law.

Even where laws do seem to have succeeded, usually the real factor has been something quite different. The decline of gangsterism in America was due less to legislation than to a change from the social climate which produced so many gangsters; similarly, the probable suppression-of fox- and stag-hunting in this country will barely anticipate the death from natural causes of what have ceased to be the upper-class sports.

In the last few years, attention has been repeatedly drawn to the censorship laws. They were in fact extended three years ago by the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act—the “Horror Comics” Act; now there is the report of the Select Committee on Obscene Publications, making recommendations for the consolidation and extension of existing laws.

Most of the Committee's proposals reiterate those of the draft Obscene Publications Bill which had its first reading in Parliament in 1955 and now awaits further presentation. Briefly, they aim at clarifying the law and removing anomalies so that first, "serious" works may be better distinguished from others, and second, things may be made hotter for the others. Because the emphasis has been on the possible benefit to works of art, the proposals have been viewed favourably all round; the fact remains that they are for an extension, not a relaxation, of the censorship.

Is there any harm in that? The "considerable and lucrative trade in pornography" of which the Committee speaks is a pretty squalid business, and few people would be sorry for its disappearance. The basis of censorship lies much deeper than that. Its function is to suppress anything which seems potentially harmful to the established order. In our society, it concerns itself with three main threats to the régime: subversion of the state, of religion, and of the monogamous sex pattern.

Apart from the legal prohibitions imposed directly by the state, there are a number of subsidiary censorships to the same end: for example, the exclusion of non-régime views by the broadcasting and television monopolies, the film censorship, and the with-holding of news by the press. There is, too, the simple censorship of price: statutes are scarcely needed to restrict the circulation of five-guinea books.

State censorship in this country dates from the granting of the Stationers' Company's charter in 1556, giving the Company a monopoly of printing and charging them with the suppression of seditious and heretical works. Under this and the various other licensing acts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the censorship was concerned with religion and the state, and hardly at all with sexual morals.

"Obscenity” did not enter the Common Law until the eighteenth century; even the attack on the Restoration comedies was political much more than it was moral. The first moves towards censorship in this direction were made as the middle-class reading public grew, and its real establishment came with the Industrial Revolution and the puritanical religious movements which followed the new-born industrial working class into the towns.

The big drive was promoted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, an offshoot of the Evangelical Movement founded in 1802 (Sydney Smith called it "a society for suppressing the vices of persons whose incomes do not exceed £500 p.a.”). Among its members were Shakespeare’s "collaborator" John Bowdler, Hannah More, Dr. Wilberforce, and Keate, the flogging head of Eton. Its chief concerns were profanation of the Lord’s Day, blasphemy, disorderly houses, fortune-telling and obscene books.

The pornography trade did rise and thrive in the nineteenth century. Its centre in London was Holywell Street—then by the Strand, now demolished—where, according to contemporary accounts, the sale of all kinds of pornography flourished openly. Apart from the flood of books and pictures there were several magazines explicitly given to homosexuality, flagellation, and so on: some with such innocent titles as the Rambler's Magazine and The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine.

The first major legislation on the subject was Lord Campbell's Obscene Publications Act of 1857; this, in fact, together with supplementary items from various other statutes, is the law under which the censorship works today. On its introduction it was vigorously opposed in Parliament by members of the upper class who believed „ enough in laissez-faire to hold that morals were a personal matter (including some who had erotic libraries of their own: see Cyril Pearl’s Girl With the Swansdown Seat).

The legal application of Campbell's Act was given eleven years later by Chief Justice Cockburn. In his judgment of an over-zealous anti-Catholic pamphlet called The Confessional Unmasked he uttered the famous definition of obscenity which has been accepted by judges ever since: “The test of obscenity is whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall.'' 

In this century'a number of factors have given novelists reason to assume a wider scope than they had before. The spread of psychological teachings that emphasise sex as a mainspring of behaviour; the decline of the family from the Victorian ideal; the effects of two world wars (war novels, indeed, seem to enjoy impunity in laying on the sex and the swear-words). The result has been a series of prosecutions extending from Wells's Ann Veronica in 1909 to the recent crop involving Julia, The Philanderer, September in Quinze, The Image and the Search and The Man in Control.

