Party News and Election Results (2003)

Party News from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Local Elections

The Socialist Party contested 3 seats in the local elections in May, all in the North East. The results were:

South Tyneside Borough Council, Primrose Ward:

Labour 1658, Conservative 594, Socialist 316.

Easington District Council, Deneside Ward (3 councillors):

Labour 527, 492 and 479; Socialist 242.

Seaham Town Council, Deneside Ward (5 councillors):

Labour 390, 386, 372, 367 and 333; Socialist 216.

Leaflet distribution:

Over the past six months Socialist Party members have distributed some 50,000 leaflets at demonstrations and other events. The response has been up on recent years, perhaps reflecting a modest revival of political interest.

If any Socialist Standard reader would like leaflets for distribution in their area, write to Campaigns Dept, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.

Blogger's Note:

The SPGB candidates are not named in the party news but my educated guess is that it was John Bissett in South Tyneside and Steve Colborn in Deneside.

Of those 50,000 leaflets mentioned above, I distributed a fair few.

Greasy Pole: Short Cuts And Runs (2003)

The Greasy Pole column from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that the fighting in Iraq is over – and perhaps before it starts somewhere else like Syria – it is time to remind ourselves of the adage that in war the first casualty is the truth. In fact a close runner up is what might be called the vocabulary – the way words are used and what results from their misuse. So during the war we heard, as we did in the Gulf War in 1991, of “friendly fire”, a phrase designed to conceal the embarrassing fact that British and American forces were at times liable to kill each other. We grew accustomed to the concept of “collateral damage” as a term which implied that civilians who were killed were part of a necessary accident. We had Geoff Hoon who, as Minister of Defence is another of those ex-left wingers trying to expunge an inconvenient past, informing us that cluster bombs, which are murderously indiscriminate in their effect, were not only “perfectly legal” but also “highly legitimate”. (It is whispered that when the time is ripe Hoon’s career might be another casualty).

And then we had Clare Short, who trumpeted it to the world on 9 March that if Britain went to war without first getting some kind of approval from the United Nations she would resign from the government. She left no room for doubt about her intentions and for good measure she laid into Blair for being “reckless with our government, reckless with his own future position and place in history, extraordinarily reckless”. But when the fighting started and the bombs fell and the bodies piled up it turned out that the words “I shall resign” did not mean that she would leave the government. Then, after the war was over, she finally did resign.

Perhaps Short decided to gamble on the fact that resignations in the past were not always harmful to the person who fell on their sword. Aneurin Bevan recovered from leaving the Attlee government in 1951 to become a close ally of Hugh Gaitskell and, had he lived, may well have succeeded as leader of the Labour Party. Harold Wilson, who left at the same time as Bevan, shrewdly kept all his boats unburned. Michael Heseltine’s resignation in the Westland affair did him no long term harm; after the Tory defeat in 1997 he might well have stood for the party leadership – and won – but an attack of angina prevented him. Of course there are examples of the opposite effect, like George Brown, whose regular bibulous nocturnal threats to resign eventually threw him off the greasy pole – and there is Robin Cook; has anyone seen him for a while?

Like some of those people, Clare Short has a rocky history, which has not exactly smoothed her path onto the lower slopes of power. During the 1980s, in her role as a militant feminist, she upset the Sun by trying to introduce a parliamentary bill to ban the publication of pictures of topless women. This was before Blair was desperate to keep the Sun’s support; nowadays, undermining so important an outpost of Rupert Murdoch’s press empire might be seen as a sackable offence. During Blair’s early days she was not one of his most ardent supporters; in fact she voted for Margaret Beckett in the leadership contest. She changed her tune when Blair got the big job. In August 1996 she raged against the “people in the dark” for portraying the new leader as an unprincipled “macho man” when he was actually “fresh, principled and decent”. This compliment, muted though it may have been, came too late because Blair had already demoted her from shadow Transport Secretary to shadow Minister for Overseas Aid.

Some leaders are highly skilled in navigating the political waters – avoiding the shallows and the rocks, cultivating the ability to make all their mistakes appear to be triumphs of ingenuity. Clare Short is not one of them. Perhaps she has been too eager to assure herself of a place in history as a kind of feisty feminist conscience of the Labour Party. If so, she has overlooked the fact that politics has no room or time for consciences. The wars of capitalism don’t happen by accident, because people without a conscience are in power or because the passages of diplomacy have not been thoroughly enough explored. They happen because they are an essential stage in the disputes between sections of the ruling class. They are not about the freedom of people but the competitive drive to capture marketing opportunities, or vital mineral wealth like oil.

There is a lot of profit to be made in exploiting the oil of Iraq and the people there. There is a lot of profit to be made in clearing up the mess left from the war and rebuilding the cities, the industries, the financial system and the infrastructure. The Bush administration have ensured that they have the dominant say in who gets the best chance to rake in the profits. The plans were already laid, before the first American soldiers so much as picked up their rifles. The giant American energy company Haliburton has been selected to work to revive the oil industry in Iraq; the deal could be worth about $7 billion dollars to them over the next two years. Bechtel is a company with close links to the Bush administration in Washington operating in big building contracts like the Channel Tunnel. Circling greedily are some British companies like Costain, Balfour Beatty, Rolls Royce. If all goes according to plan Iraq will be a country where in the immediate future economic growth yields mouth-watering profits to those who are in on the act.

Shock and Awe

One of these is the electronics giant Sony, which makes games for computer, video and broadband. Some of these games, played addictively by children of all ages, involve virtual combat with plenty of bloodshed. Sony have been quick off the mark; within hours of the war starting they had patented the phrase “Shock and Awe” which was used by American Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he promised the people of Iraq what they would experience during the war. So a game called “Shock and Awe” will be coming soon to a computer games shop near you. If you can bear to play it it will say everything necessary about that war and about the cynicism of leaders who told us that it was about freedom when it was about exploitation and oil and profit.

Ivan

Socialism Now! (2003)

From the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty two billion pounds is a lot of pelf in anybody’s currency. Tabloid newspapers occasionally run articles fantasising about the things their readers could spend their money on if they were rich enough. Maybe a premier division footballer or two; a re-election victory; two tickets for the sixth farewell tour of a sixties rock/pop group; a four bedroom detached house in the south-east of England; a signed Damien Hirst pickled onion; a day trip on the USS Enterprise; a decent little Middle Eastern war. Money, if you have enough of it will buy you almost anything. Many people think that if you throw enough money at a difficulty it will go away.

A Guardian journalist, Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Daily Mirror recently (9 April), identified many problems affecting a large part of the world. His intent was to contrast the high financial cost of the American and Iraq conflict with what he saw as other socially beneficial schemes deserving of similar spending. The spending of comparable amounts to £52 billion that had already been allocated toward the conflict could, he felt, be far better spent in assuaging the problems to which he alludes.

Some of his propositions are eminently sensible. For example, who does not want to make “the world a fairer, cleaner, healthier place”? Or, provide an education for the “estimated 120 million kids world-wide (who) never see a classroom”? Who would not want to solve the health problems caused by the “lack of clean water (which) causes 80 per cent of health problems in most developing countries? One in four people still can’t get a clean glass of water”. It is easy to comprehend that “a billion people go to bed hungry every night”, which is “a fact so awful you have to imagine you’re one of them to really take it in.” A straw poll on these ideas conducted almost anywhere would produce the sort of unanimity usually only found amongst ballots conducted by dictators and despots. Surely a conclusion drawn from these facts alone is that here are issues which require immediate action to resolve them? Does not this resolution require co-ordinated collective global action?

