Capitalism and the Illusion of Freedom (1995)

From the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The right to vote may be taken for granted by many workers today but it should never be forgotten that we had to struggle for it in the past

In Britain ideas concerning freedom, liberty and democracy can be traced all back to the 17th century. Between the 1640s and 1688 the propertied classes struggled to free themselves from the economic constraints imposed upon them by an absolutist monarchy.

The English Civil War was a class war and despite the rhetoric of the leaders of the parliamentary army that they were fighting for the liberty of the individual against an unjust government their major purpose was to establish a measure of self-government for the propertied classes. It was the men of property who gained new freedoms in the 17th century . Christopher Hill states what these freedoms were and who most of them were at the expense of:

“The men of property won freedom freedom from arbitrary taxation and arbitrary arrest, freedom from religious prosecution, freedom to control the destinies of their country through their elected representatives, freedom to buy and sell. They also won freedom to evict copyholders and cottagers, to tyrannise over their villages, to hire unprotected labour in the open market ” (The Century of Restoration 1603-1714, p. 265).

The mass of the population failed to make any gains either political or economic. The Duke of Albermarle is quoted as saying that “the poorer and meaner people have not interest in the commonweal but the use of breath".

The capitalist class, their representatives and spokesmen in the 17th and 18th centuries at least made no pretence of applying liberty, freedom and the right to elect governments to the mass of the population. These rights were restricted to property-owners and a conscious link was recognised between property and the role of government. John Locke, for example, argued that the executive would forfeit its rights if it endangered the stability of property, for its very existence rested on its role to maintain property.

Glorious for some

The reforming political grouping of the late 17th and early 18th centuries was the Whigs, in opposition to the Tory ideology which argued for a monarchy standing above the law. The Whigs wanted government under the Rule of Law by a parliament consisting of Monarchy, Lords and Commons. They were not democrats and did not advocate political democracy for the mass of the population.

After the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, and the receding of the threat of an absolutist monarchy, the Whigs became less reforming. When confronted by the idea of an extension of the political franchise to the so-called lower classes the Whigs were quite clear as to who they considered had the right to decide on who formed die government: those who owned freehold property. Thus one Whig argued: “It is owned that all governments are made by man and ought to be made by those men who are owners of the territory over which the government extends. It must likewise be confessed that the FREEHOLDERS of England are the owners of the English territory, and therefore have a natural right to erect what government they please ” (Quoted in H.T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property, pp. 86- 90).

By the late 18th century', and following the French Revolution, the property-owning class showed what they thought of democratic movements. Both inside and outside parliament many favoured the imposition of repressive measures to prevent the spread of radical ideas. Several showed their contempt for ideas concerning the sovereignty of the people. Edmund Burke argued:

“The sovereignty of the people was the most false, wicked, and mischievous doctrine that ever could be preached to them . . .  The moment that equality and the sovereignty of the people was adopted as the rule of government, property would be at an end, and religion, morality and law, which grew out of property would fall with it."

The useful majority in society had a long time to wait before their struggle for democratic rights would make some progress. Until 1867 in fact, when the Reform Act added 400,000 borough voters nearly doubling the borough franchise (but women, paupers and farm labourers were still denied the vote).

Safe to extend the vote

The question is why was it at this point that the franchise was extended to a large section of the working class? The early part of the 19th century had seen militant working class agitation both industrially and politically. This period saw the Luddite risings and mass demonstrations seeking political reform, including the famous Peterloo massacre of 1819. Following several unsuccessful strikes by various groups of workers in the 1820s the idea of general unions also began to gain ground.

The failure of the 1832 Reform Act to give the working class the vote added further momentum to ideas about general militant industrial organisation. This movement culminated with the formation in 1834 of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. For Bronterre O’Brien the aim of general unions was to bring about: 

"an entire change in society—a change amounting to a complete subversion of the existing order of the world. The working classes aspire to be at the top instead of at the bottom of society—or rather that there should be no top or bottom at all."

The 1830s also saw the development of the largest and most important working class political movement up till then. Chartism. However the defeat of Chartism in the 1840s signalled the incorporation of militant organisation into the mainstream labour movement which was itself being integrated into capitalist society.

Thus the 1850s saw the development of the so-called “New Model Unions”, more centralised, bureaucratic and more eager to protect their funds than to engage in militant action. By the 1860s the leaders of several of these trade unions had set themselves up at the head of the movement. This group, known as the “Junta”, sought acceptance for the trade unions into the capitalist order. In 1862 they formed the Manhood Suffrage and Vote by Ballot Association declaring: 

“Let our advocacy be firm, intelligent and persistent, not a sowing of the seeds of discord, but a promotion of the growth of union; not an exciting of class against class; but an endeavour to extend the welfare of all."

Therefore by 1867 the extension of the franchise to sections of the working class was no longer fraught with danger. In fact with fresh agitation breaking out in 1866 for parliamentary reform many members of the ruling class felt that denying the working class the franchise was providing workers with an issue to unite around. A further consideration was that granting the franchise to a section only of the working class would divide and weaken them.

Real democracy

Political democracy and the law developed from the seventeenth century according to the needs of a property and developing market economy. In other words, they developed in line with the interests of the property-owning class and had nothing to do with anything like the moral superiority of democracy over dictatorship.

The extension of the vote to the working class was not “given” but was won by years of struggle. It was conceded, even if only partially, only at a point when it would probably have been more dangerous for the ruling class to continue to deny it and at a time when large sections of the working class had been integrated into capitalist society.

Extending the vote to workers under capitalism is not the same thing as establishing real democracy. Meaningful democracy in a world where the means of producing and distributing the things we need to live are owned and controlled by a tiny minority is at best a sick joke. Real democracy under capitalism is an illusion. The limited democracy we do have can however be used as a tool to bring about a worldwide system where the Earth’s resources are owned and controlled by its inhabitants. When that goal is achieved, and only when it is achieved, can we start to talk about living in a true democracy.

Ray Carr

Letter: Actions speak louder than words (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Whilst agreeing with some of your reply to Tom Paine (October Socialist Standard), I also have some rather serious reservations/questions.

I accept that a socialist majority is vital for the establishment of socialism but do you feel that a socialist majority of seats in Parliament will invoke a reaction from the ruling classes along the lines of: “Oh dear, the majority wants socialism and despite the fact that this involves the loss of our power and property we’d better go quietly"? I think not, for to assume the ruling classes will not use any means available (in the case probably violence and oppression on a colossal scale) to protect their class interests is not only extremely naive, but lethal. Whilst despising violence myself, I refuse to delude myself into thinking it will not be part and parcel of a truly revolutionary change: of course it will; in self-defence if nothing else.

Secondly, by playing bourgeois politicians at their own game and standing for election. are you not merely doing what supposedly revolutionary groups have tried in the past and failed? If we accept, as Marx stated, that bourgeois democracy is the means by which the ruling class maintains its position of dominance, then by subscribing to it we merely legitimise it and fatally compromise ourselves to a game which they are far better at playing.