The lawmakers' dilemma now is to re-frame censorship so as to admit the changes in morality and, at the same time, keep out the undesirable. The difficulty of doing this is obvious. It means, in effect, that some kinds of frankness and even obscenity are useful to our society (both The Philanderer and The Image and the Search are, in fact, heavily moral books) and some harmful: the trouble is finding a yardstick.

Several people pointed out the same thing in the “horror comics" agitation—a Daily Mail editorial, for example, remarked that the news pictures of Mussolini hanging rivalled anything Dr. Wertheim had found. And on the point of obscenity, the News of the World on May 25th had an interesting paragraph in the report of a photographer's case: “Asked . . . if he had ever taken an improper photograph, he replied : ‘ Yes—once during the war for the Foreign Office. I believe it was for propaganda purposes'.”

An enormous amount of pornography, and stuff that is very near to it, does serve the interests of Capitalism. How about the nasty dreams of sexual irresponsibility that have been the films’ great stock-in-trade for thirty years, and have helped replace religion as the opium of the people? Or the dirty fantasies that are provoked to sell anything from sedatives to soap? Or the pornography of wartime, sanctified because it spurs on our gallant boys and shows what beasts the other side are?

That does not condone the back-street pornography trade, of course. Apart from the stuff detailed in the police statement to the Select Committee—a good deal of which is sold openly at shop counters, despite what the police say about the difficulty of obtaining evidence of sale—there is a considerable trade in near-pornographic books and pictures. The vital part of the near-pornographer’s art is to accurately assess the changing wind, and much of his business is done by post and advertized in likely magazines: “Young Lady Photographer can supply unusual studies to private collectors, send s.a.e.", etc.

What all this shows is the need, not for more censorship, but for something to be done about the world in which these stupid trades can flourish. Most of the matter in question is miserable rubbish, but its real authors are the people to whom Capitalism must be doing something bad: how frustrated must one be to pay the pomographer's price for a second-hand sexual thrill? Here is the condemnation of censorship—that it aims to protect and perpetuate the social order which causes so much of frustration and unsatisfied need.

There is little to show, as the Home Office officials had to tell the Committee, that anyone is “depraved and corrupted" by pornography. Indeed, it becomes harmful when it is legalized and used for economic and political ends like fomenting hatred in wartime. The censors, the magistrates, the policemen and the members of the Public Morality Council do not seem to be transformed into satyrs by all that they see. This is one case, in fact, where those who do not care need not be affected. Most people go through life without ever seeing a dirty book or picture, and the common effect on those who see involuntarily is not corruption but revulsion.

On the other hand, the everyday world is full of well-established means to “deprave and corrupt" on which there are no prohibitions. Few things deprave more than the sight of money, or corrupt more than a little power over others. Empires and businesses are built on depravity, and exposing the young to its influence is a statutory requirement under the Education Act.

Whatever one thinks about obscenity, the extension of laws against it means the extension of the State's domination over what people may read and think. And, always, the concern is to secure conformity in the working class. In a prosecution in 1935, a main question which helped lead to suppression was whether the book was “fit and decent for people of the working class to read." The proposed new Obscene Publications Bill has the same regard in asking for, as evidence of obscenity, “ evidence, if any, as to the persons to or among whom the said matter was, or was intended, or was likely to be distributed, sold, or offered for sale." And N. St. John-Stevas, in his Obscenity and the Law—largely an advocacy of the new Bill—is explicit on the point:

“Publishers certainly act on the presumption that a high-priced book will not be prosecuted, and sometimes produce editions of the same book, one bowdlerised at a low price, and the other unexpurgated at a high one . . . the protection of the mass of the people from the corrupting effects of pornography is not so much class prejudice as a realistic recognition that the present educational level leaves them open to victimisation."

In other words, the mass of the people don't know what is good for them: an argument which is unfailingly used to support taking away any freedom of choice or expression. Incidentally, Mr. St. John-Stevas devotes six pages immediately following this passage to showing that pornography has no "corrupting effects," and so leaves one to wonder if it isn't “class prejudice" after all.