All capitalist states spend vast sums of money on ‘defence’ forces

Freedland writes of the United Nations’ targets to eliminate “extreme poverty and hunger”. As he notes, at present poorer countries are indebted to richer ones to the amount of £32 billion pounds. The United Nations Development Goals (all quotes taken from its website) notes that “the Millennium Development Goals are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives”. The targets include:

“Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger. More than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day . . . Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five. Every year nearly 11 million young children die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable illnesses. By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. By 2020 achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.”

While those who need ‘defending’ starve

The problems themselves are highly visible. Many individuals and agencies are dedicated to eradicating them. Many resources are expended in pursuit of a final solution to poverty, hunger and disease. But under the present social system, capitalism, this is a labour of Sisyphus.

With which remedies proposed by Freedland, by the dis-United Nations, by various charities, by non-governmental organisations, by pontificating politicians, by genuinely concerned citizens, and by those existing on a dollar a day, does the Socialist Party disagree? Answer: The supposed solution of throwing money, or rather, trickling money at the problem.

Why? Because even if the global ruling class wanted to palliate the condition of those surviving in nineteenth century conditions it has so many other things to divert and engage its attention. Things such as safeguarding energy supplies, protecting profits, and brainwashing workers into continued acceptance of a social system which perpetuates the environment which condemn so many in the world to an unfair, dirty, unhealthy place. This is not to say that some, probably many, of the capitalist class are not as appalled and angered by the plight of other human beings as anyone else. But they are, like us all, immersed in a system predicated on profit for profit, not need. There’s not much profit to be made from those unable to spend more than a dollar a day. Freedland is right, however, to call for co-ordinated global action with the immediate priority of resolving the myriad problems which capitalism creates but cannot rectify. Only world socialism can provide the framework to do that.

So the question is, when do we adopt the only rational alternative to the existing social system? Do you really want to wait until 2015 to partly ameliorate, if at all, problems caused by, and perpetuated by, capitalism?

Dave Coggan

News from the madhouse (2003)

From the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tony Blair and God

Tony Blair is expecting an interview – in due course – with God: he told a journalist (as the Times, of 3 May, phrased it) that “I’m ready to meet my Maker and answer for those who have died or who have been horribly maimed as a result of my decisions”. This, of course, is the get-out of rulers down the ages. Rulers have always told the ruled, we will judge you here and now, and execute sentence upon you; if you ask who will judge us, it will be an old boy with a long beard in the sky after we’ve died. But if you’ve been charged with failing to pay your council tax, or parking on a double yellow line, don’t tell the judge you will answer for your actions in a few years’ time, when you have popped your clogs: he won’t wear it. Only rulers get away with that line.

Line of least resistance

People criticise Blair for his new slogan in foreign affairs: “find what George Bush wants, and do the same”. But Blair has his reasons. To start with, it simplifies matters; but also, since Blair has to do his best for the British ruling class, it may work out best for them as things stand in the year 2003. Kids at school sometimes do the same: find the biggest bully in the playground, and suck up to him.

Mortgages

“Mortgages should come with a public health warning because the struggle to keep up with payments is making millions of people sick, said the British Medical Association yesterday” (Times, 7 May). “Many who fall behind with their mortgage payments become so fearful of losing their home that they drink and smoke too much, their relationships break down and they even have more car crashes because they are so preoccupied, one contributor to the BMA report, Housing and Health, said.” While repossession is at its lowest level for years – “only” about a hundred people a week are still losing their homes – any slump in the housing market could trigger “a return to the traumas of the 1990s, when more than a million people had their homes repossessed”.

A sad commentary on what was sold to us as a “home-owning democracy”. But in every way, the present organization of society inevitably involves money worries for millions. Capitalism means the wages system, and that means that those who have to work for their living are dependent on their next pay-packet to buy in the necessary supplies – or sometimes, just to pay the interest on their credit cards, overdrafts, mortgages and all the other borrowings that capitalism imposes on its workers. The “struggle to keep up with payments”, which makes “millions of people sick”, will continue until capitalism makes enough of us sick to bring about a different system. It isn’t only mortgages that need a public health warning: it’s capitalism.

Property is death

People aren’t only made sick by capitalism, they die from it, as you can see in all the many conflicts going on at this moment round the world. But private property kills on a small scale, as well as a large. At a pawnbroker’s shop in north London, a Securitas cash box was being delivered recently. To keep this instalment of private property sacrosanct, the box was fitted with “a small explosive device”, which “released smoke and dye” if anyone tampered with the box (Times, 7 May). As a further protection, the box was handed over through an airlock. Two women assistants were in the staff-only part of the shop, where the valuables were protected “by barred windows and a locked fire exit which needed four keys to open it”. The explosive device malfunctioned, setting fire to the premises, but the women could not get through the locks and bars which surrounded them, and they both died. Firefighters couldn’t get in soon enough. The brother of one of the women called her on his mobile phone, and had to listen helplessly as she choked to death. The inquest jury were told how one of the women put her hand through the bars of the customer’s window, and a fireman held her hand until she died.

Why do people go on supporting capitalism?

Dial 118 for Murder (2003)

From the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

BT’s 192 directory enquiries service is closing in August, and we are told to be grateful for new competing services. Instead of an easy-to-remember 3-figure number, there’ll now be dozens of companies offering over 300 different 6-figure numbers beginning with 118.

Have people really got the time or inclination to work out who’s best by comparing all the different charges for land lines and mobiles, standing charges, minimum charges and costs per minute? And what’s the point, they’ll only keep changing in the rivalrous pursuit of profit, just as credit card companies keep trying to take more market share with constantly altering offers.

118??? callers will, doubtless, have even more of their precious time within capitalism used up by time-wasting tactics, resulting in bigger dividends for shareholders from higher per-minute charges for users. Yet more time will be wasted as newspapers fight for our attention with adverts, and TV and radio broadcasts fill our heads with ‘catchy’ images and inane jingles. “One-one-eight — four-three-two — buy from us brain-washing you”, probably won’t be heard.

Capitalism tells us that competition offers us more choice and lower prices, but it’s lies. Sure, companies like BT, having switched call centre jobs from the UK to India, where wages are as little as £5 a day compared to around £5 an hour in Britain, will cut costs. But these savings will be used to increase profits. And after years of this wearisome ridiculousness involving constantly changing prices, 118 business competition will have knocked out the weaker firms leaving just one or two dominating, who will not then be under pressure to sell cheaply.

A competitive society does not benefit the exploited working class majority. Even if capitalism could maintain pressure on businesses to always sell at the lowest possible prices, capitalists would still be the winners, as market forces also apply to employment. With less money needed to buy goods and services, workers’ demands can be supplied by lower pay, and that’s precisely what a competitive work market brings about, leaving most people, as always, constantly struggling through life until they finally get to rest, in their coffins.

