More and Less (2025)

Book Review from the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard    

Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth. By Kohei Saito (translated by Brian Bergstrom). Weidenfeld & Nicolson £10.99.

It is well known that Karl Marx never completed his major work Capital. Just the first volume was published in his lifetime, and two further volumes, edited by Friedrich Engels, only appeared after his death. Kohei Saito argues here that Marx did not finish Capital because in his later years he became interested in scientific and what would now be called ecological issues. He did not publish much on these topics, but he left a lot of notes and excerpts from other writers, which are only now being put together as part of MEGA (Marx–Engels Complete Works). Saito’s book was discussed in the November 2024 Socialist Standard.

Saito further claims that Marx turned his back on productivism, the view that under capitalism productivity would continue to rise to bring about socialism (a well-known passage from the Communist Manifesto states that the capitalist class had massively expanded the productive forces). Marx argued, for instance, that capitalist agriculture led to depletion of the soil and disruption of the metabolic interaction between nature and humans, and he later praised communes in non-Western societies, such as Russia. This also involved a break with ‘Eurocentrism’, which supposedly involved projecting European history onto the rest of the world.

Saito criticises what he terms Accelerationism, the idea of completely sustainable economic growth. He associates this view with Aaron Bastani, author of Fully Automated Luxury Communism (on which see the June 2019 Socialist Standard). He claims that the improved productivity and replacement of fossil fuels envisaged in FALC would in fact lead to ‘increased plunder of the earth’. His solution is degrowth, which for one thing involves a greater spread of the commons and ‘collective management of productive activity’, thereby reducing the artificial scarcity of capitalism and increasing abundance, while at the same time cutting the hours of work needed. Degrowth is simply not possible under capitalism; rather, a steady-state economy based on sustainability is what is needed.

A chapter entitled ‘Degrowth Communism Will Save the World’ presents the author’s positive proposals, divided into five points. The first of these is the transition to an economy based on use value: fulfilling people’s basic needs would be given priority over increasing GDP. But here we meet the first real problem: it is just not clear whether Saito wishes to do away completely with exchange value and the whole idea of GDP. The second point, already mentioned above, is to reduce work hours, which need not imply increased use of automation. Thirdly, abolish the division of labour, as work will be more attractive if it involves a variety of tasks and activities. Further, the production process must be democratised, which includes the use of open technologies, those which ‘relate to communication and co-operative industry’. Lastly, priority must be given to essential work, labour-intensive activities that cannot be automated, such as care work, in contrast to the meaningless ‘bullshit jobs’ identified by David Graeber. A system built on these lines will be ‘equipped to satisfy people’s needs while also expanding the capacity for society to address environmental issues’.

The author summarises his position as follows: ‘the foundation of communism is the equal, communal management of the means of production as a form of commons – that is, as something distinct from private ownership or ownership by the state’. Socialists would agree with this, but unfortunately, he then goes on to accept the existence of the state as a means of getting things done, such as creating infrastructure. Perhaps he does not mean by this some kind of centralised organisation that enforces the rule and interests of a minority, but he could have been a lot clearer here. In fact, his description of future society is mostly fine as far as it goes, but he does not refer explicitly to three crucial aspects, the abolition of the wages system, the ending of production for sale and the abolition of class divisions. Without these, whatever exists will not be socialism/communism, whether it implements degrowth or not.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: The Labour Party Drops Nationalisation. (1931)

Editorial from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New “Socialism”

It is not amazing that the Labour Party should alter its programme—that has happened often—but it is amazing that the chief item in the programme should be quietly replaced, and that the membership not only do not protest, but appear to be unaware of the substitution. The one thing the Labour Party and the I.L.P. have stood for since their earliest days has been nationalisation. No formal statement has been made about dropping it, and certainly no Conference, either of the Labour Party or the I.L.P. has ever endorsed a change of policy, but we now have Mr. Herbert Morrison, Minister of Transport, and Mr. W. Graham, President of the Board of Trade, calmly stating that nationalisation has been abandoned in favour of public corporations under “business” management.