Thirdly, what of the repercussions of a socialist majority in Parliament? Will we not see the seizure and control of the State machinery and, as has happened for time immemorial, the replacement of one set of leaders by another with all the coercive power of the state at their disposal? (this happens whether you claim to be a vanguard or not: I’ve spoken to SWP members who claim their party doesn’t intend to "lead” the revolution!)

Fourthly, if we also accept that the political superstructure is not really where power lies anyway, why would a socialist majority in Parliament actually facilitate in any way the coming of socialism (apart from “representing" people who should really be acting for themselves)? Do you really feel an Act of Parliament could inaugurate our socialist society?

Your reply to Tom Paine also demonstrates considerable ignorance of what is deemed the “Green Movement". To characterise green activists en masse as people who want to reopen footpaths is one of many ridiculous distortions which demonstrate this clearly. Admittedly some Green activists are naive and unclear about why environmental destruction takes place but these people should not be dismissed out of hand for this; surely they can be “educated"? Many others do perceive underlying factors and see their struggle against one manifestation of these factors as demonstrating opposition to the system in its entirety. The Direct Action movement in Britain now is not a "palliative” but a movement which scares the Establishment to its very core— and rightly so. This is your "DIY revolution": people organising themselves at grass roots level to take back control of their lives and this is the means by which socialism (and I fully agree with your definition of it) will come about: not by elite majorities in bourgeois Parliaments.

What the vast majority of those involved in Direct Action (be it anti-Roads campaigns or whatever) and progressive forms of non-exploitative production do is give an example of how people can organise together to achieve their aims in contrast to the divisive and destructive nature of capitalism. This is surely a phenomenally more potent force for convincing people of the validity and practicality, as well as vital necessity of socialism than theorising and the odd leafleting session. (The SPGB has been around since 1904; I only heard about its existence last week!)

Actions really do speak louder than words and I am disappointed that the SPGB seems to adopt a highly blinkered and reactionary (not to mention sickeningly arrogant) view of what many deem highly important developments. Interaction and exchange of ideas between socialist and Environmental groups can only serve the positive end of educating and informing both sides. Sectarianism, as has been aptly demonstrated by you, is ignorance. It is also weakness.

R. Sydney, 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Reply:

Your two criticisms of us contradict each other. First, you say that the capitalist class are so powerful that they would be able to unleash violence on a colossal scale against a clear majority decision to establish socialism. On the other hand, you say that they will give in to pressure from weak grassroots groups who are not united in organisation and have not shown that they represent the majority view. Which is it, then, are they all-powerful or are they amenable to pressure from below?

Under modern industrial conditions, where the actual work involved in running both production and administration (and, for that matter, the armed forces) is entirely performed by people paid a wage or salary to do so, the ruling class is dependent for the continuation of its rule on the acceptance of this rule by the useful majority in society.

They don't rule by brute force but with the consent (unfortunately) of the majority. What maintains capitalism in existence is not the power of the armed forces at the disposal of the capitalist state, but the ideas—the pro-capitalist ideas about needing rulers, governments. countries, armies, money, wages, profits, and so on—held by the majority of the population.

This is why we say that those who want socialism should concentrate on the battle of ideas, on combating capitalist ideologies and spreading socialist ideas. In our view, this is a much more effective way of undermining capitalism than your suggestion of supporting single-issue piecemeal struggles. It hurts capitalism where it matters—in the ideas that sustain it—while what you propose isn't even effective on its own terms. When have any direct action protests ever stopped a road under construction from being built?

Once we, the useful majority, withdraw our consent to capitalist rule it cannot continue, and the question then arises: what is the best way for the socialist majority to proceed so as to ensure that the by then inevitable change-over from capitalism to socialism takes place as peaceably as possible? It is in this context that our advocacy of contesting elections and sending mandated socialist delegates into Parliament and other bodies should be seen. Incidentally, we are not absolute pacifists. If a pro-capitalist minority were to take up arms to try to resist the majority's wish to establish socialism, the majority would be fully entitled to use force against them, if necessary as a last resort

Marx (since you mention him) also supported sending socialist delegates to Parliament urging workers to convert universal suffrage "from the instrument of fraud that it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation". So, he for one saw no contradiction between analysing the democratic state as the ideal political form for capitalist class rule and urging the working class to organise to win control of it. Nor did he share your view that this would merely lead to a change of rulers rather than to a classless society.

In our view, he was right and you are wrong. It is true that all examples up to now of supposedly revolutionary groups winning control of power (whether by armed insurrection or through the ballot box) have resulted in the imposition of new sets of leaders. This is for the obvious reason that there was no majority desire to establish socialism on the part of the workers. There was no conscious effort on their part to change society—only to ameliorate the immediate problems of the day. and trusting in leaders to do it for them.

We agree with you: socialism won’t come through the action of "elite majorities in bourgeois parliaments”; it will only come through the mass democratic action of a socialist-minded majority amongst the population generally, of which the socialist majority in Parliament will be a mere reflection. But you haven't answered the question of what you think this majority, once it has come into existence, should then do.

We say it should do the obvious: use the electoral system which is the historically-evolved (partly due to pressure on the ruling class from below, incidentally) and socially-accepted means for registering what actually is the majority view and for giving that majority the political authority to put their view into practice.

Ignoring parliament would be an option, but not one that would minimise the risks of violence. But why take this risky and more roundabout about way when a more direct and less risky one exists? You tell us.

Editors.

Letter: Why all this disagreement? (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I read Allan Goldsmith’s report of the SWP public meeting in Chelmsford (October Socialist Standard).

In spite of years of becoming hardened to the senseless divisions among professing socialists, I am still capable of descending into a gloom of disappointment bordering on despair whenever yet another manifestation of what is the greatest strength of the capitalists is arraigned for all the world to see.

The capitalists, whose ethos is competition and conflict, display solidarity in defence of their system to the point of recruiting the working class to their cause to fight their battles for them. Professing socialists, whose ethos is co-operation and interdependence, make a virtue out of division by inflating tactical issues in displays of doctrinal infallibility.

In my article which I was privileged to have printed in the July Socialist Standard, I said:

'The achievement of socialism is the responsibility of all who take up the cause irrespective of which organisation, if any, they identify with. Socialism is no longer a luxury which can occupy our intellects in interminable arguments about strategies for achieving it to the exclusion of events unfolding around us. Socialism has become an urgent necessity. To hand over the world’s economy to the business elites to exploit for profit, by collusion or default, is a recipe for social and environmental disaster. If socialism is denied for lack of the will to unite, it will amount to a criminal act of betrayal of the working class.”

I said it to your readers and I would say the same to Tony Cliff and have often done so to SWP members.

Just suppose, for the sake of argument, that the working class came to "want and understand socialism". Can anyone really believe that the ensuing transformation could proceed with total unanimity where no differences would arise to be tested by discussion and debate, without controversy, without strongly held conflicting opinions to be resolved? Of course not. Would that be that, then? Would we say that we could not agree amongst ourselves and hand it all back? Of course not. We would have to display the will to overcome differences or disintegrate.