There is no so-called “freedom” to “shop around” for competing businesses offering directory inquiries, credit cards, gas, electricity, telephones, insurance, loans, life insurance, car insurance, home insurance etc. All this activity is actually a debilitating cancer that eats away at those parts of your life not already consumed by profit-taking capitalists, or by time spent bill checking, bill paying, bank statement checking, tax form filling, benefit form completing, cash till queuing and all the other money-associated madness.

And while people maintain a junkie-like addiction to moolah, comparing RRP resin, using COD crack, sampling APR angel dust, getting high on HP horse and regularly dropping ATM acid into wallets and purses, they will be easy prey for the profit-taking, parliamentary and advertising pushers forever telling them they’ve got just what they need. And those totally hooked will fail to see or care that money peddlers control them, or how, and so will just go on feeding their habit by selling themselves and their acquiescence for a wage or state handout.

Stop making those attempts at complex monetary calculations which companies deliberately make complicated so customers can’t easily figure things out, and give up, submissively paying out to avoid stress and hassle. Dial 020 7622 3811 for details of real socialism.

Max Hess

Coughing up cash (2003)

Charles Ingram

From the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism creates much that’s obscene. At times, it generates hilarity born of despair. And an example of the latter was the pursuit of a big win on the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? gameshow made by Celador, and subsequent trial and conviction of the jackpot “winner”, army major Charles Ingram and two accomplices.

In a world of class ownership of the means of living, with people desperate to acquire money because everything costs, bizarre behaviour that causes observers to remark “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry” isn’t infrequent. From ludicrous get-rich-quick spam to business adverts tattooed on foreheads, people are driven to do whatever it takes to obtain cash.

Charles and his wife Diana owed around £50,000 in loans and credit card payments, while Tecwen Whittock, teacher of business studies at a South Wales college, had a £100,000 mortgage, spent £40,000 on private education for three of his children, and owed around £40,000 (£20,000 on a single credit card bill). Whittock had been in contact with the Ingrams before any of them appeared on the quiz show.

Laughs at the major’s expense from this tragicomic attempt to win big came from him revealing how he sat at home eagerly practising “Fastest Finger First” on a mock-up keypad resting on his knee. How he was reduced to tears in court on hearing a barrister’s humiliating question put to a Celador employee about his frisking after the show: “Did you search his privates?”. But above all, the repeated playing in court of Ingram’s performance recorded on September 10, 2001, “assisted” by Tecwen Whittock’s nineteen “strategically placed coughs”.

Some may be able to cheat the system …

Ingram had struggled the previous day, losing two lifelines to win £4,000, but lack of time caused him to become a “rollover” contestant, meaning Ingram and Whittock were then both present the next evening, enabling a plan to cheat to be carried out. Ingram would read aloud the four possible answers to each question, and Whittock sitting close behind would cough immediately after hearing the correct one.

This crude scheme, perhaps helped by vibrating pagers taped to Whittock’s body, was jeopardised by Ingram’s enthusiasm to answer question 14 unaided. For £500,000, Chris Tarrant asked “Baron Haussmann is best known for his planning of which city? (A), Rome; (B), Paris; (C), Berlin; or (D), Athens.” Ingram said at once “I think it’s Berlin”. And when it seemed Ingram was going to give this as his “final answer”, because Haussmann was a “more German name”, an anxious Whittock resorted to combining a cough with the warning “No!”, which when first played to those in court caused roars of laughter. This warning, followed by more coughs after Ingram twice mentioned Paris while hunting for the correct answer, got him through to the final £1,000,000 question.

The public got their chance to chortle at what the jury saw and heard thanks to a documentary, Millionaire: A Major Fraud, on April 21, which explored the trial and screened the major’s “winning” run. Sadly, most viewers were actually laughing at themselves, as the joke’s on them. They may not have conspired to obtain money with secreted pagers and coded coughs, but they have been partners in a crime against themselves, which is not voting to escape from class domination, exploitation and exclusion, a game which also compels them to chase after money. In this respect, judge Geoffrey Rivlin was wrong to call the trial a “most unusual and exceptional case”.

… but who’s really making a monkey of who?

Game show presenter Chris Tarrant called the coughing for cash “very cynical” and “hugely insulting to the hundreds and hundreds of other contestants who have come on the show, just hoping for much smaller amounts of money”. But what of the cynicism of Celador profiting from millions of premium rate phone calls from people desperate to get on the gameshow to escape from the insult of poverty and deprivation in a supposedly civilised society? What of the documentary, sold to broadcasters worldwide, cynically cashing in on this attempted fraud and which no doubt is hoped to boost the quiz show’s flagging ratings?

Another Tarrant comment was, “It’s unthinkable anyone should think they could go home with the biggest prize of all dishonestly.” What of capitalists going home to luxurious residences, living off vast profits, interest payments and property rents thanks to owning the biggest prize of all, productive assets, which is dishonestly legal thanks to their own system’s laws?

The worst scam of all, that capitalists and their political stooges will never cough to, is that people would be far better off with real socialism, production of goods and services to meet needs, and free access. When it comes to winning the biggest prize for humankind, and you’re faced with those critical 50/50 choices, don’t ask the audience looking down on you. Don’t phone a friend addicted to money. Choose socialism, and make it the final answer.

Max Hess

Letter: 'Do you maintain . . . ' (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Do you maintain . . . '

Dear Editors,

Of course you are correct: ultimately workers have no state. However, until that reality is widely appreciated, it is surely necessary to rely upon workers’ identification with their (familiar) place of nurture, and “natural” abhorrence to the occupation of “their” land by an invading force – e.g. as in WWII, when many were happy, and proud, to enlist under the Union Jack.

There is, surely, every distinction to be drawn between patriotism and bigotry; the first can incorporate pride in, e.g., Shakespeare, whilst the second may involve the idea that no other nation or country could have “produced” Shakespeare or his equivalent.

Your principles include that “the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party”. Yet you must surely acknowledge that organised workers (trade unions) formed the Labour Party (including Clause 4) precisely because the Liberal MPs vacillated in the degree to which their policies fostered the welfare of the working class/es?

Do you maintain that Labour’s occasional landslide votes had nothing to do with the perception that political support should not be squandered on dilettante, fair-weather or eclectic “supporters” of ordinary people’s interest?

Do you maintain that the election of Labour governments did not directly result in better conditions, social welfare, trade union legality, a minimum wage, the NHS, compulsory free primary and secondary education?

D. Shepherd, 

London NW4

Reply: 

1. We can see why the ruling class in the various different capitalist states into which the world is divided find it necessary to rely on “workers’ identification with their (familiar) place of nurture and ‘natural’ abhorrence to the occupation of ‘their’ land by invading forces” – it helps them build up popular support for their rule and their foreign policy aimed at protecting their interests abroad. But we can’t see why Socialists need to. On the contrary, political nationalism is something we need to combat as it is an obstacle to the understanding that the problems faced by workers all over the world cannot be solved within a national framework but only on a world scale, on the basis of a world without frontiers where the resources of the whole planet have become the common heritage of all humanity.

We can see why, too, ruling classes prefer moderate nationalism to bigotry – yesterday’s enemy can become today’s ally. Thus, the “Huns” and “Japs” of yesterday are now our rulers’ allies and workers who continue to believe what they were told when these countries were our rulers’ enemies are an embarrassment.