All censorship should be opposed. Bernard Shaw called it “the intolerance of the community," but he mistaken: it is the necessary intolerance of rulers towards any apparent threat to the security or stability of the society they rule. It is not expressed like that, of course —it does not have to be, because while the ideas of the ruling class are dominant most people see them as the "natural” ones.

Nevertheless, it is a weapon against knowledge and thought. In a free and sensible society it could have no place; in the meantime, censorship can be nothing but an impediment to progress towards such a society.

Robert Barlrop

A Spirited Criticism (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Strange Manifeitations in ‘‘Two Worlds”

The May 17th issue of Two Worlds, a weekly Spiritualist paper, carries an article headed “Red Flag Makes Him See Red About Spiritualism." Under this bright, economical title "Two Worlds Reporter," makes a vigorous attack on the article "The Sad Religion," in the May Socialist Standard.

It is to be expected that Spiritualists, or any other body of people whose beliefs are criticized, should want to defend them. In fact, it is a pity that “Two Worlds Reporter" has not defended them. Instead, he directs scorn at the writer: "puerile," "babyish," and so on. His readers are given few or false ideas of the subject-matter of the Socialist Standard article, and if there are counter-arguments he never makes them known.

"The Sad Religion” briefly outlined the history, beliefs and practices of Spiritualism. The view it mainly expressed was that Spiritualism rests upon the loneliness and disconsolation of bereaved people, and thus reflects much of the suffering caused by Capitalism's wars and poverty. "Two Worlds Reporter” says not a word of any of this, and thereby misleads his readers as to the nature of the article he criticizes.

The article contains the following sentence: "Why, one wonders, are they not all prosecuted and locked up under the Witchcraft Act? " Leaping forward, “Two Worlds Reporter" trumpets eagerly: "If he (the writer) had done only elementary research, he would have known that the Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951." "Two Worlds Reporter" should be more cautious. To say without qualification that an Act has been repealed is to convey that what it stood for has been wiped off the books. The fact is that the Witchcraft Act was brought up to date in 1951. The old Act of 1735—"so far as still in force "—was replaced by one called the Fraudulent Mediums Act.

In any case, however, by quoting one sentence in isolation "Two Worlds Reporter" again gives his readers a false impression—i.e., that “The Sad Religion" was saying mediums ought to be "locked up under the Witchcraft Act." That is not so. The sentence was simply a reference to a fairly common reaction to Spiritualism, as anyone may see from a reading of the passage in which it occurs.

Most of "Two Worlds Reporter's" comments are no replies at all. The writer, “ has his own version of history," he says, and his account is " divorced from the facts"; but he makes no attempt to show wherein that "version” is wrong and what the "facts" are. His remarks about extra-sensory perception are beside the point:—

"Even scientifically conducted experiments in extra-sensory perception are ruled out. According to Coster they just did not happen.”

This is misrepresentation, of course; but, more important, it evades the real question. Have the experiments established extra-sensory perception as a fact, verifiable and predictable in the same way as light or sound waves? Of course they haven’t—as "Two Worlds Reporter" knows.

The same applies to the "fact that Sir William (Crookes) had himself photographed with the materialised Katie King." This "fact” was not even acceptable to other Spiritualists in its day, which was eighty-four years ago. The Rev. C. Maurice Davies, a member of the British National Association of Spiritualists, described the stagecraft of Katie's appearances in his book Mystic London, and added that the behaviour of Sir William gave "the final death blow to my belief that there might be something in the manifestations."

“Two Worlds Reporter" takes up the reference to Robert Blatchford as a "sad, aged figure," and says, jeeringly: “ If, however, Blatchford had continued to be a materialist, then, of course, his age would have made no difference." Curiously enough, Blatchford first began calling himself "a convinced materialist" when he wrote More Things in Heaven and Earth, after he had become a Spiritualist. In his God and My Neighbour, an attack on the Churches published in 1904, the term " materialist" is never used. Blatchford calls himself there a Humanist, a Rationalist and an Agnostic: he also says, "I am rather a religious man." His Merrie England, first published in 1894, has heavy religious overtones: "God's creatures," etc.