Human beings are not endowed with flawless strains of reason, logic and wisdom at birth. These qualities have to be learned by every generation by interaction. Doctrines of certainty produce only paralysis of thought and irrational acts by people anchored in their own obstinacy. The matter is not one of being "right” or "wrong” or of keeping faith with whatever flag you have nailed to the mast. No one is discredited by testing their beliefs or ideas and being ready to modify them by persuasion. My own belief in socialism has often been tested by a challenge to others to "talk me out of it”, and I have not yet been on the losing end of an argument with the capitalists nor ever expect to. But in engaging capitalists and professing socialists alike, there is much in the detail which advances my understanding and reinforces me in the view that with a will to achieving socialist unity, it can be done.

Subordinate issues should not overshadow the super-ordinate goal of realising socialist society. Whether Tony Cliff "tells the workers to vote Labour to beat the Tories" is irrelevant to them. They do it or not, anyway. What the "workers" find implausible is this advice being given by a party which uses as much newsprint condemning Labour's capitalism as it does attacking the Tories, yet makes no effort to present an alternative manifesto to the people by which they can register their support for socialism. As I have often been told in discussion with SWP members, it has more to do with the practical problem of installing large numbers of candidates and draining their funds and placing their capacity to publish and campaign at risk than any outright rejection of entering the electoral arena. I agree with Cliff that a socialist society is something that will not be realised until "many years in the future".

I also agree that "the Tories are the enemy” but so do the Liberal Democrats. So do we all. It is more important what defeats the Tories. Winning an election against the Conservative Party has never ushered in socialism. All the achievements of previous Labour governments this century have been either partially or wholly destroyed by Thatcher or Major. If Blair wins the next election, it will be on the basis of “giving the other lot a go" and not because the British people have changed their minds about capitalism. It will not even be a Scandinavian-style commitment to redistribution through the taxation system. The Tory Party, the "enemy", will be out of office but their ideas will prevail because their ideas will not have been defeated, only their personnel.

The defeat of capitalism can only come about by a commitment to socialism by the people. I am all for "teach, teach, teach” and Cliff shot himself in the foot by his disparaging remarks about the Socialist Party. But unless our message is presented widely and confidently by a united movement of socialists who are prepared to demonstrate the will and the maturity to rise above subordinate matters which can be discussed and debated, and focus their eyes on the super- ordinate goal of defeating capitalism, Tony Cliff will wait forever to have "socialism here and now”.

Professing socialists perpetuating a culture of competition amongst themselves contradict everything they claim to stand for by doing so. If professing socialists cannot achieve unity amongst themselves, why should anybody believe that a socialist society will be anything other than a chaotic shambles doomed to disintegration?

Peter Nielsen, 

Worcester

Reply:

Our differences with at least the leaders of the SWP are rather more than tactical. They see themselves as leaders, as the General Staff of the Revolution, and advocate a party organised on non-democratic lines, whereas we regard following leaders as disastrous and insist that the movement for socialism must, as a matter of principle, be thoroughly democratic both in its internal organisation and in the methods it employs. Socialism is a democratic society. Quite a different proposition from rule by a vanguard party.

Editors.

The Coming General Election (1995)

Party News from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are considering contesting 5 seats in the coming general election, which has to take place before April 1997. These will be in Glasgow, Edinburgh. Newcastle, Manchester and London.

This will be the first time that the Socialist Party will have contested more than two seats in a general election and will be preceded by a campaign of leafleting and contesting any local elections in the areas concerned, beginning now.

All this will of course cost money. We have estimated that we need £15,000 to mount a credible campaign in the five constituencies. At the moment we have £1,854 in our election fund. So we need another £13,000 or so.

If you want to help make the voice of socialism heard in the next election please send any contribution to: The Election Fund, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4.7UN. (Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to "The Socialist Party of Great Britain".)

These Foolish Things: Poverty (1995)

The Scavenger column from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Poverty

"Britain has the second lowest standard of living in western Europe after Portugal, according to a survey of incomes and living costs in Europe’s nine wealthiest countries . . . The wide variation in living standards is one reason why the governments of lower-income nations such as Britain are reluctant to embrace a single currency: it would throw a glaring spotlight on just how far Britain’s standard of living hits fallen behind those of Germany and France, say economists." 

(The Sunday Times, 17 September.)

Insecurity

"The Anglia Co-operative Society is being taken to an industrial tribunal by 110 of its staff alleging unfair dismissal and breach of contract. The action follows drastic changes in working practices imposed on staff at the company’s 20 East Anglian rainbow supermarkets. The shake-up hits their entitlement to pensions and maternity and sickness benefits. The 1,600 employees learned they faced a choice of having their hours cut or losing their jobs only after seeing them advertised in the local press earlier this year."

(Financial Mail on Sunday, 24 September.)

Destitution

"Homeless people in Camden are being urged to “adopt a doorway” in order to qualify to vote. Labour-controlled Camden council is advising them to find themselves a “regular pitch” so they can be placed on the electoral register. But the council’s campaign is being criticised by some residents, traders and Tory councillors who fear it is open to abuse and will act as a magnet for more “homeless and hungry” beggars, particularly in the King’s Cross area."

(Evening Standard, 20 September.)

A breath of competition

"Some British commentators gleefully predict that the infusion of American-style capitalism into the electricity industry will turn these stodgy “socialist” industries into sleek, low-cost operations. However, do not look to American managers for efficiency. Southern’s largest subsidiary, Georgia Power spent over $1.6 billion on plant now “stranded”—an industry euphemism for plant that would be worthless but for regulatory charges imposed by regulators to cover failed investments.

Despite its sordid record. Southern is not an especially poorly-managed utility by American standards. Atrocious overspending on plant is the American norm and questionable business practices arc all too common." 

(Gregory Palast, Guardian, 21 September.)

Sky's the limit

The Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association is pressing the Office of Fair Trading to investigate Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB charges for showing their satellite programmes in pubs. Publicans claim that, since 1992, the basic subscription has risen 1,152 percent— from £5.99 to £75 a month.

The Scavenger

The ghost of Christmas yet to come (1995)

The A Word in Your Ear column from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is Christmas morning and little children lay half-snuggled, half-sleeping in their beds awaiting the miracle of the gifts as advertised on TV and available for a price in their local shops. Parents toss and turn in the next room thinking of empty purses, overdrafts and sinister threats from the building society. Meanwhile, in the misty twilight between bad and worse, lurks the grim-faced oracle of times-yet-to- come. Can it get worse under this profits-first, needs-second system? Come, little ones, and see the bleakness of Christmas-yet-to-come.

You remember a time when there were just beggars squatting in the doorways. Folk knowledge had told that they were not always there, but it is all rather hard to remember. Then came the first of the families. Most disconcerting. The first dead body you walked round, careful to avoid the stench and flies, was always the one that stuck in your mind. Poor little thing—not enough money to feed it and the others, so . . . Then came the neighbours who had collapsed under the swamp of the threatening letters from the moneylenders. She was on drugs; the doctor put her on tranquillisers so that she would never properly have to think of those hopes she once had when he had the little shop and they bought the house. It makes you stop and think when you see the people from down the road out in the street begging for a few quid to feed the ones who might survive the winter.

