The German Communist Party (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks if the Communist Party of Germany represents a real revolutionary backing to the extent indicated by its vote of five millions. If not, what is the programme on which this vote is obtained.

The German Communist Party, like the Communist Party of Great Britain, is a party based in the main on discontent without any serious understanding of capitalism or Socialism. Because the German Social Democratic Party ever since the war has been associated with the Governments of Germany, discontent with capitalism has undermined the popularity of that party and built up the Communist Party and Hitler's Party. Although all three parties (including Hitler's Party) claim to be Socialist, none of them has tried to do more than to exploit every kind of discontent. Consequently, at all times, many items have been common to all three programmes. But beyond these common items each party has made its own particular appeal. The Communists have stressed their doctrine of street-fighting and armed uprising. Hitler has beaten the big drum of patriotism, and has exploited sentiments hostile to Jews, bankers and large-scale capitalism. The Social Democrats preached social reform, and appealed to anti-war sentiment and sympathy for internationalism and the League of Nations.

One consequence of the overlapping programmes of the three parties has been a large number of voters supporting now the one and then another. In the elections at the beginning of March, Hitler gained several million votes and the Communists lost nearly a million. The Manchester Guardian's Berlin correspondent says that "a great proportion" of the votes lost by the Communists went over to Hitler. (Manchester Guardian, March 7th.)

The Times' Berlin correspondent (March 2nd) said that the “really organised Communists, infected by the Russian Communist religion, number, at most, a few hundred thousand." The millions who voted Communist were described by this correspondent as disgruntled Social Democrats, "unemployed rendered desperate by poverty and insufficient food," and "even petty bourgeois ruined by the inflation."

A pamphlet published by the British Communist Party ("What Next in Germany?"— August, 1932) gives a summary of the programme of the German Communist Party early in 1932 : —

Already, some time before the elections, the Communist Party had issued its appeal for a United Anti- Fascist Front of the working-class with a programme which included; Resistance to all wage cuts and unemployment benefit cuts: for the extension of Social Insurance benefits; for the provision of funds to give work to the unemployed; for the reduction of hours to 40 per week with no reduction in earnings. For the withdrawal of prohibition against all working-class organisations, meetings and demonstrations; for the release of all class war prisoners; for the stoppage of all foreign debt payments and payments to the Hohenzollerns (the ex-Kaiser’s family) and other German princes.

Already this appeal had begun to receive increasing support from the workers in the factories and trade unions.

It will be seen that the programme was composed entirely of reformist demands. One disgusting feature of German Communist propaganda has been the appeal to national hatred, in the form of the demand that the debt payments and reparations (paid by German capitalists to foreign capitalists) should cease. This appeal was in the forefront of Hitler's programme also, and with it the Communists knowingly fostered the illusion that not capitalism, but foreign debts, are the cause of the misery of the German workers. Even the German Social Democrats and the breakaway party, the German Socialist Workers' Party (which rejoined the S.D.P. at the end of February) protested against this Communist exploitation of ignorant nationalism, bound to play into the hands of Hitler.

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Socialism and Toleration. (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and Toleration

A correspondent asks the following question: 

Would the S.P.G.B. forbid religious instruction and close down the churches, as has been done by the Bolsheviks in Russia, in view of the fact that, even after revolution, a minority will probably still cling to superstition; or, on the other hand, would the Party adopt an attitude of toleration, relying upon the march of science and progress to eradicate religion ?

Reply.

Although the Bolsheviks suppress their political opponents our correspondent is mistaken in saying that the Russian Government has closed down the churches. Subject to certain restrictions and disabilities religious worship is permitted in Russia and is fairly widely practised.

With regard to the main part of the question, of course, the Socialist majority after conquering political power, would not use that power for the needless and provocative purpose of suppressing the propagation of minority views, whether religious or political. The work of the S.P.G.B. is based on the fact that the Socialist case is sound and only needs to be understood by the majority of the workers for them to accept it. Our confidence in the correctness of our position rests on the only sure foundation, that is, that so far from trying to suppress criticism we permit and encourage our opponents (including religious opponents) to state their case on our platform. Ours is the only party in Great Britain which does this, and we can say with confidence that the movement built up in this way will never take refuge in the cowardly and in the long run unnecessary persecution of a religious or political minority. 

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Communism and Socialism. (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Communism and Socialism.

Reply to C. L., Vancouver Island B.C.

Engels in his 1888 Preface to the “Communist Manifesto" explained why in 1847 Marx and he called their Manifesto "Communist" and not "Socialist." It was to distinguish the revolutionary working class movement from the middle-class utopian movement, which at that time called itself Socialist. Later on this method of distinguishing the two movements ceased to be necessary, and Marx and Engels habitually used the terms Socialist and Socialism to indicate what they had formerly indicated by the terms Communist and Communism.

The Third (Communist) International called itself by that name to distinguish itself from the Labour parties and their International. They now use the term "Socialism" to mean the stage of development which in their view is intermediate between the future Communism and the present mixture of State and private capitalism as it exists in Russia. Thus Leontyev in his "Towards a Classless Society" (Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R , Moscow, 1932) writes:—

The classless socialist society which we must build during the second five year period, represents only the first, the lower phase of Communism.—(Page 25.)

When the Russian Communists want to indicate something approximating to what the S.P.G.B. defines as Socialism, they use the term Communism.

With regard to the withering away of the State, see January Socialist Standard. 

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Russia's Bondholders. (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia's Bondholders.

Reply to P. L., Poplar.