Mr. Graham, President of the Board of Trade, speaking at a Labour demonstration at Stirling on January 30th, 1931, appealed for the support of the Liberal Party on the ground that “the industrial problem is now so grave that the old divisions of parties become meaningless” (Times, Jan. 31st).

He remarked on the tendency towards the formation of trusts and said that Liberals had opposed the Labour Party’s proposals for nationalisation,

“because they usually regarded it as management from Whitehall. No one now makes such a proposal. I am convinced that in the leading industries, and in due course in others, this trust concentration must shade into public corporation. In short, we must make a business proposition of this economic transition.”

The Liberal News-Chronicle wrote approvingly of Mr. Graham’s speech and accepted it as evidence that the Labour Party “is painfully and somewhat confusedly ‘Liberalising’ its policy” (quoted in New Leader, Feb. 6th).

Mr. Morrison’s London Passenger Transport Bill proposes the grouping of London ‘buses, trams and tubes under the control of a board of five members who are to be “persons who have had wide experience, and have shown capacity, in industry, commerce or finance, or in the conduct of public affairs” (Part I, Clause 1, par. 2). They are to be appointed by the Minister of Transport after consultation with the Treasury, but are not to be under any effective control by him. The kind of people Mr. Morrison has in mind is shown by a. speech he made at a staff dinner of the London General Omnibus Company on March 26th, in which he paid tribute to the “ability, courage and initiative” with which Lord Ashfield had controlled the transport companies which he directs (News Chronicle, March 27th). In fact, the trump card Morrison played in the debate in the House was to read a letter from Lord Ashfield, expressing his agreement with the main principle of the Bill.

Mr. Morrison said (Hansard, March 23rd, col. 63) :—

“With the exception of the independent omnibus proprietors, who have very much misunderstood the Bill, and possibly the London County Council . . . none of the existing transport undertakings have really challenged the fundamental economic and administrative basis upon which this Bill proceeds.”

He quoted a Tory leaflet as follows :—”Mr. Morrison has sounded the death-knell of municipal Socialism and nationalisation.”

In the course of his speech Mr. Morrison, said :—

“I then considered, but not for long, whether the new concern should be operated by a State Department. I have a great admiration for the civil service . . . but I have come to the conclusion that the old idea of Departmental nationalisation in the ordinary sense of the term is not the appropriate way for a great business undertaking of this kind. Therefore, I rejected the idea of State Departmental management, and in that sense this Bill is not nineteenth century nationalisation. . . Part of the new thought is my own, but part came from the right hon, gentleman, the late Minister of Transport, and part from members of the Liberal Party in their famous publication ‘Britain’s Industrial Future.'”

At this point a Member of Parliament very pertinently interjected : “Is there any of your own ?”

We would like to ask since when Mr. Morrison’s new views have been the policy of the Labour Party. His statement does not square with the Labour Party’s opposition to the handing over of the Government cable and wireless services io the “Imperial and International Communications Co.” Does it foreshadow the denationalisation of the telegraphs, telephones and postal services ?

Industrial News, published by the Trades Union Congress, contained the following (March 24th) :—

“Nationalisation, under a State Department, Mr. Herbert Morrison said, was a 19th century conception, and he did not think a vast business undertaking of the kind would be appropriate for politicians to manage. The solution of the problem is to set up a Business Board, which is not a political body or a State Department, and will not even be responsible to the Minister for its day-to-day actions, though he would be, of course, answerable to Parliament, on matters of policy. Salaries, fees and allowances for the Board will be fixed by the Minister; the Board itself will appoint the appropriate officers for the management of the undertaking ; ‘and, indeed (said Mr. Morrison) we shall take over the officers and staffs of the existing transport undertakings.'”

Mr. E. F. Wise, of the I.L.P., described the Bill as being as nearly as possible “pure Socialism,” and approved the abandonment of the nationalisation schemes that have been the stock-in-trade of the Labour Party and I.L.P, all these years (Hansard, March 23rd, col. 117).

Our position is clear. We have always opposed State capitalism or nationalisation on the ground that it alters the form but not the substance of capitalist ownership and control. The capitalists continue to receive their property incomes on their investments, with the added security which Government guaranteed bonds have as compared with company shares. But we were always told by Labour Party defenders that “nationalisation is Socialism,” or, alternatively, that “nationalisation is an inevitable step towards Socialism.” Now the “inevitable” has been quietly dropped in favour of a new “inevitable” which Mr. Morrison has culled from the Liberals and Tories. The new capitalism is just as objectionable as the old, from a working-class standpoint.