Of course, the Straw Laws helped none. Jack Straw was one of the most hated Home Secretaries ever (they all are, aren’t they?). Although the Sun was full of praise for his measures to hose down the pavements at five each morning. “Spraying the No-Hopers", the kids call it. And the Prescott Act. long in planning but only realisable with a government that could get the unions to support the scheme, has done wonders to put the young jobless in uniforms and give them a dose of good old-fashioned discipline. The Lib-Dem amendment to cut all welfare payments to scroungers without A1 workfare reports was highly praised in a Guardian editorial.

The deaths from the nuclear blowout in the Ukraine show no signs of letting up. What woman would want to be pregnant this Christmas, with the rate of miscarriages and still-births greater than the number of healthy children born? Everyone saw it coming. After Chernobyl, when that report was issued in the late Nineties about the cover-up on deaths from radiated beef, there was a short scare that if another one went up it would be goodbye to a few million Europeans. They never said it would be as bad as it was when the next one did blow up. Will the war with Russia ever end? These weekly nuclear-alert drills are getting everyone down.

Who would have thought there would be a civil war in the USA? It’s the kind of thing we used to read about in history books. You expected it in Ireland or Yugoslavia, but somehow it all looked so stable from a superficial point- of-view . . . hundreds of thousands dead and who knows how many maimed and homeless? The wags say that the IRA are taking collections in Dublin pubs for the New York Police Militia who have been taken as political prisoners by the Nation of Islam.

The ads become more depressing every day. And there are so many more of them, even on the BBC now. Everyone wants to sell you insurance. It’s like one big protection racket. That one about the little boy with leukaemia who gets turned away from the State Market Hospital and has to sell his bike to get some painkillers . . .  I mean, come, on. there are limits to taste.

But that's the thing: there are no limits. The future of the profit system is not a subject for the delicate of taste or the nervous in mind to study. Best think that everything will just go on as it is. What a horrible thought! Best not think at all.

And the children wake up to find at the end of the bed the bargain models of the goodies which advertisers spent millions persuading them they wanted. What it is to be a carefree infant on such a lovely day. The parents take confidence that the kids will always be snug and forget for a while the abject poverty which the majority of the world’s kids are living in right now. The Queen will come on after the Tesco chicken-bites and reassure them that all is well in this sickest of social orders. She is the Ghost of Christmas Present. And whether what we have allowed ourselves to think for a while about the times to come does come? Well that is up to us to permit or forbid, for we make history, and we alone have the power to stop nightmares from coming true. Even Scrooge could see that. 

Steve Coleman

Happy Sundays (1995)

'Hello, is that the SPGB?'

TV Review from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The flagship programmes of the Autumn schedule have come to an end and Sundays on BBC 1, in particular, are not quite the same. Last of the Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances have both finished their runs and left a bit of a sitcom vacuum. Anybody who could bring themselves to stay awake past Songs of Praise will have noticed that they complemented one another effortlessly.

These two programmes have much in common. Both are situated in what appears to be the more picturesque parts of the country, with most characters recognisably from the north of England. Both contain formidable and domineering middle-aged women (Hyacinth Bucket—pronounced “Bouquet" in one, almost the entire female cast of the other). Both have hen-pecked husbands to add to the list of stereotypes (Richard Bucket and Howard, respectively). Both feature amusing though work-shy lumpen-proletarian slobs (Compo and Onslow) on the male side and tarty nymphomaniacs on the female side (Marina and Rose). Furthermore, both programmes—while certainly funny in parts—are incredibly formulaic, so much so that it is almost possible to set the clock according to the order of the scenes.

Perhaps it is not so surprising that the programmes have such obvious similarities though. They are, after all, written by the same scriptwriter. Roy Clarke is a privileged man indeed to have had two sitcoms broadcast within two hours on the same day, week in, week out.

There is of course much to criticise in these two sitcoms, not least of all the rampant stereotyping which was also evident in Clarke's earlier—and rather funnier effort—Open All Hours. But Last of the Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances are two of the most watched and loved programmes on British television. Is it simply because they are the funniest? Almost certainly not.

Yorks Branch of the SPGB trying to do a paper sale. 

This charming man

Roy Clarke has a talent for giving the uninteresting if not downright boring an allure and appeal that other scriptwriters do not achieve. Consider this—hysterical though he may be, few would want to spend any time in the leisure centre of Gordon Brittas from The Brittas Empire, but they flock to Holmfirth in Yorkshire to visit the houses and cafes frequented by Compo, Foggy and Clegg. And it is not just the scenery that attracts them either, it is the entire sense of cosy working class community and solidarity which many aspire to in real life but few attain because of the ruthless nature of the capitalist system. It is a similar phenomenon to that which makes Coronation Street so popular, a phenomenon previously noted in this column. The characters in these sitcoms that do not conform to this image are always the least content—Hyacinth Bucket, or for instance, the miserable sniping Pearl in Last of the Summer Wine.

One of the most amazing features of these sitcoms, however, is something which never receives comment in the newspaper reviews. This is odd, because it is a feature which is both obvious and attractive to most viewers. It is the fact that hardly any of the characters are employed. Some have no visible means of support whatsoever, yet go about their daily tasks as normal without any sense of great loss. Though there are a couple of shopkeepers, not a single character in Last of the Summer Wine has a job. Since Richard retired in Keeping Up Appearances not a single member of the extended Bucket family appears to be employed, either. No wonder the we find these programmes so appealing! In addition, most noticeably as far as Last of the Summer Wine is concerned, there are no bosses and unions, no apparent money troubles and no crime. Everybody gets on with their own business without too much interference from outside forces while still inhabiting what is identifiably a real community. Halcyon days indeed!

With these sitcoms and Coronation Street the bourgeois escapism of Dallas and Dynasty has been replaced with a sore of working class utopianism. Characters who are concerned with riches and status are derided while the true stars are those who shun this more conventional approach to life and yet still live in some degree of apparent happiness. It is a world away from the City of London and the monotonous grind of the production line.

While human existence can never be one big sitcom, it is clear that many workers identify with a situation where people seem to live without the intrusions of money, status and profit into every aspect of life and where those concerned with such things are laughed at or pitied. Such workers who identify with a lifestyle of solidarity instead of competition without the intrusion of wage slavery are ripe for change. And it is about time the idle escapism was turned into an active reality.

Dave Perrin

SPGB Meetings (1995)

Party News from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gunter gives his Orders (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scratch beneath the skin of any complacently Right Wing Labour Minister and in nine cases out of ten you will find he has a history of Left Wing militancy. Minister of Labour Ray Gunter is the tenth case—the man who has always defended the official party line, who has always infuriated the firebrands by his unrepentant stance way out on the right.

Stumpy, thick-necked, with a coarsely drawn face, Gunter can look like a ventriloquist’s dummy. At times he sounds like one, frothing out cliches and platitudes like an unconscious satire on a trade union official eager to let the world know he has recently mastered the use of words like “auspices”, “context”, “relevant.”