The other main theme of "The Sad Religion,” the social rôle of Spiritualism, is summed up by "Two Worlds Reporter,” thus:—

"He is a very class-conscious writer, who believes that Spiritualism is part of a capitalist plot to serve the interests of the 'ruling classes ’ and to make the working class submissive! . . . This, of course, may be the doctrine according to Karl Marx. but to attempt to apply it to Spiritualism makes it seem more like the doctrine of the Marx Brothers.” 

Where “Two Worlds Reporter” thinks he read about this plot, it is difficult to say. The Socialist criticism of all religious forms, including Spiritualism, is part of the case against Capitalism, in which there is no supposition of conspiracy. Indeed, if capitalists could plot this, presumably they would be able also to plot better things—including how to avoid commercial crises and the destruction of their property in war.

What Socialists argue is that supernatural beliefs, by their promise of a better world beyond the grave, make for acceptance of this world as it is. Because of that, they have always played a large part in maintaining the status quo (if “Two Worlds Reporter” does not believe it he had better look in the history books); and because of that, they serve the interests—consciously or otherwise—of those who have a stake in maintaining the status quo, the ruling class.

Finally, “Two Worlds Reporter” complains of the drawing which accompanied “The Sad Religion.” He says it isn't funny. One has to admit that it does not compare for sheer uproarious fun with the illustration to “Two Worlds Reporter's” piece. This is a portrait of Mr. Hannen Swaffer who, the writing says, “ makes nonsense of critic's charges” by his contention that “Spiritualism and Socialism are two halves of one whole.”

Mr. Swaffer is, of course, a supporter of the Labour Party, which has been making nonsense of the word “Socialism” for fifty-odd years. In that light, his contention is probably true.

Robert Baltrop

The Sad Religion (1958)

From the May 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Talking of the great religions that enslave men’s thoughts, Spiritualism rarely comes to mind. Nevertheless, it has more devotees than any minority; and, if you reckon all the half-convinced and the non-practitioners, probably as many as most branches of orthodox Christianity.

Nobody knows even approximately the number who believe in spirits. There is no demarcation between Spiritualism and the ordinary religious beliefs: most Spiritualists are simply Christians with special interest in the after-life. Virtually every town or suburb of any size has a Spiritualist Church, but there is also a good deal of séance-holding in front rooms, as well as occasional mass demonstrations of clairvoyance in the larger cities. There are two Spiritualist journals, and the older-established of these, Psychic News (Two Worlds is the other one), claims a circulation of 25,000.

In the last few years popular interest in Spiritualism has grown considerably. The reason hardly needs pointing out. It was, in fact, the 1914-18 war that set the Spiritualist movement on its feet; J. Arthur Hill’s Spiritualism, published in 1913, testifies that numbers then were "not very great.” For the truth is that Spiritualism is a sad religion which has sprung from the disconsolation and loneliness of the bereaved; its sustainers have been not Lodge, Crookes, Wallace and the rest, but the dead of two wars and their widows.

Leaving aside the anthropological aspects (though the medium's ancestry goes back to Plato and his kinship to the ju-ju man), the modern Spiritualist movement can be said to have begun in America in the eighteen-forties. A Methodist household astonished New York State with rapped-out messages from the dead; and, though the daughters later confessed to cracking their toe-joints, table-rapping spread like wildfire through the eastern states. A few years later the first “spirit medium,” D. D. Home, left America to tour half the world.

And again, it is not difficult to see that the background to this was the tremendous growth of industrialism and all its consequences, in which the depression of 1837 had left its mark. Jack London was to find “the congested labour centres of the eastern states, where men were small potatoes and hunted the job for all they were worth . . . I saw the workers in the shambles at the bottom of the Social Pit.” There is hardly a difference between Spiritualism in its origins and the hopeful, near-hysterical revival movements which fed upon the degradation of the nineteenth-century working class.