In addition to commercial credits obtained by the Russian Government abroad, and unofficially estimated at between £200 million and £300 million, the Russian Government has raised large sums at home to help finance the new industries. The total sum so obtained, according to information given in the Moscow Daily News (Weekly Edition, January 5th, 1933), has exceeded the original estimate of 6,000 million roubles (£600 million) and has reached a total of over £1,000 million. £800 million of this is held by the Government direct, and the remainder by Government industrial undertakings. The interest paid to the bondholders is in most cases at 10 per cent., or more; on some issues there is no interest, but in its place the chance of winning a big lottery prize. The Moscow Daily News states that the bondholders number 40 million persons, "the vast majority of whom are workers and collective farmers.” No figures are given showing the extent to which a minority of wealthy individuals have large holdings. While the Russian Government is now trying to sell its bonds abroad it is certain that the major portion of the £1,000 million is held internally.

Ed. Comm.

Hard Times in the Peerage (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spare a tear for the Duke. Even Dukes have their worries. Remove the envious leer from your countenance for a moment and listen to the sordid tale of struggle and penury unfolded by the Daily Express (March 9th, 1933). How often is it said, one half the world does not know how the other half lives? What a debt we owe to the intrepid representative of that public-spirited journal, who dared everything, even the Hall Porter of the Savoy Hotel, that we might know—and understand. He found the Duke of Manchester struggling to put a bold face upon his poverty, in a luxurious suite of rooms, and absently smoking fat Turkish cigarettes “specially made to his order, with a coronet on the tip.” Whilst his valet served whiskies and sodas he unfolded the heartrending tale of his fifty-seven years of vicissitudes. “I have been so broke,” he said, “ at one time or another that I have only just been able to pay for my valet's meals . . ."

Those of our readers who have been reduced to this extremity will know what it means and sympathise. However, dry your eyes, for you will be relieved to learn that his income "is sufficient, normally, to buy a couple of meals a day and to provide the reasonable comforts of life . . ." We had better pause there, in the middle of his sentence, so that the continuation may be savoured in all its dire significance. Draw forth your handkerchiefs again and learn ". . . but it has been reduced by £50 a week on account of depression, and £50 a week is a considerable slice out of most people’s incomes.”

It is; it most emphatically is. Millions of hearts will throb responsively when they realise this great home-truth. The Duke, with a penetration as creditable as it is rare, has made a profound discovery. Fifty pounds a week, docked from your income, does make a difference. We cannot recall a single economist, publicist or statesman who has publicly called attention to this devastating fact. And why not? You will see that a duke is just as seriously affected as a plumber, or a baked-potato man.

The Duke of Manchester is a genius, doomed, unfortunately, to the fate that mankind has so often reserved for its greatest benefactors. Hitherto, genius has been left to die in garrets; now we let them eke out a precarious existence in a suite of rooms at the Savoy. What could this brain have done, if not doomed to a dukedom?" The same thought has occurred to the Duke.

"My one regret in life is that I was never allowed to go into business when I was a boy. It was considered infra dig in those days for a duke to do anything of the sort. I never was able to go into business until I was forty-two years of age, otherwise I might have been in a much better position now.

"I go in for a little private business now. I can't say what it is. Of course, my name must not figure in the schemes, and I can’t put any money into them, but I supply the ideas. I think my head is screwed on the right way, and I should have been sitting pretty if the depression had not come along. Why, even to-day, I have £270,000 j tied up in commodities, but, for one reason and another, I can't touch a penny—not a penny."

Here is a story of human anguish. One can savour the bitterness behind that cry: “Not a penny"; behind that tale of thwarted ambition. Who can doubt that had fate been kinder the Duke, in business, would have been just as capable of introducing a ten per cent. cut as any great captain of industry. The hearts of all our unemployed, especially those who have appeared before the Public Assistance Committee, will warm to this engaging figure. One sees him condemned to occupy a luxurious suite in the Savoy Hotel, to smoke innumerable fat Turkish cigarettes, to drink incessant whiskies and sodas, to be attended by his faithful valet, and dream of the time when he was a young man.

"When I was a young man and I found I had not enough money to live as I liked, I used to go away on world cruises, spent next to nothing for eleven months of the year, and come home and spend nearly a full year’s income in the other month." .

Here the Duke, with prodigal generosity, seems to have given the world one of his great ideas. Why do not the unemployed utilise their enforced leisure in this way?

Mr. Chamberlain has cheered us all up by seeing no definite improvement ahead for the next ten years. Why not go for world cruises—so much advertised just now—and “ spend next to nothing for eleven months"? All of us have “next to nothing," so there should be no difficulty on that score.

Quite a lovable creature, the Duke, don’t you think? And so full of ideas. “Say I am a philosopher," he said to the newspaper man. How different from those misguided unemployed, who supply the newspapers with particulars of their domestic budgets, and complain of the difficulty of living on the “dole." It is safe to say that few of them have had their income reduced by £50 per week, and fewer still are philosophising in their own suites at the Savoy. Spare a tear for the Duke.

W. T. Hopley

Here and There: On Initiative (1933)

The Here and There column from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Initiative

It is a commonplace argument of the apologists of capitalism that the possession of wealth is the reward for and the result of the initiative of its owners. Socialism, they argue, would destroy this initiative and progress would be impossible. Three reports in the Daily Telegraph for January 1st and January 2nd completely upset this claim.

It was stated that Professor Haldane, who was Professor of Bio-Chemistry at Cambridge University, was resigning his position to take up a position at the London University. Some remarkable facts were given of his career. It was stated that he had produced in his own body the condition of certain diseases in order to discover a remedy for them. In doing so he had knowingly and deliberately endangered his own life in order to increase the knowledge of science in the conquest of these diseases.

Yet he does not appear to have had any pecuniary advantage in view.

Another instance was given in an appreciative obituary notice of Dr. Alfred Smith: Dr. Smith was one of the eighteen pioneers of X-ray work. In devoting his life to X-ray research, he fell a victim to X-ray dermatitis. The consequences for Dr. Smith were the loss of a leg, semi-blindness, and physical ruin. Unable to practice in his profession, his life savings gone, he was rewarded with a disused army hut to live in, and 35s. a week from the Carnegie Hero Trust.