Perhaps Gunter is living out of his time; many of his public outbursts sound as if the ventriloquist had cast him in the role of a Dickensian workhouse master, dishing out strong doses of brimstone and treacle to the boys and fiercely crushing any tendency to ask for more:

“The economy of this nation has to be put right.. . with a measure of harsh government”. (Scottish TUC, Glasgow, 12/2/67.)

“We as a nation are living beyond our means.. . too many people drifting and dreaming that all is well” (Ilford, 8/1/66.)

Gunter may infuriate those who think that Labour lost its soul somewhere on the road from Scarborough 1964, but apart from that he cannot be described as an exciting man. His background is undeviating to the point of tedium; trade union branch officer, Divisional Labour Party secretary and agent, joined the Army in the war, rose from private to captain, Labour M.P. after the war, President of his union, member of the Labour Party National Executive and finally Minister of Labour in 1964. Now, he is said to have reached the peak of his ambitions; according to one political correspondent Gunter has no desire to move on to greater things and does not think of himself as a future Prime Minister.

Of course they said the same thing, long ago, when the colourless Major Attlee became Postmaster General in the 1929/31 Labour government— and they kept saying it about him, almost to the day when he took over at Number Ten. Has there ever been a politician who has not seen himself as a future Premier? It is hardly in Gunter’s make-up to be that unique.

Indeed, there is some evidence that his rise in the Labour hierarchy was anything but unconsidered. Gunter first won fame by his spirited defence of the platform at Labour Conferences during the early Sixties, when the long period in opposition had them frustratedly and constantly chewing their own tails. It was temptingly easy, then, for a rising star to rise still further by making attacks on the leadership and by speaking in the wild, airy manner so beloved by the Left Wing. Not a few of the present government did just that— but not Gunter. His stand at the Conferences was enough for the newspapers to decide that here was a man of the future, who could be relied on to do capitalism’s dirty work with never a qualm.

Very soon, Gunter was building up his reputation for preaching what he calls hard facts:

“He said there was nothing sacred in the present methods of collective bargaining, and he could not accept that the rewards must inevitably go to those who could, because of the nature of their work and the power of their organisation, command the greatest economic power.” (The Guardian, 17/9/62.)

I am persuaded that unless the unions face the facts of life as they are in the late 1960s, then in seven to 10 years’ time the State will have to intervene.” (Socialist Commentary, April 1964.)

Gunter was not alone in this; other Labour leaders, among them Callaghan and Wilson, had said roughly the same. Those were the days when the Incomes Policy was being drawn up, for action when Wilson’s honeyed words on the scientific revolution won power for Labour. The unions were being given due warning—and a lot of voters were being convinced that a Labour government would be anything but a tool in the unions’ hands. Prominent among the graspers of this particular nettle, one of the readiest to throw a gauntlet before the unions, was Ray Gunter.

Of course this went down very well with the newspapers, who always seem tremendously impressed by any evidence that a politician may be honest. Gunter, they decided, was a candid man of the people, who could always be relied on to speak his mind. Perhaps that was why, when Labour’s day of victory dawned at last, the television interviewers made a point of asking him what he thought of Gordon Walker’s notorious defeat at Smethwick. Gunter was obligingly blunt; this, he said, was a victory of which the Conservative Party should be thoroughly ashamed.

A lot of people looking in that night must have decided, approvingly or not, that this reply meant Gunter was opposed to the electoral exploitation of racism. But Smethwick, and the later result at Leyton, left their scars; when the Labour government outdid the Tories in their restrictions on coloured immigration, one of the two Ministers to submit memoranda pressing for drastic cuts was Gunter. (The Guardian, 31/5/65.)

But this change of policy did not dent the new Minister of Labour’s reputation for common sense. Nothing, it seems, can do that; even when he is so rash as to say, as he did at Blackburn on 5 January 1966, that there were signs the coming year would be industrially more peaceful than 1965. That risky prediction turned out to be right. In 1966 the number of stoppages of work through disputes, the numbers of workers involved, and the number of working days lost, were all lower than in 1965. But that can hardly be called an achievement of Gunter’s; by recent standards 1965 was a bad year—many more working days lost than in 1964, nearly twice as many as in 1963 although much lower than any year between 1958 and 1962. And 1966 was the year when the railwaymen came within an ace of striking and when the seamen had their first official stoppage for over fifty years—incited, said Wilson, not by any desire to improve conditions but by “politically motivated men”.

But right or wrong, Ray Gunter has kept stolidly on, preaching, bullying (“. . . the conference this week has been … roughly handled by Mr. Gunter.” The Guardian report on the Labour Party conference, 30/9/65) sometimes giving way to self-pity (“Sometimes I felt a bit grim under the skin. Some of you seem to think that blokes like myself, when we have arrived at positions of authority, somehow have deserted all the things we stood for. I resent that.” Scottish TUC, 12/2/67.)

Last summer he won new fame by wishing aloud that not so many Labour Party members would equate the Means Test and profit with original sin (who said they did?). Then a rash of publicity on unofficial strikes—the Cameron Report on the Barbican dispute, the stoppage at the London and Liverpool docks—had Gunter at it again.

First he returned to an old theme of his: discipline. (“Mr. Gunter, the Minister of Labour, said yesterday that the prevalence of unofficial strikes was indicative of a state of indiscipline in industry which we should have to tackle. The Times, 17/10/67.) He has plugged this one before: “There is far too much indiscipline in every part of this nation” (Co-operative Congress, Edinburgh, 7/6/65.) “If, perchance, inner disciplines and voluntary contributions are not forthcoming in a short time, this nation must look to other means to prevent the ultimate disaster” (TUC, Brighton, 6/9/65.)

Then from the very bottom of the rag bag of excuses which all politicians keep handy, Gunter produced the tatty old Red Bogy:

“There is now little doubt that the Communist Party are plotting to make this a winter of disruption. They now, unhappily for the well-being of the nation, have entered into an unholy alliance with elements of the Trotskyist Party. Their aim is to destroy our hopes of economic recovery and thereby they hope to bring ruin to the social democratic movement.” (Gillingham, 18/10/67.)

If it was clear from this that the government were getting desperate, it also seemed that Gunter was living in a nightmare world peopled with wildly undisciplined workers—overpaid, underworked, striking at the first word from Communist Party headquarters.

Now one of the Oxford Dictionary’s definitions of discipline is “. . . order maintained among schoolboys, soldiers, prisoners etc.” Perhaps this is what Gunter thinks is lacking among workers—perhaps he, the ex-officer, would like to have us all recruited into some sort of school, or army, or prison, where there would never be any nonsense about struggling to improve our conditions; disciplined, we would take what was coming to us and be thankful.

In any case, workers are subject to all sorts of discipline, whether they recognise it or not. There is the discipline of relying on a job for a living, and of this job existing only so long as it is profitable. There is the discipline—or perhaps degradation is a better word—of producing goods for sale, which usually means a debasement of skill and knowledge in making a shoddy imitation of the real thing. There is the discipline of living two lives—the workaday life of tongue in the cheek, judging everything in terms of our employer’s profits, the job, the wishes of the boss; and the other life at home, when a worker can judge things, as far as possible, in terms of human comfort and welfare.