One amusing consequence of the Bill is that the Tory capitalists who control the Common Council of the City of London are supporting Mr. Morrison (their interest, no doubt, being in the financial provisions of the scheme), while the Tories who control the London County Council (their chief interest being in the rates) are opposing municipal ownership. The Labour members on the L.C.C., who for years have told the workers to be proud of “their” municipal trams, are backing Morrison against the Tories (Star, Feb. 5th, and Daily Telegraph, April 1st).

The change of policy has been carried through so discreetly that even some of the Labour Party “intellectuals” have been caught napping, although they are notoriously quick at trimming to any new wind that blows. Professor Laski, who has of late given less attention to misrepresenting Marx in order to write popular potted biographies for Odham’s Daily Herald, dealt on April 4th with President Hoover, of the U.S.A. Laski usually has his ear very close to the ground, but on this occasion he was several weeks behind the times. While Morrison and his I.L.P. supporters were proclaiming the new creed of salvation through control by business men, Laski was writing that Hoover’s outlook is “pathetic” “because the creed that business men are the salvation of mankind has so completely broken down.”

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is British Capitalism played out? 

Since the War, politicians from Conservative to Communist have joined with business men and economic experts to harp on the theme that British capitalism was on the verge of collapse. They pointed to growing unemployment and the decline in the volume of exports and imports as proof that the industries of this country were being strangled. The Communists assured us that the end was only a matter of time. They repeatedly prophesied the early outbreak of the revolution at the “psychological moment.” Like Bottomley, who always promised that the War would be over by Christmas, the Communists pinned their faith each year to the cold weather which would drive the unemployed to desperation when winter came. In the meantime they went on sharpening up the knuckle-dusters with which they were going to attack the armed forces. We of the Socialist Party said all along that the “facts” on which they based their case were largely fiction, and that their theories were all nonsense. A consideration of the growth of the total income of the country year by year, side by side with declining exports, shows in unmistakable fashion that we were right.

The figures in Column (1) are taken from the Economist Budget Supplement of April. 18th, 1931. It may be remarked, however, that, according to a rough estimate by Professor Bowley, communicated in a letter to The Times written by Sir Herbert Samuel (Dec. 1st, 1930), the 1930 National Income might be as much, as £100,000,000 above the 1924 level; at the worst, it would not fall below 1921 by more than £200 millions.

The figures in Columns (2) and (3) are taken from the Statistical Abstract, 74th number, 1931, page 312. The figure for 1930 is taken from an official summary published in The Times, Feb. 26th, 1931.

It will be observed that although exports are now down to the pre-war level (after having been well above it owing to the increase in prices), the total national income is not far short of double the amount it was in 1914. During the last two or three years, especially in 1930, the volume of goods and services represented by the national income has grown larger without the money value growing proportionately, this being due to the heavy fall in prices. Sir Walter Layton, Editor of the Economist, says that the national production increased nearly 12 per cent. between 1924 and 1929 (Times, March 31st, 1931).

It is evident that technical changes and new tariff policies in the different countries have altered the conditions of world trade. The mistake the Communists made was in assuming that the British and other capitalists would not be able to adjust their industries accordingly. They have made the adjustments and, in this country at least, are richer than ever they have been, and still securely fixed in the saddle. Capitalism has its problems now, just as it had them before the War, but so long as the workers are content to put up with the capitalist system and go on voting the control of the political machinery into the hands of the parties which will use that control for the purpose of guarding capitalism, just so long will capitalism continue in being. Even had the Communists been right about the decline of the British capitalists, they overlooked the fact that the decline of Britain as a capitalist power would only mean the rise of other capitalist powers in its place. So lacking in a correct understanding were the Communists, that they helped to make that alternative more likely by lending their aid to the capitalist movements in India, China, Egypt, and elsewhere, under the mistaken impression that the native capitalists who control the “nationalist” movements desire to work or can be compelled to work for Socialism.