The Daily Telegraph also gave the names of twelve others who had lost their lives in the cause of X-ray.

The same newspaper reported the trial of J. Geen, the associate of Factor, the fraudulent company promoter, who had successfully displayed initiative in relieving his fellow capitalists of millions' of pounds. It was stated of Factor that he was an illiterate, who "was even unable to sign his own name without difficulty.

Such are the rewards for initiative. It would be true to say that the ownership of wealth by the modern capitalist class is as much due to initiative as Factor’s millions were due to his academic attainments.

Some Effects of Capitalism

From Wépszava (“The People’s Voice”), the Hungarian Social-Democratic daily, for December 22nd, 1932: —

In 1932 down to December 20th 1,126 women began giving birth to children in the street, and were taken to a hospital or nursing home. 1,126 fearful blows in the face for Hungarian social policy, which does not even take steps to see that new-born children shall come into the world with a roof over their heads! . . . A mother who finds herself lying in the hour of her greatest stress in the filth of the street instead of on a clean operating table, not only feels that society has no use for her, but that her child is born with the chains of poverty shackling its limbs, and to a destiny devoid of hope.

And from The Star, December 22nd, 1932: —

The best study I have seen recently of the psychological effect of unemployment is the vivid report on life in the Austrian village of Marienthal which appears in “Character and Personality.” The 1,500 inhabitants have been workless since a local factory closed three years ago, and are living on 5d. per family per day.

The investigators got at the facts in an ingenious way. Before distributing clothing they called from house to house, inquiring into the need, and in this way secured an insight into the domestic conditions. They also organised sewing classes and made the keeping of household accounts a condition of membership.

The inquiry revealed that the unemployed, having time on their hands, lose all sense of it. They become unpunctual and slowly resign themselves to a state which renounces even the discussion of politics and the reading of newspapers.

After three years the inquiry tabled only 14 per cent. as unbroken in spirit. Of the rest most were resigned to enduring their present state and the remainder broken completely. “heedless of the future as of the present.”

We can imagine all the parsons and priests in the kingdom arising with a great self-righteous show of protests if animals were treated with a fraction of the inhumanity meted out to the unwanted wage-slave.

Incidentally, these conditions and their results on the workers in Austria are a somewhat tragic commentary on the notion held by many woolly headed persons that starvation makes Socialists.

In the House of Commons

During the debate on the Kenya New Lands Trust Ordinance, which deprives the Natives of Kenya of the right to their lands on it being required by the Kenya Administration or White Settlers, Sir J. Sandeman Allen, commenting on the protests on behalf of the natives made by several prominent clergymen, said: “ . . .  If Church dignitaries in East Africa confined themselves to their missionary work and did not try to do anything outside of their proper sphere it would be. better for all concerned.” (Hansard, February 8th, 1933.)

The social influence of the Church seems to be in its twilight. When it interferes in class conflicts, as in the “General Strike,” it is told—in the words of Mr. Baldwin to the Archbishop of Canterbury—to ” mind its own business.” In short, the business of the parson is to console and not to interfere.

The varied attitude of the British Government in foreign affairs makes a somewhat interesting and contrasting reading. Mr. J. H. Thomas, being asked in the House of Commons what there was to be gained in pursuing the policy of the Government in relation to Ireland, replied (amidst laughter): “I have got a few hundred thousand pounds more as a result of the increased duties.” (Hansard, February 9th, 1933.)

On Saturday, February 10th, a wireless debate took place between students of Yale University, America, and students of Cambridge University, England, on the subject of War Debts. The English case was for the complete cancellation of War Debts, thus summarising the attitude of the British capitalist class as expressed through its Press. The reasons given for cancellation were ingenious, and were to the effect that cancellation was really in the interests of the United States of America. Somewhat after the sanctimonious manner of the schoolmaster, who, having punished a pupil, claimed the punishing to have hurt the schoolmaster the most. In Kenya the attitude of the British capitalist class is one of the heavy boot; in Ireland, that of a. bullying braggart; but their attitude to America is—well, sycophantic is a mild word, perhaps Pecksnifian would be appropriate. The reasons, of course, are obvious. Beneath the tender solicitude for backward countries and the polished verbiage of diplomatic documents, there are hypocrisy and greed as crude and as vicious as that which characterised the early days of Capitalism..

Strange Bedfellows.

The Leader, February 7th, 1932, contained an article called “Blasphemous Attacks on Christianity.” Among other books that were quoted was our pamphlet (without reference to its source of publication), “Socialism and Religion.” The Leader is very concerned about these attacks and thinks leaders of the Labour Party, especially ”those who call themselves Christian Socialists,” should do something about it. The Leader is a "tipster’s ” journal, which thrives on the belief among millions of gullible workers that they can get rich quickly and easily from betting and competitions of the kind run by popular newspapers for large money prizes. (Quite recently, a mathematician publicly stated that the chance of winning a prize in one of these competitions was many millions to one.) It is perhaps quite fitting that those who thrive on one form of superstition should feel a brotherly concern for those who foster superstition in another form.

The I.L.P. Finds Inspiration.

During January, letters appeared in the columns of the New Leader from members of the I.L.P. on the subject of “ Religion and Revolution.” The varied views held aptly expressed the confusion of ideas of the I.L.P. on the subject, and ranged from the view that “Christianity is Socialism” to an attitude that more or less approached the Marxist position on the subject. In the issue for January 10th, Dr. John Lewis replies in what the Editor of the New Leader describes as an “able contribution” to the discussion. Dr. Lewis's reply is a typical piece of I.L.P. shuffling. He evades the essential points in the letters from critics of Christianity, and, like Paton in his reply to a similar discussion on "Parliament and Democracy,” attempted to placate and satisfy all the diverse elements that make up the I.L.P. Christianity, he says: —

. . . .Takes on a totally different form according to the period, and at no period is it a mere reflection of a static economic order. . . . At periods of crisis in which we are mainly interested, religion splits. One part sanctifies the obsolete; one part champions the new order.