This is not all that employment means. Because a worker sells his working ability to an employer, employment means that the interests of both are opposed. This opposition is bound to break out into disputes—over wages, conditions of work, security of employment and so on. Gunter prides himself on being a realist but it is highly unrealistic to expect these disputes to be gentle, disciplined affairs confined to the agreed lines of official action. When it suits the employers’ interests they close down a factory or a mine or a railway line and dismiss their workers and Gunter sees no sinister plot behind it. But when workers decided that their economic interests demand something more militant than lining up like soldiers, or schoolboys, or prisoners, for what their employer likes to give them, Gunter sees red.

It is true that at times (the present, for example) it is Communist Party policy to involve themselves in industrial disputes. Gunter takes this as proof that the disputes are caused by the Communists, which is something like the Communist claim that troubles in Russia and eastern Europe are the work of the CIA. In any case, what about the time, during the war, when the Communist Party were opposed to strikes? Who caused the disputes then? The fact is that industrial trouble is bound to happen and workers become involved in it because they work for wages and not because of any political affiliation.

Let us be blunt with Gunter. He is a member of a government which came into power on a wave of optimism and warm promises. So far their most spectacular achievement is their failure to deliver the goods, and the ebb wave of disillusion which is losing them one by-election after another. The reaction of Gunter, and others, has been to blame outside influences—the gnomes of Zurich, the storm which blew them off course, the alleged laziness and indiscipline of the workers.

This is typical of all governments and typical, too, of Dickens’ workhouse masters, who always said the boys’ hunger was really their undisciplined greed, and had nothing to do with the thin and meagre gruel.

Ivan

Letter: The Committee of 100 and Politics (1967)

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

We have received a letter from Mr. L. Otter, of Witney, listing and enclosing various anti-Labour and anti-political leaflets handed out by the Oxon Committee of 100 during the 1964 and 1966 elections. He makes the following criticism of the article “Is Politics Corrupt?” in the July Socialist Standard:

“Your attack on the Committee of 100 implies that the Committee were in 64 and 66 campaigning for one of “Conservative, Labour, Liberal or Communist”. The 100 did not exist in the 59 election so we must start with 64. As you reviewed at the time of the 59 election the Voters’ Veto leaflet, and as you are aware that the groups that came together on this were later active in building the Committee, you would hardly have had a case even if you were going back before the formation of the Committee.

“The black on red sticker—”Conservative . .. they are all alike, Vote for humanity” was in fact printed for the 1964 election by the National Committee. Various local committees had their own stickers and posters as well as publishing their own leaflets.

“It is true that some people left the Committee in 1964 disagreeing with its quasi-anarchist position, the majority of these however were not Labour Party supporters but supporters of INDEC (which became the Radical Alliance).

“Since you have not the honesty or the intelligence to know that this position of the Committee’s dates back to the 1964 election it is hardly surprising that you also do not know that both before and after the 1964 election the Committee published leaflets giving social analysis.

“The Harlow CND-Committee of 100 which publishes its own paper Candis, whose editors were in 62 flirting with Anarchism, became so struck by the fact that Stan Newens (Labour MP for Epping since 1964), an ex-trotskyist, became their candidate that though they did not themselves adopt entrism, they did take the same position that the ILP rightwing and the Socialist Leader took at that stage. But the committee as such was very firm on the matter, insisting that all committees should oppose the major parties of the “left” since all supported one or other of the nuclear powers and the social system that makes powers become nuclear.

“This meant that it was regarded as consistent with the Committee position, to support independent unilateralist candidates or to take an uncompromisingly anarchist position. The committee journal contained at least one letter advocating ND support for your own party. It is notable that not merely did the few remaining Labour Party and Communist Party members who had for a time supported the Committee drop out in 1964, but also the Trots, the ILP right-wingers, groups such as Candis and

“In 66 there was no debate in any committee circles, as far as I know, on the matter.”

We thank Mr. Otter for pointing out that the Committee of 100 did not support Labour, Tory, Liberal or so-called Communist in the last two elections. We admit we may perhaps have been a little vague and thus may have caused some misunderstanding. But we did not in fact say that the Committee supported Labour in 1964; nor did we mean to. What we said was that “the Nuclear Disarmers were among the supporters which the Labour Party had when it took office for the first time in some thirteen years” and then went on to quote from a leaflet issued, we assume, by Edgware Peace Action Group, advertising the 1967 Aldermaston March. Our point was this: In 1964 many nuclear disarmers backed Labour and were now becoming disillusioned and rejecting political action altogether. This, we argued, was a mistake. It was not political action as such that was wrong but reformist political action. 

Mr. Otter does not deny that the attitude of the Committee to politics has changed in recent years. He even describes the process in some detail. But, let us go back to the beginning. The Committee came into being in early 1961 as a breakaway from CND over tactics. It backed civil disobedience to get the same aim of unilateral nuclear disarmament by the British government. It was made up of much the same people as CND, viz, pacifists, Christians, supporters of Russia, Labourites, anarchists. The man who was President of the national committee for its first two years. Earl Russell, was throughout this period a member of the Labour Party (he did not tear up his card until October 1965). There was also a curious, and revealing, incident in January 1962. The Spectator of 5 January published part of an abusive letter from the secretary of the Scottish Committee. Bernard Levin took the writer to be a supporter of the Russian government and challenged the national committee on it. Next week two replies were published. One from the Acting Secretary, Tony Southall (now secretary of Glasgow Woodside Labour Party), said:

“The Committee of 100 has never attempted to disguise the fact that our movement contains people of widely differing political persuasion. We have stood for mass non-violent civil disobedience against nuclear weapons. Beyond a belief that this is a viable and necessary programme of action for the people of this country we have never demanded any political qualifications of our members.”

The other, from Nicolas Walter, said:

“The central Committee has no official policy beyond unilateral nuclear disarmament.

No doubt there are Communists who belong to or support the Committee of 100.

The Committee exists solely to organise its demonstrations.”

So, at that time, the Committee was an amorphous body, a kind of ad hoc committee for organising civil disobedience against nuclear weapons (by Britain). Beyond this it had no policy. It was not opposed as such to the Labour, or even the so-called Communist, or any other party. How could it be if it allowed its members to belong to these parties also? But times change. Now, the Committee has a much wider programme, including such reform measures as:

“USE the taxpayers money to build more houses, schools, hospitals and colleges. (One Polaris submarine costs £70m—enough to build and service two new towns).

LAUNCH a ‘crash’ programme for the training of teachers.

CUT rates by reducing the interest rate on loans to Local Authorities to what it was in 1946—1½ per cent.”

(“Our Candidate—Humanity”, 1966 election manifesto).

Editorial Committee.