Socialist opposition to political nationalism does not challenge cultural diversity. English speakers can appreciate Shakespeare, Dickens, etc without thereby ceasing to be socialists. Again, people living on the big island off the north-west coast of the Eurasian land mass can like warm beer, and fish and chips, pork pies and roast beef, without being nationalists. Maybe they’ll still like these things in Socialism.

2. Yes, we do acknowledge that the Labour Party was originally set up by the trade unions as a parliamentary pressure group to try to get a better deal within capitalism for trade unionists and workers generally. In other words, its aim was not to seek working class emancipation from capitalist exploitation but merely to lessen that exploitation a little. While not of course being opposed to exploitation being lessened, we regarded this as a mistaken political (as opposed to trade-union) aim and so opposed the Labour Party and this reformist tactic from the start. It is true that in 1918 the Labour Party did adopt Clause 4 (nationalisation) as its policy, but this was still not socialism, merely state-run capitalism.

The experience of the last century has confirmed the soundness of the position we took then. Far from gradually changing capitalism, the experience of governing capitalism changed the Labour Party into a party that merely seeks to administer capitalism, into in fact the modern equivalent of the old Liberal Party that used to alternate with the Tories in governing capitalism and which the unions set up Labour to replace.

In fact, we are not sure whether your description “dilettante, fair-weather or eclectic ‘supporters’ of ordinary people’s interest” is meant to apply to the modern Labour Party or the old Liberal Party since it would seem to apply to both.

Nationalisation has been and gone without making much difference to the workers affected.

Some measures, such as trade union legality and free education and health care, can benefit workers under capitalism even if they were introduced for other reasons (such as ensuring capitalist employers with a trained and healthy workforce). And, yes, some such measures were introduced under some Labour governments (though others were introduced under Liberal or Tory ones). However, these governments by no means governed in the interest of the workers. They were governments of capitalism and had to run capitalism in the only way it can be – at a profit – making system in the interests of those who live off profits rather than those who work for wages. So the 1929 Labour government reduced civil servants’ wages and fell over a proposal to reduce unemployment pay. The 1945 Attlee government kept the wartime ban on strikes and used troops to break them. The Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 60s and 70s also imposed wage restraint and clashed with strikers. And we all know about the Blair government elected in 1997—Editors

Letter: Correction (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Correction

Dear Editors,

I am disappointed you misprinted a key word in my letter and therefore undermined the logic and argument I was trying to present. Sentence three of paragraph three, should have read:

“If they do find Weapons of Mass Destruction . . .”

The important political point is that Blair, Reid and Straw will use the apparent discovery of WOMD to “justify” the war on Iraq. My point was that even if Saddam had WOMD, the fact he did not use them destroys the case he presented an immediate threat to his neighbours or the West.

Andrew Northall

Letter: WOMD (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the May 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

WOMD

Dear Editors

The two big lies which Blair and Bush used to “justify” the destruction of Iraq’s civilisation and infrastructure and the slaughter of thousands of its citizens are now for all to see.

Lie number one was possession of weapons of mass destruction (WOMD) by Iraq.  Before the war, the regime couldn’t win.  Complying with demands to destroy stocks of WOMD would “prove” it had been in breach of UN resolution since 1991.  Non destruction of alleged stocks would “prove” it continued to be in defiance.

Now it is Blair’s and Bush’s turn to be hanged by their logic.  If after invading and occupying Iraq, there still cannot find WOMD, then what shocking, disgusting deceit have they spun.  If they do find any evidence of WOMD, then lie number two is also torn to shreds, that Saddam’s regime was a dangerous threat to its neighbours and even to Britain and America.  If ever they were going to be used, it was when the life of the regime itself and the  capital Baghdad were under threat from the new crusaders.  They were not.

However, I would not at all be surprised to learn of a little “gardening” activity by the occupation forces in the next few days or weeks and the “discovery” of suspicious munitions, workshops and documents.  Watch out too for the next big lies that most of the evidence was slipped out to Syria, alongwith much of the Iraqi leadership, as part of the softening up process for preparing the public for the next stage of this permanent murderous war.

The real possessors of WOMD are the ruling elites of Britain and America.  They not only have them, they are using them to inflict agonising pain and suffering and carnage on ordinary working people.  We too need to declare a war on such people and their weapons, but a class war, a real war of liberation, a war for emancipation, a war for socialism.

Andrew Northall,

 Isham, Northants

50 Years Ago: War, Crime and Punishment (2003)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently two young soldiers were convicted at Berkshire Assizes of robbery with violence. Instead of sentencing them straight away the judge gave them a choice – volunteer “unconditionally” for Korea or go to gaol. After they had a night to think it over their counsel told the judge: “They are eager to take advantage of your lordship’s leniency, and volunteer for overseas service.”

An editorial in the Daily Mirror (9th May) strongly criticised the judge’s action. The Mirror asks how the choice of the convicted men could be unconditional in such circumstances,. But there are other aspects of the matter that should be brought out, and the main theme of the editorial (An Insult to the Army) is of little consequence compared to the deeper questions concerning the cause of crime and war in our present society.

The comments of the judge Mr. Justice Hilbery are indicative of the conventional attitude to crime. “You have been convicted of a very grave crime. When you robbed and attacked as you did each was not showing his true nature. Each of you is a better fellow than that. See active service and turn yourselves into men of courage.”

From this it would appear that when people rob and attack others without the sanction of the law they are not showing their “true nature.” If, on the other hand, they take part in organised attack and robbery against other nations (for what else is war?) then they are turned into “men of courage.”

The Daily Mirror believes that the men risking life in Korea are undertaking a high and honourable duty, and that it is not for courts to confuse military service with crime and punishment. In extenuation of the courts it should be pointed out that in the circumstances the confusion is pardonable. “War crime” is a name given, by the nation in a position to inflict punishment, to certain of the “military services” performed by the forces of other nations.

[From an article by “Stan”, Socialist Standard, June 1953.]

Rout of the Railway Men. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Metz” of the A.S.R.S.

Curious indeed are the parallels that history furnishes us between incidents and events, often apparently unlike, and separated by time and position from each other. History, of course, does not actually repeat itself, and the parallels must not be pushed too far, but in the salient points of likeness valuable lessons may be learnt and deductions drawn for out future guidance.

Bazaine and Bismarck.

It will be remembered how, in the Franco-German War of 1870-71, Marshal Bazaine had been surrounded by the German Army and driven into Metz fortress, with 180,000 men and large munitions of war. Instead of using this immense force to break through the lines and join the other French armies, as every canon of military and national expediency demanded, he tried, as he afterwards confessed, to negotiate with Bismarck for the surrender of France on the condition that he (Bazaine) should be allowed to retain his own army and establish himself as dictator after the peace. Bismarck played with him till the opportunity for a successful sortie had passed and then became adamant. On October 27th, 1870, Metz was surrendered unconditionally, and the immense army passed into the possession of the Germans and remained prisoners until it suited the interest of the German ruling class—personified in Bismarck—to set them free to crush the Communards in Paris.

At the opening of the war between France and Germany, it was claimed by the French generals that it would be a triumphal procession from Paris to Berlin. Sadowa was forgotten. But the results showed a reversal of the procession, and it was Paris, not Berlin, that was beseiged.