* * *

Mr. Hicks solves the unemployment problem.

In his election address (see Daily Herald, April 1st), Mr. George Hicks, the successful Labour candidate at the recent by-election in East Woolwich, claimed with pride that the Labour Government are employing more men at the Arsenal than had been employed there by the Tory Government ! But it is disclosed that this “increase” had been achieved simply by having more Government work done at the Arsenal, and less done at private yards. So that the employment of more men in one place will have been balanced by the dismissal of a similar number elsewhere. Mr. Hicks’s solution for unemployment is in line with the Cabinet’s attempt last year to boost the sale of cotton fabrics (at the expense of artificial silk), and the suggestion that the over-production of wheat can be met by persuading Orientals to eat more wheat (and less rice).

If the reports of his speeches in the Daily Herald are to be believed, Mr. Hicks talked more nonsense than one is accustomed to receive even from the most ill-informed or insincere of Labour candidates. In view of the fact that Mr. Hicks (once a member of the S.P.G.B.) claimed in public debate with a Communist, in 1921, that he still accepted the principles of this Party, it would be instructive if we could be told what events have sufficed since 1921 to cause Mr. Hicks to abandon the position he then held. There is a vast gulf between the belief that only Socialism can solve the workers’ problems, and Mr. Hicks’s present desire “to maintain the high traditions set by Will Crooks” (Daily Herald, April 1st). Perhaps Mr. Hicks was combining the serious personal business of getting into Parliament at all costs with a misplaced April fool joke at the expense of the electorate.

* * *

Getting with the masses.

The Communists have always talked a great deal about the necessity of getting with the masses, and have criticised the Socialist Party because, as they truly allege, we have attached more importance to the preaching of sound principles than to attracting the support of non-Socialists. It is instructive to learn from one of their prominent members, Mr. Arthur Horner, that the Communist tactics secure for them not the approval, but the hostility of the workers. Horner, in a letter to Moscow (see Daily Worker, March 10, 1931), states that the setting up of Communist strike committees during the recent mining dispute in South Wales resulted “only in our isolation,” the miners preferring their own elected officials and committees. He says that the Communist movement showed itself, both nationally and in South Wales, “effectively bankrupt from every angle.” Horner was called sharply to order, and it was at first reported that he and Mr. J. Tanner were to form a new Communist Party, less given to wrecking tactics. It now appears that they are to be received back into the Communist Party.

* * *

Comic relief at the I.L.P. Conference.

The National Council of the I.L.P. decided that their members must not belong to the Mosley Party, and the Conference passed a resolution rejecting “with disdain the quack remedies of the Labour Government and Messrs. Lloyd George and Oswald Mosley” (Manchester Guardian, April 7th). Yet Mr. John Paton, Secretary of the I.L.P., writing to the New Statesman about a fortnight earlier, said that the Mosley programme had been borrowed to a large extent from the living wage programme of the I.L.P. At least three of the M.P.’s who drafted the Mosley programme were members of the I.L.P. at the time. And although the I.L.P. Conference thus repudiates the quack remedies of the Labour Government and of Mr. Lloyd George, it is I.L.P. members in the House of Commons who form a majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party and permit these “quack remedies,” and permit the holding of office on terms satisfactory to Lloyd George.

One of the funniest incidents was a protest by a delegate (Mr. Southall) against Gandhi entering into negotiations “with the Imperialist leaders whilst still leaving so many of the Indian leaders in prison” (Manchester Guardian, April 8th). The joke of it is that the “Imperialist leaders” are all of them the nominees of the Labour Government, which is kept in office by I.L.P. members in Parliament. The Secretary for India, Mr. Wedgwood Benn, is one of the I.L.P.’s own M.P.’s. How was Mr. Gandhi to know that Mr. Southall did not want him to enter into negotiations with the people who are elected to Parliament with the assistance of Mr. Southall and his party?

* * *

Forward and the S.P.G.B.