Which, as historical summary, is fairly accurate. But his conclusion, based on the above, is as follows: —

To-day religion inspires, for the first time, a movement which can achieve its ideal by building a classless society, and finally overthrowing the exploiters.

Dr. Lewis's view, which he attempts to support with Marxist formulae, is that the demand for Socialism by the workers will express itself in a religious form inspired by Christianity. Dr. Lewis is, of course, entitled to his peculiar views, but to pretend that these are the views of Marx is sheer misrepresentation of Marx's explanation of religion. Had Dr. Lewis gone one step further he might have discovered that the forces which, in the past, determined that Christianity took on a “totally different form according to the period,” also determined the decay of Christianity in Capitalist Society. So much so that, for all practical purposes, Christianity is dead so far as the workers are concerned. It is almost a certainty that if Christianity ceased to be taught in the Schools and subsidised by the State, it would quickly take its place in the museums of antiquities.

It is an interesting explanation, however, that the I.L.P.'s latest pose as a “ real revolutionary party ” is so inspired. This is a new angle on the decisions of the Bradford Conference, which was perhaps a waste of time.

Harry Waite

SPGB Meetings (1933)

Party News from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Sonnet No. 143: On Benefits (2024)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

On Benefits

 

The magistrates of Speenhamland decreed

No one should be too poor to eat, instead

A working wage too deficient for bread

Must be subsidised to meet that need.

Since then, two centuries and more have passed,

Yet pay and prices still remain mismatched,

Requiring governments to have hatched

All manner of benefits, such a vast

Complex web of doles, those magistrates

At the Pelican Inn would look askance

To see how little has been the advance

Of society, how progress abates

For however long workers delay

Rejecting reforms and seizing the day.

 

D. A.

Life & Times: Horror in the Middle East. Choosing sides (2024)

The Life and Times column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the community centre where I play bowls, on a Thursday evening the room next to the bowls hall is used for meetings by the local branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). They have talks, show films, engage in discussion, and I’ve often thought that I might be better occupied in with them discussing politics rather than playing bowls next door. But I’ve never done that, and recently, when I looked through the window on the door from their meeting room to the bowls hall, I was all the more tempted. I noticed that, though they only had a small attendance, there were banners, posters and leaflets about the current Israel-Hamas conflict strewn everywhere. They carried predictable slogans such as Stop the Genocide, Free Palestine, Stop the Attacks in Gaza, Defeat Islamophobia.

Anti-semitism?

I didn’t attend the meeting, but I did look in to buy a copy of their newspaper, the Socialist Worker. And all that made me reflect not just on Israel and Gaza but also on the attitude of left-wing organisations like the SWP towards the situation there, on the fact that they are all, without exception, staunchly supportive of the Arab side and profoundly hostile to Israel. From many quarters it is being said that this is a form of the oldest hatred, anti-semitism. But I find that hard to accept, since I know personally a number of the people who attend those meetings in the community centre and nothing I know about them suggests to me they are anti-semitic. In the same way, I find it hard to accept the claim made recently that London has become a ‘no-go zone for Jews’ during weekend pro-Palestinian marches. I have observed these marches at first hand myself on two occasions and, despite the anti-Israel slogans, I have seen no display of anti-semitism. I don’t of course doubt that some of those on the marches who are Muslims do not distinguish between Israel and people of the Jewish faith, nor do I doubt that many others in society with anti-semitic prejudices are using the situation to indulge their hatred of Jews. But nothing I saw among the large number of likely non-Muslims on the demonstrations, despite their obvious anti-Israel fervour, led me, Jewish by birth and upbringing as I am but of no religious faith, to attribute to them anti-semitic motives.

Crime scenes

But if it’s not anti-semitism, what is it? What makes them (and the left generally) want to give such unique prominence to horror and injustice in this one particular situation rather than talk about any of the other comparable or manifestly worse situations that exist in many other parts of the globe?

A recent issue of the Socialist Standard gave voice to this very question. It featured on its front cover the caption ‘Crime Scene Investigation’ and listed six horror scenarios taking place in the world at the moment – Yemen, Gaza, Ukraine, Congo, Syria and Iraq. It could have listed many other examples of groups of people, many of them minorities, being horribly oppressed and downtrodden (eg, Kurds in Turkey, Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghurs in China, civil war in Sudan). Yet we see no particular protest about these scenarios by the groups and individuals demonstrating about Gaza. So why the focus on Israel alone? And why, when a situation like the current one arises, do they harden their already existing anti-Israeli stance and dedicate themselves to campaigning solely against that country and its government?

Anti-Americanism

As previously indicated, I see no evidence for anti-semitism as the motive. I attribute it rather to the anti-Americanism on the left of Western politics which dates back a long way and, despite all changes in circumstances, still survives. It goes back to the old nostalgic belief that there was somehow something good and positive about the first country to call itself ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’, ie, the old Soviet Union, and therefore more or less automatically something bad and negative about those countries and their governments that opposed it, and in particular the United States which had the most power and influence and to a large extent dominated and dictated the policies of the Western world. America was therefore the major enemy of the left and, despite everything that has happened since the end of the Soviet Union, that remains as a residual, almost visceral, feeling on the left and resurfaces with a vengeance whenever a situation arises in which a country is seen as being supported by the United States or is, in any sense, one of its clients. And this is the position of Israel today. And so, almost instinctively, without anti-semitism needing to enter into the equation, Israel and whatever action its government may take has to be opposed by those on the left because in it actions the hand of the American oppressor is seen.