Several of the early Spiritualist leaders were clergymen: the Reverend Moses, for example, who had a large part in founding various Spiritualist bodies. It is not surprising, when one thinks of the miracles and apparitions to which orthodox Christianity commits them. Indeed, spirits are part of almost every religion in the world. Even the Catholic Church, which condemns Spiritualism, does so only on the ground that the Spiritualists’ spirits come from the Devil; within Catholicism there is belief in visions, miracles, poltergeists and every kind of long-leggity beasty.

The Society for Physical Research was founded in 1882. Some of the early Spiritualists left or would have nothing to do with it, disapproving of any proposal to investigate their claims. The only real question for the Society, however, was the degree of supernatural activity, and by 1913 it was made up of people who shared beliefs in telepathy and, in the words of Hill’s book, “the existence and agency of disembodied minds.” The voluminous Proceedings of the S.P.R. read, as Fitzgerald remarked in the Socialist Standard in the nineteen-twenties, “ like the minutes of a gathering of intoxicated persons,” and to think of them as scientific enquiries is ludicrous: D. H. Rawcliffe, in The Psychology of the Occult, comments scathingly on the Society’s methods of investigation.

The history of Spiritualism is, in fact, a pitiful chronicle of frauds and gullibility (at the time of writing, a Sunday paper is featuring yet another medium’s “revelations”). The biographer of Houdini, the great illusionist, relates how he was continually sought after by Spiritualists and embittered by the attempt to trick him cheaply at a séance arranged by Conan Doyle. It is easy to discredit Spiritualism and easier still to make fun of it; really, it is not funny at all. For every fraud, charlatan or ectoplasm-pedlar there has to be a lonely, unhappy or even deranged person. The once-eminent scientist who thought he walked arm-in-arm with a spirit named Katie, and the aged Blatchford listening to his dead wife, are sad figures.

Most Spiritualist meetings are not hauntings, however. They consist usually of hymns and an address, followed by “ clairvoyance ” by a medium who professes to see and pass the messages from dead people. "I am talking to airman who was killed in the war; is there anybody here? There is. He says his name is—is it John? James? His name is James, he says. He has a message for his sister. A lady, at any rate. He says he saw you not long before he died in a place where there were some trees. Do you understand that? You do. He wants to tell you everything will be  alright . . . " and so on. It is often done with considerable skill in observation and deduction, and it is not surprising that some people are strongly impressed.

The more spectacular spirit manifestations are brought forth at séances: ectoplasm, rappings, trumpet-blowing, levitation and apparitions. Not uncommonly, too, Spiritualists have individual encounters with the spirits. If it all sounds ridiculous, it is not much more so than some of the Catholic visions and the Anglican taboos; and the high-water mark for Methodists and many hot-gospel addicts is the religious “experience" — a blinding flash of revelation which takes all kinds of forms.

Why, one wonders, are they not all prosecuted and locked up under the Witchcraft Act? That has occasionally happened to over-ambitious mediums (more often, however, they have been brought to court for bilking wealthy clients at the spirits' instigation). For one thing, as has  been said, the Spiritualist cult does not hold anything which is foreign to Christian beliefs. Its basis is a simple belief in God, and it holds a strong line of respectable Christian morality.

Indeed, Spiritualism always holds an element of hopefulness for the Christian churches, if it were true, if the spirit-world could be incontrovertibly proved, the effect would be a field-day for Christianity generally. Thus, though some churchmen (Dean Inge was one) pooh-pooh Spiritualism, more keep “an open mind"— i.e., hope for something useful to come out of it. Dr. Winnington Ingram, the late Bishop of London, believed that people would be “exactly the same five minutes after death as five minutes before" and would “still take great interest in the world we have left" (Sermon at St. Lawrence. Jewry, quoted in Hill's Spiritualism),

If is worth mentioning, in this connection, that the “extra-sensory perception” experiments of recent years are only new attempts to prove the unprovable basic fallacy of Spiritualism: that the mind is a thing in itself. The Churches have watched just as hopefully, for the same reasons. It is a curious proof, in fact, of the materialist case—that mind and consciousness are effects of material causes—which the bishops hope somehow to see disproved by the roll of a dice.