Attempts have been made to defend Bazaine on the ground that the huge war stores were largely “fake” ; that the contractors had swindled the commissariat by supplying barrels of sawdust for food, empty cases for cartridges, and brown paper for boots. We need not now inquire whether Bazaine was a party to the frauds and received his share of the plunder. The revelations made in this country a short time ago show how far up as well as how low down these “business operations” extend. But the very shortage of real supplies should have been an added incentive to rapid action on Bazaine’s part, and the excuse only emphasizes his guilt.

The Parallel of Metz

The parallel of Metz with the recent struggle between the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and the Railway Companies is remarkable. Firstly, preceding the conference held on November 6th, the officials of the A.S.R.S. had declared that it must be “recognition” of themselves or war. The men had been asked to vote upon this point, and an overwhelming majority declared in favour of enforcing this “recognition” by a strike if the companies refused to accept their demand. To-day, despite this vote, “recognition” is swept out of existence for seven years. This by itself would be a small point were it not coupled with the fact that the rank and file of the Railway Servants—union and non-union alike—have been surrendered, bound hand and foot, to the companies for those seven years. Never was “victory” so disastrous.

It is unnecessary to go into the full details of the Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme agreed to by the officials of the railway servants and the companies, but the essentials may be stated. For the purpose of this scheme each company is a unit that sends its representatives to the Sectional and Central Conciliation Boards, as well as before the final arbitrator, when any matter is carried so far. The men, however, employed by each company, are divided first into sectional groups along trade lines, and then into geographical groups for the purpose of electing their representatives. The whole of the employees are concerned in this election, and their representatives must be chosen from among themselves, and their power is rigidly confined to dealing with the hours and wages only of the particular section they represent. When a Sectional Board fails to agree, the Central Board, composed of the representatives of the company and one or more chosen from the employees’ side of the Sectional Board, shall consider the matter. In the event of this Board disagreeing, the matter is referred to a single arbitrator, appointed by agreement between the two sides of the Board, or, failing this agreement, by the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Master of the Rolls. The decision of this arbitrator shall be binding upon all parties.

Here, then, we have not only no “recognition” of the Union or its officials, but a deliberate flouting of the latter in that all representatives are to be elected from the employees themselves. Both Mr. Bell and the Daily News claim that the officials may represent the men before the final arbitrator, but while Lord Claud Hamilton says “recognition” has been completely abolished, the scheme is silent on this point, leaving the deduction to be drawn that it is the members of the Central Board who will argue before the final arbitrator.

Why Official Recognition?

In attempting to defend his claim for official recognition by the directors of the companies, Mr. Bell pointed out that if an employee were to go forward with any grievance his position of dependence upon the very people he was meeting almost paralyzed his efforts, but the trade union official, with a security of living outside the company, could argue every point. Moreover, it was stated, and numerous instances given in support, that an employee going forward to complain of the grievances of himself and his fellow workers, was thence a marked man and, if not discharged at once, some technical point would be found and used as an excuse for discharging him a little later. The whole of this contention has now been thrown overboard by the signing of this scheme.

It is exactly at the first move where this protection is most wanted, and even if Mr. Bell were correct in saying that officials could appear before the arbitrator, this would leave the men completely defenceless in bringing forward any complaint, as it must pass through the other stages first. Moreover, these Boards only deal with “hours and wages,” thereby leaving the other conditions of employment completely in the control of the companies, while in case of victimisation the men have absolutely no chance of redress, or even of discussion, under this scheme. A man who pushes forward the claims of his fellow workmen vigorously may he elected to the Board, and the company could then discharge him, while the men would be unable to lodge any protest through that Board.

Secondly, the excuse of the “faked” stores at Metz is paralleled by the position of the “stores” or fighting fund of the A.S.R.S. The officials boasted of having £362,733 in their funds. But, according to the Railway News, £192,422 belong to the provident fund, and, under the Friendly Societies Acts, could not be touched for strike purposes. This would leave £170,311 for a fighting fund for over 100,000 men, as not only would the actual members of the A.S.R.S. require support, hut the non-union men who might have come out would also need keeping. Even this does not reveal the whole truth, for the A.S.R.S. have over £120,000 invested in municipal loans, and £51,000 in railway companies’ stock !

Incompetency or Insanity ? 

Could incompetence or insanity go further ? Here is a sum, nearly one-third of their theoretical fighting fund, placed in the hands of the very people they have to fight. It is as though Bazaine had placed a portion of his ammunition in the German camp “to be kept dry.” With so small a fighting fund at their disposal the necessity for swift and decisive action on the part of the A.S.R.S. was imperative. Yet not only are the negotiations—or rather attempts at negotiations—kept dawdling about for over twelve months, but the chance to strike a blow in the busy season is, as the Daily News stated, deliberately thrown away by the officials.

More important, however, is the fact that the agitation was originally for an “All Grades” advance of wages and shortening of hours for all employees. This was pushed on one side at the first opportunity and the question of “recognition” put in its place, while the men were gulled into believing that “recognition” was all important. As though the example of the Boilermakers’ Society a short time ago was not at hand for them to see the value of “recognition” without the power to enforce their demands. When the Boilermakers refused to accept the conditions that their “recognised” officials had agreed to, they were served with a week’s lockout notices, and, frantically appealed to by those officials, finally accepted the employers’ terms.

The engineering employers on the Clyde “recognise” the A.S.E. to such good purpose that the “recognised” officials were used to keep the men at work after they had twice voted in favour of a strike to improve their conditions. The A.S.R.S. is itself recognised by the North Eastern Railway Co., with the results that were dealt with in our August issue. In spite of all these facts the men were fooled into believing that ”recognition” was of more importance than better wages or shorter hours; that dawdling about and sacrificing their chance of an effective blow during the busy season was more “diplomatic” and likely to obtain “public sympathy” (whatever that may mean) than insisting upon their original demands would have been. They voted in this belief, and back with terrific force is sent the answer : “seven years shalt thou serve in complete bondage.”

How Bismarck Recognised Bazaine.

As far as any work, other than that of a sick benefit society, on behalf of its members is concerned, the A.S.R.S. is practically dead for the next seven years. Mr. Bell’s pathetic appeal to all employees to join the A.S.R.S. can hardly evoke a hearty response seeing that the Boards, after the first election, will manage their own details. There is absolutely no place in the scheme for, and therefore no reason for the existence of, the A.S.R.S., while the scheme lasts. It may be objected that the officials were recognised seeing they were asked to sign the Scheme on behalf of the men. Yes ! exactly as Bismarck “recognised” Bazaine—until his operations were complete.

The union officials—for it must be remembered that the men have not been consulted at all on this Scheme—have been used as the tools of the companies in signing an agreement binding upon both union and non-union men, and then have been completely flouted in the Scheme itself and the unions ignored.

It needed but the last cynical point in the scheme to show how completely the companies have triumphed. The months of August and September are the favourite holiday months of sections of the capitalist class, including railway directors and managers, and with supreme irony it is laid down that the conciliation Boards shall not be called together during these months.

In the Franco-German War no single disaster—not even Sedan—was so completely crushing as Bazaine’s treacherous surrender of Metz.

In the history of trade unionism no parallel can be found to this crushing disaster called “The Settlement of the Railway Crisis.” Never before has so large a body of workers been delivered over to their masters, bound hand and foot by such a cast iron scheme of “conciliation,” without their being allowed any voice or vote in the settlement. It is the greatest victory for the employers on record, and will act as a great incentive to other large employers to adopt the beauties and powers afforded to them by such “conciliation” schemes.