Letter: China’s Communist Party (1967)

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

Dear Friends,

Frank Offord states that the early Chinese Communist Party consisted entirely of an affluent and educated elite—”the ordinary worker being conspicuous by his absence”. I wonder where he gets his information from, he should read Red Star over China by Edgar Snow, an unbiased account of the early days of the revolution written inside the Communist areas of North West China in 1937.

Mao tse-Tung’s father was in fact a poor peasant who had managed to increase his property and income until he acquired the status of rich peasant, employing only one labourer—his family doing most of the work. Mao himself started working in the fields at the age of six, later became an apprentice in a rice shop. He finally went to a proper school at the age of sixteen, and then against his father’s wishes and with a minute allowance. Lin Piao’s father had once owned a small factory, but had been forced out of business by extortionate taxes. Only Chou en-Lai is a member of a traditional mandarin family. It is true that the Communist Party was founded by intellectuals—so are most organisations—but this is hardly surprising considering that the peasants and workers, oppressed as they were with fiercely reactionary landlords and their attendant thugs, and by immense taxes, had no chance to come into contact with Marxist thought. Once the party had been founded the proletariat joined in large numbers.

One thing is certain, the Chinese revolution was achieved not by power-seeking members of the bourgeoisie, but by men who suffered over twenty years of continual fighting and hardship simply because they believed firmly in their convictions. Maybe these same men betrayed their convictions when they gained power, nevertheless the Chinese worker is now a responsible citizen, not a slave. Of course there will always be people seeking wealth as long as money continues to exist, and these people are worthy of our hate. The SPGB attacks everybody and everything—sometimes justifiably and sometimes not—but exaggeration will do nothing to help the cause. By taking it too far you are liable to isolate yourselves and become entirely impotent. You’ll be saying that ‘Che’ Guevara was in it only for the money next.

Tim Deane,

Wimborne, Dorset.

Reply

Edgar Snow got his information through being in China at the time, but we can refer our correspondent to what is in our opinion the best work on the subject written so far—Revolution in China by Fitzgerald, from which we quote from page 193:

“At present the Chinese Communist Party is recruited in very large measure from the educated class, the university students … It is thus not really at all a party made up of members of the toiling masses. It could not be, because the peasants are still mainly illiterate, the workmen very little educated, and too few to supply the dominant clement. The university students come from the classes which Mao Tse-tung has stigmatized as only in part reliable, and lacking in vision and courage, the former country squires or landlords, the city bourgeois and the old official families . . . The present generation of recruits, taken into the party in very large numbers after ‘liberation’ are mainly university students, still very young. They will form the bulk of the Communist Party for another forty years

. . . . . 

The new members from these mandarin families are, of course, ardent Communists, sincere believers in the New Democracy, servants of the people. They are also precisely the same group of people who have governed China for the last two thousand years. It is in their blood. They are born to rule, and whether by virtue of Confucius and the Emperor, or Marx and Mao Tse-tung, makes very little real difference. Deep rooted, not in any way destroyed by the Revolution, is the old Chinese conviction that government is an affair for the elite, for those who sit in the seats of authority, and that the qualification for such a seat is knowledge of the orthodox doctrine, not blood, nor wealth, but ‘book perfume’ is the real test.”

Regarding Mao Tse-tung’s background we can give a tip—’straight from the horse’s mouth’ by quoting the statement made by Mao himself taken down by Edgar Snow and published in Red Star Over China which, as our correspondent says, is an unbiased account. On page 121 he says that it took the five members of the family plus a hired hand to run their farm while his father devoted his time to his prosperous grain business and other activities. “The old man continued to amass wealth or what was considered to be a great fortune in that little village. He did not buy more land himself, but he bought many mortgages on other people’s land”.

It should be remembered that due to lack of development in China at that time it was not necessary for a prosperous business man to own a firm the size of say Marks & Spencer in order to be “one of the nobs”.

Mao had the equivalent of a provincial University education and graduated at the age of 25 (Mao Tse-tung by Stewart Schram—Pelican Books), and so became one of the educated elite and typical of the recruits to the Mandarin class that has traditionally ruled China right up to and including the present period of Capitalism there.

We do not hate, as individuals, either the capitalists or the wage slaves who work for them; it is the capitalist system of society which we seek to abolish and replace with Socialism.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Distorting Marxism (1967)

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

Dear Sirs,

While not in any way wanting to associate the beliefs of our group with those of the SPGB, we are deeply amused at your efforts to emasculate Marxism. Your hatred of Lenin and Bolshevism rather stands in contradistinction to your espousal of Marxism. Most of all, quoting from the works of Kautsky and Bukharin in your literature, as if to prove your Marxism by the choice of books you quote from, is also most humorous. Take any Marxist conception and there the SPGB will be found revising and distorting it. It is perhaps paradoxical that the two works of Marx you base your policies on, Value, Price and Profit and the Critique of the Gotha Programme, are the very works in which Marx exposes and smashes present SPGB policy, in his attack on Lassalleanism. Nevertheless, we are not as sectarian as your Party, and are prepared to listen to any quasi-Marxist group.

M. E. Therrien,

Secretary, Exeter China Policy Study Group.

Reply

The theory and practice of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain is based on Marxism; that is, we accept as valid the main theories put forward by Marx about history, political economy and politics. We accept that the materialist conception of history is a very useful method for examining and understanding social and historical events and changes. We accept that Capital is a brilliant analysis of the workings and historical tendency of capitalism and exposition of how the working class are exploited. We accept too that the working class can be freed from wage-slavery only by its own efforts, by taking class-conscious democratic political action to get Socialism. We were unaware that in so doing we were “emasculating” Marxism and we are not prepared to consider the allegation that we have distorted Marx’s views until and unless Mr. Therrien, or anyone else, produces some evidence.

As a matter of fact it was Lenin and the Bolsheviks who twisted Marx’s theories. For Marx the emancipation of the working class had to be the work of the working class itself. Lenin rejected this. In What Is To be Done? he says, contemptuously, of the working class that “exclusively by its own effort” it can only reach a trade union consciousness. Socialist understanding, Lenin argued, must be brought to them from outside—in Russia by a band of professional revolutionaries organised as a vanguard party. In other words, Lenin and the Bolsheviks held that a vanguard party could free the working class rather than the working class, through it own class-conscious democratic political action, free itself.

Before trying to pin labels on us Mr. Therrien really must make up his mind which one he is going to use. Kautsky (foremost thinker of European Social Democracy) and Bukharin (Bolshevik thinker and leader, later murdered by Stalin) were both opposed to Lassalle (a nineteenth century playboy who did some pioneer work in organising workers, of Iron Law of Wages fame). And of course Kautsky and Bukharin were opposed to each other. We, in the Socialist Party, have serious criticisms to make of all three. In fact, we would say that Lassalle had nothing to contribute to Socialist theory and Bukharin next to nothing.

The policy of the Socialist Party is not based on two works of Marx. It is based on the interests of the working class in the modern world. Value, Price and Profit is a basic work of Marxian economics always worth reading. The Critique of the Gotha Programme, some marginal notes written by Marx on the programme adopted by German Social Democrats at a unity congress held in Gotha in 1875, has certain defects precisely because it was not written for publication. It is odd that we should be accused of basing our policy on these since the Stalinists use them to try to justify their theory that Socialism and Communism are two separate societies. The notes don’t bear this interpretation anyway and Marx used the two terms interchangeably to refer to the classless society of the future, based on the social or common ownership of the means of life.