It is often argued that if Spiritualism provides comfort and solace to people who might not otherwise find them, there can be not much harm and possibly a lot of good in it Rawcliffe, who attacks every form of spirit belief in The Psychology of the Occult, says this. “Religious spiritualism, for many, transforms the facts of death and suffering into something which does not hurt quite so much. It often helps the individual to adjust himself to the problems of life, compensates for frustrations, and provides a seemingly logical justification to existence.”

Put like that, the social rôle of Spiritualism sounds unobjectionable and even praiseworthy; but, of course, it isn't that at all. The same might be said of the great religious movements of the last century, from Wesley’s onwards. Stimulating hope in the after-life, they provided a shield against existence for millions to whom existence was hell—and thereby made them submissive and unquestioning to the miseries they should have fought. The real question is not how to make up for suffering and frustration, but whether most of the suffering need exist at all.

The coercion of Spiritualism is as great as that of any other religious form: the conception of a “great cloud of witnesses” watching the believer is, as Hill (himself a member of the S.P.R.) puts it, “a moral lever of immense power.” Though there is no laid-down body of doctrine and instruction as to personal and social conduct, the implications are clear enough. The effect, after all, is the important thing. People with their eyes fixed upon the next world are not likely to concern themselves too much about this one.

All the world's religions serve the interests of their respective ruling classes—the cult of spirits in Japan as well as Christianity in the western world. In its smaller way. Spiritualism contributes to the same end: the making of a submissive working class. Perhaps more than any other, however, its existence and nature point to the need not to accept, but to end as speedily as possible the conditions from which unhappiness and suffering grow. Only a sad, sad world could produce such a sad religion.

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: The Bus Strike (1958)

Editorial from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

It may seem that a strike lasting nearly seven weeks was a high price for the busmen to pay for the relatively small gains they made in the shape of some increase of pay for the men outside central London who at the start were excluded entirely from the offer of 8s. 6d. increase: though even this was noteworthy in face of the adamant attitude of the London Transport Executive. But the heartening demonstration of working class solidarity by the central London men will have achieved much more. The employers and the government were looking at the busmen’s struggle as a test case for the wage claims in other, larger, industries. Having seen the hundred per cent, solid strike, they will take note that there is a degree of determination behind the claims that they did not expect

The T.U.C. comes out of it badly. Having given verbal encouragement to the busmen’s claim they were too timid to face the prospect of extending the strike and limited their help to an appeal for financial assistance.

The Government cleverly applied their old class principle, "divide and rule,” by detaching the railwaymen from possible involvement in the dispute, with a 3 per cent. wage increase, to be paid for through redundancies and economies. (Readers should turn to another column to see what this journal was saying about Railway Nationalisation 50 years ago.)

Sir John Elliot, chairman of London Transport, showed that a nationalised industry behaves just like employers generally. He was, as he said, being tough, and was apparently prepared to see the buses off the streets till Christmas in order to win. Simultaneously, he announced further contraction of bus services, because they don’t pay their way.

Taken all in all the bus strike was a complete demonstration in tangible, painful form, for everyone to see, that under its thin disguise of “Welfare,” capitalism has not changed from what it always was, a hard, ruthless social system in which the workers are expected to take what capitalism offers and be beaten down if they try to get more.

50 Years Ago: The Uselessness of Railway Nationalisation (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Given nationalisation there follows the concentration of traffic, the closing of offices and redundant stations, the abolition of the canvassing and clearing house departments, and, to a large extent, the abolition of the advertisement department, the reduction of trains, etc., etc. In short, the elimination of “waste.”

Now the working class under capitalism is not concerned with the elimination of waste . . . The working class must live. To live it must sell its labour-power. Does “waste” increase the demand for labour-power? If so, it is a good thing for the immediate purpose of the working class.

If any section of the workers is persuaded that in some such reform movement as the nationalisation of the railways there is salvation, it will come to itself in the final reckoning, sick and sorry, with apathy bred of disappointment and despair born of withered hopes. It will be more difficult material for the Socialist leaven to work upon. It will retard the advance of the workers towards the Cooperative Commonwealth that lies at the end of our journeying. It will, until the effect of its painful experience and knowledge of the wasted energies have grown small, be a stumbling block and a rock of offence in our path.