So, no anti-Houthi demonstrations despite the fact that the Houthi terrorise the Yemen, operating stringent policies of repression against all who oppose them and against women and gay people; no demonstrations against Russia’s bombing of civilians in Ukraine; no demonstrations against mass slaughter and rape in the Congo; no demonstrations against China’s brutal treatment of the Uyghurs; and no demonstrations against the vicious slaughter and expulsion of the Rohingya by the military government in Myanmar. The common denominator of all these situations is that there is no obvious American hand in or support for the repression taking place.

Socialism as it really is

This is the kind of thing I would have tried to say if I’d attended that SWP meeting in my community centre. I would not have accused those present of anti-semitism, since I do not believe them to be anti-semitic, but I would have challenged them to examine their motives for such a disproportionate focus on only one of capitalism’s crime scenes compared to the very many others. And I would have invited them to consider joining with the Socialist Party to campaign not for better or ‘fairer’ conditions within capitalism (which at bottom is what they do) but for getting rid of the system that gives rise to those conditions and replacing it by a leaderless, borderless, moneyless world of voluntary cooperation and free access to all goods and service based on the principle of from each according to ability to each according to need – which is what ‘socialism’ really is.

Howard Moss

Pathfinders: Attack of the zombies (2024)

The Pathfinders Column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The US presidential election campaign is set to move into high gear this year with both sides attacking the mental capacities of the other side’s leader, one as senile and the other deranged. There is something zombie-like about Biden and Trump, the one peering through screwed-up eyelids as if half-asleep and always baffled, the other pontificating on his own magnificence in the strangulated voice of hubris at full stretch. But it’s not as if US workers would be any better off if two different capitalist zombies were battling it out for leadership, the whole concept of leadership itself is a kind of zombie cult.

New research from Queensland University has identified a problem of ‘zombie leadership’, a set of ideas about leadership that remain popular while being generally ‘poisonous for organizations and society’. ‘It’s known as ‘zombie leadership’ because despite being demonstrably false, these claims refuse to die,’ says Professor Haslam, of the University’s School of Psychology. ‘One example is the assumption that leadership is exclusive to people with special qualities which set them apart from the masses’ (tinyurl.com/2s4b833z).

This is self-evidently a false assumption, when you look at the calibre of most political leaders. The only special quality many of them have is a narcissistic sense of Divine Right which is impervious to criticism or even rational thought. But zombie leaders make for zombie followers, who refuse to believe the evidence of their senses and remain convinced that leaders in general are a superior species.

The researchers point to other noxious but unchallenged preconceptions, like the idea that people can’t manage without leaders, and that leadership is somehow good by definition. They argue that these ideas have no evidential base but persist because they flatter ruling elites (of course) and also appeal to anxious people who feel they have no control in the world, with the result that they help to ‘justify inequalities of esteem, recognition, and reward.’

They are correct on all counts. But they don’t say that all leadership is bad. They see ‘good’ leadership as an inclusive group process in which people feel appreciated, ‘grounded in relationships and connections between leaders and those they influence.’

Recently the Economist ran a podcast series called Boss Class, which aimed to offer useful advice to managers trying to improve their game and get better results out of their workers. Much of the discussion revolved around similar ideas of democratic participation, listening, appreciating, and recognising what individuals are good at and what they’re not good at.

The problem with all this, from a socialist perspective, is that it’s largely pious bullshit which either does not understand or refuses to admit the basic realities of capitalist employment. While it’s undoubtedly better to have a nice boss than a nasty one, the fact is that workers are not there by choice, they are coerced by economic necessity into labouring to make someone else rich, and no amount of smarmy management-speak can disguise the conflict of interests between workers and management that is an integral part of the class war. Many workers instinctively recognise this, and are not fooled into working harder or for free just because the boss smiles at them and calls them by their first name. Unfortunately though, many other workers are conned into thinking that the boss is their friend, and they are consequently hit very hard when the cost of living goes up but their wages don’t, or when they suddenly face redundancy after years of loyal service.

It really doesn’t take much to find examples of people cooperating perfectly well without leaders. One recent news article looked at a Suffolk commune that’s been going successfully for fifty years with everyone pitching in and nobody feeling the need to be Napoleon, although the place looks palatial so the buy-in would no doubt exclude the average sans-culotte (tinyurl.com/3xpdhajr). Even without doing any reading at all, most people can probably call to mind incidents from past experience where they worked cooperatively with other people on a common goal without anyone taking a leadership role. It’s really not hard. People do it all the time. That’s why socialism will work.

Surprisingly, there are even some capitalist companies which have got rid of management structures and have no actual bosses, like the Morning Star tomato processing company in California (tinyurl.com/mstnuhdr). But these tend to work in practice like cooperatives, where workers essentially have to exploit themselves if the entity is going to compete successfully in the marketplace against other companies with no tender scruples about screwing their own workers. And screw their workers they must, even if they’re nice and polite bosses who know everyone’s name, because the logic of capitalism is to grow or die, and that means skinning the workforce every chance they get.

Socialists have an understanding of leadership which is somewhat different even from that suggested by the Queensland study. We don’t have leaders and we regard hierarchies as intrinsically anti-democratic. But to say we don’t believe in leadership under any circumstances is not accurate. In fact, as Engels pointed out in response to some people fetishising anti-authority, there are times when it would be damned silly and even dangerous not to have an expert in charge, like on a ship at sea (On Authority, 1872).

In fact we think leadership should be encouraged in everyone – if by leadership we mean a willingness to take the initiative, problem solve, show others the way, and inspire them to take part in a collective cause or a project. That’s how we’ll get socialism, after all, by you and everyone else having the courage to stand up and be first, not sitting and waiting like a zombie for someone else to tell you what to do.