Mr. Emrys Hughes, who edits the Scottish I.L.P. journal, Forward, has been warning the I.L.P. to avoid becoming “an anti everybody and everything organisation like the S.P.G.B.” Mr. Hughes has fallen into error through taking a superficial view of things. He notices that we oppose the Liberals and Tories, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communists, but he has not noticed that one reason applies to each of these parties. We do not pretend that they are alike in all respects, but we do claim that each of them is prepared to retain capitalism, either as it now is or reformed to a greater or less degree. Since each of the three so-called Labour organisations find themselves advocating similar reforms and voting at elections for the same candidates, our opposition to one naturally involves our opposition to the others also. We have only one object, which is the replacement of capitalism by Socialism.

If Mr. Hughes would study the question further from another angle, he would recall one or two respects in which our capacity for being anti-everything falls short of the I.L.P.’s capacities in the same direction. For example, the S.P.G.B. has not achieved the distinction of being opposed to itself, whereas Mr. Hughes is constantly pointing out to his own opponents inside his own party that it is absurd for them to go on denouncing the Labour Government (including the I.L.P. members of it) and yet remain affiliated. He has also ridiculed the absurdity of there being three I.L.P. Parliamentary parties—first the group of 140 I.L.P. members in Parliament, then the group of about 30 M.P.’s for whom the I.L.P. was responsible at the last election, and lastly the group of about a dozen who have consented to accept the rulings of the Maxtonites. Mr. Hughes would recall that the S.P.G.B. remained Socialist during the War, instead of following MacDonald, Keir Hardie, and other prominent members of the I.L.P. into the anti-German recruiting campaign. Mr. Hughes will remember, too, that readers of Forward during the War were treated to the entertaining spectacle week by week of fervid anti-German articles from one jingoistic regular contributor, while the Editor attacked him and apologised for him in other columns.

Lastly, we would remind Mr. Hughes that, however anti-everything we may be, Forward has taken care that its readers shall not learn in its columns our justification for attacks we make. On July 14th, 1928, Forward described as “nonsense” our assertion that Keir Hardie boasted in 1914 of the number of recruits he had enrolled for the capitalist war. We promptly asked Forward to allow us space to give our evidence for the assertion. We are still waiting for Forward’s reply.

* * *

The promise of Empire Free Trade.

It is worth recording that the destitution which now exists in Protectionist America is what the Empire Free Traders promise to copy.

Viscount Rothermere, writing in the Sunday Dispatch on February 23rd, 1930, gave an undertaking that five years after the achievement of Empire Free Trade, “Great Britain will be as prosperous as the Unites States.”

On December 17th, 1929, the Evening News, Rothermere’s paper, in an editorial said :—

“The world has never been without poverty . . . in the U.S.A., to-day, the richest nation in material wealth that the world has ever known, there is plenty of it—not relative poverty merely, but want and destitution.”

On February 2nd, 1931, the Telegraph’s special correspondent in New York, Mr. Percy S. Bullen, gave a review of unemployment in U.S.A. He said :—

“In all my experience I have never seen such want as exists here to-day. . . There is more misery to the square mile to-day in the great American Metropolis than in any city abroad.”

He thought 9,000,000 unemployed an exaggeration, but put it at between 4 million and 6 million.

He quoted Senator T. H. Caraway as saying that 1,000 persons die of starvation every day in the U.S.A.

* * *

The co-operators set an example.

We are often told that the Co-operative dividend hunters set an example to the other employers. This is true. The Co-operative Societies in the North-Western Area are asking for the following alterations in their agreements with their 20,000 employees : —

Ten percent. reduction for juniors.

Five per cent. reduction for adults.

A still heavier lowering of the minimum for branch managers.

Alteration of the period of payment for sickness from three weeks on full pay and three weeks on half pay to two weeks on full pay and two weeks on half pay in one full year.

Co-operative Societies in the North-Eastern Area, employing nearly another 10,000 workpeople, have also asked for the termination of the existing agreement.

The report is taken from the Daily Herald, April 10th. It will be recalled that Mr. Maxton wants the Co-operators to have a share in fixing a “living wage” for the workers.

* * *

Straws in the wind.

The Daily Herald, has lately begun the practice of describing Lloyd George and his Party as “Radicals,” instead of “Liberals.” Is it that an alliance with the Liberal Party is intolerable, while an alliance with the same party under another name is more likely to be accepted by the Labour rank and file?