Between the working class producing all the wealth that exists in Society, on one hand, and the capitalist owning, through the robbery of the workers, that wealth on the other hand, there must of necessity exist a bitter struggle for life itself. For the workers to own the means of life means the abolition of the capitalist class and system; for the capitalist class to exist means the continued subjection and slavery of the workers. There can be no “conciliation” or “arbitration” between the robber and his victim. The working class has nothing to arbitrate or conciliate but has itself to emancipate. Let the railway servants study these facts and realise the necessity for depending upon themselves instead of allowing “diplomatic” leaders to guide them to ambushes and disasters. Let them learn from their own past history how the employing class will use any and every means, from bribing so-called leaders with an office under Government to pouring troops and Maxims into the troubled areas as at Featherstone and Belfast, for the purpose of preserving their own position. Then, while organising upon the class basis for the overthrow of capitalism, they will organise upon the same basis for the purpose of fighting their battles upon the economic field, and, ignoring such phantoms as “public opinion,” use every available opportunity to strike sudden and far-reaching blows for the improvement of their conditions and wages. Along with the Labour misleaders will be swept away the superstitious nonsense of “conciliating” or “arbitrating” robbery ; and if only this lesson be learnt, then the parallel to Bazaine’s action at Metz in the signing of the Scheme at Whitehall will not have been in vain.

Jack Fitzgerald

Socialism and Social Reform. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many people who regard Socialism merely as a demand for Social Reform, as a desire on the part of certain sections of the community for better conditions of labour and living for the working class. This misconception is largely due to organisations claiming to be “Socialist” but devoting their energies to the propagation of reforms, whereby the real issue is obscured, the sympathies of the kind-hearted are aroused and, at election times, the support and votes of those who know nothing of Socialism, but believe in some particular “ameliorative” measure, are secured. It is this kind of “Socialism” that leads people to talk of the Socialist demand as “the true development of the Liberalism which won the working classes the franchise and other privileges they now enjoy,” although, as the Tories justly claim, many of these “privileges” were granted by them in the teeth of the opposition of the champions of Liberalism. It was, therefore, refreshing to read Mr. Balfour’s speech at Birmingham on November 14th. In truth, he said, there is no difficulty or ambiguity about the subject at all. Socialism has one meaning and one meaning alone. Socialism means and can mean nothing else than that the community … is to take all the means of production into its own hands, that private property and private enterprise are to come to an end and all that private enterprise and private property carry with them. That, continued Mr. Balfour, is Socialism, and nothing else is Socialism. In discussing the difference between Socialism and social reform, he said : Social reform is when the State, based upon private enterprise, based upon private properly, recognising that the best productive results can only be obtained by respecting private property and encouraging private enterprise, asks them to contribute towards great national and public objects.

In other words, social reform leaves the basis of Society untouched, and does not affect the relative condition of the propertied class and the working class in the least. On the other hand, Socialism means the abolition of private property and the establishment of common ownership and control of the means of wealth production. It is therefore easy to understand why those who are opposed to Socialism advocate social reform, but it is inexplicable why those who claim to be out for Socialism should, by their advocacy of social reform, help the master class to maintain their supremacy, and side-track the workers from the only cause that can emancipate them, the cause of Revolutionary Socialism.

Asked and Answered. (1907)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Question.

(1). Will capitalism have to go through the process of the nationalisation of the land, the mines, the railways, etc., before Socialism can be achieved ?

(2). Would not the fact of the working class being able to see the futility of these reforms—having acquired them—assist in the propaganda of Socialism ?

(3). If so, should not the Socialist Party do all in its power to secure these ”palliatives,” by adopting a programme on which these items figure, with a view to pushing capitalism forward at as great a rate as possible ?

(4). Would it be possible to establish Socialism, pre-supposing the existence of a clean-cut-class-conscious proletariat, with capitalism no further advanced than it is to-day ; in other words is it more a matter of hastening the development of capitalism than creating the hostile and revolutionary Socialist ?

M. Mullett

(Brixton, S.W.)

Answer.

(1.) Marx has truly said that

“No social order ever disappears until all the productive powers are developed for which it is adapted. New and higher social institutions are never established until the material conditions of life to support them have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore mankind never sets itself any tasks, except those for which it has received proper training and which it is able to perform.”

An industry, however, which is developed to the trust stage is as completely organised as a nationalised industry and differs from it only in that it is controlled by a section instead of by the whole of the capitalist class. Since therefore the trust is a completely organised industry and presents but little if any greater difficulty of acquirement by the workers over a nationalised industry, there is no reason whatever to suppose that Society must of necessity pass through a stage of complete nationalisation.

The productive forces for which modern society is adapted are developed when the essential or chief industries are centralised under trusts or State, for the subordinate industries which have not reached that stage need in the main but the application to them of the form of organisation already developed in the trust or their absorbtion into the greater industrial organisations by the triumphant working class. So long as the method, structure and material of organised production be existent so that the unmistakable method and solution be presented, the workers, if class-conscious Socialists, can with little difficulty complete the organisation of the productive forces and turn them into social instruments of social welfare.

(2). It should be obvious that if the workers see the futility of reform tinkering, the propaganda of Socialism is enormously assisted. But the recognition of the futility of reform should and can, at least in part, be made plain to the proletarians without them having to exhaust all the possibilities of error, and having to suffer the disappointment and disastrous apathy and delay that such a stupid and wasteful way of showing the futility of reform methods implies.

(3). Clearly, also, the owning class are already causing the development of capitalism to proceed at as great a rate as is possible in their eagerness to secure greater profits, and we as members of the working class need all our available energy, not to increase the profit of our masters, but to help the growth of Socialism among the workers so that class-consciousness may keep pace with the headlong development of capitalism, and industrial democracy be the speedy outcome of the economic evolution.

The advocacy of reform items would not of necessity increase the rate of capitalist development, while it would leave the workers more at the mercy of the exploiters and unprepared to end exploitation even when development were ripe for the change. Indeed, many reforms are designed to head back economic development. Even municipalisation is often a barrier against centralisation and complete organisation.

The stupidity of identifying what is the only hope of the workers with something that must confessedly lead to disappointment, apathy, disgust and reaction and leave the workers unprepared for their deliverance need hardly be enlarged upon.

(4). The existence of such a revolutionary Socialist proletariat is the obvious and inevitable sign of the ripeness of conditions for Socialism. And were prevailing conditions such that so completely Socialist a working class was engendered it could clearly use the productive forces of the day, and, by completing industrial organisation, transform capitalism into Socialism with but little difficulty.

Social change is not a mechanical process but depends on the reaction of the economic evolution upon human beings. Hence the importance of the class struggle. Hence the importance of propaganda in spreading and giving definiteness and conscious aim to the effects of economic pressure to which some respond more readily and intelligently than others. Hence above all the importance of refraining from misleading or humbugging the workers in any way, and the necessity of doing all that one may to put the real issue ever clearly before them even though but a handful have seen the light, for upon the development of Socialist consciousness among our class depends whether they are to remain unhappy wage-slaves indefinitely, or whether they are responding readily and intelligently to the demands of their economic environment and so preparing for their speedy and happy deliverance from poverty and oppression.