(From the article on “ Railway Nationalisation,” in the Socialist Standard, July 1908.)

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Summer Provincial Propaganda. It is pleasing to note that extensive arrangements have been made by the Propaganda Committee, Central Organiser and the Provincial Branches and Groups for speakers from London to visit the Provinces this Summer. Comrade James went to Nottingham in June for two weeks and held eight meetings each week in Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester and Bradford. From July 14th to 19th, Comrade Baldwin is going to Swansea to hold meetings there and in Newport. Comrade Harris of Newport will be available to help and throughout the Summer he will be helping the Comrades who are visiting the area for week-end meetings. Comrades D'Arcy, Grant and May will be doing these meetings, including visits to Bristol, where Comrade Flowers and the Group there are having good meetings on Durdham Downs. The period they hope to cover is from June 8th to July 13th. During August Comrade Young is touring in his vintage caravan and visiting Nottingham, Birmingham. Edinburgh and Dundee, to name some of the towns in his itinerary. An ambitious programme, all round, and no doubt it will prove as successful as the earlier Provincial tours.

* * *

Bloomsbury Branch will hold discussions on the first Thursday in each month, commencing September 4th. when Comrade Hardy opens the series with a discussion on Crises. Fuller details will be given in the August Standard. As in the past, no Branch meetings will be held during August by Bloomsbury Branch as Conway Hall closes for that month.

* * *

Outdoor Propaganda in London. A list of outdoor meetings is given on another page of this issue and Comrades are urged to note the time and places of meetings and give their support wherever possible.

* * *

Comrade Friend of Winnipeg is returning home after a holiday in Britain, and a Social evening was arranged for Comrades to meet him once again at Head Office on Friday, June 13th. Members at home wish him a good journey back to Winnipeg and express their pleasure that he was able to have such a holiday and to re-new contact with Party members in Britain.

Phyllis Howard

What is wrong with arbitration? (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politicians and newspaper writers who say that they believe in the principle of the right to strike, but who always condemn workers in this country who come out on strike, are fond of saying that strikes aren’t necessary any longer because wage claims can go to arbitration; where, so they say, the claim will receive impartial treatment. As these opponents of strikes are not at all impartial themselves their enthusiasm for arbitration is suspect to start with. But among the workers, too, especially when a strike puts them to great inconvenience, there is a widespread belief that somehow the arbitration courts are, or ought to be, a substitute for coming out on strike.

The idea is that if you have the right sort of men on the arbitration bodies, and supply them with the right sort of supporting evidence, they will argue it out and reach a " just ” solution. But who are the right sort of men and what is a “just” solution? The Tribunals usually consist of a President (with or without two other “ independent ” members), assisted by a member drawn from an employers' panel and a member drawn from a workers' panel.

The employers' and workers' members, and the independent members, no doubt, argue from their respective standpoints about the issues presented, and the award or refusal of an award is in the last resort determined by the independent members Tribunals or the President. While it is assumed that the Tribunals work on such conceptions as a "fair" wage and "what the industry can bear," these are meaningless or vague, and individuals can have their own interpretations. The Tribunals are not (though many people think they are) under specific obligation to try constantly to push wages up, or even necessarily to keep' them in line with the cost of living. Their essential purpose is to secure the settlement of disputes between employers and workers, with particular regard to the fact that if such disputes are not settled, production may be halted through strikes or lock-outs. Where it is a question of workers claiming higher wages one of the things the Tribunal is in effect considering is what price the employers will have to pay to avoid having their business (and their profits) brought to a standstill by a strike. The determination and intensity of feeling of the workers is therefore a factor in the issue.

From the organised workers' standpoint if arbitration bodies are of any use it is due to the fact that behind the workers’ claims is the readiness to strike.

In recent years most wage settlements have been made without arbitration or strikes (though often with the threat of strikes in the background), but these settlements were largely a recognition by the employers of the fact that with rising prices and little unemployment they had to pay more or lose workers to competitors.