Paddy Shannon

Labour and ‘the lower-working-class’ (2024)

From the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The upper class desire to remain so, the middle class wish to overthrow the upper class, and the lower class want a classless system.’ (George Orwell)

In his 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell, describes what it was like to be born into a family that saw itself as of a superior class to that of the working class ‘I was born into what you might describe as the lower-upper-middle class… In the kind of shabby-genteel family that I am talking about there is far more consciousness of poverty than in any working-class family above the level of the dole.’

Back in 1966 class differences were much more obvious to everyone. In a television programme of that year, The Frost Report, John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett acted out a class sketch. Utilising the differences in their heights, Cleese was upper class, Barker middle and Corbett lower. Lines include ‘middle class’ saying, I look up to him because he is upper class, but I look down on him because he is lower class.” Ronnie Corbett: “I know my place.” After describing the advantages of their two ‘superior’ classes, Corbett, looking upwards at both ends the sketch with, ‘I get a pain in the back of my neck.’

Speaking of pain, Labour are at pains to persuade UK capitalism that it need have no qualms about a Labour government. Labour will indeed do its utmost to carry on from the Tories the position of government as the executive committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

At Davos in January, the Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves let it be known that, ‘With Labour, Britain will be open to business. We will restore stability and security into our economy. We will restore Britain’s reputation as a place to do business. And we will be a trusted partner with business in delivering the change our country and our economy needs’ (Guardian, 16 January).

A few months on, they are letting it be known that they are going to be sorting out those pesky proles who can’t or won’t be active wage slaves. Social welfare costs the capitalist class as a whole money that they would much rather benefit from themselves rather than subsidise the – in their eyes – undeserving poor, scroungers and economically useless.

Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has laid out their intentions:

‘Under a Labour government there would be “no option of a life on benefits”, the Party has said, as it set out plans to reduce the number of young people not in work, education or training.’

‘Under our changed Labour party, if you can work there will be no option of a life on benefits,’ she said in a speech to the centre-left Demos think-tank in London, where she sought to outline Labour’s commitment on “investing” in young people’ (Guardian, 4 March).

Ten years ago Channel Four aired a series of five programmes which looked at the lives of people living in Winson Green, Birmingham. The programmes were titled Benefits Street. The programmes have been called ‘poverty porn’ as they portrayed those featured in the worst possible light. Allegedly ninety percent of the street’s inhabitants were on benefits.

The Socialist Standard, February 2014, carried a TV review of Benefits Street.

‘Benefits Street (Channel 4): yet another tawdry docusoap which reveals how some people just leech off others. The real parasites here are, of course, the programme-makers – feeding off the lives of the people they film… The producers of Benefits Street have maintained that the programme is ‘fair and balanced’, but in reality it’s as fair and balanced as a broken see-saw. The editing, title and format of the show aim to exploit, rather than express the participants’ struggles. The producers have been taken in by the prevailing mood among the elite to demonise those victimised most by capitalism’.

The Labour Party appear now to have the same detestation and contempt for those in society on benefits as did the Channel Four producers of Benefits Street. You won’t hear it from them but the only solution to capitalism’s ills is its replacement by socialism.

Dave Coggan

Material World: Pollution pays (2024)

The Material World column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In environmental legislation the ‘polluter pays’ principle is an attempt to force businesses to bear at least some of the costs resulting from their polluting activities. However, this runs up against the logic of market competition. That logic encourages businesses to seek ways of externalising their costs as far as possible and to resist any attempt to compel them to internalise them that would have the effect of reducing their profits.

Thus, the problem with calling on governments to take stronger measures to protect the environment (or the interests of workers for that matter) is that what governments can do, even with the best will in the world, is limited. When they do act out of sheer necessity, the response is often ‘too little too late’. Objectively speaking, the interests of governments and those of the business community (that ultimately finances governments) are inextricably intertwined and closely aligned. Penalising businesses too harshly will rebound against the government itself.

It is precisely these fundamental economic realities that make the posturing of governments in relation to such pressing issues as anthropogenic climate change, at best tokenistic and, at worst thoroughly deceitful. There can be no hope of resolving such an issue through international agreements or strident appeals to world leaders to ‘do the right thing’. That is a timewasting and pointless endeavour, doomed to disappointment and despair.

Concerted attempts to get countries to comply with international agreements concerning emissions of greenhouse gases to combat climate change have frankly descended into farce. Periodic COP summits to discuss the issue have become little more than photo opportunities for politicians to convey the impression that they are actually doing something worthwhile and to placate their critics. In the meanwhile, the problem just gets steadily worse.

A holier-than-thou attitude on the part of some richer countries that have historically contributed most to the emission of these gases and still do so to some extent, sits uneasily with poorer countries wanting to industrialise and develop themselves and feeling they are somehow being prevented from doing so by other countries that are already industrialised and developed. Accusations of hypocrisy and double standards fill the air, contributing more heat than light to the ongoing debate. As the backbiting continues so does the global temperature gauge continue to inch its way upwards. In a ruthlessly competitive market economy the chances of its rivalrous participants cooperating for the common good appear increasingly slim if not non-existent.

In the meanwhile, as the scale of the environmental costs mount so does the room for manoeuvre diminish. These costs will incrementally impact on profit margins yet, paradoxically, the more they do so, the more resistant do businesses and governments appear to become towards taking affirmative and effective action to mitigate them. In a competitive market economy the temptation is always to want to offload the costs of dealing with the problem onto someone else, rather than yourself.

This is the perverse logic that informs the system we live in. The potential, or actual, ‘resource wars’ it gives rise to over such things as mineral reserves, water supplies and fertile farmland not only exacerbate the unfolding environmental disasters but provide a further distraction from, or an excuse for not, doing anything about it. Who is going to be overly concerned with environmental quality when heavily militarised states become fixated with carpet bombing the cities of their sworn enemies?