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

The mention in the column that the ex-SPGBer, George Hicks, stated as late as 1921 " . . .  in public debate with a Communist . . .  that he still accepted the principles of this Party" is referred to — and expanded upon — in this passage from an article in the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard:

"George Hicks, after leaving the SPGB became an official of a building workers union and was President of the TUC in 1927. He also joined the Labour Party and remained in it for the rest of his life. In spite of this he continued to take an interest in the SPGB and on occasions declared that he still agreed with the SPGB case. Early in the 1920's he debated with Palme Dutt and not only put the SPGB case against the Communist Party but frankly stated that it was the SPGB case he was putting."

" . . . as late as 1921" because Hicks actually finally left the SPGB in 1910.

The ILPer Southall who is mentioned in the column could have been the famous painter, Joseph Southall. I can't be 100% certain. Just an educated guess at my end.

Civil Servants and Bonus Cuts. (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

During and after the recent Great War, Civil Servants found that the wages and salaries paid to them as employees of the State were not, owing to the general rise in prices, sufficient to maintain them and their families in the same comfort they had been accustomed to. After much agitation and negotiations with the authorities, an agreement was entered into in 1920, by which an addition was made to the prewar scales of pay according to the increased cost of living then existing. The bonus was to be increased or reduced as the cost of living should further rise or fall.

At the present time the cost of living is computed to be 52 per cent. over that of 1914.

Under the agreement the full bonus is only given on rates of par not greater than 35s. per week. Rates in excess of that sum carry a bonus which is reduced proportionately as pay advances above 35s., so that, in these cases, the actual addition to pre-war rates varies from 46 per cent. to 16 per cent. on the higher scales of pay.

Civil Servants in receipt of basic pay exceeding 35s. weekly, and consequently diminishing bonus, therefore claim, not unreasonably, that their standard of living has been considerably lowered.

Considerable notice has been given in the daily press to the question and to the efforts of Civil Servants and of W. J. Brown, Labour M.P. for West Wolverhampton, to bring pressure to bear on the Government to suspend the operation of the agreement in reducing pay at the present time, but without success. A saving of three million pounds per annum, in the wages of Civil Servants is indicated.

Civil Servants have been pleased by the quite unusual notice of the press given to their demands, which had not hitherto been so prominently brought before the public. It is probable that this is not so much due to sympathy with the efforts put forth, as to the impression desired to be made on other sections of the workers whose pay is at present the object of attack by the master class, such as school teachers, bank employees, and others.

The facts of the situation should be closely considered by Civil Servants. On the whole, as is also the case with school teachers and similar employees, they are reluctant to identify themselves with the working class, regarding; themselves as superior and holding themselves aloof as forming part of a middle class. The fiction of a middle class is encouraged by the capitalist class in order that this aloofness may keep them politically separate from the working class. The very fact that the current discontent in their ranks is based upon the inadequate remuneration given to them in return for the work performed, is plain proof that they are dependent upon their earnings for their maintenance. This condition of society is essentially one that puts its seal upon the working class who, having no means of living of their own, must sell their labour power to an employer in order to obtain the means of living, the employer in this instance being the State.

The remuneration they receive is based upon the necessary cost of their maintenance as Civil Servants and the rearing of a family in like circumstances. Under the present capitalist system of society there is always a tendency to depress their standard of living to a minimum. This it is from which they are now suffering. As in outside working class ranks they have been compelled to form their unions in order to maintain and forward their interests, as opposed to the attempts of their employer, the State, to lower their status and standard of living.

What is here pointed out should help Civil Servants to realise their position in Society, and also that, in order to reap the full benefit of their labour, they should unite with ail other sections of the working-class to overthrow the capitalism system and to establish the Socialist Commonwealth.

F. J. H.

SPGB adverts. (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Forum: The Price of Gold. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Canadian reader asks if the price of gold fluctuates.