Those who oppose all strikes deny that the strike is a necessary weapon for the workers. A case in point was the provincial busmen’s strike in July, 1957. The Unions representing the busmen (those employed by the bus companies outside London) demanded an increase of 20s. to bring them more into line with busmen's pay in London. Having been offered only 3s. they determined to strike. The Minister of Labour then referred the dispute to arbitration and the Industrial Disputes Tribunal awarded 11s. The Daily Telegraph (July 26th, 1957), which had condemned the strike, maintained that the award proved that the busmen would have got 11s. anyway, and that therefore, "the six-day strike is, and was from the first, headstrong, malicious and unnecessary." Of course, the events proved nothing of the kind. If merely stating a case were all that was required to get an 11s. increase, why did the employers refuse to offer more than 3s.? and can it be doubted that in its purpose of getting the dispute settled the members of the Tribunal had to take into account the fact that the men were so determined in their claim, that they had decided on their strike before the reference to the Tribunal, and were still engaged in it while the Tribunal considered the case?

The workers’ victory was rather a vindication of the declaration of Mr. Frank Coyle of the Transport Workers’ Union: "I stand by my previous objection to arbitration in any form.” (Daily Herald, July 17th, 1957. Mr. Coyle made this statement on hearing that the Minister had decided to refer the case to the Tribunal.)

The Rôle of the Government

But let us not get this matter out of perspective. Arbitration without the readiness to strike is a broken reed, but there are also narrow enough limits to what strikes can do. Strikes cannot always be successful in the aim of getting a wage increase or fighting off a decrease: so much depends on the state of trade and the amount of unemployment. And behind the employers is always the government, with its steady purpose of keeping capitalism going—which means keeping it on a profit-making basis. Many workers fail to see this and expect the government to remain "neutral." After seven years of Conservative government memories have grown dim about what preceded those seven years, and many workers believe that while the present government one-sidedly opposes the workers and wants to keep wages down, things were different under the Labour Government.

Not Different Under Labour Government

Things were not different under Labour Government. The same causes produced the same effects. The obligation to keep capitalism going led the Labour Government to assert the doctrine of "wage restraint," and the Tories have carried it on. The next Labour Government will do the same.

But for those who have forgotten, it was all set down in the Labour Government’s "Statement on Personal Incomes, Costs and Prices" of February, 1948. Re-reading that document alongside recent declarations made by the Tories confirms Mr. MacMillan’s jibe in the House of Commons on May 8th, 1958, that the statements made by the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the late Sir Stafford Cripps, "were very similar. One might almost think they were written by the same hand."

The 1948 Statement asked individual employers not to pay wages above agreed rates; asserted that there could be no justification for a general increase of wages (or profits and interest) unless accompanied by a substantial increase in production; denied the claim of workers to have higher wages merely to keep relativity with other workers who had had an increase; declared that the Government would observe those principles in its negotiations with its own employees; urged all who were engaged in negotiations, or "decisions which might result in an increase in wages or other personal incomes" (i.e., the Arbitration Tribunals) not to depart from these principles; and stated firmly that if there was any departure, employers and the nationalised industries could not expect to call on the Government to provide the money or make it available through increased prices. (Just like the recent Government attitude to railwaymen and busmen.)

The 1948 White Paper had one clause saying that if at some future date there was a marked rise in the cost of living the level of wages, etc., would need reconsideration.

As the cost of living was rising more or less continuously the need arose soon enough, but not much more than a year later the Labour Government added another turn to the screw by announcing that there was no case for higher wages even if the cost of living did increase. This arose when the Government devalued the pound in 1949, knowing that this would raise the cost of living still further. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the late Sir Stafford Cripps said in the House of Commons (September 27th, 1949):-

“ Especially and specifically there can, in our view, be no justification for any section of the workers, trying to recoup themselves for any rise in the cost of living due to the altered exchange rate.”

All this time, under Labour Government and Tory Government, strikes were continued and will continue.

Those who think that the workers’ struggles over wages would cease if we had a different sort of government are deluding themselves; as also are those who think that strikes are no longer a necessary weapon of defence for the worker.

Edgar Hardcastle