The truth is that in a capitalist society there is nothing quite like economic distress to focus minds on the priority of profit making. Environmental standards will be surreptitiously eased by default, if not by design, for the sake of promoting economic growth.

Corporations may well fall back on that well-documented ruse called ‘greenwashing’, feigning concern while simultaneously promoting sales of their products amongst their more ‘environmentally enlightened’ consumers, even though the underlying imperative that drives them – getting consumers to consume more and more – is itself fundamentally antithetical to what a sustainable world stands for.

‘Consuming more’ is precisely what has been happening. Of course, in itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing at all if you are talking about individuals in desperate need. However, ‘consumption’ covers a multitude of things, many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with meeting human needs. What is ‘environmentally friendly’ about an M1 Abrams battle tank or a Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter?

The point is that we need to disaggregate the very concept of ‘consumption’ itself instead of just vaguely talking about the ‘greening of consumption’. Consuming what and to what end? For all the growing concern about the environmental costs of consumption, consumption itself is growing.

The solution to our problems cannot lie in technology alone. It has to involve also changing our social priorities and that can only really come about by changing the kind of society we live in.

Robin Cox

Greater London Assembly elections, Thursday 2 May 2024 (2024)

Party News from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Greater London Assembly is composed of 25 members, 11 elected by a party list system and 14 from geographical constituencies. In the elections on 2 May the Socialist Party is contesting 2 of these constituencies — Barnet & Camden in North London and Lambeth & Southwark in South London.

This will give some 870,000 electors the chance to indicate whether they want to replace capitalism with socialism, the profit system with a system where goods and services are provided directly to satisfy people’s needs on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living. Those in the other constituencies, and for the election of the Mayor and the party list members, can indicate this by casting a write-in vote for socialism by writing “Socialism” across their ballot paper.

The campaign will take place in April and will consist of street stalls, leafletting door-to-door and at tube and overground stations, contacting the local media, and attending hustings and opponents’ meetings. If you want to help in this, let us know at spgb@worldsocialism.org. If you wish to contribute financially, cheques should be made out to “Socialist Party London Branch” and sent to 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN or by bank transfer to account 53057170 at Santander (sort code 72-06-00).

(Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain on behalf of Bill Martin and Adam Buick, all of 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN)

Your home as ‘fictitious’ capital (2024)

From the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In more recent times the opportunities to ‘make money from money’, so to speak, have expanded for the ordinary person. For example, the 1980 Housing Act introduced by the Thatcher government in the UK gave council house tenants the legal right to buy their council homes at a discounted price. This, combined with the introduction of mortgage interest relief, significantly impacted on the property market and widened popular participation in it. Around the time of the First World War three-quarters of the UK population rented their homes; by the early 2000s the situation had reversed with over 70 percent of the population nominally owning their homes – although the percentage has since declined due to the increasing difficulty of would-be first time buyers to get on the housing ladder.

While rising house prices might put the idea of owning a home beyond the reach of some would-be first time buyers it is, paradoxically precisely these rising house prices that make the idea of buying a house such a financially attractive proposition. While house prices as a multiple of average earnings fell during the late nineteenth century (with the result that buying was not seen as a worthwhile investment, which explains why rented accommodation was such a widespread phenomenon in early twentieth-century Britain), that trend has reversed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, boosted by the relative stagnation in wages. The benefit of owning a home, steadily appreciating in value, instead of paying ‘dead money’ for some over-priced rental property, is all too obvious.

A few people with the financial resources to engage in the ‘buy to let’ business might find themselves in the position where they can comfortably live off the rents of their tenants. However, for the vast majority who have purchased a home, renting it out is simply not an option. Even taking in lodgers would be impractical in many cases.

Consequently, most homeowners continue to depend absolutely on some form of paid work since, with home ownership, come financial commitments such as mortgage repayments. True, you might manage to sell your home and realise a capital gain (particularly if the property market is booming) but you still have to find somewhere else to live. It is this that makes the idea of treating one´s home as (fictitious) ‘capital’ – as some commentators do – somewhat problematic. You cannot be without a home since it is a basic human need (unlike other forms of fictitious capital).

If you do sell your house at a time when house prices are rising then you have the problem of having to pay more for some other house. On the other hand, as well as going up, prices can also come down as occasionally happens after a property boom. Having to sell your property in a slump could very well plunge you into dire financial difficulties that you may never recover from, financially speaking.

The above qualifications notwithstanding, it is nevertheless the case that a fairly large percentage of the working class do indeed engage in the speculative buying and selling of property at some point in their lives. Normally, the primary means of purchasing a property is via a loan (mortgage) from a bank. Bank loans (in this case for consumption as opposed to the production of commodities) are, as we saw, a classic example of fictitious capital.

In the past, at least in the UK, it was building societies (or ‘mutuals’ controlled by their members) that had a virtual monopoly in the issuance of mortgages. This changed in a big way in the 1980s with banks entering the mortgage market and offering a variety of different mortgages to suit different customers. Mortgage loans as a percentage of total bank loans have subsequently grown very significantly.

These are ‘secured’ loans inasmuch as your home serves as collateral, meaning that if you fail to keep up with your mortgage repayments the bank can take possession of your home. The same is true of car loans. However, there are also various kinds of unsecured loans where collateral is not required, such as personal loans, student loans and credit cards. These are riskier from the standpoint of the lender and for that reason sometimes attract a higher rate of interest. With the growth in both the volume and diversity of consumer debt the exposure of working people to the machinations of fictitious capital has increased greatly in recent years.

However, when we are talking about fictitious capital what more likely springs to mind is not so much our monthly mortgage repayments or our credit card bills but an institution like the stock market. Most ordinary people would have little, if any, direct experience of dabbling in the buying and selling of shares. Essentially the stock market is the domain of the wealthy private investor or else (and to an increasing extent), institutional investors.