W.

The Proletariat (The Working Class). By Karl Kautsky (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from November issue

Specially translated for The Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

6. The Growing Extent of the Working Class. 

The Commercial and the "Educated" Proletariat. 

It is not only by the extension of industry on a large scale that the capitalist mode of production makes the proletarian conditions general. It is also caused by the position of the wage-workers in industries on a large scale becoming the standard for the position of the wage-workers in other spheres of activity. And their conditions of work and life are revolutionised by the large-scale industries.

The advantages which these workers may perhaps have possessed over those employed in capitalist industries are now, by the influence of the latter, changed into so many disadvantages. Where, for instance, to-day the worker of a handicraft still boards and lodges with his master, the aforesaid change results in this handicraft worker being worse fed and housed than the wage-worker who has a household of his own. The long apprenticeship was, in times gone by, a means for preventing a glut of workers in handicraft; to-day the system of apprenticeship is the most effective means of producing a glut of cheap workers in handicraft and of depriving the adult workers of their livelihood.

Here also, as in other directions, things that under the domination of petty enterprise were reasonable and a boon, have become nonsensical and a hindrance owing to the capitalist mode of production.

The endeavour of guild-masters to revive the old guild system may in the main be ascribed to the desire to create, by the revival of the old forms, new means for the purpose of exploiting their workmen. They seek to save themselves from the bog by throwing down and stepping on proletarian bodies.

And these gentlemen grow indignant when the working class fails to become enthusiastic over this method of delaying somewhat the inevitable extinction of petty enterpise.

Commercial trading undergoes a similar development to handicraft. The large enterprise squeezes out of existence the petty enterprise, even in the sphere of petty trading.

The small commercial undertakings need not, therefore, diminish ia number. Petty trading becomes the last refuge of those who have gone bankrupt among the small producers.

In the German empire there were employed per thousand workers in each particular group :—

ESTABLISHMENTS	INDUSTRIAL		COMMERCIAL. (including Licensed Victuallers.)
	1882	1895	1882	1895
With 1 – 8 employees	551	399	757	697
With 6 – 50 employees	186	238	202	243
Over 50 employees	263	363	41	60

From this table it will be gathered that in commercial and licensed establishments petty enterprise predominates far more than in industry and declines less rapidly—speaking relatively. Speaking absolutely, petty enterprise is on the increase in commerce and the licensed victuallers’ trade. The number of employees in these callings increased from 1,013,981 in 1882 to 1,509,453 in 1895.

To restrict petty trading—for instance by restricting hawking or peddling—would mean nothing else but to sweep those who are getting their livelihood in that way completely off their feet and to force them into the ranks of the loafing class ; that is to say, to compel them to become beggars, vagabonds, or jailbirds—which would indeed be typical social reform.

The influence of the development of industry on a large scale, as far as petty trading is concerned, does not find expression in a decrease in the number of small trading concerns, but in their actual dwindling away. The existence of petty traders on their own account becomes continually more insecure and more like that of proletarians. Besides, there is a steady increase in the number of those employed in large concerns, who become real proletarians, and have no prospect of ever going into business on their own account; child- and woman-labour continues to extend, the latter accompanied by increased prostitution. Overwork, unemployment, and the cutting down of wages also enter this sphere of employment. The position of the commercial employee is approaching that of the industrial proletarian. The former can be distinguished from the latter almost in only one way, namely, by his keeping up the appearance, at a great sacrifice, of a higher social position, while the industrial proletarian knows nothing of practising such deception.

And yet another category of proletarians begins to develop: the educated proletariat. To be educated has, in our present mode of production, become quite a separate business. The scope of knowledge has grown immensely and is widening from day to day. And capitalist society as well as the capitalist state, require more and more men of science and art for the conduct of their affairs, for the subjection of the forces of nature, be it for the purpose of production or destruction, or for the luxurious utilisation of their increasing affluence. But not only the peasant, the handicraftsman or proletarian, but even the merchant, the manufacturer, the banker, the stock-exchange gambler and the large land-owner have no time to devote to art or science. Their time is fully taken up by their business and amusements. In present society it is not, as under former systems of society, the exploiters themselves, or at least a section of them, who foster art and science. They leave that occupation to a separate class, whom they pay for their services. Education becomes a commodity.

But until several decades ago it was still a rare commodity. There were but few schools, and study involved considerable expense. The peasants were mostly not in a position to be able to raise the means for sending their sons to the higher schools. Handicraft and commerce on the other hand were still in a prosperous condition ; hence, whosoever was engaged in these callings remained in them; only the fact of being specially gifted or in exceptional circumstances induced the son of the handicraftsman or merchant to take up the study of art or science. While the demand for officials, technical experts, medical men, teachers, artists, etc., increased, the supply was almost entirely restricted to the progeny from such circles.

The commodity education commanded therefore a high price. Its possession brought at least a comfortable living to those who turned it to practical account, like lawyers, officials, medical men, professors, etc.,—often fame and honour also. The artist, the poet, the philosopher were the companions of kings. The intellectual aristocrat considered himself superior to the aristocrat by birth or money. His only concern was the development of his intellectual gifts. Consequently the educated could be idealists, and often were such. They stood above the other classes and their material aspirations and antagonisms. Education meant power, happiness, and amiableness; therefore the conclusion lay near, that, in order to make all men happy and amiable, to surmount all class antagonism and to abolish poverty and degradation, nothing more was required than the diffusion of education.

Since then the spreading of higher school education—and here it is only a question of higher education—has made gigantic strides. The number of educational establishments has immensely increased. The number of scholars has grown to a still greater extent. Petty enterprise in commerce and industry no longer offers chances of prosperity. The petty bourgeois is unable to save his children from drifting into the ranks of the proletariat unless he can manage to give them a university education, providing, of course, it is possible for him to rake together sufficient means for this end. And he must think of providing not only for his sons but also for his daughters; for the progress in the division of labour gradually transforms, as already mentioned, household work into separate occupations, thus reducing more and more the work in the home, so that a marriage in which the wife is only the housekeeper, and not at least partly bread-winner, becomes increasingly a luxury. At the same time, however, the petty bourgeoisie falls into greater poverty, as we have seen, so that it loses the ability of affording a luxury. The number of celibates increases, as does the number of families in which wife and daughter have to work to augment the income of the family. Thus female labour increases not only in the direction of the petty and large industry, and of petty trading, but also in the sphere of officialdom in Government and private employment, as, for instance, in the post and telegraph offices, railways, banks, art and science. However loud the protest on the grounds of prejudice or personal interest may be, female labour enters increasingly into the various spheres of intellectual activity. It is not conceit, neither insolence nor uppishness, but the compulsion due to economic development, which forces women to seek occupation in that particular sphere as elsewhere. While the men in some intellectual occupations, in which craft organisation still exists, have been successful in keeping out female competition, the women have been able to gain admission to callings unhampered by craft organisation, as, for instance, journalism, painting, and music.