When the value of commodities is expressed in the form of money, that is their price. Money itself, therefore, has no price, since it would be meaningless to express the value of one sovereign’s worth of gold as being equal to one sovereign. When gold is the money commodity, the price of gold is a fixed relationship between gold as bullion and the unit of currency. For example, if the pound sterling were defined by law as a quarter of an ounce of pure gold, then an ounce would always be worth £4 (putting aside questions of the cost of coining, melting, transporting, and insuring, etc.). Actually, the pound sterling is fixed by law at a quantity and quality of gold which makes an ounce (troy weight) of gold of standard fineness worth £3 17s. 10½d. ; and makes pure gold worth. £4 4s. 11½d. an ounce. Given that the coin is convertible into metal and vice versa, the fixed price except to the extent of the cost of melting, transporting, insuring, etc. Thus, on March 31st, of this year, owing to gold coming into the London market in excess of demand, the price fell from £4 4s 10¾d. to £4 4s. 9¾d., the lowestprice for five years.

If gold were not the money commodity, then its price could fluctuate in just the same way as the prices of other commodities. When gold is the money commodity, changes in the value of gold (due to changes in the amount of labour necessary to produce it) have the effect of changing the prices of all other commodities. Thus, a fall in the cost of producing gold would cause a rise in prices generally. But if gold were not the money commodity, its price would be expressed in the money commodity and could fluctuate just as if it were wheat, or boots, or silver. The money unit may be paper money not convertible into a precious metal, as in Germany and elsewhere after the War. If, in such circumstances, the Government issues paper money in large quantities in order to pay its way, inflation causes all prices to rise. Everyone tries to hold goods, and to get rid of paper money whose purchasing power falls from day to day. Then the paper money price of gold soars with the soaring prices of other commodities.

The Socialist Forum: Practical politics. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader points to the extraordinary confusion that exists in the minds of the workers, and asks how we propose ever to get them to take a different line from the one they now follow, unless we are prepared to participate actively in the political side of public affairs.

The answer is, that whatever our wishes on the subject may be, we have not the choice which our correspondent assumes is within our reach. He assumes that we can, if we wish, participate in what its defenders call “practical politics,” and at the same time continue with our Socialist propaganda, instead of concentrating on the latter only. But the two things are not compatible. If the sort of “practical” work carried on by the reformist organisations like the Labour Party were to lead anywhere, it would kill all interest in Socialism, and rightly so. The workers would quite well see that if reforms of capitalism can solve their problems, there would be no need to consider the possibility of setting up a different system of society. But this “practical” work does not lead anywhere and solves none of the real problems. That is the strength of our case. Sooner or later, the workers will tire of solutions that do not solve and improvements that do not improve, and will turn to consider something else. As that occurs, the Socialist Party needs above all things that those workers who have formerly opposed us shall know that we never had any part whatever in the work of reforming the capitalist system.

The Socialist Forum: The Post Office and wages. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader sends us a cutting from the Daily Herald (April 16th), in which it is stated that the Post Office has helped a Trade Union to obtain increases in wages totalling £4,000 a year for the employees of a firm engaged on Post Office contracts. This has been done under what is known as the “Fair Wages Clause,” which requires contractors engaged on Government contracts to pay the recognised Trade Union or other standard rates of pay. Our correspondents asks, “What about it?” We do not know whether we are expected to offer a bouquet to the Labour Government on this account. If so, we shall have to disappoint the expectation. The Labour Postmaster-General might very well turn his attention to his department. Civil servants, including the Post Office staff, have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds through the reductions in their cost-of-living bonus since the Labour Government came into office. Then there are the thousands of part-time workers in the Post Office, fully dependent on their Post Office pay for their living, many of whom are getting less than they would get as unemployed pay. Perhaps the firm of contractors concerned would like to give the Postmaster-General some points.

The Socialist Forum: The Question of Republicanism. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are asked what is our view of Republicanism and of the Spanish revolution.

Our object as a Socialist Party is to get Socialism, and we are not much concerned with the question which is the better way of running’ capitalism, by means of a monarchy or by means of a republic. The purpose in both cases is, from the capitalist standpoint, to have a figure-head in whom the majority of the population will repose confidence. As far as the workers are concerned, it is a distinction without a difference. In Spain the capitalist system will be carried on in much the same way as before, and in the main by the same set of politicians. Our objection to Republican presidents is the same as our objection to kings, i.e., that workers who still believe in the fiction that affairs are run by the titular heads of the republics or monarchies are not yet fit to take on the responsible task of understanding political and social problems themselves and of organising to control affairs collectively in their interests as a class.