The stupendous wealth that can be made on the stock market rams home the point, again and again, that it is not through hard work that one can become incredibly wealthy. This breeds a kind of cynicism towards work born out of the belief that what is officially supposed to motivate us to work is precisely the lure of money. If we go along with that belief, how could we not feel cynical when we see fortunes being made by others who don’t have to lift a finger to do it? When we struggle to pay the bills on the meagre wages we earn it is perhaps understandable that some might feel resentment.

Sometimes, this can be misconstrued as ‘envy’. However, the ‘politics of envy’, as it is called, is an ideological snare and a trap for the unwary. To ‘envy’ someone is to covet what they have and, indeed, to want to become like them (and hence to perpetuate the very system they benefit from). However, it is structurally impossible, not to say nonsensical, for the majority in a capitalist society to find themselves in the same economic position as the minority of being able to live off the unearned income that the majority, after all, provides them with. It is not envy that this majority should feel but, rather, outrage.

Robin Cox

Galloway’s Workers Party: A sheep in wolf’s clothing (2024)

From the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following their leader George Galloway’s victory in the Rochdale by-election, the Workers Party of Britain (WPB) is making a bid to be the standard-bearer in the coming general election of the anti-Labour left. But what do their stand for?

They claim to be a socialist party but nowhere do they clearly define what they mean by socialism.

They are ‘committed to the redistribution of wealth and power in favour of working people’ (which is what the Labour Party committed itself to in its manifesto for the February 1974 general election; in more emphatic terms in fact, as ‘a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families’). This ‘redistributive economics’, however, assumes the continued existence of a wealthy class some of whose wealth is to be transferred to working people. So, they are talking here about a change within the capitalist system. Its reform not its abolition. Socialists, by contrast, stand not for a less unequal ownership of wealth but for the common ownership and democratic control of the places where what society needs to survive is produced.

The WPB ‘believes in an economy that works for the working class people, the vast majority’. All parties say that, and not just the Labour Party either. The question is what is being proposed to try to make ‘the economy’ work in this way. Perhaps surprisingly, the WPB does not envisage the widespread nationalisation of productive industry that the Labour Party’s old Clause Four did. Not that nationalisation — the state take-over of some industry or business — is socialism. It is state capitalism under which workers still work for wages and are treated in the same way as by private employers, as many workers have learnt from experience.

Their position on this is that ‘we are not afraid of selective nationalisation especially of dysfunctional utilities and for strategic assets’:

‘Our nationalisation policy is based on a simple proposition that anything that is a monopoly or essential to the functioning of the country, especially those businesses strategically required in times of crisis, should be considered for re-nationalisation or nationalisation’.

These are precisely the reasons the Labour Party used to give to justify nationalisation when it supported this.

They go on:

‘We say ‘considered’ because full nationalisation may not be necessary in every case, such as national logistics, if the industry concerned is prepared to operate constructively in line with national planning guidelines and places the nation before investors. If we have to legislate to give the national interest priority over the market, we will not hesitate to do so.’

Since there aren’t any monopolies outside the railways and the utilities and since the Bank of England is already nationalised, the most that is envisaged would be a return to the pre-Thatcher situation in the 1970s which would still leave most productive industry in the hands of profit-seeking private enterprises.

They want ‘the state to guide the economic life of the country.’ Given their position on nationalisations, this means the state directing and trying to plan an economy in which large sections of productive activity remain in the hands of profit-seeking private enterprises. Reformist parties have tried this many times and have always failed since such a mixed economy means the government is at the mercy of the private sector which will refuse to invest unless there is enough profit in it for them and no ‘direction’ or ‘legislation’ can compel them to do so. This is why all previous Labour governments have ended up accepting that profits have to be made and themselves applying this capitalist imperative. A Galloway government would be no different.

Like Old Labour, the WPB sees its goal as being achieved gradually: ‘It may take many years to transform Britain into a secure democratic socialist state.’ In the meantime, there are ‘some things we can do immediately.’ There is a ‘Ten-Point Programme’ of immediate demands full of vote-catching reforms (but which doesn’t include any nationalisation measures) such as:

• ‘Useful, secure jobs for all in decent conditions, with living wages, paid holidays, sick leave, maternity leave, etc.
• Decent, cheap, secure housing for all.
• Free and comprehensive healthcare with no waiting lists.
• High-quality, free provision of all necessary support services for the
• disabled, as well as the elderly.
• Universal access to a cheap or free fully- integrated public transport system and all essential amenities: water, sanitation, heating, electricity, post, telephone, internet’.

Apparently, they believe that capitalism could be made to provide all that, but these free or subsidised services would have to be paid for out of taxes which ultimately fall on profits. In fact, profits would have to be taxed so much that it would undermine capitalist enterprises’ incentive to produce, provoking a slump in economic activity.

To be fair, they do get a couple of things right.

They define the working class as:

“It is the 99%. The workers are anyone who has to sell their labour power for wages. What does that mean? It means that if you have to earn wages, do jobs for money, you are a member of the working class.’

And they have seen through the Labour Party (as we did right from its start in 1906):

‘Labour are Labour in name only. Labour do not represent the workers, they serve the elite, the class that does not work: the ruling class. But Labour likes to pretend it is on the side of the workers. It has stolen the name “Labour”. Labour is the wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

On the other hand, they commit themselves to defending the state-capitalist regime in the old USSR.

“We defend the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba, etc.”

“We shall defend the positive historical legacy of the Soviet Union”.

The Communist Party of Britain and the Scargill Labour Party (SLP) take the same position. It hasn’t done them any good. Quite the reverse. It is more likely to put people off as there is already a widespread understanding that the USSR wasn’t socialist but, as in the West, a class-divided society ruled by a privileged elite.

In short, the WPB is not the ‘socialist alternative to the corrupt Labour Party’ that it claims to be. It is just a return to failed, Old Labourism.

Adam Buick