A consequence of this entire development is, that the number of the educated persons has increased tremendously in comparison with the past; but the favourable consequences which the idealists expected to be derived from a greater diffusion of education, have not been realised. So long as education remains a commodity, the diffusion of education means an increased supply of the commodity, hence a lowering of its prices and consequently a worse position for the owner of the commodity The number of the educated has grown to an extent that more than satisfies the requirements of the capitalists and of the capitalist state. The labour market of the educated workers is to-day as overcrowded as that of the manual workers. And also the intellectual workers have already their Reserve Army—unemployment is as much known in their ranks as in those of the industrial workers. Those who wish to obtain an appointment under Government have to wait years, often more than a decade, until they are able to get one of the badly paid minor posts. With the others over-work is followed as much by unemployment and vice-versa as with the hand-workers, and the forcing down of wages is practised upon them as upon the latter.

The class position of the educated workers grows perceptibly worse ; if before one spoke of the aristocracy of intellect, one now speaks of the proletariat of intelligence; and very soon these latter proletarians will distinguish themselves from the other wage-workers by only one thing—their conceit. The majority of them will still think they are something better than the wage-workers ; they still consider themselves to belong to the bourgeoisie, but in a similar way as servants regard themselves as belonging to the family of their masters. They have ceased to be the intellectual leaders of the bourgeoisie and have become their hired prize fighters. The ambition to succeed develops among them; not the cultivation, but the turning to account, of their intellectual gifts now becomes their first consideration, and the prostitution of their being is the principal means of advancement. Like the petty traders, they, too, are deceived by a few big prizes in the lottery of their life; they overlook the numerous blanks which are facing them and bargain away body and soul for the mere prospect of drawing such a big prize. The selling of their own convictions and a marriage for money have become in the estimation of the majority of our “educated,” two self-understood as well as indispensable means for “making a fortune.” And that is what the capitalist production has made of its explorers, thinkers and dreamers.

(To be continued)

Blogger's Note:

It was the German SPGBer, Hans Neumann, who translated Kautsky's writings from the German into English for the Socialist Standard.

Socialism, Religion and Education. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, as a party, stands steadily aloof from “religious” discussions. Why? Because it is a Socialist party.

As Marx says,

“The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. For a society based upon the production of commodities, in which the producers in general enter into social relations with one another by reducing their individual private labour to the standard of homogeneous human labour, Christianity, with its cultus of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois developments, Protestantism, Deism, etc., is the most fitting form of religion.”

In brief, Christianity, like all religions, is but an expression of material conditions, a direct outcome of social relations, the unsubstantial image of a world reflected in the muddy pool of human intellect. Cannibal savagery, blood-smeared Mumbo-Jumbo ; patriarchal tyranny, “jealous” Jehovah—Jesus varies with the ages. “Redeemer” of Roman slave ; War-God of Crusader ; General Overseer of Manufacturing Capitalist; Harp and Crown Dispenser of Hot Gospeller in a Charity-Organisation-ridden phase of Society.

To the Socialist, Marx has said the last word that need be said on the subject of the relation of Socialism and religion.

“The religious reflex of the real world can only finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men.”

Material conditions rule. “The English Established Church will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on one-thirty-ninth of its income.” This is as true to-day as when written in 1867.

The position, therefore, of the Revolutionary Socialist, the attitude of The Socialist Party of Great Britain on the question of “Religion” is clear. “Take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves” says the old tag, which being interpreted for the present occasion means “Seek essentials. You may safely ignore results.” The essential to-day for the worker is a grasp of the fact that, while he has nothing to sell but his labour-power, while he is reduced to the rank of a

MERE COMMODITY,

under no conditions whatever can his class be anything but an ignoble conglomeration of wage-slaves, swinked and sweated by capitalist, preyed on by “leaders,” one of the sorriest spectacles which the “all-beholding Sun” has witnessed through the ages.

In so far as, and when, Religion allies itself directly with capitalism, the S.P. of G.B., being hostile to every other political organisation, is obviously in opposition to Religion. The greater includes the less. Similarly, when “Rationalism” allies itself with the exploiting class, we are compelled to fight that “ism,” especially when such “Rationalism” fantastically tricks itself out in a ludicrous, garb which it fondly imagines is Socialism.

F.J. Gould, "honorary associate” of the R.P.A., asserts that he is a “Socialist.” His fervid faith in positivist moonshine would be of itself sufficient evidence to the contrary, but a perusal of his article, “The Educational Future,” in the “R.P.A. Annual” is sufficient to dispel any doubts upon the point. He peddles in trifles. He is much exercised upon such momentous issues as “co-option” in educational bodies; he “cherishes hopes”—sure mark of the pseudo-Socialist, who is invariably a

“HOPE CHERISHER”

—that the present system under which the worker groans will be made somewhat more bearable ; he “demands” (another infallible sign of the soi-disant Socialist, this “demanding”) that “the school shall be deliberately directed to the evolution of willing and happy citizens equipped for devotion to the common welfare,”—in short, while mouthing the word “evolution” he shows his utter lack of the appreciation of the practical lesson which evolution has to teach, namely, that under given conditions, only given results can follow. The spectacle of this “Socialist” “demanding” that the school shall diligently apply itself to the better manufacture of “willing” and “happy” wage-slaves, who, in the huge majority of cases must enter the ranks of the exploited, must increase the ever-increasing army of unemployed, is one which is calculated to strengthen us in the opinion that the

MOST SERIOUS ENEMY

to the emancipation of the working class to-day is that curious freak of nature, that vertebrate animal without a backbone, the “Socialist” whose knowledge of Socialism extends as far as the knowledge of the name, who would “reform” the chrysalis into a butterfly, place an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, and generally understudy David, who confessed that he had “erred and played the fool exceedingly.”

We are called upon to admire the “half mystical fervour” of Miss Margaret McMillan, who has “urged the necessity of communal baths, medical inspection, etc. for the children of the proletariat.” Does it ever occur to this brand of “reformer” that, while they may claim the latter title, they are no more entitled to the term “Socialist” than is the cattle-owner who believes in the virtues of a horse-pond and regularly engages a veterinary surgeon. In short, Miss Margaret McMillan,—who has never concealed her contempt for the “elementary” teacher of the children of the proletariat,—is simply energetically doing work for the capitalist class.

But our chief quarrel with F. J. Gould is his pushing of his pet palliative “Moral Instruction.” In schools run for, and in the interests of, the capitalist class, there can be no really “moral instruction.” The omission of “Religious Education,” and the substitution of the precious syllabus of the ”Moral Instruction League” is simply substituting one form of dogmatism for another. It is monstrous to suppose that a fervent belief in miracles on the part of a teacher precludes supervision as to personal cleanliness. It is a disputable matter whether, from the point of view of a Socialist, less harm may not accrue to the child mind from the teaching of mythological Jewish History than from the handling of a lesson on “Patriotism,” “Thrift,” etc. from the ordinary teacher who has never learned to think beyond the ordinary formulas which a bourgeois society has drilled into him, and who in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, consciously or unconsciously, looks upon his pupils as so much material to be exploited in the unspeakably dirty struggle for “promotion.” (Has F. J. Gould

FORGOTTEN HIS TEACHING DAYS ?

Does distance lend enchantment to the view ?) We heartily endorse the following from his article, and beg him to apply the precepts therein contained to himself : “What we need is the cultivation of the scientific habit, the capacity for seizing significant things, for neglecting unnecessary things, for reducing chaotic things to order.”

Augustus Snellgrove