The Socialist Forum: The £150 election deposit. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader asks if we would favour the abolition of the £150 deposit which Parliamentary candidates have to find before being allowed to run, and if Socialists in Parliament would try to secure its abolition.

The first point to consider is whether or not the obligation to deposit £150 is a barrier to the spread of Socialist knowledge. It certainly is true that the present law does prevent the Socialist Party from running candidates at Parliamentary elections, but the importance of this disability must not be exaggerated. If there were any constituency in which Socialists had become so numerous that they were somewhere in the neighbourhood of a majority, there would be no risk of losing the money and the problem of finding £150 for a few weeks would not be insuperable. The extent of the disability is, therefore, that we are at present deprived of an opportunity of putting forward a candidate and thus making the most effective use of the elections for propaganda purposes.

The second point concerns the actions of Socialists in the House of Commons towards the abolition of the present restriction. But surely it begs the question, since the Socialists in Parliament could only have got there by showing that the obstacle of the deposit can be surmounted. By that time some of the capitalist parties will, perhaps, be feeling the pinch and want the deposit abolished, not for our sake, but for their own.

The Socialist Forum: Australia. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will Dixon (New South Wales). — Many thanks for the cuttings and election addresses. Why not get in touch with the Socialist Party of Australia, at Box 1440, P.O., Elizabeth Street, Melbourne?

Knowledge. (1931)

Advert from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's always interesting to note what books and pamphlets were advertised for sale in the pages of the Socialist Standard back in the day. Quite a narrow list in 1931, but you have to take into account that in the midst of the Great Depression buying books was beyond the means of many people. Note the inclusion of Louis Boudin's book in the list, which is interesting because he's not a writer who is mentioned much these days. I can't find a review of his book from this period but when it was reprinted in the late 1960s, it was reviewed in both the Socialist Standard and The Western Socialist:

• A Marxist Text Book (May 1968 Socialist Standard)
• The Theoretical System of Karl Marx (#3 1968 The Western Socialist)

Similar type adverts of books for sale were published in the Socialist Standard over many decades and you get a flavour of particular times from what books at what time were being 'promoted' by the SPGB. Here's a similar type list from the March 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Socialist Sonnet: No.194 Tarnished Idols (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

 

                                                          Tarnished Idols

It used to be mardy gods unleashing

Thunderbolts from the skies, but they have been

Superseded by those who are between

Demagogues and demiurges, ceasing

To regard common humanity

As other than expendable. They see

Themselves as supreme dealers of destiny,

Prime moulders of nationalist vanity.

Drones and missiles are their bolts from the blue,

Striking schools, hospitals, apartment blocks,

Rendered to ruin by reasoning that mocks

Reason, by insisting the lie is true.

Not by sanction, reprisal nor moral force

Can leaders be led to a change of course.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet: No.193 Class Consciousness (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

Class Consciousness

In the reign of King Coal and Queen cotton

Class seemed clear, the sons and daughters of toil,

Drawn to industrial towns from the soil,

Knew precisely where all the ill-gotten

Gains from their labours went. To the mansion

Up on the hill, wherein dwelt the owner

Of all gathered below him, the loner

Being driven by capital’s expansion.

That dual monarchy has abdicated,

The mansion’s now a care home. Workers pass,

Too many are convinced, as middle class,

Though capital’s craving must still be sated.

Commodity dealers remain takers

Of profit, from commodity makers.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet: No.192 Reform (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

 

Reform

The ballot box hold such great potential

To become the means of a real solution,

A decisive, conscious revolution

That has no need to invoke the martial.

The commonweal is ill-served by violence,

Which just spawns reaction and bitterness.

But, for votes to count, voters must address

Themselves collectively to an immense

Change in their political perspective.

No more tinkering reforms, or leaders

Of the left, right or centre, no breeders

Of false hopes: simply, do not self-deceive.

New parties arise and governments fall,

Yet, the day after, nothing’s changed at all.

 D. A.