Finally, may we express the hope that Mr. Therrien’s group’s study of the policies of state capitalist China is conducted on somewhat more scientific lines than their study of Socialist Party policy appears to have been.

Editorial Committee.

The Problem of Transport (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

A constant and pressing problem today, especially in a greater conurbation like London, is the problem of transport. Crowded trains, buses late or cut out, the constant whine of jet planes, dirt, noise and fumes — the list is endless.

At the heart of to-day’s transport problems is the motor-car, loved and hated to an immoderate degree, transforming the very face of the country, as a century ago the steam locomotive was transforming it. Any tenth-rate comedian can get a laugh by just saying ‘Barbara Castle’, as if a change of personality at the head of the Ministry of Transport would make an atom of difference to the problem.

In an effort to ease the jammed-up roads, pleasant gardens and tree-lined avenues are cut up for wider roads, while parks and squares are ruined to make car parks, and even the humble pub garden becomes a little asphalt desert. Motorways run like a scar across the countryside, and winding lanes are ‘improved’ out of recognition. Worst of all is the ever mounting toll of accidents.

None of this is particularly new; it is merely a change of form. That profit is the only serious consideration, with human comfort and happiness coming a very poor second, is true to-day and has been true for as long as capitalism has existed. London, and all big cities, have for centuries been very noisy places. Iron clad wheels and horses’ hooves, clattering over cobbles, made a terrible din and congestion in London was notorious.

Rowlandson, in a typically unflattering series of etchings, drew a picture of traffic chaos in the early 19th century. In the late 1850’s the London General Omnibus Company alone had about six hundred horse-buses, and horse trams appeared on the scene in the 1860’s. Congestion in the City gave rise to plans for a pedestrian bridge over Ludgate Circus, and the first underground railway (imagine the “Met” with steam engines) was put through to relieve congestion.

By the 1890’s there were over 1,700 buses and about 900 trams in central London. Over it all rode the locomotive, a smoky monster that blackened the working class districts through which it cut into London. The childish squabbles indulged in by rival railway companies, as in 1884 when the District Line chained a locomotive in a disputed siding at South Kensington Station and three Metropolitan Line engines tried to pull it out, make the snarling of motorists at traffic light to-day seem very tame.

The protests at Motorways ruining the countryside echo the protests of a century ago when the railways were doing the same thing. No, the problem hasn’t changed, but the vast increase in population, and the much greater powers of production, have made it more acute.

Now, the canals that once drove men and horses hard for greater speed and profit are pleasant, green oases in endless suburbs, and the once hated steam engine a romantic memory. It is the internal combustion engine that dominates the 20th Century.

No other modern industry has had such a profound influence on the social and economic life to-day as the motor industry. Its development has resulted in the decline of once important industries, and has given an impetus to a mass of others that were unimportant at the turn of the century. It was one of the main factors in the migration of industries, from the North of England to the South and to the Midlands, that took place between the wars.

Like the steam engine that preceded it, the internal combustion engine began its existence as a static form of power, and was later adapted for locomotion. Steam cars had been in existence since the early years of the 19th century, but they were heavy and fuel was a problem. The internal combustion engine made possible a much lighter vehicle. More important, it could be run over existing public roads, unlike the railways which had to stick to a set route; this made for greater mobility. By the beginning of the present century the motor vehicle was with us.

Its application followed existing patterns, in the various forms of road transport in existence at the time—the private carriage, the bus and the wagon. In its early days the motor-car was still a luxury reserved for the type of people who could afford a carriage. The bulk of the population travelled by public transport.

The first motor buses appeared in Britain about 1898, and by the early 1920’s they had been joined by the long distance coach.

One of the selling points used by the promoters of coach travel before the war was that coaches took you through the heart of towns and villages, and gave you a better view of the country. Today more and more coaches trail along dreary motorways and by-pass towns and villages.

Slowly the motor buses pushed the railways into the background, and drove the tramcars off the road. The swing was first from the railways to public road transport; the golden age of the bus was the 1930’s.

But now, by changed production methods and a heavy reliance on hire purchase, the private car has become available to the mass of the people. There were four times as many cars on the roads in 1964 as in 1939 and the number is still growing. Furthermore, the number of people travelling to work from a fair distance away has grown steadily over the last 100 years. The resulting chaos has brought home the importance of the railways, with their much greater carrying capacity. Without their rail systems, cities like London woud seize up in the rush hour.

Since the war a favourite pipe-dream has been an ‘integrated public transport system’, with transport used in a balanced way to its best advantage. But capitalism doesn’t work that way. If profit can be made it will be made, however pleasant or unpleasant the result may be. If, on the other hand, something like the railways no longer pays, but is considered necessary to the general interest of capitalism, then it will be subsidised, but as cheaply as possible.

The grim railway arches that overshadowed the mean terraces of south and east London were held up as examples of the inhumanity of the Victorians, but the new fly-overs that overshadow houses to-day show the same contempt for the people who live underneath. Transport has changed. It will change again, we can only guess how; but one thing is certain. If capitalism remains the new transport will be as nasty as the old.

Les Dale

50 Years Ago: The Question of Alsace Lorraine (1967)

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

The question of Alsace Lorraine has received considerable attention from the political and journalistic hirelings of the capitalist class. A vast amount of sloppy sentiment has been thrust upon us with the object of covering up the real facts at issue, a good example of which comes from Mr. Lloyd George. “However long the war may be”, says that worthy, “however great the strain upon our resources, this country intends to stand by her gallant ally, France, until she redeems her oppressed children from the degradation of a foreign yoke”.

Knowing the history of the capitalist class, Socialists reject with scorn their professed sympathy for the workers of any nation. Material interest dominates their every action, as the following demonstrates:

“If Germany could secure a peace based on her present military position”, says a writer in the Daily Chronicle 24.10.17. 

“the whole of this wealth of iron ore, estimated at some 5,000 million tons, would pass under her control . . . Liberate these provinces from her clutch with their 21,000,000 tons of iron ore a year, their 3,800,000 tons of iron smeltings, their 2,300,000 tons of steel smeltings, and useful coalfields of the Somme Valley, and a long step has been taken towards peace”.

“It is clearly an almost vital interest, both for France and Great Britain, that the formation of a huge Franco-German cartel, based on the reciprocal exchange of coal for ore, should be prevented, that we should ourselves supply France with the coke that will enable her to do her own smelting, and that we should take from her in return the iron ore that we now import from Sweden and from Spain”. (“Daily Chronicle”, 24.10.17.)

The evidence given shows the capitalists in their true character, as a cold-blooded, profit-seeking tribe, ready to slaughter millions of workers to gain an advantage over a commercial rival.

From the Socialist Standard, December 1917 Article by E. L. Wake.

SPGB Meetings (1967)

Party News from the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard